It is not very often that we find ourselves witnessing – and even taking part in – a pivotal turning point in a civilisation. Only rarely in human history are people allowed to take part in, or at least observe, transformations and revolutions which are far-reaching and earth-shattering.
We in the West are now living through this very thing. We are witnessing it take place before our very eyes. We are in fact involved in one of the great cataclysmic events of our time. Never before in human history has parts of mankind declared war on something so fundamental and as pivotal as the institutions of marriage and family.
This is in so many ways simply unprecedented. Sure, the Communists sought to stamp out family when they took power in the Soviet Union early last century. But it was such a disastrous social experiment that they were soon forced to relent and restore the family unit.
But in the West today militant minority groups – every bit as dangerous and revolutionary as the Bolsheviks were – are doing all they can to obliterate marriage and family. And the even more incredible thing is that they are being aided and abetted by so many in high places.
And to round out this mind-boggling revolution, many of those who should be concerned about all this are simply sitting by, watching it all unfold, and are not saying a word. The worst culprits of all in this are so-called Christian leaders who have been completely deaf and dumb about this radical social upheaval.
So many have simply remained silent, pretending none of this was taking place. In the same way the majority of church leaders did nothing and said nothing as the Nazis were climbing the political ladder in Germany. They refused to speak out, and when they may have wanted to do so later, it was then of course far too late.
So the most amazing social upheaval of modern times is taking place, and most people who should be speaking out have chosen to do nothing and say nothing. If Western civilisation manages to survive, future historians will one day write about our strange times, and how so many people allowed this social tsunami to take place unopposed.
I am reminded of the words of Ronald Reagan in this regard: “History will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening.” Quite so. We have seen that happen before with tragic results, and we are seeing it happen all over again today.
I raise all this because I have just returned from a Federal Government inquiry into homosexual marriage. The very fact that a government has to have an inquiry into this issue shows you just how far down the gurgler we have gone as a culture.
Imagine telling anyone on planet earth just a few short decades ago that we would soon be holding public hearings to see if we think marriage and family are worth continuing with. As I told the Senators and media who were there, this is bizarre in the extreme.
It is like announcing the need for a government inquiry into eating, or breathing. For heaven’s sake, we just do it, we don’t need to defend it! Breathing is a natural, normal part of life. So is eating. So too, throughout human history, has been marriage and family.
All cultures have had a recognisable form of marriage and family as fundamental social institutions. Governments did not create them nor define, them, they simply recognised these pre-existing institutions. Marriage and family are indeed as normal and natural as eating and breathing.
Yet I had Senators there this morning trying to tell me that there are no such norms, that homosexual marriage has existed before, that there are more than two genders, and so on! I assured them that despite their historical revisionism, the sociological and anthropological record is quite clear.
Throughout human history heterosexual marriage and family have been the norm. Sure, there have been plenty of minor variations of the theme, but the basic fundamental structure of heterosexual marriage has always existed. Yet here we are, trying to redefine it out of existence.
Fortunately there was one voice of reason on the committee, a Liberal Senator, and he rightly noted this basic understanding of marriage and family, even in the documents of our international treaty organisations. Even they did not have to spell out what marriage and family meant.
Everyone knew exactly what they were all about. But not any longer. Now we have to define and defend these historic and universal institutions. Now we have to offer reasons why we should not allow them to be destroyed by the activists.
And I made it quite clear to the committee that destruction would indeed be the case. Sure, it will not happen overnight; such radical social changes may take many decades before we see the full effects and the very real negative fallout from all this.
So when critics say we have legalised homosexual marriage overseas and the sky has not fallen in, they are being disingenuous. Just give it a bit of time. But I also told the committee members that we already do have early warnings about just how dangerous all this is.
Indeed, I tabled a document demonstrating how special rights for homosexuals and/or the legalisation of homosexual marriage changes everything. I listed dozens of recent newspaper headlines showing how people are being fined, fired from employment, or even jailed, for refusing to bow in obeisance to the radical homosexual agenda.
Simply to stand up for heterosexual marriage can get you into hot water today. As I explained to the committee, whenever governments legalise something, and create a “right” for something, they of necessity must ensure that corresponding obligations and duties are observed by the rest of the population.
One of the Senators spent some time quibbling over one of my examples, so I said, ‘fine, just delete that one if you will, for the sake of argument. But you still have to deal with the 42 other examples I provide.’ Of course she could not gainsay nor deny all these other examples.
The evidence is overwhelmingly clear: whenever these radical laws are passed, everything changes. Everyone is impacted. Freedoms will be taken away, and the coercive power of the state will be used to get a resistant population to comply fully with the new world order.
I also had a nifty trump card to make use of this morning: I had a wonderful fellow whose testimony I featured in the end of my new book, Strained Relations. This former homosexual is now happily married with children, and he gave a terrific and powerful testimony, not only of his own life, but about the many homosexuals he now counsels.
This really got the off-side Senators even more off-side. You see, to the activists and their supporters, this guy simply does not exist. He is an invisible person. There are not supposed to be any former homosexuals around. So we treat them like we used to treat blacks: completely out of sight and out of mind.
But there he was in the flesh, sitting right next to me, telling of his messed-up, disordered and unhealthy lifestyle, and how the move to homosexual marriage will simply compound all these problems and increase social dysfunction. Most of the Senators were certainly not too keen to hear what he was saying.
Indeed, the Greens Senator was especially incensed, constantly seeking to override us and interrupt us. When my friend said the obvious, that males and females are very different, especially anatomically speaking, this really flustered her.
Often the Chairwoman had to tell her to stop interrupting us! But she kept doing it. She insisted that there are no differences whatsoever, not even anatomical differences, and that we were being hateful and homophobic even to discuss such differences. She insisted that anatomy had absolutely nothing to do with this discussion.
I replied – well almost shouted, to be heard over her constant interruptions – that she would not even be here if it were not for these anatomical differences. Fortunately for her, her own parents knew full well that male and female anatomy is fundamentally different. It is a pity that this Senator cannot realise this. But her radical activist ideology means she must suppress biology, deny reality, and live on another planet. No wonder her former leader could recently speak of us as “Earthians”!
So it was an interesting and lively debate. When another group of pro-marriage speakers appeared after us, they received nothing of the hostility that we did. Why is it that I seem to bring out the hostility and heat in so many? I always thought I was a pretty nice guy!
Be that as it may, my main point remains. To have to go into a government meeting to defend the most basic, the most natural, the most fundamental, the most universal, and the most historic social institutions of all time – marriage and family – demonstrates that we are just about kaput as a civilisation.
We have sunk to such a low in the West that we now have to defend what has always been taken for granted. But as George Orwell once remarked, “We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”
Or as he also stated: “In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” Absolutely. We live in such moonbeam times that the person defending marriage and family is seen as the revolutionary, and the nutter, while the guy who wants to tear them down and destroy them is seen as normal and sensible.
Well did the prophet Isaiah say two and a half millennia ago: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”
Throughout this week the MSM have reported on everything the homosexual activists have said at these hearings, but they have reported nothing so far of what our side has said. This is of course most typical, and most appalling.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Hi Bill Thanks for your comment. I suppose its possible to sometimes feel a bit depressed about the pro “gay” stance of the MSM and their failure to report on views by the opposition. I’m sure there are several reasons for this, not least that the MSM is only interested in its own agenda and what sells. I also believe that there is possibly an unspoken collusion between the media, particularly newspapers such as the popular ‘red tops’ here in the UK not to discuss anti homosexuality in a cozy ‘you scratch my back and …. etc.
Fortunately the blogosphere continues to hum with comment, and that is where the more enlightened and intelligent debates take place as I think you agree.
