Hope in the Culture Wars

Admittedly things are looking rather grim at the moment. All over the West it seems like evil, the devil, insanity, runaway political correctness, sexual perversion, and moral anarchy reign. Things are getting darker and darker. Those who care about all this are working and praying to turn things around, but their numbers are small and seem to be dwindling.

Sometimes we can be so engaged in all these battles that we need a quick reminder that God is certainly still at work, and we need to step back for a moment and catch sight of the bigger spiritual picture. A great culture warrior and prayer warrior called me this morning to excitedly tell me about how amazing things have been lately in Australia.

hope 2He reminded me again of how much can be achieved with a lot of hard work and a lot of prayer. Consider the whole controversy over the so-called Safe Schools Coalition. It has been discussed all over the place of late, and even non-Christians and non-conservatives are raising alarm bells about it.

Newspapers like the Australian seem to be running daily stories on it, sometimes even front-page stories. Concerning all this, Warwick Marsh just released this statement:

Something has changed. Many are waking up to the dangers of the Safe Schools Coalition Australia program to our children.
Here is a sampling of recent events:
13 Feb -The Weekend Australian, in a half-page article entitled ‘Sexual Politics in the Classroom’, pointed to the strong possibility that Safe Schools Coalition Australia is infused with Marxist ideals.
17 Feb – An open letter to the Prime Minister, written by Family Voice Australia and signed by 14,100 Australians, was handed to Malcolm Turnbull as well as a presentation pack, which explains that the Safe Schools Coalition Australia program is “primarily about politics and ideology, not bullying.”
17 Feb – Bill Muehlenberg of CultureWatch wrote “the Safe Schools Coalition has nothing to do with bullying as is commonly understood. Instead it has everything to do with a massive social engineering campaign to force-feed homosexuality into every Australian school and onto every Australian child.”
22 Feb – The Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce voiced his opposition to the Safe Schools Coalition Australia program that teaches young children about sexual orientation which is “completely at odds with what the mums and dads who send their kids to school want.”
23 Feb – Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi tabled a quick petition, signed by 9,500 concerned Australians, to withdraw funding for Safe Schools Coalition Australia program saying “we’ve had enough of wasteful government spending, social engineering agendas and the insidious doctrine of political correctness.”
23 Feb – Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull ordered a snap review into the Safe Schools Coalition Australia program. The review is to be led by University of Western Australia professors Bill Louden and Donna Cross who will focus on whether the program is age-appropriate, educationally sound and aligned to the national curriculum. Their report is due to be submitted to Education Minister Simon Birmingham by 11 March 2016.
24 Feb – Labor Senator Joe Bullock said “I think it is a terrible program” and called for the program to be suspended while the review was being conducted.
That same day Federal Nationals MP, George Christensen, rose in the House of Reps as a voice for thousands of parents who have been shocked by the Safe Schools Coalition Australia program. In his speech he exposed some of the material that the Safe Schools Coalition Australia program is allowing school students to access. These include pornographic websites, sex shops, adult online communities, and sex clubs. He said if parents knew what their children had access to they would probably not let them go to school or call the police!

The ACL and other groups have also been standing strong here. And I might add that even today the Australian is still running with this story, and has another piece critical of the SSC: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/left-falls-into-queer-extremists-trap-with-safe-schools-program/news-story/4cb53ec9a0779aba50e30275b83ce01a

Consider also the current inquiries taking place on pornography at both state and federal levels. I and others have been fighting the porn plague for decades now, and for our efforts we normally got nothing but derision, mockery, hate and abuse. But now we even have secular academics holding conferences on the harms of porn, and federal inquiries – at least on the harm done to children.

As I have said in my submissions, porn harms everyone, not just children, but this is a good start. The deadline for the federal inquiry is March 10. Please put in a submission now, no matter how short. Details are here: http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/Online_access_to_porn/Terms_of_Reference

One final item: last night WA Labor Senator Joe Bullock resigned from the party because of their pro-homosexual marriage stance. I salute Joe for standing on principle instead of just pushing the immoral Labor agenda. As I said last night, “sometimes honourable men need to get into politics – sometimes they need to get out”.

The truth is, in all these battles, there has been a lot of work and a lot of prayer involved. It can get overwhelming at times, and it is so easy to get discouraged. But God is at work. And because God is working, we must work. And we must pray.

And don’t worry about the fact that in all these battles the other side has all the advantages: money, power, government support, the media, academia – everything seems to be on their side, while we just have a handful of volunteers with little or no money, government support, and so on.

We are always outnumbered, outgunned, and out-spent in these battles. But as Christians, we know that God plus one is a majority. And we also know that God prefers to work this way: he uses minorities to get the job done. He uses a godly remnant to achieve his purposes.

