It might come back and bite you.

People need to be careful with their victim politics game. It can be turned back on them. If members of a given race, or gender, or any other demographic, can claim grievances as a group they could find grievances can be counter claimed against them.
First look at the problem. Some hard line feminists claim that because women were not allowed to vote in the past, they have to be compensated today. Now my own great grandmother could not vote until she was 36 years old. She was born in England in 1882. Women in England were not enfranchised until 1918. I remember this lady well. She lived until 1966, the year I turned 13, having settled in Australia to be near family. I've personally spoken to someone who recalls when women could not vote. But would that be made right if all her  male descendants were forbidden to vote until they turn 36 years of age? Or would that repeat the wrongdoing? Or do her female descendants have to be given some extra benefit vis-a-vis her male ones? How? And why are we to blame for an injustice we had nothing to do with?
An extreme example of victims politics and claiming the right to get compensated would be that Australian Aboriginals, Native Americans, Maoris and any other first peoples could carry out massacres against white people, to get even for Wounded Knee, Myall Creek in Australia, and other such atrocities. But would that actually set things to right or add further wrongdoing? I know what I think about it. Being a white man does not make me personally responsible for any of the things mentioned above. Being of part German descent does NOT make me responsible for the vile attacks on Jews in Europe during World War 2. Being of part Scottish descent does not make me personally responsible for the slave trade, although Scottish merchant were apparently quite prominent in it. Having some French ancestors does not make me responsible for Alfred Dreyfus' ordeal. I must answer for what I've done, and no -one else has to. And I do not have to answer for what others have done. So the entire insidious moral blackmail industry can take it somewhere else.
And consider, if you trade in identity or victim politics, can anything be laid against you?
Some hardline feminists/female chauvinists claim that because some men commit rape we are all rapists. So if some women kill for money, does that mean all women are to be treated as gold-digging murderers?
This warning applies to all. Point fingers and they can be pointed back. Critisise and you can be critisised in turn. Lay a charge against a category of people and find one can be laid against yours.
The blame game could devour us all.

Get the irony here!

                                                           Get the irony here!
This seems to me a classic irony. Wolves in sheep's clothing also being sheep trying to impersonate wolves.
Among the 'outraged activists' joining in the protests against the election of President Trump are people who insist they are the purest and most noble of visionaries, trying to enlighten society and save the rest of us from our blindness and foolishness. They would no doubt claim to have the halos and wings of angels in terms of goodness and knowledge of truth. They wish they could get control of schools and influence the minds of they young, to take up their ideas. To some of us they are ravaging wolves, whose pernicious influence would poison the society that supports and protects them if they could. They trample on what has been held sacred for centuries, presume to know better than millions of thinkers and believers in the past. So they can be seen as wolves in the guise of sheep. But here's the irony. While trying to look like wolves to their enemies, they are also revealing themselves as sheep. They follow the lead of those who tell them what to think, turn up to 'demonstrate' when told to do so, chant what they're told to chant, hold signs and banners they're told to hold, and follow the leader like the sheep in Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty Four", with their bleating 'four legs good, two legs bad'. So while trying to look like wolves, and being dangerous in their way, they are also sheep manipulated by whoever has some use for them and can flatter them into doing what is wanted of them. Sheep being revealed as wolves, wolves revealed as sheep - all at the same time.

Tell me: what next?

Speaking from Australia, I would love to know what American people think about the Presidential Election result.  What do think about Donald J. Trump winning office?
Since I'm not a U.S. citizen I won't take it on myself to comment. I'd like to know what others think. One thing I do believe, though. The trendy, left leaning, social justice warrior faction who assume they always know best have been told that not every one sees things their way.The same goes for the Brexit, my mother's home country rejecting the politically fashionable view and deciding to leave the European Union. So what's happening? Is it just angry disillusionment, or have millions of people finally decided they've had enough of a self styled intellectual elite telling them what to think?
As a Christian, I'm really tired of seeing what I hold sacred held up to contempt or laughingly declared obsolete, like the idea that men and women are made in certain ways quite different; they are one or the other, that can't really change; and matrimony is the union of one man and one woman; and that we are all accountable to God. If it's true that Hilary Clinton wanted Christians to disavow or change their beliefs to fit political fashion, then I'm glad she lost the election. There you are, I've said it. But of  course I don't have to live under what ever leadership American people choose, so I can't claim to say too much.

