We have a pro-death atheist running our country, a homosexual secular humanist second in command, and now we have sworn in our first Muslim MP with a Koran. Oh, and did I mention that this year’s national parliamentary prayer breakfast has been cancelled?
Any one of these items alone may not seem like too much, but taken together they amount to something. And if these various episodes are simply the tip of the iceberg, then we may well have great cause for concern. Cumulatively, these – and other examples – can and will result in the overthrowing of a culture.
Consider just the issue of an MP swearing in on the Koran. By itself, it may not be too much of a big deal. But if it is part of a whole range of actions in which Muslims are making inroads into a culture, and slowly but surely changing it altogether, then we need to stand up and take notice.
Muslim politicians, along with all sorts of PC measures designed not to offend Muslims, along with aspects of sharia law and sharia finance, halal foods, and so on, are all part of a move to undermine and destabilise a non-Muslim culture and establish a stifling dhimmitude.
Combine this with a radical secular left which is also bent on reshaping the free West into its own image, and we are well on the way to major trouble. Does this sound all a bit conspiratorial? Well, if it sounds that way, there is good reason for it. There is in fact a conspiracy underway.
Now I am not a big fan of conspiracy theories, so what I mean here is simply this: all this is not happening merely by accident. There are many people who are actively committed and dedicated to overthrowing the West. And they have stated their aims most clearly.
In that sense there is a bit of a conspiracy underway here. Sure, it may not be some monolithic grand conspiracy directed from some dark dungeon somewhere. But there are plenty of people and groups who have openly declared their disdain for, and plan to subvert, the Christian West.
Indeed, back in my wild radical days as a leftist agitator, I worked with others, seeking to do all we could to subvert the system from within. We did all we could to bring down what we regarded as an oppressive and corrupt system, and we knew that a handful of committed activists could actually bring it down.
But we in the New Left of the sixties were not the first to seek to overthrow the West by capturing its institutions of power and influence. Decades earlier people like the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci spoke about this very thing. He and his followers spoke about the “long march through the institutions”.
They knew that internal subversion could be just as effective as external revolution. By capturing political institutions, the churches, the media, the judiciary, and academia, they would be just as successful in implementing their agenda as if they rode their tanks into Washington, shelled Canberra, or flew planes against London.
Gramsci spoke much about his plans and ideas. Consider just a few representative quotes: “Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”
“Everything must be done in the name of man’s dignity and rights, and in the name of his autonomy and freedom from outside constraint. From the claims and constraints of Christianity, above all.” He worried about the fact that “The civilized world had been thoroughly saturated with Christianity for 2,000 years…” and sought to overturn it from within.
Strategist Robert Chandler explains how this was to work: “…to overturn the existing order and ‘Marxize the inner man,’ one must create a subversive program of ‘counter-hegemony’ against its supporting culture. The war against the existing culture would leave nothing outside of the struggle, especially Christianity, to negate the established modes of thought and ways of doing things. Christianity is considered a prime target in preparing the way for a ‘Marxized America,’ since religion, as an independent center of societal values, stands in the way of creating a new culture based on what is deceptively called ‘social justice’ and ‘change.’ Religion, in the Gramsci view, is the foundation for the Western values of individual liberty, private property, and the traditional family, and must be abolished in order for the new communist society to emerge.”
Of course Gramsci was eventually rounded up by Mussolini, and died in prison in 1937. But his ideas – and his disciples – live on. In the early 1930s a number of cultural Marxists established the Frankfurt School. It soon shifted to the United States after the rise of the Nazis in Germany. Some of the leading figures included Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Wilhelm Reich, and Max Horkheimer.
Cultural Marxism especially flared up during the 60s in the West. As I mentioned, I was one of the millions of disaffected youth who became closely involved in this movement. Of course a conversion to Christianity in 1971 saw the end of my dalliance with Marxism, radicalism, and other trendy causes.
But I now see all around me the Christian West unravelling big time, and I am well aware that this is not happening just by chance. There are many activists still at work seeking to supplant the West and its Judeo-Christian foundation with their own version of heaven on earth.
But as I have documented elsewhere, these always end up being coercive utopias, where a small cadre of elites end up tyrannising the masses, all for their own good of course. The revolutionaries in fact never trust the masses, and are quite happy to wipe out multitudes in the attempt to establish their progressive new order.
So am I saying the three episodes mentioned in my opening paragraph are all directly related to, and flow from, the Gramscian revolution? No, but some indirectly are at the very least. The secular left still has a blueprint for their grand society, and as history so well informs us, it ultimately comes out of the barrel of a gun.
And the followers of Muhammad have his life and teachings as an example to follow as they seek to establish a universal caliphate, and bring the entire world into submission to Allah. This push for the total triumph of Islam is well under way in the West, with many gullible Westerners gladly submitting to their condition of dhimmitude.
So we must remain vigilant and aware. Whether the radical revolutionaries who are doing so much damage are aware of their ideological roots or not is not important. The crucial point is that they are very nicely carrying out these agendas, and we are all paying the price for it.
Bill, I think you need to be careful not to tar all Muslims with the same brush. Although I share your concerns about ‘dhimmitude’, I don’t think the case of Ed Husic is very relevant. He is on the record as being, like most Bosnian Muslims, a cultural or ethnic Muslim. He has stated that he does not pray, go to Mosque, or do other things associated with the Muslim faith. I am very well acquainted with the Bosnian Muslim culture, and even at the height of the 1990s war I never found the Bosnian Muslims to be anything but highly supportive of the Western Christian tradition. There is a wide misunderstanding of Bosnian culture and the appellation ‘Muslim’ (which is an ethnicity rather than a religion in Bosnia). I think it is unfair to associate Ed Husic with the rising influence of Islam in society.
