Fact number two: More often than not, the best money-making films are those with a pro-faith and pro-family message. Films reflecting the Judeo-Christian worldview, and/or emphasizing traditional values tend to regularly be the big box office winners.

Since the Hollywood crowd is very keen about making money, what are they to do? The bulk of Americans are conservative, Christian and strong family types. Yet the Hollywood elite prefer to slam those values in their films.

But if they want to get rich and stay rich, then they have to cater to the tastes of most Americans. They really are in a dilemma. But love of money tends to triumph over pushing radical leftist agendas, so family-friendly films still keep coming out of Hollywood.

The most obvious recent case of this is The Blind Side which just saw the film’s main star, Sandra Bullock, win the Oscar for Best Actress. Being based on a true story makes it an even more powerful film, centering on the twin themes of a strong faith and a strong family.

Of course this is Hollywood, so the film is not perfect, yet the Christian and family themes come through quite strongly in this film. As mentioned, it must leave many Hollywoodians in a real bind: getting rich off a decent film which does not bag family or faith.

Those not familiar with the story are encouraged to go see the film, to help send Hollywood the message that they should be making more of these sorts of movies. But a quick plot summary can be provided here: A wealthy white family in America’s south takes into their hearts and home a poor struggling black youth.

Their love, support and dedication results in him going on to become a leading successful NFL football player. Without their tremendous love and concern, he very likely would have ended up as just another sad statistic; another young person with a life tragically cut short.

This is quite a breath of fresh air. So often Hollywood portrays both families and faith as wretched, destructive and ugly affairs. Families are usually depicted as dysfunctional, psychopathic freak shows, and Christianity is usually denigrated, slammed and mocked.

To see both coming out as clear winners is quite astounding really. And that is why it has done so very well at the box office. The truth is, the majority of Americans relate to such families. Indeed, the truth is even more profound: there exist million of families just like the family featured in this film.

Many, many millions of strong, functional, loving, and faith-based families can be found in the US, and around the world. They see their story in this film. They know this is what the real America is like. They are sick and tired of seeing their faith denigrated and their family lives mocked in most other films.

One article about the film compared the heroine of the film with Sarah Palin. And indeed, the two are in many respects quite alike – which makes this film even more remarkable. For the secular left, the most hated woman in America today is clearly Sarah Palin.

Thus for Hollywood – the very heartland of the secular left – to actually make a film which celebrates and glorifies a Sarah Palin twin must be one of the most ironic and perplexing things to come out of Tinseltown in a very long time.

But who cares about what internal agonies and contradictions they are experiencing. The truth is, they actually got things right for a change. We all know there are dysfunctional families, and Christians who have been a lousy witness to their Lord.

But there are also millions of very healthy families, and millions of very committed and Christ-like Christians. It is about time Hollywood woke up to this reality. And even though it may not like it, if it wants to continue with such box-office hits, it should stay on this winning formula and not go back to its tired old ways.

I encourage all of you to go see the film. We all need affirmation and encouragement, as well as inspiration and uplifting. This film we help remind you that faith is vitally important, and that vibrant, healthy families can and do exist. So in this case at least, hooray for Hollywood.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/oscars/article7031205.ece

[765 words]

And they are most welcome to gather there and hold their little pow-wow. After all, that is what democracies are all about: allowing those of differing opinions and worldviews to freely assemble and discuss their faith. But the ironic thing is, while democracy allows these atheists the freedom to assemble, it is by and large what atheists so dislike which seems to make democracy possible.

That is, there has long been noted the connection between faith and freedom; between religion and democracy. Many intellects and analysts have noted how democracy really needs a moral foundation in order to successfully operate. And many have noted that morality requires a religious foundation to successfully operate.

Thus there is a strong, historic connection between religion, morality, democracy and freedom. A number of authors have discussed these connections. One thinks of Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1835 classic, Democracy in America for example.

The French writer and historian was greatly impressed with the American experiment at the time, and noted in his work the strong role religion played in the life of the young republic. Indeed, he contrasted Europe with America, focusing on the importance of religion to the new nation.

Many other key commentators have written about these interrelated aspects. Michael Novak has written extensively on such themes, including his quite important 1982 volume, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism. It is a masterful treatment of how democratic capitalism is really a three-legged affair: a democratic political system; a free market economic system; and a moral/spiritual cultural system.

Other volumes worth pursuing here include John Hollowell, The Moral Foundation of Democracy (1954), and Claes Ryn, Democracy and the Ethical Life (1978). In addition to these newer writers, other older thinkers can also be mentioned.

Consider a famous letter British politician Lord Macaulay sent to an American friend on May 23, 1857. In it he stated that the average age of the world’s greatest democratic nations has been 200 years. Each has been through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith.
From faith to great courage.
From courage to liberty.
From liberty to abundance.
From abundance to complacency.
From complacency to selfishness.
From selfishness to apathy.
From apathy to dependency.
And from dependency back again into bondage.

Can we escape this fate?

He was quite right to note the moral/spiritual underpinnings of freedom and democracy. Indeed, this is not a very new insight. The history of Ancient Israel, especially as found in the book of Judges, reveals this very same set of connections. When Israel forgot about Yahweh and slipped into sin, they always ended up in bondage and judgment. Freedom was restored only when they got their moral and spiritual priorities sorted out.

My secular and atheist friends will complain however that it is not just the Judeo-Christian worldview that made democracy possible. What about the ancient Romans and Greeks? Yes and no would be my reply. Yes, any nation which has had some sort of religious basis will have a greater chance of both lasting, and lasting with a modicum of freedoms.