Any thoughts to share?

All human righteousness...

I'm really saddened by what's happened regarding Bill Cosby, and Rolf Harris here in Australia. If the allegations are not true, and it's a huge diabolic deception, then it's shocking that such a thing can happen in the modern age. If the allegations are true, it's really rotten and sad that people whose work I loved as entertainers have turned out to have such evil hidden sides. When the accusations first began I didn't know whether they were honest or whether some pathetic parasite had tried to get a life by claiming victimhood and hoping to get their hands on some money. Unless the judicial systems and investigative mechanisms in two advanced countries are a disgrace, the accusations of sexual assault and indecent interference must have some substance. All I can say is, I hate that it should be true and find it drives me away from belief in human goodness.
The first time I saw Bill Cosby, on a T.V. variety show in the 1960s, he was doing Junior Barnes and the snowball. It was a delight. I rolled around on the floor laughing. Clean humour, laughing at the human condition and human behaviour. Pure gold in a world which relies on smut or laughing at hurt and calamity, it seemed to me. Rolf Harris likewise. He presented songs like Jake the Peg, with comic antics accompanying, or daft comic songs like "Tie Me Kangaroo Down", and it was just innocent fun. I'm thinking, we need more like this; or is the world too cynical and mentally toxified for it?  There was hope for our society while it could appreciate this sort of entertainment. So then it comes to light, unless we're being horribly deceived, that both these people have an evil hidden nature.
So I'm reminded, again: never put complete faith in a human being and treat them as larger than life, and talk about 'role models'.  Mere human beings are not all as seriously evil as some cases, but we all fail some test at some time. I knew about myself, very early in life, that I could fail. I'd make careless mistakes that could have caused calamity. The problem was compounded by the fact that I was told other people could do everything right, which just made me feel like an even bigger waste of space. Then with time and maturity I could see that no-one's perfect; but some people are held up as examples to others, or at least as what we all should be if we could be. Then it happens, again and again. The celebrity crashes and burns. The idol has feet of clay - or soft mud, even. So I can't ever assume that any mere human person can be completely relied on.
SO  I need Jesus Christ. I'm confirmed in my belief that the Bible gets it right when it says, all human goodness is sadly short of true rightness.
If some spiteful left winger or social justice warrior was glad to see the two people I've mentioned fall, then I say to them: don't think that makes you look any better to me. You too are only human. You too would cringe if The Truman Show was real and a record of your life was shown to the world. That's a scary thought for anyone, now I think of it. The only way a person would not be bitterly ashamed of some things that could be known about them is if they are psychopathic, and have no conscience or sense of wrong doing.
I need to be forgiven. We all do. Bill Cosby does. Rolf Harris does. And while we're on that subject, keep going, and list every human that every lived.
Thank you for being my Redeemer, Lord Jesus. I pray millions more turn to you, admitting their need.
To anyone who reads this, my best wishes for the  year 2017 A.D.

It's here.

It's here.