Mishka Gora
As you say Bill, the infiltration of our institutions has been happening for some time. It seems as if now things are coming to a head.
My thoughts are that the Church has been hindered by an eschatological view that things will get worse and worse and we will be taken out of all this mess. So there has been little focus on what to do about it.
Greg Cadman
It speaks volumes of the inversion of our values under this government that Gillard refused to swear an oath to God in becoming PM yet she manages to attend the Aboriginal ‘welcome ceremony’ which is a quasi-religious event in itself.
Damien Spillane
The great thing about history is that the good guys (those with God) win. Good will triumph over evil in the end but that is only in the end and what happens in the period up until that time is anyone’s guess.
Time and time again groups have arisen to challenge Biblical Christianity. Whether it was the Arians, the Cathars, the Donatists, the Huns, the Germanic tribes or the Islamic Empire, they were pushed back or subdued.
Let us hope this trend continues.
Nick Smith
Thanks Bill
Keep the blowing the trumpet.
Of course there has been a conspiracy since the days of the Garden of Eden. It’s a conspiracy against the rule of God, the people of God and the Word of God. Psalm 2 speaks clearly about this collusion of satanically controlled rebels. But the sovereign Lord laughs at their puny attempts to dethrone Him. It is quite noticeable that when some one’s eyes are open to the conspiracy they are sidelined with mockery and ridicule and yet in these days of the Internet the evidence is out there and easy to find (and the conspirators are often quite blatant). The push for global government by various groups is easily researched but the biggest concern is those who are attempting to derail the church from her divine mandate. Conspiracy is not a theory but a well attested fact in my opinion.
Glenn Christopherson
Bill, I’m a bit confused about your point here. On the one hand, you fear the rise of atheism in the West, on the other hand you fear the rise of Islam, yet these are mutually exclusive.
Personally, I can’t see Islam getting any significant foothold in the West, notwithstanding the desires of its leaders. The universal trend is that all forms of religiosity lose traction as living standards and educational levels improve. We have already seen this trend in Europe, Australia and the US as Christianity declines, and Islam in the West will suffer the same obstacles. Even more so than Christianity, it is the religion of the poor, the downtrodden, the uneducated and the illiterate.
The real enemy is atheism, and I think we lose focus by fighting battles with other belief systems. In order to advance the Christian church needs to reinvent itself and reassert the relevance of belief in God to an increasingly educated and questioning society. Unfortunately, the trend seems to be the exact opposite, with too many Christian groups reverting to fundamentalist beliefs that cannot be reconciled with advances in human knowledge. United we conquer, divided we fall.
Brian O’Hara, Brisbane
Thanks Brian
As to Islam and atheism, both are of course opposed to the Christian Gospel, and as I and others have documented on numerous occasions, often it is the secular left getting into bed with the Islamists. So both are very much a threat – both to a free and democratic West, and to the Christian faith.
And sadly you are simply wrong – or greatly misinformed – about the clear dangers of the spread of Islam in the West. We not only have the obvious cases – airplanes being flown into buildings – but a host of other dangers, once again well documented by so many, including this site.
I trust you are not ignorant of the case of the two Christian pastors here in Victoria who endured a five-year witch-hunt by the secular left EOC in allegiance with Muslim groups. The freedom to preach the gospel is everywhere in the West being whittled away, and it is often Muslims who are at the forefront of all this. So I am afraid you are simply out of the loop here as to what is occurring all over the West.
Indeed, even on non-Christian grounds alone, the erosion of freedom and the encroaching of sharia law all over the West should concern anyone – whether Christians or not.
And sadly you are even more mistaken about the growth of Islam in the West. Studies have shown quite clearly that Muslims who have come to Europe and the UK for example are even more radicalised and anti-Western in the second generation, than in the first generation which originally came to the West. I am afraid it really is time people come up to speed with what is in fact happening in the West with the rise of Islam – the facts are nowhere near the rosy and mythical picture you are seeking to paint.
And with all due respect, I can’t see how anyone claiming to be a biblical Christian can make a statement such as this: “I think we lose focus by fighting battles with other belief systems”. Have you actually read the Bible lately? Whether it is the OT prophets railing against other belief systems (be they false gods, idols, idolatry, syncretistic religious practices, Baal, Ashtoreth, and dozens of other false gods, and competing belief systems), to Jesus and the disciples warning about false teachers, false prophets, false doctrine, and false beliefs, etc., the Bible is everywhere fully concerned about the very thing you think is no big deal.
The church clearly does not need to reinvent itself. It simply needs to get rid of dangerous ideas such as the ones being promoting by theological liberals and revisionists. We need to once again fearlessly proclaim the truth of John 14:6 and other unambiguous and “fundamentalist” passages.
So thanks for your comment, but I must say I find very little in it that I can agree with!
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Bill, some other article links which testify to your points here.
I think you have fallen for the lie that atheism is not a belief system. Nothing could be further from the truth. Atheism is defined by the belief that there is no god. Whether certain evidence is cited as the basis for this belief is irrelevant. It is just as much a belief system as Christianity, Buddhism, Islam etc.