In that sense I think philosopher Peter Kreeft is right to argue that the most durable societies have been the most moralistic, while our recent officially secular societies appear to be rather short-lived, whether fascist or Marxist. Says Kreeft:

“The longest-lasting societies in history were all highly moralistic, the Confucian (over twenty-one hundred years), the Islamic (almost fourteen hundred years), and the Roman (about seven hundred years). The longest-lasting moral order in history has been that of Mosaic law: it has structured Jewish and then Christian life for thirty-five hundred years (though not as a continuous civil society).”

He cites Charles Colson who says that a community’s longevity is proportionate to its morality. To which Kreeft adds: “And to its religion, for no society has yet existed that has successfully built its knowledge of morality on any basis other than religion.”

As to the ancient Greeks and Romans, they were certainly a mixed bag in terms of freedom and democracy. They were a far cry from a modern democracy, with perhaps the majority of their own people being slaves. Historian Rodney Stark discusses this matter:

“While the classical world did provide examples of democracy, these were not rooted in any general assumptions concerning equality beyond an equality of the elite. Even when they were ruled by elected bodies, the various Greek city-states and Rome were sustained by large numbers of slaves. And just as it was Christianity that eliminated the institution of slavery inherited from Greece and Rome, so too does Western democracy owe its essential intellectual origins and legitimacy to Christian ideals, not to any Greco-Roman legacy. It all began with the New Testament.”

You can pursue his thoughts on this further in his important 2005 book, The Victory of Reason. But let me finish by noting some other voices on this connection between democracy, morality and religion. Benjamin Franklin said this: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and viscous, they have more need of masters.”

Edmund Burke put it this way: “The only liberty I mean is a liberty connected with order; that not only exists along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them.” George Washington noted that “of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensible supports.”

Historian Will Durant made this observation, “There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.” Or as US General Douglas MacArthur once said, “History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.”

Such thoughts can be repeated at length. But let me conclude by returning to de Tocqueville who rightly said this about the US: “America is great because America is good and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

That is true of all modern democracies. Morality seems to be essential to freedom and democracy, and religion seems to be essential to morality. That case needs to be argued for more fully, but it does offer us something to think about as our atheist friends enjoy the freedoms Australia now offers.

[1135 words]

And the totalitarian demands of the militant homosexual activists will certainly not stop with unwilling adults. It seems that every single boy and girl as well will be forced to embrace the homosexual agenda, or face the strictest of consequences.

Consider this incredible story from PinkNews, “Europe’s largest gay news service”, involving a 10-year-old English school boy who is in big trouble. What was the horrific crime which this boy has been found guilty of? It is quite ghastly indeed. He actually dared to call a fellow student a “gay boy”.

Wow, throw the book at him. Expel him from the school immediately and never let him return to school or hold a job for life. In fact, he deserves to have the letters ‘PI’ branded on his for forehead for such gross ‘Political Incorrectness’.

This is how the UK arm of PinkNews covers the story. It is worth presenting a large portion of the story here:

A ten-year-old boy has been placed on a hate register for calling a fellow pupil a ‘gay boy.’

It is one of the first publicised examples of how the government’s required hate registers are being used in schools. From this September, children as young as five risk being placed on a hate register if they make homophobic playground taunts.

The details of how hate registers are being used emerged after the mother of a ten-year-old boy in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, was told that her son’s name would be placed on a register and permanent school record following an alleged homophobic comment to a fellow pupil. Last December, PinkNews.co.uk reported that the government has asked all schools to record incidents of homophobic bullying.

It has been alleged that ten-year-old Peter Drury called another pupil a “gay boy” outside of school, but the mother of another child reported the incident to the head teacher of Ashcombe Primary School.

Penny Drury told the Daily Mail: “He doesn’t even understand about the birds and the bees, so how can he be homophobic?

“Peter is a very naive boy who didn’t know what he was doing and is now very upset as he is now in trouble. It doesn’t mean he is going to turn into a homophobic attacker when he is older.

“He must have picked up the word from somewhere and thought it to mean stupid.

“If I heard it I would have been the first to correct him and tell him not to use it, but putting him on a register seems way over the top.”

The boy’s parents asked the school if they would remove him from the register, but said the school’s head teacher refused.

Mrs Drury told the Daily Mail: “I’m now worried if this is going to affect him applying for universities in the future. I just think the whole thing would be better sorted out by the teacher or parent explaining to them that their language is wrong and not to do it again.”

Children’s charities have expressed concern that school pupils could be effectively being criminalised for playground banter. Michele Elliott of Kidscape told the Daily Express:” Children are being criminalised and singled out from a very early age when they don’t know what they’re doing.”

Well, what can I say? I am left utterly dumbfounded and gobsmacked by all this insanity. It certainly comes as a shock to those of us who have grown up in free and democratic societies. However, such stories would of course be all too familiar to those who have lived in totalitarian police states.

And people who have read such prophetic novels as 1984 and Brave New World would certainly recognise what is going on here. That is what makes all this so much more incredulous. We are witnessing with our very eyes the slow but steady erosion of democratic freedoms in the West.

We are actually living through a transition from democracy to a police state. It is happening incrementally, but it is happening nonetheless. And as in the story of the frog in the hot water, most people do not even know it is occurring.

That famous story speaks of how a frog will attempt to jump out of a container of hot water if placed in it. But if it is placed in lukewarm water, and the heat is gradually increased, it will not know what is happening, and will soon die, boiled alive.

That for me is the really most amazing feature of all this. Most people either do not know about how their freedoms are inexorably being whittled away, or they do not care. Where is the outcry about all this? Why are not people taking to the streets in mass protests about this encroaching tyranny?