Israel of old had to always be reminded of this. Recall in Judges 7 how God had to get Gideon to whittle his forces down from 32,000 fighting men to just 300 to capture Midian. The reason for this is clearly spelled out in Judges 7:2: “The Lord said to Gideon, ‘You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, “My own strength has saved me”.’”

Even in the culture wars the glory of God must always be preeminent. So even though we get involved with few co-workers, limited resources, and little external support, we keep on fighting. When some victories take place, then God gets the glory, not us – and that is the way it always should be.

So hang in there friends. Now is not the time to despair or give up. Now is the time to double our efforts; to pray more, to work more and to care more. We will not win every battle, but we can win some, by the grace of God. So please keep on keeping on.

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11 Replies to “Hope in the Culture Wars”

  1. Good news.

    Lyle Shelton on Q and A single handedly intelligently and calmly refuted the hysterical gay lobby panelists and made them look foolish without even trying.

    It’s interesting how they say that “most of Australia” wants the Safe Schools programme and gay marriage yet panic at the suggestion of a plebiscite which would “prove their point”. Or not.

  2. Hi Bill, there’s another great article at the Oz called Porn ‘turning kids into Predators’. It’s behind the paywall but well worth a read as it deals with child-on-child sexual abuse. The great Freda Briggs is referenced extensively. It’s another article by Natasha Bita who started the ball rolling with the Safe Schools articles.

  3. Hi Bill, most of the articles you mention do have a lot of posters calling out the SSC Program for what it is: cultural Marxism that should be kept away from our kids. Thank goodness there’s one newspaper with a common sense bent!

    It’s good to see many people see through the Gay Agenda and call it out for what it is.

    Thanks for the link for the article I mention. Just a bit awkward to do the hyper linking on my phone.

  4. Dear Bill

    I can’t tell you what an encouragement this piece is to me. “So hang in their friends. Now is not the time to despair or give up. Now is the time to double our efforts; to pray more, to work more and to care more. We will not win every battle, but we can win some, by the grace of God. So please keep on keeping on.”

    Yesterday I spent some time looking at the muslim ‘fun game’ of gang rape which is endemic in Egypt and other middle eastern states and has now become a practice in Germany, Sweden and Norway. It is SO EVIL one gets an insight into these men’s darkened, cruel and reprobate minds and laments for where they are spiritually ! We know that the Rape of Europa has begun. And yet … here in England were we are fighting to get a OUT vote on the European Referendum, many, Christians and non Christians together are working and ARE seeing the spiritual issues clearly. It is so heartening, to see truth rising out of the darkness. Yes Bill you are right, the LORD is on his throne and all each one of us has to do is do his or her part very,very faithfully.

    God bless
    Naomi

  5. Yes, sometimes everything seems to be on their side — except the truth!

  6. It is my understanding that the reviewers of the Safe Schools Coalition’s program may well find that it has much in common with the part of the the Australian Curriculum’s Health and Physical Education curriculum which deals with issues related to sexual relationships and individual psychological resilience: I understand The Australian Research Centre In Sex, Health and Society at La Trobe University was a significant contributor to the Sexual Health component of the Australian Curriculum and produced sexual health educational resources for national use. I understand the Research Centre is “positively engaged” with “gender- and sexuality-diverse” sectors of the Australian population.

    Advocates of a biblical approach to human physical intimacies and the “sex-within-monogamous, heterosexual-marriage” may expect some opposition from the academic protagonists of the Rainbow Flag vision for the next wave of the Sexual Revolution.

    By the way, Marxism was not the only modern secular political philosophy sympathetic to deconstruction of the created status quo with regard to human sexual conduct: Utilitarian, Jeremy Bentham wrote an essay which was irenic in its outlook towards consenting, physically intimate gay relationships. Bentham was a significant influence on the thinking of classic Liberal philosopher, John Stuart Mill, whose work placed higher value on individual liberty than did the collectivist philosophies of Communism and democratic socialism.

  7. Also a great article by Merv Bendle in “Quadrant Online” titled “Dumb, Sodomy and the Cash”.

  8. Your’e right Bill, these are dark days, all of the examples you raise here are hard hitting with the evil stuff that is out there.
    I was totally flabbergasted how Tony Jones conducted the awfully stacked, as usual, debate on the subject of the safe schools program in Monday night’s Q & A. Also how they placed the Ceo of ACL directly between these awful b……..s. The audience was at least 98% extremely left. Only one or two conservative voices could be heard.
    Bill Heggers Bridgetown W.A.

  9. And don’t forget the current 40 days of prayer and fasting. Watching the 40 Stories of what God has been doing for Indigenous Australians is awesome!

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