The only meaningful distinction that can be made between belief systems is those that are true and those that are false. On the one side stands Christianity, on the other Islam, Atheism, Buddhism etc.
Mansel Rogerson
Bill
You have answered Brian O’Hara’s comments so comprehensively, there is little left for me to say after stating that I totally agree with you 100%. I might add that much of Western Europe is lost, not only for the reasons listed in you article, but also for the fact that such countries as France, Italy Spain, Portugal, Holland & others nearby are not reproducing replacement children. Parents in these lands have an average of 1.5 children. If this continues, while the Muslims are reproducing at anything from 5 to 15 children, you don’t have to be a great mathematician to realise that the West is doomed.
Frank Bellet, Petrie Qld
Mansel, I agree totally. The world is not divided between those who do not believe in God and those who do, but between those who believe in the God revealed in Jesus Christ and those who believe in idols. Atheism and a belief in Evolution are a form of idolatry, where Mother Nature worshipped. The connection between evolutionists and Muslims is that both are fatalistic. Muslims believe in a capricious God, whilst the former believe in chance. Both ideologies result in a paralysis of the will.
David Skinner, UK
Bill, I don’t understand why you would quote 9/11 as an example of the infiltration of Islam in the West. The terrorists were flown in from Saudi Arabia. They hardly endeared themselves to Westerners, and they damaged the image of Islam to potential converts. They might attract a few anarchists drawn to the idea of mass murder and mayhem, but they’re not going to attract genuine new believers.
I know several Australian Muslims. Their fears aren’t that their children will become radicals, but rather that they will lose their faith because of the attractions and freedoms of secular Western culture. A few cases in the UK of second-generation radicals do not represent the norm in my experience.
I don’t accept that atheism is a belief system. People you meet at work or socially who aren’t believers have generally drifted away from a Christian upbringing. They don’t actively promote or worship atheism, they have just lost faith in faith. They consider religion boring, irrelevant to their lives and generally failing to provide answers to the deep questions. That’s what they tell me anyway. Perhaps you move in very different circles.
I’m convinced that if we treat atheism as another religion we simply deny reality and we will fail in our attempts to win people back to faith.
As for John 14:6, that may work well when preached by missionaries to the sick and the hungry in Africa, but an educated Westerner will simply ask why they should believe it to be true. It’s our lack of an intelligent response to an increasingly educated and sceptical world that is the main reason for Christianity’s decline. That’s the problem we need to address head-on but we won’t get anywhere by retreating to the past.
If I’m wrong, show me some evidence that your way of doing things is actually succeeding anywhere in the West.
Brian O’Hara
Thanks again Brian
But sadly I find your comments continuing to be way off target. Indeed, I find it quite alaming that you seem so unaware of some basic truths here. Where exactly do you think the 9/11 terrorists came from? They were all living in the West and were the very sorts of people you seem to think are no threat at all.
Indeed, you appear to be completely ignorant about Islamism and the war against the West. You really need to become better informed. I have dozens of articles on this site, and thousands of articles and books exist to help in your apparent knowledge deficit. Every day around the world people are being killed in the name of Islam, and you pretend all this doesn’t even exist. Amazing!
Since 9/11 over 16,000 Islamic terrorist attacks have been carried out – yet you seem oblivious to all this. Try consulting this site for starters to get up to speed: http://thereligionofpeace.com/
And there are a billion Muslims in the world – yet incredibly you seem to base your entire position on the fact that you “know several Muslims”. Whoopee! Now that’s scientific and credible research.
Also, what in the world do you mean by “A few cases in the UK of second-generation radicals”? It is not a few cases, but major studies of hundreds of thousands of Muslims in both Europe and the UK. The studies which are based on what these second-generation Muslims have said themselves are quite clear. Respectfully, you are simply living in la-la land, completely ignorant of the reality of the situation.
And of course atheism is a belief system. One only need read The God Delusion by Dawkins for example to see that this is so. “They don’t actively promote atheism”??? You must be kidding! You obviously are not only completely unaware of Dawkins, but of Hitchens, Onfrey, Harris, Grayling, Dennett, and many dozens of other evangelistic atheists. We could be forgiven for thinking that you have been living on another planet for the past decade.
But your real doozey comes in your final paragraph. Are you seriously telling us that John 14:6 is irrelevant and unhelpful in today’s world? I’m afraid all that tells us is where you are coming from – that you know little if anything about biblical Christianity and the history of the church for the past 2,000 years.
Our culture today is quite similar to that of the first century as the early church expanded. That passage – along with many others like it – was just what was needed to win over a pagan world, and it is still the very same truth which must be proclaimed today. Yet for some odd reason you want nothing of it. Sorry, but I will side with Jesus, the disciples, and two millennia of the expansion of the church on this, and not with your bizarre notions.
And just how in the world is proclaiming the gospel message merely ‘retreating to the past”? And what in the world is “my way of doing things”? If it is telling people about the truth claims of Christianity, it is what billions of believers have done for the last twenty centuries, and it is the only thing we as believers have been commissioned to do, and it is the only thing that will lead the lost back to the Father.
Indeed, I was one of those modern unbelieving Westerners who was won to Christ by someone sharing with me the Gospel message. Millions of other Westerners today have come to Christ in exactly the same way. Yet you wish to dismiss the lot of us.
To be honest, your comments leave my mind reeling.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Bill, Who is the “homosexual secular humanist second in command”. Wayne Swan? I have tried to confirm this but can’t. If not, to whom were you referring.