For example you may not yet have seen the following excellent comment on the Anglican Mainstream site by David Holloway (Evangelical Anglican) on the “gay” marriage issue. It is an excellent contribution and I quote his opening comments: (by David Holloway, CEN)
“Clause 1 of Article 16 of the UN Declaration of Human Right says: “Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.”
Clause 3 then elaborates on the family: “The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state.”
That last clause is significant. First, it distinguishes “society” from the “state” and so immediately rules out the legitimacy of any totalitarian states (the state must itself be limited as well as putting limits on society). Secondly, it says that the state has a duty (so has society) to “protect” (and, therefore, not be destructive of) the family, which clause 1 ties to heterosexual marriage. The state, therefore, has no right to interfere with the marriage family, change it or manipulate it for its
own purposes.
This not only reflects Christian teaching but, also, universal teaching. The anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss, sums it up when he says the family everywhere is “based on a union, more or less durable, but socially approved, of two individuals of opposite sexes who establish a household and bear and raise children.” So this marriage-based family is “a social institution with a biological foundation”. And that biology is based not on government whim, but on hard “nature”. In the whole UN declaration the only one application of the word “natural” is to the family, which, therefore, has a “natural” right to protection and not a mere legal right passed by Parliament and which can be rescinded. The family is “prior” to the state.”
Well worth reading the rest.
Keep up the good work Bill, I know your readership and perhaps hundreds of ‘occasional’ readers highly value your regular sane and faithfully Biblical input.
Graham Wood, UK
The cause of this ‘suicide’ can be argued about but it has been a slow garrotting of society for the past thirty to forty years. The main agents are Feminists, although many may well see other forces behind them. For many years now, Men’s Rights Advocates have been sounding the alarm and being roundly condemned, vilified and dismissed.
The current assault on the Family and marriage is a tail-end of the years and decades of feminist assault that has inflicted most of the damage.
But the small numbers of MRAs who have been consistent in confronting the many ‘fronts’ of feminist destruction have been vilified by the calumny that they are against ‘Women’. Feminists not only ‘use’ women as their rationale and excuse, but hide behind them as they do behind children.
Whenever a law is passed that elevates ‘women’ there is a cohort of feminists on the gravy-train. Whenever a ‘department’ is established to ‘help’ women, there is an inflow of feminists scrambling for all the jobs for the girls.
Equality’ is a fine excuse so long as only feminists benefit. Women certainly don’t. Children are sacrificed on the feminist altar, whether they are extant or waiting to be born. 100,000 a year don’t even make it into the world. men are not permitted to have any say in the matter. Men are held to be the ‘root’ of all evil, to be blamed for ….anything at all.
The Discrimination Commissioners, current and past, have done nothing to stem the discrimination against Fathers.
A Family has been redefined to exclude the father and the Churches have done little or nothing to stem that redefinition. No-one has.
Marriage has become a devalued Institution, just as Feminist Dogma demands. Now it is to be thrown to the wolves of homosexuals, of both sexes.
Rescuing Marriage is a critical effort. It is a rescue that needs to take place but the dying body is surrounded by the wolfpack.
Chris Langan-Fox
Those who consider homosexuality as ‘normal’ would of course see nothing wrong in promoting same sex marriage. Once the door is open to a small sin, the floodgates open and there is no turning the tide. Unfortunately, the homosexual lobby is a powerful minority group with a lot of clout. Not only is it now widely accepted it is even promoted. The government will give in to the act, as they are too cowardly to stand against it.
Fay Allinson
Good on you Bill.
You are well read, done your research and you are passionate. What a powerful combination. No wonder they got hot under the collar. And then when they were all worked up, you produce living evidence of a transformed homosexual and demolished their treasured argument that one is born homosexual and can never change. The other pro-marriage groups must have seemed tame in comparison.
Keep up the good fight, you may feel lonely on the front line at times but there is a great multitude on earth praying for you and a heavenly host cheering you on.
Des Morris
Words in Passing
We were not ready.
We were distracted.
Exhausted.
Battle had taken its toll
But the Family survived.
The children played.
Malevolent Smile.
She was Ready.
Definite. Ordered.
The Blue Pencil, poised.
Poisoned.
Flooding in, the swamp re-defined the land,
The familiar, the family, the Form.
The first was Fair, our childhood’s most cherished friend:
Resolver of squabbles, distributor, sharer,
Fair cared for all:
a string of rubies around her doomed, pale and lovely neck.
It was so sad.
They said it was consumption.
All used up, in tatters, shrouded,
she just faded away.
Next to go was that sturdy, quarrelsome Equality, which surprised us all
as he was so in demand, they said,
by all,
especially some;
aye, and relied upon.
For so many years a staunch friend and fighter.
His burial dressage, a white cheesecloth, yoked neck.
Naked beneath,
his scarred skin a testament.
Parchment.
Burned Beyond Recognition.
Truth tried hard.
Was Tried. Hard.
Derided, Derrida-ed,
denied existence;
perjured,
Falsely accused,
she struggled
as she was garrotted.
Died hard.
Soon after that, Justice
suicided off a nearby cliff.
Lover’s Leap, a place then
from which many a couple had gazed out,
seeking the broader vista.
Now has Disabled Access.
Was it in despair?
Perhaps sympathy with the others.
No-one saw her silent fall.
Was she pushed?
Who could gain?
Her handmaids will argue for a time and time,
billing Innocence by the hour,
Kept in chains, for gain.
The old, wise man, Honour, lost his marbles, they said.
He languished as the village idiot for a while,
The butt of jokes and calumnies.
Taunted.
His body was found in a ditch one day.
Starvation.
They left it there.
The loss of these good companions all
has been followed now
by Liberty and Freedom,
two noble and leathery old soldiers.
They put on their dress uniforms, immaculate,
faced each other squarely and
blew each other’s brains out.
Such fine shots, both.
They left a note. Signed as written together.
They could no longer support the malignancy of the vile regime,
the note said.
They felt duty-bound to remove themselves
from further abuse,
the note said.
They took Duty with them.
An Altar was discovered in the woods
On which the charred bones of hermaphrodite Trust
Were found,
Sacrificed to Narcissus, elevated to the Pantheon.
Tears flowed down Olympus’ stony sides.
Even God cries.
After, there was Laughter, Music, Whine.
High pitched.
So much fun.
The departed were only words
After all.
Oppressive words.
Now dead.
Like Fathers.
Dead, white males.
What, three were maids?
So? Whatever, said the wenches.
No one noticed Love fall to her knees.
Her calls for help were drowned by song.
Trampled to death under dancing feet.
The last to succumb.
Four.
The surging mob, with popular will,
Tied Democracy’s hands, and,
fattened and degraded on suet foie gras
trotted it to the abattoir.
The Impostor was on the scene quickly.
Ready, Definite.
Re-defined.
By Order. She said.
Scripted.
The Princess of Lies rides
over barren lands.
Long hair her spider-silk, chain-mail
down her back.
Across her breast,
Over her steed’s flank.
Hooves on skulls.
The children gabble and cry.
No words
describe
their pain.
They were
forbidden.
Chris Langan-Fox
Hello Bill
The editorial of the 25 April edition of the Record newspaper in Perth makes some good points on this subject. Included was ‘In the 1930’s, British Anthropologist Joseph Daniel Unwin set out to prove that marriage was an irrelevant and even harmful cultural institution. In his 1935 book Sex and Culture, he chronicled the decline of 86 different cultures and said, “the evidence was such as to demand a complete revision of my personal philosophy.’ It also quotes a Perth university professor who studied a crime wave in Perth in the early 1990’s who said “family breakdown in the form of divorce and separation is the main cause of the crime wave.”