If the internet is to be believed, then a church in Europe has removed the Cross from its front because the Cross, the symbol of Christianity, might offend Muslims. It's difficult for me to express the sheer contempt I feel for such craven sanctimony, denying the emblem of the Saviour to placate people who claim the right to take offence at other peoples' beliefs. But it's happening, the report says. The people responsible talk about conciliation, about seeking to live in peace with the migrants who have flooded into Europe, but that conciliation would be at the expense of peoples' right to hold their beliefs publicly.  Then the article explains that the 'pastor' who made that decision, a woman, is a lesbian activist. Claiming the authority of the church, wearing the traditional clerical collar, she denies the teachings of Christ and sets out to deny the church its mission, to speak the Word in truth.
The Abomination of Desolation is standing where it should not. That was foretold in the Book of Revelations. It seems to me that it's happening now. In a country which supposedly allows freedom of worship, Christianity is supposed to be muted and gagged. And in the name of the church, someone is advocating what the Bible rejects. The church is being subverted.
Perhaps this has happened before. We keep expecting the end to come, and yet we know that only God knows when the Second Coming will be. We can't claim to know the hour. But there are times when it seems to me that we must be in the end times.
Am I wrong? If anyone reads this, feel free to tell me what you think. But there is something right out of order about someone calling themselves a Christian leader and denying the proclamation of Christ, in the shape of the Cross marking a building as a church. And there is something quite wrong with a supposed Christian leader claiming the authority of the church to advocate for what God's word rejects.
What's going to happen in Europe? Will it collapse like the civilizations in the past, and enter a new dark age? I hope not. Or will people see the need to turn back to the true God and speak out? People in the West have had it pretty easy by the standards of this world, and it seems to have made them complacent, not grateful. Is this how God is calling them back to Himself? Or is it a sign that the end is near?

We're in this together.
The question was posed: "Why should the Australian Aborigines have to give up their culture and way of life because this land was taken over by Europeans?" The same could be said about any number of cultures lived by indigenous people before their land was colonized or taken over by those from outside. It is a legitimate question in some context but it can be used for guilt inducement, not as a call for justice. It needs to be viewed in other ways, as well.
One answer it that the same thing happens to ALL of us. It's not always so obvious, but it's going on as we sit here. Things are changing in the world, changing the way we live whether we like it or not and not always making things better. Change is not always fair or good, but it is part of the human condition. It may not be by physical invasion. Technology invades privacy. Modern employment patterns intrude on private and family life. Alterations are imposed on us, not always for the best. It can be inaccurate to point to certain examples only.
If you want, you can keep the superficial aspects of the past. That's what the rockabillies do. They still have Bakelite radios and other things from a past era. But if I'm rightly informed they also take advantage of modern medicine if needed. So be it. They are allowed to dress in period styles if they wish. They should be, too.
If people want to really avoid being affected by the changing world, then in a free society you can live as the Amish do. They eschew modern technology, drive horse drawn buggies and live without telephones or electronic media. It can be done, if not easily. Important to note is that the Amish are able to do this because the wider nation around them, the United States, protects them and their right to live as they do. What they are avoiding also confers certain protection on them. That is worth considering before people beat up on Western civilization.
In Australia, there are still settlements where Aboriginals live their traditional way, or as close as they can or choose, and likewise, that choice is given them because the modern nation of Australia allows and even supports them in doing so. There have been cultures in the past who were completely swept away by invaders, or just by circumstances changing. The original people of the Chatham Islands, off New Zealand, were wiped out by the Maoris, who came later. The original inhabitants of the Caribbean Islands were wiped out by the Caribs, who were there when Europeans arrived. No-one was there to stop the complete annihilation of a people in those days. They are gone from the world forever. Other indigenous or First Peoples survive because the modern nations that formed over them now protect their right to keep their identity. The Australian Aboriginal people survive as an identified, ongoing people because a modern nation which invaded their land now protects them. There are Aboriginal communities in inland Australia which continue to live in the traditional way, or as close to it as they choose, but the certain added things like cars, mobile phones, alcohol and Western medicine. There were some abominations in the past, with massacres of Aboriginals, stealing of their children, and racist rejection of some who tried to adjust to European society. It does not undo that or cancel the misery it caused to say this, but it is still true that such things happened everywhere on Earth. It is a good supposition that any human being alive today had some ancestors who were invaded, and some who were invaders. The conclusion to be drawn is that the world forces change on all of us, some of it good (like forbidding infanticide?) and people such as Aborigines are quite prepared to take up those parts of European life that suit them. The world we are all born into has been wrought and shaped by all sort of horrors and evil, as well as some humane changes and progress. We all have to live with what we know, and try to avoid repeating the same mistakes. We all might wish we could bring back the past, especially if it is romanticised.  The hippies of the 1960s wanted to go 'back to the earth'. Before the Industrial Revolution most people did live close to the earth. They lived in villages, small agricultural settlements, and farmed. The coming of industrialization changed that.  There was much misery in the process, too. But if you REALLY want to go back to the earth, to the past, give up your mobile phone, the internet, antibiotics, access to kidney dialysis, and modern surgery.  Get the point?
The age of King Arthur is over for Britain - if it was really so good.
The age of Brian Boru is over for Ireland - if it was really so good.
The age of Pemulway is over for Australia's first people - even if it was really so good. What happened in those days to people who developed glaucoma or cataracts? Did traditional healers have effective remedies? What happened to a child born with hole in the heart? Could they treat it effectively?