In one of my recent articles I quoted from Melanie Phillips. Let me again repeat her words: “The great battles today are not between left and right. They are between morality and nihilism, truth and lies, justice and injustice, freedom and totalitarianism, and Judeo-Christian values and the would-be destroyers of the West both within and without.”

Indeed, let me offer a few more concluding quotes:

“Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But, conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right.” (Martin Luther King Jr.)

“The world is too dangerous to live in – not because of people who do evil, but because of people who sit and let it happen”. (Albert Einstein)

“Who will rise up for me against the wicked? Who will take a stand for me against evildoers?” (Psalm 94:16)

And I have also used this quote many times before, but if there was ever a time when it was needed, it most certainly is now:

“In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.” (Martin Niemoller, German pastor and Holocaust survivor)

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2010/03/04/10-year-old-on-hate-register-for-calling-a-fellow-pupil-gay-boy/

[1120 words]

Those religious types who seek to educate their children in the faith are guilty of “child abuse”. Yep, you got it. Lock up the whole bunch of ‘em and throw away the keys. How dare they suggest to their children that there might be a God and an afterlife? Let’s make that a criminal offence – maybe we can even bring back the death penalty for this horrendous activity.

Of course atheists have long been making such idiotic claims. Atheist high priest Richard Dawkins for example said much the same in his The God Delusion. He said there that parental religious instruction is nothing more than an attempt to “indoctrinate” children, and that it is a “preposterous idea” that society even allows such a terrible thing to occur.

And on his website he has an article entitled, “Religion’s Real Child Abuse”. In it he says, “The threat of eternal hell is an extreme example of mental abuse”. He also says this: “Priestly groping of child bodies is disgusting. But it may be less harmful in the long run than priestly subversion of child minds.”

Getting back to today’s press, we are told that Atheist Foundation of Australia’s David Nicholls is quite hot under the collar about the evils of religious instruction for children. As the Herald Sun article puts it, “President David Nicholls said it was time to rip religion out of schools and urged Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to stop allowing religious views to affect political discussions.”

But wait, there’s more: “‘Anybody who tells a child “you will go to hell or heaven” and says it’s the truth … that’s child abuse,’ he said.” Yep, straight out of the Dawkins’ songbook. These atheists seem so faithful in parroting the words of their revered masters.

Although in this case it is usually the doctrine of hell that gets the God-haters so agitated. But here our good president is suggesting that even to say a child is going to heaven (a rather bright prospect I would have thought) also renders a person guilty of child abuse! My, my, there is just no pleasing some of these guys.

And of course we are meant to believe that no atheist parent ever tells his or her children that atheism is true. Oh no, they would never do that. Indeed, they claim they will simply let their children make up their own minds on the issue.

Strange, but that is exactly how every religious parent I know of operates. Of course they share their faith in the home, and let their kids know where they stand, but I am not aware of any Christian parent at least who forces his or her grown up kids to embrace the faith, or else.

Mind you, I mentioned Christians here. Many Muslims of course do consider apostasy from Islam to be a serious matter indeed, one which is in fact punishable by death. But I am referring here to Christians, who do not share such a view about leaving one’s faith.

One would love to be a fly on the wall in the homes of some of these militant misotheists. I would love to see just how “neutral” and “hands off” they are when it comes to the religious instruction of their own children. And I use the word ‘religious’ purposefully here.

The truth is, atheists are just as religious as anyone else. They have their own worldview, their own way of looking at life and the big questions. Most of the earlier atheists freely admitted as much. But in America especially, where religion is now banished from schools, the atheists and secular humanists have had to change their tune, and try to convince the government that they are not in fact religious.

And the claim by Nicholls that religion should somehow be driven from any political discussion is ludicrous in the extreme. No one comes to any important political – or social or cultural – discussion without religious presuppositions, or a particular worldview.

It is simply impossible to discuss any vital political or moral question without an appeal to some sort of worldview, some sort of overarching religious point of view, even if that viewpoint happens to be atheism.

Everyone comes to the public square with his or her pre-existing beliefs and understanding of the world. What Nicholls is demanding is simply impossible to achieve. And if he really wants to be taken seriously here, then he should be the very first one to simply shut up. Why should his religious views on this matter be allowed to be heard, while everyone else’s – that is, those he does not agree with – must be silenced?

This is the usual hypocrisy and double standards from the God-haters. They only want their point of view heard, and expect everyone else to just meekly sit down and shut up. Sorry, Jack, but it just ain’t happening. As long as we live in a genuine democracy, Christians and other believers have as much right to speak into the social, political and ethical issues of the day as anyone else.

Nicholls, Dawkins and the other God-botherers can preach all they like about how religious instruction is somehow child abuse, and how religious discussion in the public arena is evil, but most people with even a modicum of sense will take this foolishness for what it is, and treat it accordingly.

[943 words]

Simply seeking to be faithful to the commands of Christ can often result in an uproar. A cursory look at the early church as recorded in the book of Acts certainly makes this clear. Wherever the early disciples of Christ went they seemed to find themselves getting into trouble and causing an uproar.

Now making a stink for Jesus can be seen in two ways. Sometimes we get into grief and strong opposition simply because we are not being very wise, very diplomatic, very tactful or very loving. We can often provoke a negative reaction for all sorts of reasons that have little to do with faithfully representing our Lord.

So I am not suggesting that we go around looking for trouble simple for trouble’s sake. But there are also plenty of times when we really are accurately reflecting him, walking in love and wisdom, and seeking to be winsome and careful in our biblical witness – and we still get heaps of hostile opposition and rejection.

