Certainly many of the religious references in the speeches Crabb studied were made during debates about terrorism and seemed to originate in an interpretation of the attacks as a "clash of civilisations" between the Christian West and fundamentalist Islam; a discourse that saw religion used to divide the virtuous, "us" from the murderous "them". At the time, I listened with alarm as MPs lined up to claim Christian identity while seeking to justify the Howard government's decision to join then US president George Bush in the attack on Iraq.

However, I think there's more to it than this. While the very public embrace of religion as justification for particular policies may still be confined to a minority of members, there is a risk that religious reasoning, not subject to the usual rational challenges, may grow in significance. As political philosophies have been eroded in favour of a pragmatic market-based materialism, and as the parties look more and more alike, elected representatives are often unable to explain why they make the decisions they do. Religion offers a possible way out, even if many of those espousing religious codes to justify their political stances have only the haziest notions about scripture and theology. No matter  very few others have a clue either. What is important is that the MP appears principled and upright, yet not so devout as to arouse suspicion in a largely secular society.

However, there are dissenters defending the secular nature of our democracy. Every sitting day in the House of Representatives, before the conduct of any other business, two prayers are said; the first asking "Almighty God" to bless the Parliament and to "direct and prosper" its deliberations for the advancement of his "glory", and, almost as an afterthought, for "the true welfare of the people of Australia"; the second, the Lord's Prayer. On most days, only a few  presumably Christian  MPs attend.

But on Tuesdays, because the House convenes just before question time, all members, under threat from the whips, are required to be seated before questions begin. Some Labor MPs regularly choose to wait in the Opposition lobby until prayers are concluded (at least I suppose they still do, unless the ascension of a leader who is a self-described "God botherer" has changed all that). During the period of my self-imposed exile on the backbench, I took part in this small act of resistance to religious observance in politics.

The talk in the lobby as we waited for prayers to finish sometimes turned to the reasons we were there. It was clear that one of the objections was that the prayers recited did not countenance faiths other than Christianity; believers of other faiths were effectively excluded. So too were non-believers like me. Mention too was made of the fact that our constitution provides for the separation of church and state in recognition of the need to protect freedom of thought, conscience and religion. While we could avoid taking part in the ritual, we couldn't prevent other members violating our religious freedom by purporting to speak for all of us in offering our deliberations to "Almighty God".