The editorial also stated “long term historical studies show that once a society broadly abandons the practice of fidelity in marriage and chastity before marriage, it has about three generations left before its culture goes into serious decline. We began this process in the early 1960’s.”
It shows that many people today, including our political leaders judging from the treatment you received, have learnt nothing and forgotten everything from history.
Bill Spence
The homosexual activists deny the facts of biology – would you say they are lying or simply delusional? Ultimately it comes from the spiritual opposition. It is unbelievable what you Bill have had to go through like trying to talk against barking dogs! I thank God for you and your friend.
ABOUT DISCRIMINATION:
An argument that can be put for the marriage legislation to remain the same is that ‘what is not the same must have a DIFFERENT NAME ‘. This is discrimination. Of course it is. Discrimination is what an intelligent human being does every second of his sentient existence unless he is in a coma or asleep. Every moment we discriminate between whether something is this or that. Is it a cat or a dog – yes each has four legs, two eyes and a nose but we discriminate and say they are different.
Discrimination is a function of our intelligence. If the union public and legal of a man and a woman shares the definition marriage with same sex partners then man woman marriage will no longer have a NAME! Man woman marriage will be nameless. Something that has no name has no existence.
The dictionary is an artifact of discrimination. It contains tens of thousands of discriminations. Man woman union has had the name marriage for thousands of years – it must have the name it has always had.. That is discrimination but that is what we intellectually live by.
Anne-Marie Modra
This is extremely sad! Scripture shows us examples of this over and over in the Old Testament, I offer a simple example for consideration.
And king….. did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and made… to sin, sacrificed their children to Baalam, put false priests in the temple departments and made the people pay for their abominations in the sight of the Lord.
When the prophet…. told them of their sins, the… said, why do you always speak evil against me, look the 100’s of prophets tell me all is well, and you speak evil against me, how long will I suffer you without throwing you in prison.
Always, those who stand with God will always be a vast minority.
There is nothing new under the sun. If you refuse to learn from history you are cursed to repeat it.
Also, well done Bill for making it out of there in one piece!!!
Neil Waldron
Hi Bill,
Great article. This week I have felt overwhelmed with discouragement and this has certainly lifted my spirits.
Keep up the excellent work.
Annette Williams
Thanks Bill. Could you tell us how you came to be at the Senate hearing?
As to the title and thrust of the article, I must confess to feeling vindicated, as the inevitable doom of Western civilisation is what I have believed for some time now. We are witnessing the death and extinction of a once Christian-based culture as it wallows in a sea of filth, perversion, and wickedness. As you remark, the mere fact that a Senate hearing on the nature and structure of marriage is even held witnesses that we are in the death throes of that civilisation. It is indeed sad, and it gives me no pleasure to make this observation, but the facts are before us. And that churches are part of this the headlong lurch to extinction is part and parcel of the same overall phenomenon. People hope for revival, but it has not come, and it will not come while: (i) there is wholesale neglect of the Bible in so many churches; (ii) there is ignorance of basic Christian doctrine and lack of concern for truth. The churches are lost in a post-modern fog, but parade this disdain for truth as a virtue! (iii) there is a lack of concern for the glory of God and instead a preoccupation with man and his feelings, needs, comforts, and well-being.
I know we have differed on this matter before; and you have charged that I hold to some kind of Finney-ite formula that if we put these things in place revival will come. That is not my position. Rather I insist that the above is a a sine qua non: if these are not in place revival cannot occur, but even if they are, it is still up to God’s sovereign pleasure to bestow it or not. Put another way, God does not reward flagrant and continuing disobedience. Like the Kingdom of Judah in its final years before the Exile, God eventually cast them out of His sight for all the evil they continually did, and for their heedless disobedience to the prophetic word (2 Chron.36:16; Jer.7:15; 52:3). If He did that to Judah, a people in covenant with God, much more shall He do even more with nations such as our own, who are in no such relationship. “The wicked will return to Sheol, even all the nations who forget God.” (Psa.9:17)
What then is your task, our task in this sad and appalling situation which you describe?
You are a watchman, as the Lord said to Ezekiel (Ezek.33:1-5). Of course you should maintain this blog, go to Senate hearings and present the Biblical position in all and every forum, and continue to sound warnings. If people disregard, argue the point, and reject your message, that is their funeral. Their blood is on their own head.
But let’s face it: we are living in a world where people have abandoned reason and common sense. God has sent upon them a strong delusion (2 Thess.2:11), and just as Jeremiah complained, where for 23 years he had preached God’s message and no-one repented (Jer.25:3-5), but he still kept going, even if at times he felt like throwing in the towel.
All that said, however, the task before us as a faithful Christian community is to learn to adjust to life without the support and encouragement of the broader community and state. Learn to live in a world where, just as in the early Church, Christians are hated, maligned, persecuted, and seen as a subversive and unwelcome minority. We live in a post-Christendom world. Our civilisation will collapse; we are witnessing its final phase, I believe. In this situation our heavenly citizenship is all the more important, rather than our Australian citizenship. And from that heaven we await the Second Coming of our Lord. Yes, I am finding that kind of prophetic observation from Christians on an increasing level, that the present state of things with a collapsing society does have prophetic significance. And these are not necessarily wild, Dispensational “prophecy buffs” either. I have seen such comments from time to time on this blog, and I happen to agree.
Murray R Adamthwaite
Thanks Murray
Some groups which put in written submissions were asked to give further oral submissions. The National Marriage Coalition, of which I was a co-founder, was one such group. So that is how I got there.
As to my piece, I wrote it mainly to say that this is a civilisational-defining moment, if I can coin a phrase. It was not my intent to say this is all inevitable. I am not a fatalist, and I believe God in his sovereignty can move as he so chooses. True, much depends on God’s people. But if God only depended on his people to get the job done, we would all be toast, and I would quit doing what I am doing right now.
If God’s people rise to the occasion, and really get serious with God, including genuine repentance and fervent prayer, things can possibly turn around. I often say things may have to get worse before they get better. That seems to be the case in the West today. But history also shows us that at some of the darkest times, God unexpectedly broke forth in revival and renewal.
So as I say, I am not a fatalist, and I am not overly pessimistic. At the moment things look very grim indeed, but I for one will keep working and praying, in the hope that God will continue to have mercy on us, and not allow all these curses to befall us.
Thus I certainly share your morose view of both church and nation – both are looking real bad at the moment. But things need not stay this way, and with God there is always hope. Simply reading the gloomy prophecies of judgment which abound in the OT, so often there is also a note of grace and hope attached to these. Even though there is some sense of inevitability (eg, the exile will take place) there is also promise of return, renewal and revival. That is what we must hang on to. Otherwise we just will all give up and resign ourselves to our fate. That we cannot do. Many folks would have also told Wilberforce and others that it is too late, and that these changes cannot happen. But we must persevere, and work until God tells us to stop working. There may be a time when he tells his people to pack their bags and head for the hills. But not yet I think.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Thanks Bill. Let me take up one point:
“Simply reading the gloomy prophecies of judgment which abound in the OT, so often there is also a note of grace and hope attached to these.”
In reply I assert that I do not “simply” read gloomy prophecies of judgment from the OT. Rather, I read them with a sense of history, the history in particular of the collapse of civilisations. For example, Rome was in a state of collapse in the early 400s, and with the sack of Rome in 410 Augustine began to write “The City of God”. In that he did indeed have a sense of inevitability about the fate of Rome. The important thing for him was that “the City of God remains”.
I am indeed a fatalist in regard to the “city of man”, and the many human “civilisations”. We must therefore at this time prepare the Church for life under new circumstances as our Western civilisation passes away. Nostalgia for the old institutions of Rome regrettably stayed with the Christian Church during the Middle Ages, long after Rome had disappeared, and with disastrous consequences. My concern is that a similar nostalgia for British or European institutions does not bedevil the Church again as the Western civilisation which replaced Rome also passes away.
