In the culture wars the other side is proactive, hyper-active and ever-active, while our side is usually just asleep. The old joke about complacency applies especially to most of the church in the West: “Do you think we are too ignorant and too apathetic? I don’t know and I don’t care.”
The near universal ignorance of what is happening in the culture wars, and the almost complete indifference by most churches and church leaders has been appalling to witness. Despite decades of warnings from some of us, so much of the church has simply snoozed through its own demolition.
The activists have always had the churches in their sights, but hardly any Christian leaders had known about this or wanted to know about this. They preferred to live in dreamland, ignore the warnings, and denounce the watchmen on the wall seeking to wake a lethargic and lazy church.
The handwriting had always been on the wall, and anyone with a bit of discernment and awareness should have been able to see what was heading down the pipeline. Anyone even halfway following the homosexual lobby would have known what was coming our way.
Indeed, for many years I religiously read the homosexual press to see what they were up to and what they were planning. I shared my findings on a regular basis, but mainly to an uninterested and clueless audience. And I read their books and manifestos as well.
So many can be mentioned, but let me highlight just two of them. Way back in 1987 a very interesting and revealing article by Marshall Kirk and Erastes Pill appeared in the homosexual press entitled “The Overhauling of Straight America”.
The article outlined a clear and cogent strategy by which homosexuals could best implement their goals. It included the following elements: desensitisation; portraying homosexuals as victims, not as aggressive challengers; giving the protectors a just cause; and making the victimisers look bad.
The activists had so much more to share along these lines, so that article was developed into a full-length book. In 1989 Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen (the real name of Erastes Pill) released the alarming volume, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Hatred and Fear of Homosexuals in the 90s.
That is the sort of book every Christian leader in the West should have owned, read, and responded to. But 99 per cent would likely never have even heard of it. I certainly have a well-worn copy of the book, with plenty of yellow highlighting. I have just pulled it off my shelves once again.
It is an eye-opening book, and it explains so much of what has been going on over the past three decades. The truth is, the activists had a plan, they had vision, they had determination, and they had commitment to achieving their aims. They thought long and hard about how they would revolutionise the West, and all their planning, hard work and mobilisation has paid off big time.
In a very short period of time a minority lifestyle universally frowned upon became the most powerful and influential lobby force in recent history. The “love that dare not speak its name” became the flavour of the month – and of the past few decades.
It is not just American homosexuals who have been so very active here. One Australian activist who I quoted in my 2011 book, Strained Relations, boasted about how far the homosexual lobby had come in such a short period of time. And he was saying all this back in 2000! As I wrote then:
Indeed, the extent to which the homosexual agenda is being implemented is nicely laid out in a recent book by Australian homosexual activist Graham Willett. In his book Living Out Loud he presents a history of homosexual activism in Australia. His book shows how successful the homosexual lobby has been in achieving its ends. Indeed, the author expresses amazement at how quickly and easily its ends have been attained.
A few representative quotes set the tone. He begins his book by noting “how very different” attitudes are today compared to not so very long ago: “Anti-gay ideas still exist in society, of course, but a basic liberal tolerance is the dominant mood. . . . It is a startling indication of just how far we have come that the moral crusaders’ demands are widely regarded as silly and unfair.”
His concluding chapter offers more of the same: “Never have homosexuality, the gay and lesbian community and their issues been more visible or more seriously dealt with by the mainstream, or more entrenched in social and political life. . . . One of the great changes of the past 40 years has been the growing visibility of lesbians and gay men in Australian society. . . . This visibility is reinforced by the role of the mainstream media.”
“The triumph of liberal tolerance is now more or less complete.” Indeed, so successful has the homosexual offensive been that Willett argues that the real problem for the homosexual community may be internal fragmentation due to its own diversity and acceptance.
Yep, they are seeing all their efforts pay off with remarkable success. While they planned, worked and fomented their sexual revolution, most of the church in particular and the West in general just stayed in its comatose condition, blissfully unaware or unconcerned about this remarkable social, cultural, sexual and moral revolution.
And so today in Australia we now look back to just two days ago and the passage of fake marriage. I have already penned two articles on Black Thursday:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2017/12/07/australias-day-infamy/
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2017/12/08/day-day-infamy/
So which way forward? First, let me say a massive thankyou to all who did work and pray and get involved in the past few months. You are champions. Your efforts were not in vain, and I salute each and every one of you who did commit to this battle.
But much more should have been done, and of course it should have been done much earlier. A good part of the reason for why we lost is because we were never really engaged in the first place. We never took this threat seriously, and so we basically lost by default.
And now we will have to pay the price. It will not be pretty. It is already getting very ugly out there, and the darkness will continue to get worse. Yes, many believers are now becoming aware and are getting concerned. They see what a big loss this has been, and they are wanting to know what they can do.
Thus after the passage of this fake marriage bill I have had some Christians asking me if we can get some petitions going, etc. While I am glad some believers are concerned about this and want to take some action, it is a bit late now for this.
The time for petitions and everything else to resist the war on family, faith and freedom was the last 20 to 30 years or so. We should have been fully engaged for decades now. But sadly far too many churches and Christians were asleep at the wheel.
And when we tried to warn them and alert them to the war that had been declared against marriage and family and Christianity, most either ignored us or claimed we were overreacting and fear-mongering. They said we were being judgmental and unloving and unChristlike.
They said Christians should stay out of politics and just be nice to people. Yeah, that’s done a lot of good. We can see where that advice has gotten us. Make no mistake, however: I am not saying it is too late and we can now do nothing. Quite to the contrary, we keep working, we keep praying, and we keep getting involved.
Our job is now so much harder. The other side has it all: they have the mainstream media, the finances, the resources, the governments, the universities, the judiciary, popular culture, and so on. We have none of that. But we do have something they do not have.
We have God on our side. We have truth. We have that which is right. That means we will ultimately win. Sure, there will be major losses along the way, but we know how all this will finally play out. So we do not despair, we do not surrender, we do not head to the hills. Instead, we stay, we stand, and we fight.
The fake marriage bill is not the end of all things. It is just the beginning of the next step in this war. We keep on keeping on, and one day we will hear those words from our Lord, “Well done good and faithful servant”. So we press on.
Sure, we must learn the lessons of history here. We must be aware of all the mistakes we made in the past, and learn from them. The other side won this battle because they were committed, dedicated and active. They had a plan and they worked toward it. We were asleep, apathetic and unaware.
That has to change. We now must step up to the plate. We all must enlist in the cultural and spiritual army that needs to be raised up to engage in the next phase of the campaign. Who will join me? Who will say, “Here I am Lord, send me”?
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