This is my third article on this topic in as many days. Why? Simple: the more I write on this, the more I encounter radicals who are hellbent on destroying Christian schools. But there is another reason sadly: so many Christians for one reason or another are utterly clueless, uninformed, ignorant or incapable of seeing just what is at stake here.
The simple truth is, the very concept of Christian education is fully at risk. But let me backtrack a bit. Here is a sad but certain reality: Far too many Christians have been conceding far too much ground to homosexual activists for far too long now. They naively think that if we keep giving in, the other side will eventually be happy and go away. Um, they are dreaming.
In other words, Christians need to snap out of their slumber and wake up to the real world. They need to start getting a bit savvy and discerning. There is nothing virtuous or Christlike about ignorance here. Indeed, our refusal to learn about what is going on is something we are all fully culpable for.
But back to the topic at hand. We will see in coming days what exactly the new Morrison legislation will entail in terms of forcing Christians schools to not be able to expel students on the basis of their sexuality. But I am convinced that nothing good can come of any of it, no matter how it is worded and what is included.
Indeed, things keep getting worse, with so many Liberals not only jumping on this anti-Christian bandwagon, but now demanding homosexual teachers also be included. As one recent media report noted:
The Liberal candidate in the crucial Wentworth byelection, Dave Sharma, says he “absolutely” opposes continuing to allow private schools to fire gay, lesbian or transgender teachers and has made this clear to Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Treasurer and deputy Liberal leader Josh Frydenberg has also put pressure on the Prime Minister over the issue, saying in a radio interview on Monday: “I don’t think these laws are right.” Days after flagging he will scrap exemptions that currently allow religious schools to expel gay students, Mr Morrison is now being urged to rip up laws that allow such schools to discriminate against teachers on the basis of sexuality.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/dave-sharma-tells-scott-morrison-to-strip-schools-of-their-right-to-fire-gay-teachers-20181015-p509qb.html
All this is a fundamental attack on the right of Christians schools to be able to determine who comes in and who remains as students – and possibly teachers – and to enforce biblical morality and practice. But since Morrison seems hell-bent (word used advisedly) to introduce this legislation, and since so many clueless Christians are fully supporting it, let’s look at how it will play out.
To claim this will be a once off with no further moves in that direction is the stuff of fantasy. Even if it is the most bland and seemingly innocuous bill ever, it will simply push the door open further, and soon enough more radical politicians will kick the door down altogether.
Anyone who has followed the radical homosexual lobby for the past few decades knows exactly how this will pan out. It will NOT stop there. We all know how they have been winning over and over again. It is piecemeal, but it is relentless. And they keep getting their way as clueless politicians and Christians cede ever more ground.
So it does not matter a hill of beans if Morrison plans to take this no further. Is he Prime Minister for life? Even if he too is not stabbed in the back and replaced by another Liberal leader, soon enough Labor will be back in power, and we KNOW full well that they will not settle for this, but will expand it exponentially.
Don’t believe me? Then just read what the Labor leader has plainly said he intends to do:
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten will move to remove laws that allow religious schools to sack a teacher or staff member on the basis of their sexuality, gender identity, or relationship status. The major parties last week agreed to amend legislation that allowed for the discrimination of LGBT students, but the Liberal Party has stopped short on confirming if the protection would also be granted to teachers. Mr Shorten says Labor believes the laws are no longer appropriate.
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_5848739027001
There you go folks. All these Christians foolishly supporting Morrison, saying it is no big deal, and will only apply to students – which is bad enough actually – have no clue as to how this WILL proceed. Labor and the Greens, the media, half of our spineless Liberals, and plenty of compromised Christians will all insist that yes, this MUST apply to staff and teachers as well.
If we are not aware of the slippery slope in action by now, then we will never get it. This has been going on for years. One compromise after another. One act of capitulation after another. One concession after another. On and on it goes – and it never ends.
The endgame is the complete neutralisation of all Christian schools and all Christian education, along with the complete neutralisation of all Christian churches. Things are all going nicely according to plan. What the activists told us they intended to do decades ago is all panning out.
And note that Morrison and Shorten are both on the same page: both are using the weasel word “sexuality” as a catch all. Morrison said no school can dump any student because of sexuality, and all that Shorten has done is spell this out in clear detail: “on the basis of their sexuality, gender identity, or relationship status”. Well, that pretty much covers the lot of it.
Thus any staff or student who is into homosexuality, adultery, cross-dressing, fetishes, pornography, fornication, polyamory, S&M, and a million other sexual sins, will ALL be allowed to stay, and Christian schools will NOT be allowed to do anything about it.
Compromised and carnal Christian schools will of course have no problem with this at all. It will be business as usual. But faithful and true biblical schools firmly committed to God and his word will face the wrath of the state, and most likely be prosecuted and eventually shut down. That is the endgame here folks.
That is what is up for grabs here. Yet we have Christian politicians and Christian leaders all singing from the same song sheet; this will be OK, this will not impact us, we will be able to fully carry on as normal. Yeah right. Clueless wonders. The blind leading the blind.
No wonder the other side keeps winning. With such morally, mentally and spiritually blind, deaf and dumb folks on our side, we really are goners. But let me conclude with two more quotes from a book I referred to in the first article in this series. Peter Kurti in The Tyranny of Tolerance notes how the ever-escalating set of demands of the left always harms freedom:
As rights asserted by identity warriors ratchet to the left, the shared social and cultural norms informing the institutions of democracy are gradually weakened because they become detached from their cultural and historical roots. This goes to the paradox lying at the heart of identity politics and its preoccupation with ideas such as anti-discrimination. Individuals need to be members of a class or group in order to enjoy their newly realised status of “victims”; and the benefits accruing to their new identity status are not to be lightly discarded.
Milton Friedman famously warned that “the society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither; the society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both.” But identity politics prioritises equality over freedom and, in so doing, locks people into specific categories at the expense of individual liberty – all in the pursuit of some ideal of democratic egalitarianism. The politics of identity has become the artillery ranged against the walls of liberal democracy.
And he also reminds us that these various anti-discrimination laws have the effect of forcing religion out of the public square, rendering it just a private, inner experience with no outward, social manifestation. He writes:
Religious belief is not something that can be confined to the realm of the mind as though it were a kind of mental hobby or recreation. Belief and practice are inseparable; freedom to believe must surely be accompanied by the freedom to speak. Those whose ways of life are guided by the search for ultimate meaning and a solemn obligation to do so dutifully are often likely to clash with the values of the secular state.
It is not difficult to see that if this dutiful living is met with the coercive force of the state, not only the right to freedom of religion but also the broader rights of freedom of association and freedom of expression are bound to be put at risk.
Of course, and that is exactly what we see being played out now concerning Christian schools. Given what is at stake here, every Christian in the nation should be outraged about this and making a very loud stink. Yet the rather pathetic reality is this:
-95% of Christians don’t even know about this.
Of the rest:
-95% don’t give a rip, or actually think it is great: “Jesus excludes no one; Christians are too bigoted; it is good to have homosexuals in our schools,” etc.
Lord help us.
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