“But history also shows us that at some of the darkest times, God unexpectedly broke forth in revival and renewal.”
I contend that this appeal to history is superficial. One must ask in what circumstances God sent revival, and when we do that we see that it came on the foundation of an assumed Biblical outlook and Biblical teaching. Where this was absent it either did not come or its effects quickly disappeared. The latter scenario is well illustrated in the aftermath of the Welsh revival of 1904-5. But even there the revival came to a Biblically literate community in the first place. In making these observations I fear you have in the past misinterpreted my position in this regard. My view is not that of Finney. Again, I make this observation with a sense of history.
Murray R Adamthwaite
From a pragmatic perspective, it is my observation that a fatalistic outlook and a do-nothing (because it’s all coming down anyway) attitude, seem to go together. Many individuals who hold to the belief that the end of Western civilisation is inevitable and imminent, seem to fall into a despondent resignation and acceptance of the declension now evident in the church and in the Western world. Murray seems to be a rare exception to this.
Ewan McDonald, Victoria.
Thanks Murray
Given that I nowhere in my article or comments here even mention Finney, I am not sure why you keep dragging him up. But I am quite willing to say that we can agree to disagree here – at least I am willing to do so!. A study of history can well lead to pessimism and fatalism. But a study of God can and should lead to optimism and hope. We need the perspectives of both of course, along with a careful study of Scripture. If we had only human institutions and governments to go by, then yes we are all in big trouble. But God is sovereign over all this as well, and he has charged us in various ways to be salt and light, and to see his new creation established on earth – albeit imperfectly and partially until He comes again. His Kingdom was inaugurated when he first came, and will be consummated when he comes again. Thus we are now “living between the ages,” and we must adhere to the biblical notion of the “already and not yet”. But for further on this, see here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2008/01/28/living-between-the-ages/
As I say, I will continue to do what God has called me to do, until otherwise ordered. My zeal for doing this will not be based on misplaced faith in humans and governments, but on God and his promises. As I have stated before, those who dislike what I do or think it is a waste of time are always welcome to simply stop keep coming to this site (although I am not here accusing you of this).
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Bill,
Thanks for the very insightful article.
@grahamwood
“Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.”
I’m no lawyer by any means, but I think this is poorly written, leaving open the idea that the “men and women of full age” can marry whomever (male or female) they wish, not each other…or am I being paranoid?
Anita Cooper
Thanks Bill.
We will indeed agree to differ. I rest my case. I only ask that the readers here will examine, think, ponder, and reflect on the points I have made above.
However, you ask regarding Finney, why I “keep dragging him up”. Answer, because you did, in our discussion last year on these very points. You made the charge that I held a Finneyite view on the prerequisites for revival. Go back and examine.
Murray R Adamthwaite
Thanks Murray
I was referring of course to this post and comments, not to discussions of years ago! But thanks again for your thoughts and insights.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Thank you, Bill. By all means go on. I affirmed that above in my original post. In God’s sight you are not wasting your time, but a deep pessimism about civilisation and the “kingdoms of this world” I believe is entirely Biblical. The late Martyn Lloyd-Jones was often dwelling on that theme in his expositions of Scripture.
Murray R Adamthwaite
What was the title of that editorial, Bill Spence? Is it is online?
Grant Vandervalk
Murray, it might be argued that we are experiencing the tail-end of Christendom here in the West, but many nations in the Third World are experiencing a veritable boom in Catholic and Evangelical faith. Yet, there are still many other places that have not even heard the Name of Jesus! Many of us will not resign ourselves to “adapting” to the post-Christian West, but have instead turned our eyes to the Lost in other places. While the Shepherd in the parable chased after the 100th sheep, the Father waited for his prodigal son to return.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” – Acts 1:8
I don’t believe He said to reach only Jerusalem (which I believe is symbolic of the Jewish diaspora), and then stop at Samaria (Europe, Africa, Americas, etc.). No, the western Church should help fund and where possible join the Third World Church in training disciples for Church planting and other missions.
Grant Vandervalk
Hi Bill,
Any chance that your book “Strained Relations” will be offered on Amazon.com?
John Moss
Thanks John
We are a bit slow, but we are working on it, so hopefully soonish it will be available there.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Dear Bill
I stumbled upon your name when researching a subject.
I am incredibly thankful for your intelligence. I have only managed to read a few of your articles and I am already hooked. You are a gift to this universe and I look forward to reading more of your writing.
Veronica Chaanine, Australia
Thanks Veronica
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Bill, is this enquiry session that you attended available online? If so how can one access it? Thanks
Anne-Marie Modra
Thanks Anne-Marie
It should be on Hansard soon. Will keep you posted.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Thanks Grant.
I recognise that God is doing wonderful things in “third world” countries – on the African continent, and in Asia, but I remind myself continually of two things:
(i) this is happening in the teeth of bitter persecution. Those same countries are where the Church is under brutal physical attack on a daily basis. It has always been so, but never more than right now. There are few if any places where Christianity has anything like official status.
(ii) the West has for 1500 or more years been the cradle of Christianity. Barely 100 to 150 years ago the Church rode the back of Western colonial expansion to carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Those days are gone, and we face a militant fightback from those same peoples carrying their religions to the West, while the West has forsaken its heritage. Here I believe Biblical prophecy comes in, but I leave that for another topic, should it ever arise.
Murray R Adamthwaite
Thank you Bill, and well done, for standing before these people and speaking Truth. As to why you are singled out, maybe because you not only defend Truth as other good men and women do valiantly, but you also challenge the very lies, upon which their existence is built, and accordingly they attack you for it. Those true prophets that ask the prickly questions are often at best shunned, and at worst, hated for it.
Garth Penglase
When I compare the time span of the rise and fall of communist Russia or especially the 3rd Reich, I am utterly astounded at the slow move of this current crisis, which, as someone pointed out started in the 1960’s. Considering that technology has been the main reason why the lie of “reality doesn’t matter” has been able to be perpetuated for so long, maybe that is the answer. Where as, as you pointed out, Bill, communist Russia had to abandon its antifamily policies, because the economy, dependent on functional families collapsed and could only be restored by the said restoration of the family. Technology now can provide children for otherwise childless couples, not only those to whom the fallen nature of things has denied the blessing of children, but “couples” who would naturally be unable to have children. Therefore, the obvious and natural consequences of the unnatural thrust of modern social engineering has been delayed and that delay can be easily used as a justification for further unhinged social engineering. Humanity as a whole is most likely not too different to an individual child in that when the consequences of actions are not swift and severe, a change of behaviour is likely not to occur or not as radical and complete as desired. Technology has also taken the place of many human workers, thereby allowing a vast portion of the population to be “mentally ill” and still propelling the economy so that taxes can be paid and these “mentally ill” can be supported by government welfare. Just as technology has perpetuated lies through movies like “Starwars” in which it has made the depiction of previously under old-fashioned technology undepictable concepts to make them believable so it has blurred the natural progression of actions and consequences.
On one hand, this has allowed degeneration to occur beyond what was previously imaginable, but on the other hand it also shows the grace of God, maybe for the last time in human history to those who are still alive to be able to turn and repent.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Well done, thank you on behalf of all of us. Pity these senators are not on the front line when you have to pick up all destruction of these people lives.
Charles Northcote
Bill, thank you for your work. May God bless and keep you. I wonder if your tabled submission from Friday, “Same-sex marriage: everything will change” is available online at all, or if you would post a link to it? I have been asked by my church if it’s available.
