Christianity, Rob Norman tells worshippers at a church in Adelaide’s inner southern outskirts, is a “sleeping giant” in politics. It is a Sunday morning in May 2021. The charismatic pastor with a buzz cut is one of a number of leaders at Pentecostal and evangelical churches in the area who have begun encouraging followers to get active in politics prompted by the South Australian parliament’s plans to decriminalise abortion.
“Some people say it’s a dirty business, but we’ve got to be there,” Norman, who would later go on to join the Australian Christian Lobby as its Queensland director, says.
