Many activist groups that hate the West and want to see it destroyed, such as Marxists or Islamists, know that they have to be in it for the long haul. They fully realise that their desired goals will not happen overnight, and they are willing to work away at their plans for years, decades, and even centuries if need be.
And the militant sexual revolutionaries know that it takes time to see all their radical goals fully realised. Let me speak to that particular aspect for just a few moments. A few days ago I said in a social media post that a number of Australian states have now passed draconian legislation about “conversion therapy”.
In short, they make it illegal for people like you and me to counsel or even pray for anyone who comes to us struggling with their sexual orientations or attractions. Trying to help such people is now considered to be a hate crime by most states. See the shocking details on all this here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2025/04/16/god-or-the-totalist-state/
One person responded to my post with these words: “Who would have ever thought this would come to be….” Yes, on the one hand, none of us just a half century ago could have imagined that such things would now be commonplace throughout the West. Little did most folks realise that the homosexual agenda, and the trans agenda, would completely turn Western culture upside down.
However, some folks did know something about this. Some folks tried to follow closely where the sexual revolutionaries were trying to take us. I have been one of them. Ever since arriving here some 35 years ago I have been monitoring what the activists have in mind.
It was easy to do, since free, weekly homosexual newspapers could be grabbed from libraries, book shops and other venues. One simply had to read what their plans and goals were – and take them seriously. So I have been sounding the alarm for many decades now.
Of course most folks did not want to hear what I had to say. Even those on my own side were dubious. I recall once catching up with a young staffer to a conservative Senator at Parliament House, Canberra. I suggested we go up to their office so we could pray for them.
The family activists then went around the room, saying what they thought was the greatest challenge to marriage and family in Australia. Bear in mind that this was back in the early 1990s. So I said that homosexual marriage is the biggest challenge we face. One longstanding family advocate basically laughed and said that would never happen.
Well, we now fully know who was right and who was wrong back then. As I say, I was religiously studying what the other side was saying, and I knew just what they had in mind to destroy marriage in Australia and around the world. And it was not just their magazines and newspapers that I studied. They also had many books outlining their agenda.
I have often quoted from the 1989 book, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen (Plume Books). It is a detailed strategy guide for how the radicals can fully remake America and the West into their own image.
It is a call to battle, and it is a call to see the big picture and the long term. They knew that things would not change immediately, but folks would have to patiently and persistently work at it. The last line of the book says this: “Tomorrow, the real gay revolution begins. So go home, get changed, and be at the station at eight.”
That was a call to arms and a call to commitment. They knew that if they kept at it, they would wear the other side down and achieve their goals. And that they have. The problem is, our side seldom has such a sense of the bigger picture and the war that we are in. We have been asleep at the wheel, and we tend to focus on things not much beyond next week.
Such a mindset means we are guaranteed to lose. There is an old Greek proverb which says this: “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” A quote attributed to Martin Luther (but not substantiated) is similar: “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”
The point is, we need to have a much larger vision of things. Too many believers do not see the bigger picture and the longer term. They have their bags packed and are just waiting to go home. I quite understand that, but the truth is, we have a job to do, and no one knows for sure when the end will come. As Jesus said, ‘Occupy till I come’! But see these two articles for more on this:
So whether it is resisting the inroads of communism, or jihadism, or the radical sexual activists, we must be prepared for the long haul. These battles will just not go away overnight, so we all have a job to do. We cannot think that attending a few prayer meetings, or signing a few petitions, will bring these wars to an end.
The other side is fully committed to its cause and is willing to make huge sacrifices to see their visions become reality. But too often we have little or no vision, and we are just sitting things out. But in a war, there can be no neutrality. No believer can sit on the fence and just hope that things might eventually get better.
On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilizationby Murray, Douglas (Author)
Since I twice now mentioned Islam as an example of a real life and death struggle that we are in, let me wrap things up with a quote from someone who is fully aware of the struggles that we are fully immersed in. Douglas Murray’s vitally important new book, On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization (Broadside Books, 2025), clearly informs us of the all-out war between Islamism and the West.
The bulk of the book looks at what happened just before, during and after the demonic October 7, 2023 assault by Hamas on Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1200 men, women and children, and 250 hostages taken – some of whom still languish in hideous captivity today.
While I will write more about this crucial volume in the days ahead, let me just share the closing paragraphs of his book with you:
It struck me then as it had many times over the previous year, that everything was the wrong way around. Young people at institutions across the West were judging the actions of their contemporaries in Israel. They were throwing slur after slur at them and reigniting every blood libel of the past in a modern guise. Yet it was their contemporaries in Israel who were the ones they should have looked to not as a scapegoat but as an example. Whatever the years ahead hold for the West, I know that Canada, Britain, Europe, Australia, and America should be so lucky as to produce a generation of people like Israel has.
Finally, I also realised that I had found the answer to a question I had mulled over for almost a quarter of a century. All my adult life I had heard the taunt of the jihadists. “We love death more than you love life.” I had heard it from al-Qaeda, from Hamas, from ISIS. From Europe to Afghanistan several of my friends and colleagues had heard such war cries in their last moments. And it had always seemed to me not just a necrophiliac utterance but one that appeared almost impossible to counter. How could anyone overcome a movement – a people – who welcomed death, who gloried in death, who worshipped death? Was it not inevitable that against such a force, a feeble and sybaritic West could not possibly win?