Jesus of course promised that we would face such rejection and persecution. It is part and parcel of our job description as followers of Jesus. Indeed, an important question we can all ask ourselves is this: Am I causing trouble for Jesus?

Are we rocking the boat, stirring the waters, making an impact, and getting a reaction? If we are not, then perhaps it is because we really are not being much of a disciple of Jesus. If we never get any flack or criticism or rebuke, then perhaps we are just cruising along, doing little or nothing to advance the Kingdom.

Based on what we find in the New Testament and church history, it seems to be a truism that whenever we faithfully and doggedly seek to follow Jesus and make him known, we will find ourselves being opposed, mocked, criticised and vilified. That pretty much goes with the territory.

If my reader in not yet convinced of this, let me take you on a brief walk through the book of Acts. There we find that time and time again the early believers made such a stunk that they were constantly getting into trouble.

That is why it says in Acts 17:6 that the early Christians “turned the world upside down”. They certainly made an impact alright. Indeed, I have already written a piece on this, looking at two instances when riots broke out as a result of apostolic activity. In both cases money-making was put in jeopardy when the gospel was proclaimed, resulting in real turmoil: http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2008/10/27/on-being-a-troublemaker-for-jesus/

But plenty of other examples can be examined here. For example, we read about the commotion the early church caused in various places, such as in Acts 5, 7, 13, 14, 17, 21, and 22. Consider just two descriptions of the uproar which arose because of the early Christian endeavours.

In Acts 21 we read about how Paul caused a huge reaction while in Jerusalem. He was falsely accused of some rather scandalous actions (bringing Gentiles into the inner area of the temple), and chaos ensued. In verses 30-32 we read these words:

“The whole city was aroused, and the people came running from all directions. Seizing Paul, they dragged him from the temple, and immediately the gates were shut. While they were trying to kill him, news reached the commander of the Roman troops that the whole city of Jerusalem was in an uproar. He at once took some officers and soldiers and ran down to the crowd. When the rioters saw the commander and his soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.”

Paul certainly provoked quite a reaction. Indeed, he is often getting into trouble as he proclaims the gospel. Consider what happens as he tries to defend himself before the crowd at the temple in Acts 22. He is going along nicely, explaining his background as a devout Jew, and how he was converted. But when he mentions his heavenly commission to the Gentiles in v 21, that’s when things get really ugly:

“The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, ‘Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!’ As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, the commander ordered Paul to be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and questioned in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this” (vv. 22-24).

Paul and the disciples never seemed to make a quiet entry! True, often trouble makers in the crowd agitated the folks, and sought to stir up trouble. But the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ so often caused great friction and turmoil.

The question is, can we expect any less today? If we are really serious about our faith, and serious about communicating it, it would seem that we would experience some not-so-pleasant reactions as well.

But if our life is going along swimmingly and we are causing not even the slightest ripple around us, then perhaps we need to ask some hard questions about how dedicated we are as a true follower of Jesus.

If the bullets are not whizzing overhead, maybe we need to reconsider just what sort of witness we are being. As A.W. Tozer once put it, “I have observed that as long as we sit frozen to our chair, making no spiritual progress, no one will bother us.”

True, and it is no fun being bothered – or thrown in jail, stoned, or chucked out of town. But I would rather face a bit of conflict, opposition and uncomfortableness now, knowing that so too did my Lord, than simply live a very comfortable and disturbance-free life. Anyone ready to be a troublemaker for Jesus?

[1005 words]

Wise words indeed. And they apply equally to any government, and to any political, social, cultural, legal or economic policy being considered. But the problem is, very few politicians want to look at the big picture. Many are only concerned about how their decisions will impact on their own electorate.

Indeed, most politicians tend to make policy decisions merely on the basis of whether it will get them more votes. As long as they can stay in office and continue to enjoy the perks of office, they are satisfied. There are sadly very few politicians who are men and women of principle, who look at the big picture and not just the immediate short-term gain.

No society will last long if our leaders are mainly focused on protecting their own skin, catering to special interest groups, and putting popularity contests ahead of principle. Sure, there are exceptions here, but they tend to be few and far between.

Thus it was refreshing to see a national newspaper printing an article which reminds us of the importance of seeing the big picture and acting for the public good. English commentator Melanie Phillips has a terrific piece in today’s Australian comparing British and Australian politics. Her piece is well worth reading, but let me pull a few key snippets from it.

Phillips focuses on Australia’s new opposition leader Tony Abbott and urges him to stay true to the conservative vision. She refers to “the truly astounding fact that a conservative will most likely win power by remaining unambiguously true to conservative principles.”

She contrasts Abbott with the English conservative opposition leader, David Cameron. She speaks of “his inner circle of liberal modernisers”. “Their strategy of ‘hope and change’ is based on their unshakeable belief that the Tories were denied power for the past 13 years because they were not progressive enough. Accordingly, they rebranded themselves by taking left-wing, socially liberal positions and, in particular, a wholesale embrace of the environmental agenda.”

She continues, “Alas for the new green Tories, man-made global warming theory has gone spectacularly belly-up. More fundamentally still, Cameron has made a strategic error. He wants to tell the country it’s ‘time for a change’, but the change he has implanted in people’s minds is that the Conservatives are more similar to Labour.”

Phillips rightly notes that Cameron is on a suicidal path. He wants to placate those on the right in his own party, yet he wants to embrace many of the latest trendy (and leftwing) causes. The “British Cameroons appear to be opportunists slavishly following whatever the latest focus group tells them. People need to know where they are with their leaders, even if they don’t agree with everything they say. But there is no courage or consistency in going with the flow.”