Alastair Wilson
Anita
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and in particular Article 16, was written in 1948, when marriage was understood to be between a man and a woman; and homosexuality had been, for millennia, considered a mental aberration. In 1973 the American Psychological Association (APA), in an attempt to lift criminal sanctions on homosexual behaviour, decided to de-classify the condition. The results, as described by Bill during the Senate Inquiry, are plain to see: the APA erred in its 1973 decision. Currently, in Western society there is an irrational trend towards discarding any, and every, idea which dates back more than about 50 years; regardless of its intrinsic social value. It’s out with the old and in with the new; as long as the individual feels ‘satisfied’. As a result of this attitude, those with agendas, especially the homosexual lobby, subject well-understood definitions, such as Article 16 of the UDHR, to minute scrutiny and attempt to provide meanings which were never originally intended.
I suspect that is the reason you consider the definition of marriage in Article 16 to be inadequate.
Dunstan Hartley
‘Some groups which put in written submissions were asked to give further oral submissions. The National Marriage Coalition, of which I was a co-founder, was one such group. So that is how I got there.’
I’ve been reflecting on your courageous stand in being able and willing to given further ‘oral submissions’ to the Senate committee.
I think we all owe you a debt of gratitude Bill.
God bless you abundantly for the work you did there and are doing on this and other issues.
Ian Ridgway
Many thanks indeed Ian for your kind words.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
If it’s any consolation Bill, yes you do seem to be quite a nice guy. You just must have said something that upset someone.
Terry Darmody
Very consoling indeed Terry!
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
I am just reading a biography of Bonhoeffer and you remind me a lot of him, Bill. The threat of evil is just as real as it was in his time, only different, because it is fraught with legislation and social engineering, it is in some ways more hideous and harder to fight, because it is not so “in your face” and one could pretend one could get away from it somehow. Maybe you copped more flack at the senate hearing because they suspect that you could be an enemy to their ideas on a more fundamental and varied level than just marriage, though marriage is a crucial part of the whole.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Thanks Ursula
I again speak to Bonhoeffer – and Niemoller – here:
The genetic desire of a society is to perpetuate itself so that one’s own genes survive and prosper into the forever future. Marriage being the union between man and woman is the principle multiplier of the perpetuation of the society. “Marriage” between same sex couples achieves no purpose for the continuance of the society and can only lead to “equal” rights for same sex “marrieds’ to adopt children. Whilst I am aware of children being exposed to same sex relationships being forced upon some children by their bisexual and turned homosexual natural parents no society that wishes to perpetuate itself should entertain the view that same sex couples should have rights to adopt or foster others parentless children. Homosexuals who want the right to marry as man and women have can not expect to be ‘equal’ unless given the OK to adopt children. What homosexuals want is to feel normal when there is nothing normal about homosexuality for a society that wants to successfully perpetuate itself.
James Darby
Thanks guys
Here is an expanded version of the paper I submitted to the inquiry. It offers over 50 examples of how everything changes when homosexual special rights laws are passed:
Thank you Jan Courtney for the truly marvelous link below, a true, must read, can’t delete, course of action for those want to know the reasons for the fight for marriage.”
Throughout this week the MSM have reported on everything the homosexual activists have said at these hearings, but they have reported nothing so far of what our side has said. This is of course most typical, and most appalling.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Hi Bill Thanks for your comment. I suppose its possible to sometimes feel a bit depressed about the pro “gay” stance of the MSM and their failure to report on views by the opposition. I’m sure there are several reasons for this, not least that the MSM is only interested in its own agenda and what sells. I also believe that there is possibly an unspoken collusion between the media, particularly newspapers such as the popular ‘red tops’ here in the UK not to discuss anti homosexuality in a cozy ‘you scratch my back and …. etc.
Fortunately the blogosphere continues to hum with comment, and that is where the more enlightened and intelligent debates take place as I think you agree.
For example you may not yet have seen the following excellent comment on the Anglican Mainstream site by David Holloway (Evangelical Anglican) on the “gay” marriage issue. It is an excellent contribution and I quote his opening comments: (by David Holloway, CEN)
“Clause 1 of Article 16 of the UN Declaration of Human Right says: “Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.”
Clause 3 then elaborates on the family: “The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state.”
That last clause is significant. First, it distinguishes “society” from the “state” and so immediately rules out the legitimacy of any totalitarian states (the state must itself be limited as well as putting limits on society). Secondly, it says that the state has a duty (so has society) to “protect” (and, therefore, not be destructive of) the family, which clause 1 ties to heterosexual marriage. The state, therefore, has no right to interfere with the marriage family, change it or manipulate it for its
own purposes.
This not only reflects Christian teaching but, also, universal teaching. The anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss, sums it up when he says the family everywhere is “based on a union, more or less durable, but socially approved, of two individuals of opposite sexes who establish a household and bear and raise children.” So this marriage-based family is “a social institution with a biological foundation”. And that biology is based not on government whim, but on hard “nature”. In the whole UN declaration the only one application of the word “natural” is to the family, which, therefore, has a “natural” right to protection and not a mere legal right passed by Parliament and which can be rescinded. The family is “prior” to the state.”
Well worth reading the rest.
Keep up the good work Bill, I know your readership and perhaps hundreds of ‘occasional’ readers highly value your regular sane and faithfully Biblical input.
Graham Wood, UK
The cause of this ‘suicide’ can be argued about but it has been a slow garrotting of society for the past thirty to forty years. The main agents are Feminists, although many may well see other forces behind them. For many years now, Men’s Rights Advocates have been sounding the alarm and being roundly condemned, vilified and dismissed.
The current assault on the Family and marriage is a tail-end of the years and decades of feminist assault that has inflicted most of the damage.
But the small numbers of MRAs who have been consistent in confronting the many ‘fronts’ of feminist destruction have been vilified by the calumny that they are against ‘Women’. Feminists not only ‘use’ women as their rationale and excuse, but hide behind them as they do behind children.
Whenever a law is passed that elevates ‘women’ there is a cohort of feminists on the gravy-train. Whenever a ‘department’ is established to ‘help’ women, there is an inflow of feminists scrambling for all the jobs for the girls.
Equality’ is a fine excuse so long as only feminists benefit. Women certainly don’t. Children are sacrificed on the feminist altar, whether they are extant or waiting to be born. 100,000 a year don’t even make it into the world. men are not permitted to have any say in the matter. Men are held to be the ‘root’ of all evil, to be blamed for ….anything at all.
The Discrimination Commissioners, current and past, have done nothing to stem the discrimination against Fathers.
A Family has been redefined to exclude the father and the Churches have done little or nothing to stem that redefinition. No-one has.
Marriage has become a devalued Institution, just as Feminist Dogma demands. Now it is to be thrown to the wolves of homosexuals, of both sexes.
Rescuing Marriage is a critical effort. It is a rescue that needs to take place but the dying body is surrounded by the wolfpack.
Chris Langan-Fox
Those who consider homosexuality as ‘normal’ would of course see nothing wrong in promoting same sex marriage. Once the door is open to a small sin, the floodgates open and there is no turning the tide. Unfortunately, the homosexual lobby is a powerful minority group with a lot of clout. Not only is it now widely accepted it is even promoted. The government will give in to the act, as they are too cowardly to stand against it.
Fay Allinson
Good on you Bill.
You are well read, done your research and you are passionate. What a powerful combination. No wonder they got hot under the collar. And then when they were all worked up, you produce living evidence of a transformed homosexual and demolished their treasured argument that one is born homosexual and can never change. The other pro-marriage groups must have seemed tame in comparison.
Keep up the good fight, you may feel lonely on the front line at times but there is a great multitude on earth praying for you and a heavenly host cheering you on.