Graeme Cumming
Thanks Graeme
Bob Brown of course. In fact, he might even be the de facto leader of the nation right now.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Brian, there is not one human being alive who does not wish to transcend the here and now and material existence. Thousands of years of man’s history trying to attain heaven on earth, utopia and material progress attest to the fact that God has placed it in man’s heart to search for the eternal. No one is autonomous or able to remain a detached and dispassionate observer of life and those that claim to do so deceive themselves.
David Skinner, UK
Thanks Bill. I have just posted a Gramsci quote from here to provoke a bit of thought at FB. I think even the most hardened skeptic of conspiracy theories would have to either be blind or admit that something is going on. The flower power fascination with Eastern religion and the blanket, seemingly innocuous blanket term, ‘New Age’ has now morphed into a wound up, deeply spiritual obsession with Buddhism, other ‘alternative’ spiritualities and the Occult. Recently I had an acquaintance take me into her prayer room and try to ‘evangelize’ me to Buddhism! And she knows I’m a Christian. This is a strong, ‘liberated’ western woman who consults her ‘teacher’ before making any major decisions.
The Leftist ideologies which were once a kind of indulgent flirtation of the youth of the West have now become a raging occult-powered force which will take over our culture if Christians don’t move into the offensive. The first step is to make Christians aware, but that awareness should now be driving us into strategic intercession where people think regions…How can we take back our nation from the principalities and powers? If we don’t start interceding, fasting, sacrificing and seeking the Lord with all our hearts, there are plenty in the occult with more passion and enthusiasm who will seek their own gods and take this nation. I’m sure they think they have already won. Unfortunately, there are plenty of churches out there which are split, riddled with backstabbing, gossip, jealousy, you name it, and who, like Jesus’ disciples at Gethsemane, can’t even stay in His presence and pray one night! Which one is going to be more attractive to a spiritually empty world?
Dee Graf
I have grave concerns for our Parliament. With the Prayer Breakfast dropped what can we expect next…the Lord’s Prayer dropped because we have a Muslim in the House?
One only has to look at products on the supermarket shelf to see how many are now listed as ‘halal’. Our supermarket shopping now takes longer as we decided to avoid these products. Like the ‘ Heart Tick’, money is paid to have a product certified ‘halal’ and we don’t know where that money goes or what it is used for.
Madge Fahy
Hello Brian O’Hara,
The following link is a speech delivered by Geert Wilders, chairman of the Netherlands Party for Freedom, at the Four Seasons in New York on 28th September 2008.
He warns about the spread of Islam in Europe, which is much worse today than in this alarming revelation.
I pray that it gives you just a small insight into the insidious spread of Islam. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/wilders.asp
God bless,
Paul de la Garde
Mishka, you said:
Ed Husic … is on the record as being, like most Bosnian Muslims, a cultural or ethnic Muslim. He has stated that he does not pray, go to Mosque, or do other things associated with the Muslim faith. I am very well acquainted with the Bosnian Muslim culture, and even at the height of the 1990s war I never found the Bosnian Muslims to be anything but highly supportive of the Western Christian tradition.
If he is so supportive of the Western Christian tradition, why did he take an oath on the Koran, rather than make an affirmation, in line with the freedoms of that Western tradition?
I know there is an unwritten tradition for MPs to bring their choice of Bible to the main swearing in ceremony, but until now that has been conducted entirely within the Western Christian tradition. This is now going beyond that tradition to include contrary traditions including atheism, aboriginality and Islam.
How do such people uphold the Australian Constitution, with a preamble which says
“We the people… , humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God… ” ?
I have no doubt the affirmation/oath of office does not include the words “uphold and defend the Constitution of Australa…”, would you agree?
John Angelico
Hello Bill,
Reading this article was quite unsettling not only for showing what is really going in around the world but also for how much it revealed my ignorance of what these Frankfurt School sociologists really stood for, despite my having taken four sociology courses at a Christian university. If only I knew then what I know now.
I became somewhat acquainted with the Frankfurt School’s theories but was not told anything about the true goals of Gramsci and his ilk. Instead I was merely taught the sanitized, seemingly biblically compatible version of these theorists’ ideas – on paper much of Marxism’s ideas sound great, especially to young, impressionable students. Therein lies the danger.
Universities teach how to think, not what to think, but I do think that perhaps these classes were more about indoctrination than about questioning. In four sociology courses one would expect some negative aspects of Marxism to come to light, but there wasn’t anything brought into focus in four semesters of study as precise as what you wrote. Luckily, since graduating in 2007 I have become much more biblically and historically grounded. Sites like yours help – thank you for all of your hard work, Bill!
Was wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences?
Dan Brinkman
Dan you might find this article also of interest, written in 2009 by Melanie Phillips:
I was talking to a mature Christian gentleman outside a court last week. We both went along with others to witness a Christian street preacher being hauled into court because he had offended the hypersensitivities of a couple of gays, (or whatever they call themselves these days). I was amazed to discover that he had never heard of the Frankfurt School or Gramsci.
Allow me to quote from an article: “To translate Marxism from economic into cultural terms, the members of the Frankfurt School – – Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Wilhelm Reich, Eric Fromm and Herbert Marcuse, to name the most important – – had to contradict Marx on several points. They argued that culture was not just part of what Marx had called society superstructure, but an independent and very important variable. They also said that the working class would not lead a Marxist revolution, because it was becoming part of the middle class, the hated bourgeoisie. Who would? In the 1950s, Marcuse answered the question: a coalition of blacks, students, feminist women and homosexuals.”