Contrast Cameron with his Australian counterpart: “Abbott is scoring so well for two main reasons. First, he is expressing views that are in tune with what so many think but are too intimidated to express. He is a champion of the voiceless mainstream. Perhaps even more crucially, everyone can see he speaks from principle, and it is no accident that these are securely rooted in his Catholic faith. He is therefore clearly a leader.”

Phillips then gets to the heart of the matter: “Conservatism is not an ideology but a cast of mind that seeks to defend what is valuable. That means in the West defending liberal democratic ideas and the Judeo-Christian precepts on which these depend. With the defeat of communism, many conservatives really believed this was the ‘end of history’. Since everyone embraced the free market, they thought there was no longer anything to defend.

“They couldn’t have been more wrong. The battleground had simply moved from economics to culture, with an onslaught against normative moral values, national identity and Western civilisation itself. But British Conservatives don’t grasp that a culture war is being waged for the soul and future of the West.

As a result, they have put themselves to a large extent on the wrong side of that war by jumping on to the progressive bandwagon. Thus they support gay adoption and all-female political short lists, are nervous about discussing mass immigration or egalitarianism, and are all but silent about Islamism and the Orwellian moral inversion that tries to criminalise as ‘Islamophobia’ the legitimate concerns about radical Islam.

“The great battles today are not between left and right. They are between morality and nihilism, truth and lies, justice and injustice, freedom and totalitarianism, and Judeo-Christian values and the would-be destroyers of the West both within and without.

“If conservatives are not on the right side of all these touchstone issues, then what is the point of conservatives at all? Why should anyone vote for them if they are merely left-wing wannabes? If people want utopia and the repression that inevitably follows its pursuit, the party to vote for is Labour: it does it so much better. Moreover, one of the dirty little secrets of the Left is that, far from being the voice of the downtrodden, its agenda has tremendous appeal to the rich.

“Green politics in particular provides painless radicalism; it lets people believe they are acting out of high-minded conscience without causing themselves any more pain than cycling to work and recycling their rubbish. By contrast, the decent working class and lower middle class who have no moneyed leisure for such self-indulgent frivolities are naturally conservative. And the most successful Australian politicians have understood this key fact.”

Here, here. Now that is getting the big picture. But sadly most politicians, even those on the right, no longer think in terms of the big picture or in terms of worldview. They can only think as far as tomorrow’s press conference or next week’s members’ meeting.

What we desperately need today are politicians of backbone and politicians who stand on principle, aware of the bigger picture. Interestingly, just minutes ago someone emailed me, asking if I would stand as a political candidate. I declined for various reasons, but there certainly is a crying need for men and women who care deeply about the greater good to take a stand in the political arena.

Presumably Phillips has also been asked to enter the world of politics. But some of us have callings that take us elsewhere. But many more people need to ask whether they should consider running for office. If you feel unqualified, my reply is this: simply look at who we have now – surely you couldn’t do any worse.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/wild-colonial-boy-a-lesson-for-tories/story-e6frg6zo-1225835818040

[1154 words]

Millions of words have been penned about this altogether lovely person. Yet if we are not careful, we can get a distorted picture of who this Jesus really is. Is he everything I have just described? Absolutely. But he is much more as well.

Indeed, one expects nonbelievers to have a distorted or unbalanced picture of who Jesus is, but sadly many believers also seem to have an understanding of Jesus which does not do full justice to the complete Biblical picture.

Too often many people have a mental image of Jesus which in fact is at odds with the totality of the Scriptural presentation. For many, Jesus is viewed as some sort of wimpy hippie who went around flashing the peace sign. Or he is seen as a tree-hugging greenie. Or he is seen as a devout pacifist who wouldn’t harm a fly.

The portrait of a meek and mild Jesus rocking in a cradle seems to be as far as some people go with Jesus. They forget other aspects of his character and ignore other features of his personality. The truth is, Jesus wasn’t some laid back guru who was never moved by anything.

He in fact could become quite agitated about things and deeply moved. We don’t often think about Jesus as being an emotional person. Yet he quite clearly was and is. Certain things profoundly moved him and things could produce quite strong reactions in him.

Far from being a meek and mild doormat who never let anything move him, he very much displayed a wide range of emotional reactions. Jesus in fact did get outraged at things. Sin and death for example clearly outraged him.

We see this many places, especially in the reaction of Jesus to the death of his friend Lazarus (John 11:1-44). His death, and the causes of it, greatly troubled Jesus. We read that Jesus was “deeply moved in spirit and troubled” concerning his death (John 11:33; see also v. 38). Yet the English versions can be a bit weak here. The actual Greek offers the sense of “he bristled”.

As Craig Keener remarks in his commentary on John, the term here “depicts his emotion in the strongest possible terms: he was ‘moved’ (embrimaomi, 11:33, 38), an unusually strong term, usually denoting anger, agitation, and typically some physical expression accompanying it”.

Various commentators prefer to render the term, “To snort with anger like a horse”. As one remarked, “It was used by Greek playwrights to describe stallions before battle, rearing up on their hind legs, pawing at the air and snorting before they charged.”

This is something B.B. Warfield wrote about one hundred years ago in his wonderful essay, “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” which today can be found as chapter four of The Person and Work of Christ (P&R, 1970). In this penetrating essay he said:

“The margin of our Revised Version at Jno. xi. 33, 38, therefore, very properly proposes that we should for ‘groaned’ in these passages, substitute ‘moved with indignation,’ although that phrase too is scarcely strong enough. What John tells us, in point of fact, is that Jesus approached the grave of Lazarus, in a state, not of uncontrollable grief, but of irrepressible anger.”