Des Morris
Words in Passing
We were not ready.
We were distracted.
Exhausted.
Battle had taken its toll
But the Family survived.
The children played.
Malevolent Smile.
She was Ready.
Definite. Ordered.
The Blue Pencil, poised.
Poisoned.
Flooding in, the swamp re-defined the land,
The familiar, the family, the Form.
The first was Fair, our childhood’s most cherished friend:
Resolver of squabbles, distributor, sharer,
Fair cared for all:
a string of rubies around her doomed, pale and lovely neck.
It was so sad.
They said it was consumption.
All used up, in tatters, shrouded,
she just faded away.
Next to go was that sturdy, quarrelsome Equality, which surprised us all
as he was so in demand, they said,
by all,
especially some;
aye, and relied upon.
For so many years a staunch friend and fighter.
His burial dressage, a white cheesecloth, yoked neck.
Naked beneath,
his scarred skin a testament.
Parchment.
Burned Beyond Recognition.
Truth tried hard.
Was Tried. Hard.
Derided, Derrida-ed,
denied existence;
perjured,
Falsely accused,
she struggled
as she was garrotted.
Died hard.
Soon after that, Justice
suicided off a nearby cliff.
Lover’s Leap, a place then
from which many a couple had gazed out,
seeking the broader vista.
Now has Disabled Access.
Was it in despair?
Perhaps sympathy with the others.
No-one saw her silent fall.
Was she pushed?
Who could gain?
Her handmaids will argue for a time and time,
billing Innocence by the hour,
Kept in chains, for gain.
The old, wise man, Honour, lost his marbles, they said.
He languished as the village idiot for a while,
The butt of jokes and calumnies.
Taunted.
His body was found in a ditch one day.
Starvation.
They left it there.
The loss of these good companions all
has been followed now
by Liberty and Freedom,
two noble and leathery old soldiers.
They put on their dress uniforms, immaculate,
faced each other squarely and
blew each other’s brains out.
Such fine shots, both.
They left a note. Signed as written together.
They could no longer support the malignancy of the vile regime,
the note said.
They felt duty-bound to remove themselves
from further abuse,
the note said.
They took Duty with them.
An Altar was discovered in the woods
On which the charred bones of hermaphrodite Trust
Were found,
Sacrificed to Narcissus, elevated to the Pantheon.
Tears flowed down Olympus’ stony sides.
Even God cries.
After, there was Laughter, Music, Whine.
High pitched.
So much fun.
The departed were only words
After all.
Oppressive words.
Now dead.
Like Fathers.
Dead, white males.
What, three were maids?
So? Whatever, said the wenches.
No one noticed Love fall to her knees.
Her calls for help were drowned by song.
Trampled to death under dancing feet.
The last to succumb.
Four.
The surging mob, with popular will,
Tied Democracy’s hands, and,
fattened and degraded on suet foie gras
trotted it to the abattoir.
The Impostor was on the scene quickly.
Ready, Definite.
Re-defined.
By Order. She said.
Scripted.
The Princess of Lies rides
over barren lands.
Long hair her spider-silk, chain-mail
down her back.
Across her breast,
Over her steed’s flank.
Hooves on skulls.
The children gabble and cry.
No words
describe
their pain.
They were
forbidden.
Chris Langan-Fox
Hello Bill
The editorial of the 25 April edition of the Record newspaper in Perth makes some good points on this subject. Included was ‘In the 1930’s, British Anthropologist Joseph Daniel Unwin set out to prove that marriage was an irrelevant and even harmful cultural institution. In his 1935 book Sex and Culture, he chronicled the decline of 86 different cultures and said, “the evidence was such as to demand a complete revision of my personal philosophy.’ It also quotes a Perth university professor who studied a crime wave in Perth in the early 1990’s who said “family breakdown in the form of divorce and separation is the main cause of the crime wave.”
The editorial also stated “long term historical studies show that once a society broadly abandons the practice of fidelity in marriage and chastity before marriage, it has about three generations left before its culture goes into serious decline. We began this process in the early 1960’s.”
It shows that many people today, including our political leaders judging from the treatment you received, have learnt nothing and forgotten everything from history.
Bill Spence
The homosexual activists deny the facts of biology – would you say they are lying or simply delusional? Ultimately it comes from the spiritual opposition. It is unbelievable what you Bill have had to go through like trying to talk against barking dogs! I thank God for you and your friend.
ABOUT DISCRIMINATION:
An argument that can be put for the marriage legislation to remain the same is that ‘what is not the same must have a DIFFERENT NAME ‘. This is discrimination. Of course it is. Discrimination is what an intelligent human being does every second of his sentient existence unless he is in a coma or asleep. Every moment we discriminate between whether something is this or that. Is it a cat or a dog – yes each has four legs, two eyes and a nose but we discriminate and say they are different.
Discrimination is a function of our intelligence. If the union public and legal of a man and a woman shares the definition marriage with same sex partners then man woman marriage will no longer have a NAME! Man woman marriage will be nameless. Something that has no name has no existence.
The dictionary is an artifact of discrimination. It contains tens of thousands of discriminations. Man woman union has had the name marriage for thousands of years – it must have the name it has always had.. That is discrimination but that is what we intellectually live by.
Anne-Marie Modra
This is extremely sad! Scripture shows us examples of this over and over in the Old Testament, I offer a simple example for consideration.
And king….. did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and made… to sin, sacrificed their children to Baalam, put false priests in the temple departments and made the people pay for their abominations in the sight of the Lord.
When the prophet…. told them of their sins, the… said, why do you always speak evil against me, look the 100’s of prophets tell me all is well, and you speak evil against me, how long will I suffer you without throwing you in prison.
Always, those who stand with God will always be a vast minority.
There is nothing new under the sun. If you refuse to learn from history you are cursed to repeat it.
Also, well done Bill for making it out of there in one piece!!!
Neil Waldron
Hi Bill,
Great article. This week I have felt overwhelmed with discouragement and this has certainly lifted my spirits.
Keep up the excellent work.
Annette Williams
Thanks Bill. Could you tell us how you came to be at the Senate hearing?
As to the title and thrust of the article, I must confess to feeling vindicated, as the inevitable doom of Western civilisation is what I have believed for some time now. We are witnessing the death and extinction of a once Christian-based culture as it wallows in a sea of filth, perversion, and wickedness. As you remark, the mere fact that a Senate hearing on the nature and structure of marriage is even held witnesses that we are in the death throes of that civilisation. It is indeed sad, and it gives me no pleasure to make this observation, but the facts are before us. And that churches are part of this the headlong lurch to extinction is part and parcel of the same overall phenomenon. People hope for revival, but it has not come, and it will not come while: (i) there is wholesale neglect of the Bible in so many churches; (ii) there is ignorance of basic Christian doctrine and lack of concern for truth. The churches are lost in a post-modern fog, but parade this disdain for truth as a virtue! (iii) there is a lack of concern for the glory of God and instead a preoccupation with man and his feelings, needs, comforts, and well-being.
I know we have differed on this matter before; and you have charged that I hold to some kind of Finney-ite formula that if we put these things in place revival will come. That is not my position. Rather I insist that the above is a a sine qua non: if these are not in place revival cannot occur, but even if they are, it is still up to God’s sovereign pleasure to bestow it or not. Put another way, God does not reward flagrant and continuing disobedience. Like the Kingdom of Judah in its final years before the Exile, God eventually cast them out of His sight for all the evil they continually did, and for their heedless disobedience to the prophetic word (2 Chron.36:16; Jer.7:15; 52:3). If He did that to Judah, a people in covenant with God, much more shall He do even more with nations such as our own, who are in no such relationship. “The wicked will return to Sheol, even all the nations who forget God.” (Psa.9:17)
What then is your task, our task in this sad and appalling situation which you describe?
