The true nature of Scott Morrison’s Pentecostal faith was one of the many quandaries of his time in office — was it a quick, easy route to a joined-up worldview, one that conveniently validated the accumulation of wealth and power as a sign of God’s favour? Or was it core to Morrison’s sense of self, and of the world, inseparable from his every decision while in the seat of power? Did he truly believe he had been called by God to the top job — and if so, what did that tell us?
While it may not fully answer those questions, we’ve never been more certain our serial truth-repellent former leader isn’t lying when he promises his upcoming book will be “quite unlike any other book written by a prime minister”. Plans for Your Good — A Prime Minister’s Testimony of God’s Faithfulness is the clunkily titled tome providing — according to publishing house Thomas Nelson, the Christian arm of News Corp publisher HarperCollins — a “unique insider’s account of a Christian who was open about his faith and operated at the top level of politics for more than a decade”.
It will sit in the catalogue of alongside titles like The Great Disappearance: 31 Ways to be Rapture Ready and The Awe of God: The Astounding Way a Healthy Fear of God Transforms Your Life. Books that span the hunt for the numinous, for awe in the truest sense, filtered through the language of self-help, which it would appear to fit perfectly with Morrison’s approach.
“During one of the toughest periods since the Second World War, covering drought, wildfires, a global pandemic and recession, he chronicles God’s faithfulness throughout, win or lose, public criticism or public success,” the publisher says.
In each section Morrison asks the questions all of us are looking to find answers to:
- Who am I? Discovering your purpose.
- How should I live? Finding your pathway.
- What should I hope for? Embracing your future.
Morrison’s honest, vulnerable and reflective answers offers a unique lens to better understand your relationship with God and the blessing that can flow from such a relationship.
It put us in mind of the interview Morrison conducted with Sky News in September last year, in which, per The Australian Financial Review, he “sounded cheerily fatalistic about his legacy. He had no interest in writing a memoir, he said, or correcting the daily record.”
At the time, we speculated on whether his ambivalence on putting out a memoir might be down to the shall we say, modest commercial prospects of such a book.
Hence, possibly, Morrison’s more specific pitch.
“Christian publishing is a smallish but solid subset of the industry,” Sandy Grant, co-founder of Hardie Grant, told Crikey. “My best guess is that no general book publisher — including News Ltd’s HarperCollins — would sell more than a couple of thousand [of a standard Morrison memoir in Australia]. But it is unsurprising to see God and Rupert coming together to help ScoMo make a successful publication.”
But of course, the real potential riches lie beyond Australia’s shores.
“It has been written with a broader audience in mind,” Morrison told the Nine papers. “It hasn’t been written to be available only in bookshops in Canberra. Particularly in the US, but beyond that too.”
Well, indeed. In the US, over recent decades, religious publishing houses, many dating back to the early 19th-century missions, were bought up by secular media (one Christian publisher half-jokingly dubbed them “corporate raiders for Jesus” back in 2014), and this consolidation has resulted in surging sales.
News Corp, as ever, was ahead of the curve, snapping up Zondervan as its primary Christian imprint in 1988 — it had a monster hit in 2002 with Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life (over 35 million copies sold). In the decades that followed, consolidation ramped up, and HarperCollins Christian Publishing added Thomas Nelson (originally founded 1798 in Scotland) to its stable in 2011.
By last year, religious publishing netted more than a billion Australian dollars in the US. So will this inbuilt market and the faintly millenarian vibe of the times give Morrison a divine success? Grant doesn’t like his chances.
“My guess is it will sell less than 100 in the US,” he said. “Lesson one in any market is never publish the autobiography of someone you’ve never heard of, and I suspect not even Joe Biden knows his name.”
Funny you should say that …
Is ScoMo’s memoir a Good Book or just a good business decision? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