And this is not the only time we find some strong emotional outbursts coming out of Jesus. He was certainly outraged at the activities going on in the temple, as evidenced by his quite fierce cleansing and denunciation. And he is certainly provoked big time as we read in the book of Revelation when he comes back to administer judgment with sword in hand.

For example, we read about his coming in fierce judgment in places such as Rev. 14:6-20 and Rev. 19:11-16. These accounts alone should persuade us to abandon any wishy-washy and sentimental notions of who this man Jesus is.

Thomas Torrance, in one of his sermons on the Apocalypse, offers these powerful words about what we find in Rev. 19: “There are always people who are ready to eliminate the offence, to dilute the faith, to water down the Gospel, to whittle away the stupendous claims and assertions of Jesus Christ.

“The world likes a complacent, reasonable religion, and so it is always ready to revere some pale Galilean image of Jesus, some meagre anaemic Messiah, and to give Him a moderate rational homage. That is why Christianity has so often been diluted into vague idealism, and why the modern Church is so drugged with the anodyne of a mild Christianity and debauched with a warm religious humanism or an unthinking sentimental faith.”

Exactly right. But if those words seem a bit hard to grasp, perhaps I can illustrate things in such a way that no one should remain in the dark. Many years ago I was in an open air market in Amsterdam. One booth was selling T-shirts, and one in particular really grabbed my attention.

It happens to be a bit crude (so forgive me here), but it is both humorous and really quite accurate. This is the slogan that was emblazoned on the T-shirt: “Jesus is coming back, and boy is he pissed”. That pretty well sums up what we read about in the book of Revelation.

The meek and mild baby Jesus is here presented as a conquering king, dishing out severe judgment on all those who have refused to bow the knee and admit that a creator God exists who we all owe allegiance to, and if we will not receive him as saviour now, we will one day be forced to face him as judge.

Thus the answer to the question posed in my title is: both. Throughout Scripture we see both the love of god and the wrath of God held side by side. Indeed, they are two aspect of the divine character. As Paul could say in Romans 11:22, we are to “consider the kindness and severity of God”.

Or as D. A. Carson expresses it, “both God’s love and God’s wrath are ratcheted up in the move from the old covenant to the new, from the Old Testament to the New. These themes barrel along through redemptive history, unresolved, until they come to a resounding climax – the cross.

“Do you wish to see God’s love? Look at the cross. Do you wish to see God’s wrath? Look at the cross.” Quite so. The cross is the place where we find the world’s greatest demonstration of God’s love, but it is also the place where we witness the greatest demonstration of God’s holiness and his judgment on sin.

The good news is, Jesus took the punishment we justly deserved so that we do not have to face it ourselves. But if we reject his offer of forgiveness and reconciliation, then future judgment is coming, and no one should look forward to that.

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Imagine if this scenario had taken place under a conservative government: At least four people dead; nearly a hundred houses destroyed by fire; hundreds of thousands of other homes potentially at risk; thousands of jobs and whole industries at risk; billions of dollars squandered: all because of incompetent and out-of-touch government policies.

Imagine what all the lefties and mainstream media would be saying? They would be demanding the scalps of anyone involved in this fiasco. The hounding from the media would be merciless, and the left would not relent until action was taken.

Remember how the very person at the centre of this monumental stuff-up carried on in an act of moral outrage during the 2000 Olympics? There Peter Garrett and his band Midnight Oil wore their “sorry” shirts in an overt act of political grandstanding.

And how many times did Rudd, the Labor Party, and lefties of all stripes demand of Howard that he say sorry for all sorts of issues, such as the treatment of Aborigines? How many times did they ask of Howard and the conservatives, “Why is it so hard to just say ‘sorry’?”

Good question, certainly in light of this Rudd government fiasco. Why is no one now even willing to offer an apology, and clearly use the S word? All we have is excuse-making and cosmetic reactions, such as today’s Labor cabinet reshuffle.

Whoopee, so Garrett gets a minor demotion, a feather on the wrist. He of course should be sacked. And since Rudd keeps saying he is ultimately responsible, he should step down. But nope, there will be none of this. You see, it is hard for them to say sorry. All these lefty moralists are just an unrepentant as any conservative might be.

Andrew Bolt points out some obvious failures in this batty policy: “This scandal is not just about the every-which-way bungling by Rudd’s ‘first-class minister’ of a $2.5 billion free-insulation scheme that has since killed four people, set fire to more than 90 homes, and left 1000 more with lethal faults in their ceilings.

“Nor is it just about a mad money-shovelling plan to stimulate local business and fight ‘global warming’ that wound up doing almost nothing it was meant to achieve, instead blowing up to $400 million on dangerous or useless insulation for some 240,000 homes, and buying shiploads of dodgy batts and foil from foreign makers with dollars meant for spending right here.

“Nor is it even just about the farce of having a make-work scheme that ends with the Government spending another $10 million to ‘retrain’ 2000 of the people it’s just thrown out of work.

“Step back. The fact is this catastrophe is not the making of one hapless minister, but the inevitable and predicted result of rush-rush-Rudd’s entire style of governing. Garrett, this ‘first-class minister’, did no more than Rudd’s will, and in Rudd’s way. And the results are little different to what we’ve seen – or will keep seeing – from so many other areas under the control of this Prime Minister. Sack Peter Garrett? But then Rudd would have to sack himself.”

He goes on to list a number of major problems inherent in the Rudd Government:

First, impulsiveness. Think how Rudd decided to invest $43 billion on high-speed broadband without even a cost-benefit analysis, and after just two mid-air talks with Communications Minister Stephen Conroy as he rushed from one function to another.