That is what I feared for many years. Yet this year I saw an answer to it. Of all the soldiers I saw in war, none took delight in their task. They could feel victorious on occasion, proud to have completed a mission and gotten their unit out alive. But from the south of Gaza to the south of Lebanon and the West Bank, none take a joy or pleasure in that task they have to do. They did it not because they loved death but exactly because they love life. They fought for life. For the survival of their families, their nation, and their people. Even the most secular of them knew that the lifestyle most of us take for granted cannot be taken so. They know you won’t have the ability to party in Tel Aviv, fall in love, grow a family, or live a meaningful life unless they are willing to fight for it.
“Choose life” is one of the most important commandments of the Jewish people. It is also one of the fundamental values of the West. They, and all of us, can win in spite of the enemy loving death. Because there is nothing wrong with loving life so much. It is the basis on which civilization can win. (pp. 265-267)
In sum, the other side, in its various forms, is looking at the long term and the big picture, and are prepared to fight to the death for what they believe in. Christians, at least in the West, tend to be nowhere near as aware of the ongoing battles we are in, and nowhere near as committed to our cause – the cause of Christ, and seeking to be salt and light in a needy world.
To be disciples of Christ in a world that hates him will always be a battle that we will be involved in. There is no opting out, There is no going AWOL. There is no making cheap excuses for our cowardice or our unwillingness to fight the good fight.
It will be a lifelong struggle. But when we come to the end, we will then be able to say with the Apostle Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Or as the lyrics to the old Black gospel tune “I’m a Soldier in the Army of the Lord” put it:
I’m a soldier in the army of the Lord
I’m a soldier in the army
I’m a soldier in the army of the Lord
I’m a soldier in the army
I got my war clothes on in the army of the Lord
I got my war clothes on in the army
I got my war clothes on in the army of the Lord
I got my war clothes on in the army
I’m a soldier in the army of the Lord
I’m a soldier in the army
I’m a soldier in the army of the Lord
I’m a soldier in the army
I believe I’ll die in the army of the Lord
I believe I’ll die in the army
I believe I’ll die in the army of the Lord
I believe I’ll die in the army
I’m a soldier in the army of the Lord
I’m a soldier in the army
I’m a soldier in the army of the Lord
I’m a soldier in the army
I got my breastplate on in the army of the Lord
Got my breastplate on in the army
I got my breastplate on in the army of the Lord
I got my breastplate on in the army
I’m a soldier in the army of the Lord
I’m a soldier in the army
I’m a soldier in the army of the Lord
I’m a soldier in the army
I’m gonna fight until I die in the army of the Lord
I’m gonna fight until I die in the army of the Lord
I’m gonna fight until I die in the army of the Lord
Gonna fight until I die in the army of the Lord
I’m a soldier in the army of the Lord
I’m a soldier in the army
I’m a soldier in the army of the Lord
I’m a soldier in the army
Bill, I was saddened to be reminded, in your post above, of the short-sightedness and obtuseness of many Christians who refuse to face reality.
You describe how, in the early 1990s, you warned a gathering of family advocates in Canberra of the looming challenge of homosexual marriage.
You recall: “One longstanding family advocate basically laughed and said that would never happen.”
A quarter of a century later, however, it became enshrined in law after Australia’s 2017 postal plebiscite on re-defining marriage.
The tepid response of so many Christians to your repeated warnings on this issue, in the years before the plebiscite, constitutes one of the tragedies of our age.
The episode you describe above is typical of a syndrome described 70 years ago by the famous American public commentator Walter Lippmann (1889–1974). He wrote:
“At the critical moments in this sad history, there have been men, worth listening to, who warned the people against their mistakes. Always, too, there have been men inside the governments who judged correctly, because they were permitted to know in time, the uncensored and unvarnished truth. But the climate of modern democracy does not usually inspire them to speak out.
“For what Churchill did in the Thirties before Munich was exceptional: the general rule is that a democratic politician had better not be right too soon. Very often the penalty is political death. It is much safer to keep in step with the parade of opinion than to try to keep up with the swifter movement of events.…
“With exceptions so rare that they are regarded as miracles and freaks of nature, successful politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies.” [The Public Philosophy (New York: Mentor Books, 1955), pp. 27–28.]
Thank you, Bill, for being one of the few Christians in Australia willing to answer God’s call for watchmen to stand on the walls of the city and warn the people (Isaiah 62:6).
Bill, I was saddened to be reminded, in your post above, of the short-sightedness and obtuseness of many Christians who refuse to face reality.
You describe how, in the early 1990s, you warned a gathering of family advocates in Canberra of the looming challenge of homosexual marriage.
You recall: “One longstanding family advocate basically laughed and said that would never happen.”
A quarter of a century later, however, it became enshrined in law after Australia’s 2017 postal plebiscite on re-defining marriage.
The tepid response of so many Christians to your repeated warnings on this issue, in the years before the plebiscite, constitutes one of the tragedies of our age.
The episode you describe above is typical of a syndrome described 70 years ago by the famous American public commentator Walter Lippmann (1889–1974). He wrote:
Thank you, Bill, for being one of the few Christians in Australia willing to answer God’s call for watchmen to stand on the walls of the city and warn the people (Isaiah 62:6).
Thanks so much for that John.