Dan Brinkman wrote “Universities teach how to think, not what to think” …
Yes, that what they like to pretend …
“… but I do think that perhaps these classes were more about indoctrination …”
… but you have discovered the truth.
When I was at Uni., during our human sexuality course, we had a seminar entitled “Issues re: homosexuality”. There 4 panelists, a homosexual doctor, a homosexual psychologist, a lesbian and the mother of adopted children, her son turned out to be gay, her daughter a lesbian.
The psychologist said that once or twice a year he had a client who could not get an erection to have sex with his dog. He said his responsibility towards his client was to help him gain an erection! Tragically, other than myself, there were no vocal dissenters.
It was all pure (maybe I should say impure) indoctrination.
To her credit, the mother of the homosexual adoptees was responsive to my objections. To my discredit, I answered what seemed like an honest question from her … “What would you have done in my situation?” … very poorly. She supported her children when they “came out” but I think that she wondered if there was a better option. My poor response was to say that I would ask the advice of a conservative minister whose son was “gay”.
When I suggested a panelist from the Christian perspective be included the next year (a female Salvation Army officer of my acquaintance), the convenor of the course, an openly and unrepentant homosexual Anglican minister, refused. Maybe he considered his opinion to represent the “Christian” community.
So, Universities teach what to think just as much as how to think. Sometimes that’s good (I hope all unis teach that 1+1=2) but not in the examples you and I have given.
Graeme Cumming
Great article & excellent commentary by all.
If only we could convince Bill to re-infiltrate Monash Uni, establish the counter-counter culture and atone for past sins 🙂
Bill Riz
“…by transforming the consciousness of society”
This is what it’s all about in the end, the groups who control or influence the cultural thinking of a nation determines where that nation is heading. Facts might help the honest man to make a decision but we approach every situation from a deep rooted view of the world and its various inhabitants. Some of these views are based on fallacies and other on Truth – both sides are constantly fighting for their view to be heard and hopefully accepted. Spiritual blindness and the removing of veils through prayer by God obviously also plays a big role.
That is why Bill, for one, should be commended for what he is doing.
Bill Riz wrote “If only we could convince Bill to re-infiltrate Monash Uni, establish the counter-counter culture”. Great idea, maybe not Bill, but I (and all of us should) encourage youth to do exactly that.
Bill, I think you need to be careful not to tar all Muslims with the same brush. Although I share your concerns about ‘dhimmitude’, I don’t think the case of Ed Husic is very relevant. He is on the record as being, like most Bosnian Muslims, a cultural or ethnic Muslim. He has stated that he does not pray, go to Mosque, or do other things associated with the Muslim faith. I am very well acquainted with the Bosnian Muslim culture, and even at the height of the 1990s war I never found the Bosnian Muslims to be anything but highly supportive of the Western Christian tradition. There is a wide misunderstanding of Bosnian culture and the appellation ‘Muslim’ (which is an ethnicity rather than a religion in Bosnia). I think it is unfair to associate Ed Husic with the rising influence of Islam in society.
Mishka Gora
As you say Bill, the infiltration of our institutions has been happening for some time. It seems as if now things are coming to a head.
My thoughts are that the Church has been hindered by an eschatological view that things will get worse and worse and we will be taken out of all this mess. So there has been little focus on what to do about it.
Greg Cadman
It speaks volumes of the inversion of our values under this government that Gillard refused to swear an oath to God in becoming PM yet she manages to attend the Aboriginal ‘welcome ceremony’ which is a quasi-religious event in itself.
Damien Spillane
The great thing about history is that the good guys (those with God) win. Good will triumph over evil in the end but that is only in the end and what happens in the period up until that time is anyone’s guess.
Time and time again groups have arisen to challenge Biblical Christianity. Whether it was the Arians, the Cathars, the Donatists, the Huns, the Germanic tribes or the Islamic Empire, they were pushed back or subdued.
Let us hope this trend continues.
Nick Smith
Thanks Bill
Keep the blowing the trumpet.
Of course there has been a conspiracy since the days of the Garden of Eden. It’s a conspiracy against the rule of God, the people of God and the Word of God. Psalm 2 speaks clearly about this collusion of satanically controlled rebels. But the sovereign Lord laughs at their puny attempts to dethrone Him. It is quite noticeable that when some one’s eyes are open to the conspiracy they are sidelined with mockery and ridicule and yet in these days of the Internet the evidence is out there and easy to find (and the conspirators are often quite blatant). The push for global government by various groups is easily researched but the biggest concern is those who are attempting to derail the church from her divine mandate. Conspiracy is not a theory but a well attested fact in my opinion.
Glenn Christopherson
Bill, I’m a bit confused about your point here. On the one hand, you fear the rise of atheism in the West, on the other hand you fear the rise of Islam, yet these are mutually exclusive.
Personally, I can’t see Islam getting any significant foothold in the West, notwithstanding the desires of its leaders. The universal trend is that all forms of religiosity lose traction as living standards and educational levels improve. We have already seen this trend in Europe, Australia and the US as Christianity declines, and Islam in the West will suffer the same obstacles. Even more so than Christianity, it is the religion of the poor, the downtrodden, the uneducated and the illiterate.
The real enemy is atheism, and I think we lose focus by fighting battles with other belief systems. In order to advance the Christian church needs to reinvent itself and reassert the relevance of belief in God to an increasingly educated and questioning society. Unfortunately, the trend seems to be the exact opposite, with too many Christian groups reverting to fundamentalist beliefs that cannot be reconciled with advances in human knowledge. United we conquer, divided we fall.