Second, rush. Think how Rudd unleashed a tidal wave of extra spending last year – at least $80 billion – with little thought on what it would actually be spent on.
Or how he tried to rush in his mega-billions greenhouse tax on everything this year, long before the rest of the world was close to agreeing to any such tax themselves – meaning we’d simply drive our gassier businesses overseas.

“Third, refusal to listen. Think how Rudd even to this day will not discuss the mountain of evidence that his global warming policies to upend our economy are based on reports from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that now seem riddled with errors, exaggerations, fraud, bias and vested interests. Or how he’s ignored repeated warnings that his $16 billion ‘Education Revolution’ scheme is wasting scandalous sums on school halls and canteens that are not needed, vastly overpriced, or utterly irrelevant to a good education.”

The other features he mentions are equally concerning. Bolt concludes this way: “This insulation fiasco is just the first of Rudd’s many failures already to sink home to a public that’s been happy to give their new Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt. I fear there will be many more like it, some with even billions more at stake. Indeed, I’m now convinced Rudd is at least as incompetent a manager as Whitlam, but with none of Whitlam’s vision. While he still has Garrett to hide behind, this deeply insecure man can only hope you won’t see that, too. But the minute you do, he’s through.”

The left is always happy to take the high moral ground, and go on various moral crusades. But when the shoe is on the other foot, and when they are caught out doing all kinds of idiotic and damaging things, the very word they demand of conservatives seems to disappear from the left’s vocabulary. In my books that is moral hypocrisy.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/batt-fiasco-is-pms-fault/story-e6frfhqf-1225833597182

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That believers can in fact lose their love for him is something Jesus himself predicted would happen. Consider one occasion where he mentioned this. When Jesus was at the Mount of Olives, his disciples came to him asking, “Tell us, when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

His lengthy answer is what we now call the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24-25). Here Jesus speaks about conditions which will appear just before he returns. He tells us what to expect in the last days. Verses 9-11 of chapter 24 is the section that I want to draw attention to here:

“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.”

This is a remarkable word for many reasons, but I especially want to emphasise the warning about the love of most growing cold. Jesus speaks about this in other places of course. For example, he warns about a lukewarm church and his reaction to it in Revelation 3: 14-22. It is a very familiar passage, but worth recalling here:

“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

Very strong words indeed, and words that seem to me to be fully applicable to much of the church today. And I include our Bible-believing evangelical churches here as well. But let me explain the background to my thoughts here.

I recently found something quite alarming, and wrote an article about it. It had to do with the claim of a foolish celebrity that Jesus was a sodomite. But it was not that which bothered me so much. After all, you expect such idiotic remarks to come from over-pampered and over-payed rock stars.

But what did bother me – and grieved my spirit – was the response by some believers. Some of these folk suggested I was getting all excited about nothing, and that I should just calm down. ‘No big deal’ was their attitude, and they couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.

It is possible they are right. Maybe I should just chill out and not waste time being concerned about such matters. But it also possible that they are wrong. Their response may suggest a possible lack of a pure and holy and devout love for our Lord. The truth is, a disciple of Jesus will seek to have the mind and heart of his Saviour. What hurts God should hurt us. What grieves God should grieve us.

And when we see our Lord denigrated, slandered and accused of all sorts of crap, that should concern us. The honour and glory of God should be our chief concern. Our love relationship with him should be so close that when he is insulted and attacked, we should feel assaulted and attacked.

And this is not so hard to understand. Indeed, it happens all the time in life. If a husband truly and deeply loves his wife, he will never regard an attack on her character or a denigration of her person to occur without feeling a righteous sense of indignation, and an overwhelming desire to come to the aid of his beloved.

The more a husband loves his wife, the more he will object to anyone seeking to damage her name, her reputation, her character, or her virtue. It is a clear sign of a lack of love, and a cold heart, when a spouse cannot be roused to righteous concern when the beloved is slammed and smeared by others.

Thus I cannot fathom the rather cavalier, flippant and careless attitude of some believers when their Lord who is the most precious and beautiful person of all is dragged in the mud by his critics. What sort of love is that?

One person actually suggested that I just ease up, and not get “all huffy about such things”. I have to wonder about such people. I would like to ask them if they take a similar approach to their spouse, or mother, or any other important loved one. If for example a wife was maliciously slandered and insulted, would the husband just shrug his shoulders and say it is nothing to get all huffy about?

If so, can I suggest that this marriage is already over? Anyone who would take such a cold and callous view toward his beloved can surely know little about genuine love. And if we should rightly have a passionate sense of wanting to defend the honour and dignity of our beloved, how much more so with the most wonderful, most pure and most holy being in the universe?

However there would be many other possible indications of a cooling love, or a fading devotion. I don’t mean to pick on just these folks. As I say, perhaps they are right to not be as concerned as I was about this matter. But the truth remains that it is a good thing to keep a close eye on our spiritual condition, however we might measure it.

Indeed, believers should engage in careful spiritual check-ups on a regular basis. We all should continuously be on our knees, asking God to search our hearts, and see if there be any wicked way in us, as David prayed (Psalm 139:24). We all need to ask God if our love has grown cold and our devotion old.

The warnings of Scripture are there for a reason, and they need to be taken very seriously indeed. The warnings found in Rev. 3: 14-22 are something everyone one of us must take to heart. They force us to ask, “How is our love life with our Lord?”

Are we hot in regard to our love for him? Or cold? Or lukewarm? That is a vitally important question which we must be asking ourselves on a regular basis. Indeed, if the matter of our love growing cold was not such a serious matter, and such a very real possibility, then why did Jesus speak so strongly and forcefully about it?

