2016 a year of decision that will shape our future [1]
2016 a year of decision that will shape our future [1]
An abbreviated version of Men’s breakfast talk Sat 7 May 2016
(2016 – Choices that will shape Australia for generations to come.)
How do I summarise in 25’ everything I have specifically worked towards for the last 14 years – indeed 27 years since I was President of Baptist Churches in WA? I believe 2016 is the most critical year that we have faced in this period of time and indeed the West has faced since Nazi Germany and will shape our future for generations to come.
So what are these issues of great concern?
For medicine it is to lose our soul, to lose the battle for the intrinsic value of all human life in all states of dependency and disability from fertilisation to life’s natural end, to have conscience in medicine taken from us, and become mere providers of medical services at behest of government or consumer groups with no choice as to whether we have to perform abortions or euthanasia. We have already lost this in Victoria where the S8 part of the Abortion Act 2008 compels referral for abortions when requested. We will also have lost the ability to tell truth in matters of informed consent. You can read more about these things on the three medical websites – Medicine with Morality, Conscience in Medicine.
For the family it is to lose our identity as husbands and wives, as mothers and fathers, and far more significantly to lose our right to bring up our own children with values we respect and honour, particularly God-given values – with the risk that if we try we will have our children taken away from us and we will be subject to re-education classes before we can have our children back. Children in schools will be asked what they believe.
For our children it is to be subject to premature sexualisation through our schools and kindergartens, to be encouraged in alternative sexual practices and change of gender as you feel like it, to in fact be groomed for early sex and that there are at least two virginities. How do you find out? You experiment.
For the Church it is to lose our voice to preach God’s word, to uphold the Judeo-Christian values on which our nation – and indeed the West – is based; to lose our right to teach Christian values in our Church schools and if our pastors are to maintain their marriage licences then they will have to conform to state obligations to marry – we too will have lost liberty of conscience and belief.
For the Nation we will have lost our voice to declare anything that might go against – or particularly to cause hurt – the current minority beef on “unfairness”. To declare what we believe will be to discriminate against somebody or something as judged by the “thought police” of the “nanny state”. Ultimately – as with the court hearings* against the Catholic Church at the present time for including in the schools pamphlet that marriage is between male and female – we will have lost a voice in elections and therefore democratic rule. Re-education classes (“diversity training”) will be commonplace. Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act ensures these possibilities.
*Stop-Press: as of May 5 Martine Delaney has withdrawn her complaint against Julian Porteous and the Catholic Church. What could have become a precedent-setting test case is no longer.
On what do we base our belief? Of course it is the Bible and primarily enshrined in Creation.
Man created in the Image of God “let us make man in our image”
The creation of Masculinity and Femininity (“bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh”)
Marriage as a specific subset of sexuality and a Creation Mandate; “one flesh”; “for this reason shall a man cleave to his wife”
Stewards of Creation
Truth – at root is Satan’s attack on God’s Truth – did God really say?
I have spelt this out in more detail at http://www.chooselifeaustralia.org.au/life/gods-creation-order-what-is-our-basis-for-this-battle-we-are-waging/
So where does the attack come from?
Primarily from the extreme homosexual lobby and the Leftists and social engineers in our society have gone along with the agenda they have promoted. Militant atheists have joined in with the destruction of anything that might honour God – even something as logical as Intelligent Design.
Were we warned? Yes, as far back as 1984 in Blatant and Proud by our own Andrew Lansdown, and more recently but very clearly by Redeeming the Rainbow by Dr Scott Lively in 2009 released on internet at no cost so that it would be widely available and read.
Seven years ago, Dr Lively warned:
Indeed, few Christians are even aware that the implicit goal of the “gay” movement is the replacement of our society’s Judeo-Christian sexual ethic (i.e. marriage and the natural family) with an anything-goes sexual morality.
As simplistic as it may sound, the culture war in America is, at its core, a battle between Christians and homosexuals.
The specific battle grounds here now are the push for homosexual marriage – so called Marriage Equality or same-sex marriage (SSM) – and the Safe Schools Coalition Australia (SSCA).
So what is so bad about something that sounds as innocuous as a Safe Schools Program?
Firstly, there are existing school programs that deal with bullying without selecting one particular area of concern and we are informed that these programs are effective if followed through.
Secondly, the program encourages premature sexualisation of children. We can be thankful that it will now only be implemented in high schools and no longer in primary schools but already such “education” is to be introduced to pre-schoolers. The Start Early Initiative for kindergartens introducing gender, sexuality, cross-dressing and tours of the opposite sex toilets promoted by Early Childhood Australia was introduced last month and is set to be rolled out across the country. It is said that it is to prevent domestic violence by countering “rigid views on gender”.
Thirdly, the program introduces – and encourages experimentation in – matters of sexuality and sexual experience that would horrify most people: two virginities; breast binding; penis tucking; and links to sites that promote group sex, sex toys and sadomasochism. At a time when we are looking at ways of combatting the scourge of pornography some of these sites are overtly pornographic.
