The High Price of Heaven: a Book About the enemies of Pleasure and Freedom

by David Marr

A challenging, vehement book that will fascinate believers and non-believers alike.

Genres: Religion, Politics

319 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Eminent Australian journalist, author, and progressive political and social commentator. David Marr is the multi-award-winning author of Patrick White: A Life, Panic and The High Price of Heaven, and co- author with Marian Wilkinson of Dark Victory. He has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, The Saturday Paper, The Guardian Australia and the Monthly. He has been editor of the National Times, a reporter for Four Corners and presenter of ABC TV’s Media Watch. He is also the author of two previous bestselling biographical Quarterly Essays: Power Trip: The Political Journey of Kevin Rudd and Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott. His areas of expertise include Australian politics, law, censorship, the media and the arts. David Marr began his career in 1973 and is the recipient of four Walkley awards for journalism. He also appears as a semi-regular panellist on the ABC television programs Q&A and Insiders.

Reviews

[Lloyd Downey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite a powerful polemic. Marr writes beautifully...."on this summer afternoon, he sat hunched in a chair in a corner of his Hobart office, all limbs like a grasshopper in grey daks".....about Brian Harradine. And he is writing from the perspective of a gay who sees the Christian churches and their supporters as enemies of pleasure and freedom. The book is now dated but I found the section about the gay movement and the repeal of penal provisions in the law for gay sex profoundly informative. The book is really a collection of twelve essays on different themes ...mostly relating to the established Church...in one way or another opposing; abortion, gay sex, homosexuality, liberal attitudes to censorship, drugs, bad language and anti Christian views. He makes a powerful case that the Christians ......Catholics in particular ....have played the politics deftly to gain outcomes way beyond the number of true believers that they can muster.
There is a lot of information here and I admire his ability to muster the facts so well and present such a strongly worded series of rebukes. Has he been successful. Well ...even by his own admission....probably not . But hard to say, maybe, his words have a lingering powerful impact....that we can only today see starting to bear fruit. I give it 5 stars.

[Highlyeccentric · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Marr is a bit slipshod, especially with his premodern history and theology (no, Christianity did not bring the soul/body distinction 'out of Judea', ffs), but damn, he does a fine line in polemic. The worst of it is how... really the only times when I read a chapter (on censorship, or education, or any of it) and thought 'ah, we have definitely changed', we had changed for the worse. The exception would be anti-discrimination law, but - *waves at the religious discrimination bill*.

[Stephen Coates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marr’s thesis is that the presence of religion in Australian society and the deferment it receives has a financial and more significant human cost. The “war” on drugs, Australia’s tardiness removing criminal sanctions on gay sex, censorship, government financial support for religious schools and protection of paedophile clergy were amongst the issues he tackles. While a good book, the infusion of Marr’s strong dislike of then Prime Minister John Howard and the right of centre of Australian politics in general distracted from his focus on the issues in question and prevented it being an excellent book.

[Daniel Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

While my partner Joshua and I were in Adelaide for Writers' Week, I came across this book in Paddy's Bookshop on South Rd, two days before Marr gave a lecture there.

This is the second of his books I've owned, but the first I've owned. He writes well-researched, well thought out and funny essays on contemporary issues (well they were contemporary in the late 1990s). I loved this book and it's useful for anyone who wants to some backstory for the rise of the Religious Right in Australia.