Brian O’Hara, Brisbane
Thanks Brian
As to Islam and atheism, both are of course opposed to the Christian Gospel, and as I and others have documented on numerous occasions, often it is the secular left getting into bed with the Islamists. So both are very much a threat – both to a free and democratic West, and to the Christian faith.
And sadly you are simply wrong – or greatly misinformed – about the clear dangers of the spread of Islam in the West. We not only have the obvious cases – airplanes being flown into buildings – but a host of other dangers, once again well documented by so many, including this site.
I trust you are not ignorant of the case of the two Christian pastors here in Victoria who endured a five-year witch-hunt by the secular left EOC in allegiance with Muslim groups. The freedom to preach the gospel is everywhere in the West being whittled away, and it is often Muslims who are at the forefront of all this. So I am afraid you are simply out of the loop here as to what is occurring all over the West.
Indeed, even on non-Christian grounds alone, the erosion of freedom and the encroaching of sharia law all over the West should concern anyone – whether Christians or not.
And sadly you are even more mistaken about the growth of Islam in the West. Studies have shown quite clearly that Muslims who have come to Europe and the UK for example are even more radicalised and anti-Western in the second generation, than in the first generation which originally came to the West. I am afraid it really is time people come up to speed with what is in fact happening in the West with the rise of Islam – the facts are nowhere near the rosy and mythical picture you are seeking to paint.
And with all due respect, I can’t see how anyone claiming to be a biblical Christian can make a statement such as this: “I think we lose focus by fighting battles with other belief systems”. Have you actually read the Bible lately? Whether it is the OT prophets railing against other belief systems (be they false gods, idols, idolatry, syncretistic religious practices, Baal, Ashtoreth, and dozens of other false gods, and competing belief systems), to Jesus and the disciples warning about false teachers, false prophets, false doctrine, and false beliefs, etc., the Bible is everywhere fully concerned about the very thing you think is no big deal.
The church clearly does not need to reinvent itself. It simply needs to get rid of dangerous ideas such as the ones being promoting by theological liberals and revisionists. We need to once again fearlessly proclaim the truth of John 14:6 and other unambiguous and “fundamentalist” passages.
So thanks for your comment, but I must say I find very little in it that I can agree with!
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Bill, some other article links which testify to your points here.
http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/brainwashing/dialectic-gotcher.htm
http://www.tysknews.com/Articles/toward_the_total_state.htm
http://www.rightgrrl.com/jennifer1.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/823368/posts
Jamie Bowman
Brian,
I think you have fallen for the lie that atheism is not a belief system. Nothing could be further from the truth. Atheism is defined by the belief that there is no god. Whether certain evidence is cited as the basis for this belief is irrelevant. It is just as much a belief system as Christianity, Buddhism, Islam etc.
The only meaningful distinction that can be made between belief systems is those that are true and those that are false. On the one side stands Christianity, on the other Islam, Atheism, Buddhism etc.
Mansel Rogerson
Bill
You have answered Brian O’Hara’s comments so comprehensively, there is little left for me to say after stating that I totally agree with you 100%. I might add that much of Western Europe is lost, not only for the reasons listed in you article, but also for the fact that such countries as France, Italy Spain, Portugal, Holland & others nearby are not reproducing replacement children. Parents in these lands have an average of 1.5 children. If this continues, while the Muslims are reproducing at anything from 5 to 15 children, you don’t have to be a great mathematician to realise that the West is doomed.
Frank Bellet, Petrie Qld
Mansel, I agree totally. The world is not divided between those who do not believe in God and those who do, but between those who believe in the God revealed in Jesus Christ and those who believe in idols. Atheism and a belief in Evolution are a form of idolatry, where Mother Nature worshipped. The connection between evolutionists and Muslims is that both are fatalistic. Muslims believe in a capricious God, whilst the former believe in chance. Both ideologies result in a paralysis of the will.
David Skinner, UK
Bill, I don’t understand why you would quote 9/11 as an example of the infiltration of Islam in the West. The terrorists were flown in from Saudi Arabia. They hardly endeared themselves to Westerners, and they damaged the image of Islam to potential converts. They might attract a few anarchists drawn to the idea of mass murder and mayhem, but they’re not going to attract genuine new believers.
I know several Australian Muslims. Their fears aren’t that their children will become radicals, but rather that they will lose their faith because of the attractions and freedoms of secular Western culture. A few cases in the UK of second-generation radicals do not represent the norm in my experience.
I don’t accept that atheism is a belief system. People you meet at work or socially who aren’t believers have generally drifted away from a Christian upbringing. They don’t actively promote or worship atheism, they have just lost faith in faith. They consider religion boring, irrelevant to their lives and generally failing to provide answers to the deep questions. That’s what they tell me anyway. Perhaps you move in very different circles.
I’m convinced that if we treat atheism as another religion we simply deny reality and we will fail in our attempts to win people back to faith.
As for John 14:6, that may work well when preached by missionaries to the sick and the hungry in Africa, but an educated Westerner will simply ask why they should believe it to be true. It’s our lack of an intelligent response to an increasingly educated and sceptical world that is the main reason for Christianity’s decline. That’s the problem we need to address head-on but we won’t get anywhere by retreating to the past.
If I’m wrong, show me some evidence that your way of doing things is actually succeeding anywhere in the West.