You are a watchman, as the Lord said to Ezekiel (Ezek.33:1-5). Of course you should maintain this blog, go to Senate hearings and present the Biblical position in all and every forum, and continue to sound warnings. If people disregard, argue the point, and reject your message, that is their funeral. Their blood is on their own head.
But let’s face it: we are living in a world where people have abandoned reason and common sense. God has sent upon them a strong delusion (2 Thess.2:11), and just as Jeremiah complained, where for 23 years he had preached God’s message and no-one repented (Jer.25:3-5), but he still kept going, even if at times he felt like throwing in the towel.
All that said, however, the task before us as a faithful Christian community is to learn to adjust to life without the support and encouragement of the broader community and state. Learn to live in a world where, just as in the early Church, Christians are hated, maligned, persecuted, and seen as a subversive and unwelcome minority. We live in a post-Christendom world. Our civilisation will collapse; we are witnessing its final phase, I believe. In this situation our heavenly citizenship is all the more important, rather than our Australian citizenship. And from that heaven we await the Second Coming of our Lord. Yes, I am finding that kind of prophetic observation from Christians on an increasing level, that the present state of things with a collapsing society does have prophetic significance. And these are not necessarily wild, Dispensational “prophecy buffs” either. I have seen such comments from time to time on this blog, and I happen to agree.
Murray R Adamthwaite
Thanks Murray
Some groups which put in written submissions were asked to give further oral submissions. The National Marriage Coalition, of which I was a co-founder, was one such group. So that is how I got there.
As to my piece, I wrote it mainly to say that this is a civilisational-defining moment, if I can coin a phrase. It was not my intent to say this is all inevitable. I am not a fatalist, and I believe God in his sovereignty can move as he so chooses. True, much depends on God’s people. But if God only depended on his people to get the job done, we would all be toast, and I would quit doing what I am doing right now.
If God’s people rise to the occasion, and really get serious with God, including genuine repentance and fervent prayer, things can possibly turn around. I often say things may have to get worse before they get better. That seems to be the case in the West today. But history also shows us that at some of the darkest times, God unexpectedly broke forth in revival and renewal.
So as I say, I am not a fatalist, and I am not overly pessimistic. At the moment things look very grim indeed, but I for one will keep working and praying, in the hope that God will continue to have mercy on us, and not allow all these curses to befall us.
Thus I certainly share your morose view of both church and nation – both are looking real bad at the moment. But things need not stay this way, and with God there is always hope. Simply reading the gloomy prophecies of judgment which abound in the OT, so often there is also a note of grace and hope attached to these. Even though there is some sense of inevitability (eg, the exile will take place) there is also promise of return, renewal and revival. That is what we must hang on to. Otherwise we just will all give up and resign ourselves to our fate. That we cannot do. Many folks would have also told Wilberforce and others that it is too late, and that these changes cannot happen. But we must persevere, and work until God tells us to stop working. There may be a time when he tells his people to pack their bags and head for the hills. But not yet I think.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Thanks Bill. Let me take up one point:
“Simply reading the gloomy prophecies of judgment which abound in the OT, so often there is also a note of grace and hope attached to these.”
In reply I assert that I do not “simply” read gloomy prophecies of judgment from the OT. Rather, I read them with a sense of history, the history in particular of the collapse of civilisations. For example, Rome was in a state of collapse in the early 400s, and with the sack of Rome in 410 Augustine began to write “The City of God”. In that he did indeed have a sense of inevitability about the fate of Rome. The important thing for him was that “the City of God remains”.
I am indeed a fatalist in regard to the “city of man”, and the many human “civilisations”. We must therefore at this time prepare the Church for life under new circumstances as our Western civilisation passes away. Nostalgia for the old institutions of Rome regrettably stayed with the Christian Church during the Middle Ages, long after Rome had disappeared, and with disastrous consequences. My concern is that a similar nostalgia for British or European institutions does not bedevil the Church again as the Western civilisation which replaced Rome also passes away.
“But history also shows us that at some of the darkest times, God unexpectedly broke forth in revival and renewal.”
I contend that this appeal to history is superficial. One must ask in what circumstances God sent revival, and when we do that we see that it came on the foundation of an assumed Biblical outlook and Biblical teaching. Where this was absent it either did not come or its effects quickly disappeared. The latter scenario is well illustrated in the aftermath of the Welsh revival of 1904-5. But even there the revival came to a Biblically literate community in the first place. In making these observations I fear you have in the past misinterpreted my position in this regard. My view is not that of Finney. Again, I make this observation with a sense of history.
Murray R Adamthwaite
From a pragmatic perspective, it is my observation that a fatalistic outlook and a do-nothing (because it’s all coming down anyway) attitude, seem to go together. Many individuals who hold to the belief that the end of Western civilisation is inevitable and imminent, seem to fall into a despondent resignation and acceptance of the declension now evident in the church and in the Western world. Murray seems to be a rare exception to this.
Ewan McDonald, Victoria.
Thanks Murray
Given that I nowhere in my article or comments here even mention Finney, I am not sure why you keep dragging him up. But I am quite willing to say that we can agree to disagree here – at least I am willing to do so!. A study of history can well lead to pessimism and fatalism. But a study of God can and should lead to optimism and hope. We need the perspectives of both of course, along with a careful study of Scripture. If we had only human institutions and governments to go by, then yes we are all in big trouble. But God is sovereign over all this as well, and he has charged us in various ways to be salt and light, and to see his new creation established on earth – albeit imperfectly and partially until He comes again. His Kingdom was inaugurated when he first came, and will be consummated when he comes again. Thus we are now “living between the ages,” and we must adhere to the biblical notion of the “already and not yet”. But for further on this, see here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2008/01/28/living-between-the-ages/
And here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2010/05/07/v-e-day-and-the-end-of-the-world/
As I say, I will continue to do what God has called me to do, until otherwise ordered. My zeal for doing this will not be based on misplaced faith in humans and governments, but on God and his promises. As I have stated before, those who dislike what I do or think it is a waste of time are always welcome to simply stop keep coming to this site (although I am not here accusing you of this).
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Bill,
Thanks for the very insightful article.
@grahamwood
“Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.”
I’m no lawyer by any means, but I think this is poorly written, leaving open the idea that the “men and women of full age” can marry whomever (male or female) they wish, not each other…or am I being paranoid?
Anita Cooper
Thanks Bill.
We will indeed agree to differ. I rest my case. I only ask that the readers here will examine, think, ponder, and reflect on the points I have made above.
However, you ask regarding Finney, why I “keep dragging him up”. Answer, because you did, in our discussion last year on these very points. You made the charge that I held a Finneyite view on the prerequisites for revival. Go back and examine.
Murray R Adamthwaite
Thanks Murray
I was referring of course to this post and comments, not to discussions of years ago! But thanks again for your thoughts and insights.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Thank you, Bill. By all means go on. I affirmed that above in my original post. In God’s sight you are not wasting your time, but a deep pessimism about civilisation and the “kingdoms of this world” I believe is entirely Biblical. The late Martyn Lloyd-Jones was often dwelling on that theme in his expositions of Scripture.
Murray R Adamthwaite
What was the title of that editorial, Bill Spence? Is it is online?
