The Quranic Society, a little known Islamic group operating out of Lakemba, are seeking to build a school with a capacity of 900 students in Camden. Some members of the Camden Minister's fraternal advised the council, by way of a submission, to oppose this application. Here is the rationale behind that submission together with an attachment containing the submission in full.

The Ministers’ Fraternal of Camden is completely in agreement with the idea that Australia has become a multicultural and multiracial society. Our preferred stance as Christians is to embrace those wanting to come into our municipality, no matter where they are from or what they believe.

The Fraternal has for years participated officially in the Australia Day nationalisation ceremonies and has always warmly welcomed our new arrivals.

We also recognise that the Australian Constitution rightly allows the freedom of religion for its citizens. We are fully in agreement with this and acknowledge, as Christians, our dependence on this freedom to operate openly in our communities.

Initially, we felt our opposition would be seen as hypocritical and racist, interpreted by the wider Australian community as us wanting to maintain a monopoly over the ‘religious marketplace’ in Camden. This is far from the truth. We have not previously sought to oppose applications from other religious organisations—even though, as mainstream Christians, we could find ourselves in disagreement with the doctrine and philosophy of a number, which have established themselves in the area over the years.

In deciding to put a submission to Council in respect of this application, two questions arose:

1. Would the establishment of a Muslim school in Camden by the Quranic Society be a threat to the freedoms of other religious, and non-religious, groups in the community?
2. If the answer to that question was ‘Yes’, was it then our responsibility as Christian leaders, able to speak intelligently on such subjects, to warn the community of this?

Jesus charged us with the duty of care to the communities in which we find ourselves. He expressed this as being salt and light to the world. As ‘light’, we were to preach the gospel and help people come to know the Saviour, whilst as ‘salt’, we were to act in such a way as to preserve what is good in our world—as an expression of God’s love towards his creation and those that live in it. We felt that this application could, in the long term, pose a threat to our community and decided to make a submission.

We also felt that the citizens of Camden had every right to be anxious about this application and about the likelihood of an aggressive Islamic group moving into the area behind this school proposal.

Local residents are as aware as anyone else that most of the trouble spots in the world today feature Islamic extremists. Australian soldiers are currently engaged in two of those places: Iraq and Afghanistan. They remember the Cronulla riots and hear, on an almost monthly basis, of innocent people being killed or maimed by Islamic terrorists around the world. They also remember ‘9/11’ and the television footage showing Muslims all over the world openly and joyously celebrating the death of thousands of innocent workers in New York City when this event occurred. They will have noticed the exponential increase in security at every airport in the world, made necessary because of Islamic terrorists.

Some of our residents have seen the changes occurring in the streets of Bankstown, Lakemba, Auburn and Liverpool and have no desire to see them occur in Camden. Further, some are aware of the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya (dissimulation), which gives Muslims the freedom to lie and dishonour contracts when dealing with infidels.

We know that not all Muslims are the same, but the secrecy surrounding the Quranic Society has made the residents of Camden understandably anxious about the people who want to build a Muslim school in a community, where there are practically no Muslim children to attend it.

Finally, as citizens in the community, we have the right to express our opposition to a development we believe has the potential to undermine the great freedoms we have in Australia and, particularly, in Camden. If the courts disagree with us and allow the school to go ahead, as members of the Ministers’ Fraternal we will accept this as God's will and act with Christian love towards the new members of the community.

We are not concerned about individual Muslims moving into the area, but we do believe it is our responsibility to say something to our community about the ideologically-driven agenda behind this particular application.

At the end of the day, we are united in our desire to present God's love in Christ to our community, and to serve that community in practical ways, by all the resources at our disposal. We will continue to do this whatever is decided.