Brian O’Hara
Thanks again Brian
But sadly I find your comments continuing to be way off target. Indeed, I find it quite alaming that you seem so unaware of some basic truths here. Where exactly do you think the 9/11 terrorists came from? They were all living in the West and were the very sorts of people you seem to think are no threat at all.
Indeed, you appear to be completely ignorant about Islamism and the war against the West. You really need to become better informed. I have dozens of articles on this site, and thousands of articles and books exist to help in your apparent knowledge deficit. Every day around the world people are being killed in the name of Islam, and you pretend all this doesn’t even exist. Amazing!
Since 9/11 over 16,000 Islamic terrorist attacks have been carried out – yet you seem oblivious to all this. Try consulting this site for starters to get up to speed: http://thereligionofpeace.com/
And there are a billion Muslims in the world – yet incredibly you seem to base your entire position on the fact that you “know several Muslims”. Whoopee! Now that’s scientific and credible research.
Also, what in the world do you mean by “A few cases in the UK of second-generation radicals”? It is not a few cases, but major studies of hundreds of thousands of Muslims in both Europe and the UK. The studies which are based on what these second-generation Muslims have said themselves are quite clear. Respectfully, you are simply living in la-la land, completely ignorant of the reality of the situation.
And of course atheism is a belief system. One only need read The God Delusion by Dawkins for example to see that this is so. “They don’t actively promote atheism”??? You must be kidding! You obviously are not only completely unaware of Dawkins, but of Hitchens, Onfrey, Harris, Grayling, Dennett, and many dozens of other evangelistic atheists. We could be forgiven for thinking that you have been living on another planet for the past decade.
But your real doozey comes in your final paragraph. Are you seriously telling us that John 14:6 is irrelevant and unhelpful in today’s world? I’m afraid all that tells us is where you are coming from – that you know little if anything about biblical Christianity and the history of the church for the past 2,000 years.
Our culture today is quite similar to that of the first century as the early church expanded. That passage – along with many others like it – was just what was needed to win over a pagan world, and it is still the very same truth which must be proclaimed today. Yet for some odd reason you want nothing of it. Sorry, but I will side with Jesus, the disciples, and two millennia of the expansion of the church on this, and not with your bizarre notions.
And just how in the world is proclaiming the gospel message merely ‘retreating to the past”? And what in the world is “my way of doing things”? If it is telling people about the truth claims of Christianity, it is what billions of believers have done for the last twenty centuries, and it is the only thing we as believers have been commissioned to do, and it is the only thing that will lead the lost back to the Father.
Indeed, I was one of those modern unbelieving Westerners who was won to Christ by someone sharing with me the Gospel message. Millions of other Westerners today have come to Christ in exactly the same way. Yet you wish to dismiss the lot of us.
To be honest, your comments leave my mind reeling.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Bill, Who is the “homosexual secular humanist second in command”. Wayne Swan? I have tried to confirm this but can’t. If not, to whom were you referring.
Graeme Cumming
Thanks Graeme
Bob Brown of course. In fact, he might even be the de facto leader of the nation right now.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Brian, there is not one human being alive who does not wish to transcend the here and now and material existence. Thousands of years of man’s history trying to attain heaven on earth, utopia and material progress attest to the fact that God has placed it in man’s heart to search for the eternal. No one is autonomous or able to remain a detached and dispassionate observer of life and those that claim to do so deceive themselves.
David Skinner, UK
Thanks Bill. I have just posted a Gramsci quote from here to provoke a bit of thought at FB. I think even the most hardened skeptic of conspiracy theories would have to either be blind or admit that something is going on. The flower power fascination with Eastern religion and the blanket, seemingly innocuous blanket term, ‘New Age’ has now morphed into a wound up, deeply spiritual obsession with Buddhism, other ‘alternative’ spiritualities and the Occult. Recently I had an acquaintance take me into her prayer room and try to ‘evangelize’ me to Buddhism! And she knows I’m a Christian. This is a strong, ‘liberated’ western woman who consults her ‘teacher’ before making any major decisions.
The Leftist ideologies which were once a kind of indulgent flirtation of the youth of the West have now become a raging occult-powered force which will take over our culture if Christians don’t move into the offensive. The first step is to make Christians aware, but that awareness should now be driving us into strategic intercession where people think regions…How can we take back our nation from the principalities and powers? If we don’t start interceding, fasting, sacrificing and seeking the Lord with all our hearts, there are plenty in the occult with more passion and enthusiasm who will seek their own gods and take this nation. I’m sure they think they have already won. Unfortunately, there are plenty of churches out there which are split, riddled with backstabbing, gossip, jealousy, you name it, and who, like Jesus’ disciples at Gethsemane, can’t even stay in His presence and pray one night! Which one is going to be more attractive to a spiritually empty world?
Dee Graf
I have grave concerns for our Parliament. With the Prayer Breakfast dropped what can we expect next…the Lord’s Prayer dropped because we have a Muslim in the House?
One only has to look at products on the supermarket shelf to see how many are now listed as ‘halal’. Our supermarket shopping now takes longer as we decided to avoid these products. Like the ‘ Heart Tick’, money is paid to have a product certified ‘halal’ and we don’t know where that money goes or what it is used for.
Madge Fahy
Hello Brian O’Hara,
The following link is a speech delivered by Geert Wilders, chairman of the Netherlands Party for Freedom, at the Four Seasons in New York on 28th September 2008.