Grant Vandervalk
Murray, it might be argued that we are experiencing the tail-end of Christendom here in the West, but many nations in the Third World are experiencing a veritable boom in Catholic and Evangelical faith. Yet, there are still many other places that have not even heard the Name of Jesus! Many of us will not resign ourselves to “adapting” to the post-Christian West, but have instead turned our eyes to the Lost in other places. While the Shepherd in the parable chased after the 100th sheep, the Father waited for his prodigal son to return.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” – Acts 1:8
I don’t believe He said to reach only Jerusalem (which I believe is symbolic of the Jewish diaspora), and then stop at Samaria (Europe, Africa, Americas, etc.). No, the western Church should help fund and where possible join the Third World Church in training disciples for Church planting and other missions.
Grant Vandervalk
Hi Bill,
Any chance that your book “Strained Relations” will be offered on Amazon.com?
John Moss
Thanks John
We are a bit slow, but we are working on it, so hopefully soonish it will be available there.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Dear Bill
I stumbled upon your name when researching a subject.
I am incredibly thankful for your intelligence. I have only managed to read a few of your articles and I am already hooked. You are a gift to this universe and I look forward to reading more of your writing.
Veronica Chaanine, Australia
Thanks Veronica
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Bill, is this enquiry session that you attended available online? If so how can one access it? Thanks
Anne-Marie Modra
Thanks Anne-Marie
It should be on Hansard soon. Will keep you posted.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Thanks Grant.
I recognise that God is doing wonderful things in “third world” countries – on the African continent, and in Asia, but I remind myself continually of two things:
(i) this is happening in the teeth of bitter persecution. Those same countries are where the Church is under brutal physical attack on a daily basis. It has always been so, but never more than right now. There are few if any places where Christianity has anything like official status.
(ii) the West has for 1500 or more years been the cradle of Christianity. Barely 100 to 150 years ago the Church rode the back of Western colonial expansion to carry the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Those days are gone, and we face a militant fightback from those same peoples carrying their religions to the West, while the West has forsaken its heritage. Here I believe Biblical prophecy comes in, but I leave that for another topic, should it ever arise.
Murray R Adamthwaite
Thank you Bill, and well done, for standing before these people and speaking Truth. As to why you are singled out, maybe because you not only defend Truth as other good men and women do valiantly, but you also challenge the very lies, upon which their existence is built, and accordingly they attack you for it. Those true prophets that ask the prickly questions are often at best shunned, and at worst, hated for it.
Garth Penglase
When I compare the time span of the rise and fall of communist Russia or especially the 3rd Reich, I am utterly astounded at the slow move of this current crisis, which, as someone pointed out started in the 1960’s. Considering that technology has been the main reason why the lie of “reality doesn’t matter” has been able to be perpetuated for so long, maybe that is the answer. Where as, as you pointed out, Bill, communist Russia had to abandon its antifamily policies, because the economy, dependent on functional families collapsed and could only be restored by the said restoration of the family. Technology now can provide children for otherwise childless couples, not only those to whom the fallen nature of things has denied the blessing of children, but “couples” who would naturally be unable to have children. Therefore, the obvious and natural consequences of the unnatural thrust of modern social engineering has been delayed and that delay can be easily used as a justification for further unhinged social engineering. Humanity as a whole is most likely not too different to an individual child in that when the consequences of actions are not swift and severe, a change of behaviour is likely not to occur or not as radical and complete as desired. Technology has also taken the place of many human workers, thereby allowing a vast portion of the population to be “mentally ill” and still propelling the economy so that taxes can be paid and these “mentally ill” can be supported by government welfare. Just as technology has perpetuated lies through movies like “Starwars” in which it has made the depiction of previously under old-fashioned technology undepictable concepts to make them believable so it has blurred the natural progression of actions and consequences.
On one hand, this has allowed degeneration to occur beyond what was previously imaginable, but on the other hand it also shows the grace of God, maybe for the last time in human history to those who are still alive to be able to turn and repent.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Well done, thank you on behalf of all of us. Pity these senators are not on the front line when you have to pick up all destruction of these people lives.
Charles Northcote
Bill, thank you for your work. May God bless and keep you. I wonder if your tabled submission from Friday, “Same-sex marriage: everything will change” is available online at all, or if you would post a link to it? I have been asked by my church if it’s available.
Alastair Wilson
Anita
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and in particular Article 16, was written in 1948, when marriage was understood to be between a man and a woman; and homosexuality had been, for millennia, considered a mental aberration. In 1973 the American Psychological Association (APA), in an attempt to lift criminal sanctions on homosexual behaviour, decided to de-classify the condition. The results, as described by Bill during the Senate Inquiry, are plain to see: the APA erred in its 1973 decision. Currently, in Western society there is an irrational trend towards discarding any, and every, idea which dates back more than about 50 years; regardless of its intrinsic social value. It’s out with the old and in with the new; as long as the individual feels ‘satisfied’. As a result of this attitude, those with agendas, especially the homosexual lobby, subject well-understood definitions, such as Article 16 of the UDHR, to minute scrutiny and attempt to provide meanings which were never originally intended.
I suspect that is the reason you consider the definition of marriage in Article 16 to be inadequate.
Dunstan Hartley
Many thanks Alastair
Yes perhaps I will very soon post it as an article. And the new edition of my book will also feature it. In the meantime older and partial versions of it have already appeared on my site, such as:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/02/07/war-has-been-declared/
And:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/02/09/let%E2%80%99s-con-those-gullible-christians/
And:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2010/12/10/same-sex-marriage-who-says-nothing-will-change/
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
‘Some groups which put in written submissions were asked to give further oral submissions. The National Marriage Coalition, of which I was a co-founder, was one such group. So that is how I got there.’
I’ve been reflecting on your courageous stand in being able and willing to given further ‘oral submissions’ to the Senate committee.
I think we all owe you a debt of gratitude Bill.
God bless you abundantly for the work you did there and are doing on this and other issues.
Ian Ridgway
Many thanks indeed Ian for your kind words.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
If it’s any consolation Bill, yes you do seem to be quite a nice guy. You just must have said something that upset someone.
Terry Darmody
Very consoling indeed Terry!
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
I am just reading a biography of Bonhoeffer and you remind me a lot of him, Bill. The threat of evil is just as real as it was in his time, only different, because it is fraught with legislation and social engineering, it is in some ways more hideous and harder to fight, because it is not so “in your face” and one could pretend one could get away from it somehow. Maybe you copped more flack at the senate hearing because they suspect that you could be an enemy to their ideas on a more fundamental and varied level than just marriage, though marriage is a crucial part of the whole.
Many blessings
Ursula Bennett
Thanks Ursula
I again speak to Bonhoeffer – and Niemoller – here:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/05/10/no-more-cop-outs-we-must-take-a-stand/
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
The genetic desire of a society is to perpetuate itself so that one’s own genes survive and prosper into the forever future. Marriage being the union between man and woman is the principle multiplier of the perpetuation of the society. “Marriage” between same sex couples achieves no purpose for the continuance of the society and can only lead to “equal” rights for same sex “marrieds’ to adopt children. Whilst I am aware of children being exposed to same sex relationships being forced upon some children by their bisexual and turned homosexual natural parents no society that wishes to perpetuate itself should entertain the view that same sex couples should have rights to adopt or foster others parentless children. Homosexuals who want the right to marry as man and women have can not expect to be ‘equal’ unless given the OK to adopt children. What homosexuals want is to feel normal when there is nothing normal about homosexuality for a society that wants to successfully perpetuate itself.
James Darby
Thanks guys
Here is an expanded version of the paper I submitted to the inquiry. It offers over 50 examples of how everything changes when homosexual special rights laws are passed:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/05/15/homosexual-marriage-everything-will-change/
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
(copy from my FB) “DEFENDING THE SELF DESTRUCTION
Thank you Jan Courtney for the truly marvelous link below, a true, must read, can’t delete, course of action for those want to know the reasons for the fight for marriage.”
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/05/04/witnessing-social-suicide/
James Darby