Indeed, normally accepted sexual intercourse as between a male and a female is derided as “heteronormativity” and is not to be tolerated.
Lesson two of the program involves sex role playing: students imagine they are 16 and going out with somebody, one half of the class with someone of the same sex and the other half with the opposite sex. Class discussions are recommended to combat “the malaise of heteronormativity”. Students are urged to avoid reinforcing this mindset with questions such as whether a new baby is a boy or a girl. Did you get that? The ideology is that “reducing heteronormativity in schools can have good outcomes for everyone”
This sexualisation and overt “grooming” for early sex has been considered by some as child abuse.
Is the program “just”? Is it good or evil? And what does that imply for the politicians and educators that promote these things?
Is it “just” to encourage experimentation in losing virginity and that there are ways of losing it other than penis-in-vagina sexual intercourse – and to know your own sexual identity you should find out? Is it “just” to even imply by linking to the site that sadomasochistic sexual expression is OK and that it is OK to hurt or be hurt?
And so, in the face of all the evidence, and even when it has been signalled by government that the program will be modified and links to some websites taken off, how do the Labor Party Leaders of Australia react? They have reacted with hostility – “you’re homophobic” – and determination to go ahead with the program as it is. In the face of a rational and righteous voice, Labor has hardened its stand – the polarisation worsens. This is so much more than social engineering – it is evil.
We must be so clear on these matters and in this we need to heed the warning of that great moral teacher, the greatest of them all, Jesus Christ himself, no less than the Son of God, when He issued the strongest condemnation of all His condemnations, that anyone who leads children into sin would be better off to be cast into the sea with a millstone around the neck.
Could it be worse? Fortunately the real intent the program is being exposed.
A prominent homosexual columnist has blown away the smokescreen obscuring the real intent behind anti-bullying and “anti-homophobic” programs in schools. Daniel Villarreal in Queerty writes: “Let’s face it, we want to indoctrinate children.” https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/gay-journalist-lets-face-it-we-want-to-indoctrinate-children
And, the SSCA founder, Roz Ward, has bluntly admitted that the Safe Schools Coalition program is “not about stopping bullying” but is “about sexual diversity and gender diversity”. http://www.crossmap.com/news/watch-aussie-safe-schools-leader-admits-program-is-about-gay-activism-not-bullying-26252
So, back to our Scriptures – what is our rationale for any action we might take, our faith in action?
Love your neighbour.
Loving our neighbour, among many other duties, also means crossing the road to help our neighbour in trouble as did the good Samaritan and warning and protecting our neighbour and our neighbour’s children in danger if there is a flood coming – and if we can see ahead to protect the next generation as well.
Loving our neighbour means we fight for their protection. If we can see the danger and fail to warn – and fail to act if there is the remotest possibility of averting that danger with action then we are guilty – the blood is upon our own head.
To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin.
Dr Robert McDonald, a retired psychotherapist and medical doctor:
Any action which sexualises a child before he or she is ready is sexual abuse.
A columnist by the name of Matt Walsh:
…when dealing with the mind-numbing lunacies of “transgender” propaganda, I think every opponent should be adopting a hard-line stance. This is wrong. It’s demented. It’s evil. It’s dangerous. It’s abusive.
Martin Luther:
If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ.
These matters transcend government “failure” in our responsibilities to the poor and hungry and the third world. To deliberately legislate to permit evil and then compel citizens – including doctors and nurses to facilitate that evil and teachers to teach it – is at another level.
What can we do?
We fight. We educate re the plebiscite re SSM. Get a parent group to go see your school principal; write your local MP state and federal; login to Family Voice and Australian Christian Lobby and sign the petition at http://kidsrights.org.au/ launched by Australian Family Association
You might say that prayer is the most important thing – yes and we must make sure we and all our people do it. Yes, but you and I still have a decision to make on election day – and to influence others. Whatever else we are involved in we still must make a choice between good and evil when we cast that vote – our decision – into the ballot box.
And when it comes to voting remember there is a third choice – a Christian party that can be salt and light in the upper house and influence policy decisions in the lower house simply by preferencing.
And remember, by putting your Christian party as [1] and your major party of choice as [2] the vote goes on at full value unless, of course, we win.
We are at war. We have been in Pearl Harbour and we have been asleep, Darwin has been bombed, and now we are in the Battle of the Coral Sea. This battle will shape – as it did – the future of Australia. Australia is at risk in a way it has never been before. These issues we have talked about transcend all other issues. Today we have choices – choices at the ballot box and a choice with the marriage plebiscite – and they are choices that each of us must make before God. I trust and pray that as we inevitably face increasing persecution for our children and their children that you will not look back with regret on 2016 with a sense of failure that you were not awake, that you did not do enough and that you made wrong choices.
Thank you for making us aware. Christian or not, this is a battle for common sense.