He warns about the spread of Islam in Europe, which is much worse today than in this alarming revelation.
I pray that it gives you just a small insight into the insidious spread of Islam.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/wilders.asp
God bless,
Paul de la Garde
Mishka, you said:
If he is so supportive of the Western Christian tradition, why did he take an oath on the Koran, rather than make an affirmation, in line with the freedoms of that Western tradition?
I know there is an unwritten tradition for MPs to bring their choice of Bible to the main swearing in ceremony, but until now that has been conducted entirely within the Western Christian tradition. This is now going beyond that tradition to include contrary traditions including atheism, aboriginality and Islam.
How do such people uphold the Australian Constitution, with a preamble which says
“We the people… , humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God… ” ?
I have no doubt the affirmation/oath of office does not include the words “uphold and defend the Constitution of Australa…”, would you agree?
John Angelico
Hello Bill,
Reading this article was quite unsettling not only for showing what is really going in around the world but also for how much it revealed my ignorance of what these Frankfurt School sociologists really stood for, despite my having taken four sociology courses at a Christian university. If only I knew then what I know now.
I became somewhat acquainted with the Frankfurt School’s theories but was not told anything about the true goals of Gramsci and his ilk. Instead I was merely taught the sanitized, seemingly biblically compatible version of these theorists’ ideas – on paper much of Marxism’s ideas sound great, especially to young, impressionable students. Therein lies the danger.
Universities teach how to think, not what to think, but I do think that perhaps these classes were more about indoctrination than about questioning. In four sociology courses one would expect some negative aspects of Marxism to come to light, but there wasn’t anything brought into focus in four semesters of study as precise as what you wrote. Luckily, since graduating in 2007 I have become much more biblically and historically grounded. Sites like yours help – thank you for all of your hard work, Bill!
Was wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences?
Dan Brinkman
Dan you might find this article also of interest, written in 2009 by Melanie Phillips:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1226211/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-We-fools-think-fall-Berlin-Wall-killed-far-Left-Theyre–attacking-within.html
David Skinner, UK
I was talking to a mature Christian gentleman outside a court last week. We both went along with others to witness a Christian street preacher being hauled into court because he had offended the hypersensitivities of a couple of gays, (or whatever they call themselves these days). I was amazed to discover that he had never heard of the Frankfurt School or Gramsci.
Allow me to quote from an article: “To translate Marxism from economic into cultural terms, the members of the Frankfurt School – – Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Wilhelm Reich, Eric Fromm and Herbert Marcuse, to name the most important – – had to contradict Marx on several points. They argued that culture was not just part of what Marx had called society superstructure, but an independent and very important variable. They also said that the working class would not lead a Marxist revolution, because it was becoming part of the middle class, the hated bourgeoisie. Who would? In the 1950s, Marcuse answered the question: a coalition of blacks, students, feminist women and homosexuals.”
http://www.restoringamerica.org/cultural_marxism.htm
David Skinner, UK
Dan Brinkman wrote “Universities teach how to think, not what to think” …
Yes, that what they like to pretend …
“… but I do think that perhaps these classes were more about indoctrination …”
… but you have discovered the truth.
When I was at Uni., during our human sexuality course, we had a seminar entitled “Issues re: homosexuality”. There 4 panelists, a homosexual doctor, a homosexual psychologist, a lesbian and the mother of adopted children, her son turned out to be gay, her daughter a lesbian.
The psychologist said that once or twice a year he had a client who could not get an erection to have sex with his dog. He said his responsibility towards his client was to help him gain an erection! Tragically, other than myself, there were no vocal dissenters.
It was all pure (maybe I should say impure) indoctrination.
To her credit, the mother of the homosexual adoptees was responsive to my objections. To my discredit, I answered what seemed like an honest question from her … “What would you have done in my situation?” … very poorly. She supported her children when they “came out” but I think that she wondered if there was a better option. My poor response was to say that I would ask the advice of a conservative minister whose son was “gay”.
When I suggested a panelist from the Christian perspective be included the next year (a female Salvation Army officer of my acquaintance), the convenor of the course, an openly and unrepentant homosexual Anglican minister, refused. Maybe he considered his opinion to represent the “Christian” community.
So, Universities teach what to think just as much as how to think. Sometimes that’s good (I hope all unis teach that 1+1=2) but not in the examples you and I have given.
Graeme Cumming
Great article & excellent commentary by all.
If only we could convince Bill to re-infiltrate Monash Uni, establish the counter-counter culture and atone for past sins 🙂
Bill Riz
“…by transforming the consciousness of society”
This is what it’s all about in the end, the groups who control or influence the cultural thinking of a nation determines where that nation is heading. Facts might help the honest man to make a decision but we approach every situation from a deep rooted view of the world and its various inhabitants. Some of these views are based on fallacies and other on Truth – both sides are constantly fighting for their view to be heard and hopefully accepted. Spiritual blindness and the removing of veils through prayer by God obviously also plays a big role.
That is why Bill, for one, should be commended for what he is doing.
Servaas Hofmeyr
‘The communists cynically, contemptuously targeted the Religious Left. And it’s downright depressing to see the success they had.’ http://townhall.com/columnists/PaulKengor/2010/10/11/on_dupes_and_the_religious_left
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Bill Riz wrote “If only we could convince Bill to re-infiltrate Monash Uni, establish the counter-counter culture”. Great idea, maybe not Bill, but I (and all of us should) encourage youth to do exactly that.
Graeme Cumming