It is time we take some of these warnings seriously. But if we don’t, we certainly cannot say that we haven’t been warned about the dangers which can follow.

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And nowhere does this crop up more often than in the area of human sexuality. Time and time again we hear these weak excuses and plaintiff rationalisations: ‘But it feels so good.’ ‘How can it be wrong if it seems so right?’ ‘I can’t help it, I was made that way.’ ‘This is just who I am.’

Thus every sexual sin in the book is justified. Adultery is justified. Fornication is justified. Easy divorce is justified. Porn addiction is justified. Homosexuality is justified. Incest is justified. On and on it goes. There is always a cheap excuse to be found for such behaviours.

We of course expect animals to simply follow their urges, but should humans? It is exactly because we are not animals that we really should be living and thinking differently here. Simply having a desire or an inclination to do something does not mean that we should give in to those urges.

Indeed, even if we are born with various biologically-based cravings and desires, this is no reason why we should just give in to them and allow them free reign and full expression. It is a mark of civilisation that various desires and wants are restrained or simply said no to.

Consider the issue of homosexuality. There of course is a huge debate here about how we understand the causes of homosexuality. Activist claim they are born that way; that it is genetically based; and that they can do nothing about it. Incredibly, one often hears these sorts of arguments coming from Christians as well nowadays.

OK, for the sake of argument, let’s just assume for a moment that there may be some biological basis for homosexuality. Even if that is the case, does that mean homosexual activity must be engaged in? After all, people may well be born with an orientation or predisposition to getting angry, to arson, or to over-eating. Should they simply indulge therefore in these various activities, or instead learn how to resist and modify such urges?

As Frank Turek says in his recent book, Correct, Not Politically Correct, “Let’s suppose that scientists someday discover a genetic contribution to homosexual desires. Would that give license to behavior? No, all of us have desires that we ought not to act on. In other words, we were all born with an ‘orientation’ to bad behavior, but desires don’t justify the behavior. For example, some may have a genetic predisposition to alcohol, but who would advocate alcoholism? If someone has a genetic attraction to children, does that justify pedophilia? What homosexual activist would say that a genetic predisposition to violence justifies gay-bashing? (Born gay? What if the gay-basher was born mean?). Desires do not justify behaviors. In fact, there is a word we use to describe the disciplined restraint of destructive desires – it’s called ‘civilization’.”

Yet these folk will insist that they must be who they are. But this argument is spurious, as Dennis Hollinger argues in his important new book, The Meaning of Sex: “It assumes that what we are in our inner dispositions and drives is always good. But most ethical systems, whether philosophical or religious, have called humans to move beyond their inner propensities to higher forms of behaviour and commitment. Capitulating to our inner dispositions or even to our identities is not necessarily virtuous.”

Christians of all people should realise these truths, but sadly even many Christians have bought into moral relativism and the postmodern assault on truth. Thus even some believers have fallen for the “I was born that way” line, and have given into much of the sexual revolution, including the radical homosexual agenda.

Some believers therefore seek to justify and make excuses for homosexuality, instead of standing on the absolutes of Scripture. They want to argue that if it feels right, then by all means let’s do it. ‘Don’t panic, its organic’ seems to be their motto.

But as the late ethicist Stanley Grenz has argued, “Ethics is not merely a condoning of what comes naturally. On the contrary, Christian theology warns us that we dare not always entrust ourselves to what we sense to be ‘natural.’ Our natural inclinations are not a sure guide to proper human conduct, but share in our fallenness.”

Christians are called to something higher. Indeed, human beings are called to something higher than what we find in the world of animals. We have the ability to make moral choices, the ability to say no to unhealthy desires, and the ability to put a chain on potentially out of control desires.

Sure, all those abilities are greatly diminished because of the Fall, but we can still exercise our choice here. And that is in fact why Christ came: to set us free from the bondage to our fallen inclinations and desires. He came to set the captives free, and to free us from self. So those who claim to be Christians are really without excuse in this regard. They simply should know better.

But again, even if we were to concede that some people have a same-sex attraction that seems to be a major feature of who they are, does that mean it must then be acted upon? Are not believers told to crucify the flesh and deny self? Where would we end up as a society if we said that the best thing to do is simply always to give in to our desires and lusts?

As Turek righty argues, “But let’s suppose that some homosexuals cannot change their orientation. Does that mean they cannot control their behavior? Why do we expect pedophiles to resist their desires but not homosexuals? Because we know pedophiles are human beings who can choose not to act on their sexual desires just like anyone else. We also demand them to resist their desires because our children will not be safe if they don’t….

“The truth is, sexual behaviour is not compulsory. It is always a choice. We all must resist our sexual urges at times. And while it’s not desirable, some do so for their entire lives and never have sex. That’s possible for people with any sexual desire. After all, if I honestly believe that I’ve been born with heterosexual desires, am I required to engage in heterosexual acts? Am I not capable of controlling my sexual desires and remaining celibate? If you claim that I am not, then you have also made the absurd contention that no one in the history of the world has ever been morally responsible for any sexual crime, including rape, incest, and child molestation.”

The fact that so many so-called believers have fallen hook, line and sinker for the homosexual agenda shows how far down the tubes the church has moved recently. Biblical illiteracy is reaching epidemic proportions in many churches, as is common sense and basic logic.

It is time Christians reclaimed the mind, logic, Scripture and truth in these debates, instead of slavishly falling for every trendy new bit of social activism and political correctness. If we cannot take a stand here in such a vitally important area, then we might well give all this religion stuff away, sell our churches, and let them be turned into gay discos. But with God’s grace, I will hope for something better.

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