History is full of sadness, All our ancestors suffered. We all have to endure change, whether or not we benefit from it. Sometimes it is for the worse. But look at the wider context to understand it properly.

So we're useful after all.

We're living in the technical age, so they keep telling us. Teach your children to code, to use computers. We must be the clever country, and learn all about computer applications. It goes on and on. Okay, I'm glad to have the use of computers and technology, Facebook, blog sites, web pages and all those things. But my area is arts. The two things I did best as school were English and History. The way people talk sometimes, those areas of study are a waste of space. No, we insist, those of us who prefer history and literature to maths and physics.  Literature and history deal with ideas, debates about ethics, about right or wrong. It's not only about HOW to do things. It's also about WHY do things, or even SHOULD we do them. Knowledge without conscience is a dangerous thing. Michael Crichton expounded an important idea when he wrote "Jurassic Park". One of his characters explains that knowledge too easily gained is like inherited wealth, the people who gain it do not properly respect what it took to gain it and they sometimes use it recklessly and dangerously. Since we now learn in a few hours what took people like Isaac Newton years to learn, the human race uses the power that comes with knowledge without proper respect for that knowledge. It's not so hard to understand. If you are good at painting or engraving, you can be an artist or a forger. The difference lies in your personal ethics and conscience. So we keep insisting that our areas of study have a place, but it doesn't seem that people take much notice sometimes.
Then in the newspapers I read something quite stark, which should be a bit of a warning.
A high proportion of the killers fighting for ISIS, or Daesh, have high educational qualifications - ins the sciences. They've studied and learned, they know HOW to do things, and that makes them dangerous, because they do not have a good conscience in WHAT they do with what they know.
So those of us who believe philosophy has a place, who say it's important to study history and see how the past shapes the present, and how things happen; and read the ideas of writers who aim to enlighten through their literature; we stand vindicated. Knowledge is not all it takes to make a good world. Conscience and understanding are needed too. It's now enough to know how to do things. We must also think about why we do things, or what we should do with what we know.

Breaking out.

I'll speak with proper respect for other nations and their peoples' right to choose their own leaders. So this is not an out of order comment on the U.S. and its people.  It's an observation about politics in the Western world, which some of us dare to call the 'free' world.
One of our columnists in Australia wrote recently that 'the left made Donald Trump'. Her reasoning seems quite sound to me, and what she wrote worth considering. It's a fabulous irony, spiced with poetic justice, if it's true. If anyone reads this, I'd be glad to know what you think.
The argument goes that the left movement, collectively, has set itself up as some kind of thought police, out to squash any commentary or movement they do not approve of; and in their determination NOT to be gagged, the usually silent majority go to the other extreme and support whatever the left hates most, whatever it really is trying to suppress. Donald Trump says the things a lot of people try to stop anyone saying. He proposes things that make the politically correct flinch and gasp with pretentious displays of horror. He dares. He will not be intimidated. And I am happy to say that I admire it. Someone who can't be gagged by the self appointed umpires of the debate, the wanna be mind controllers who think they can mess with other peoples' heads and tell them what to think. We had a phenomenon in Australia something like it when Pauline Hanson launched the One Nation Party. She rejected multiculturalism and all the other pet projects of the self proclaimed progressives. She gained a huge vote, more than the Greens and one other small party put together, and rattled a few cages in the process. She said what people are not supposed to, such as that too much migration might be bad for Australia, especially when it came from cultures unlike our own. Mr Trump dares speak critically about migration from non English speaking places, and as with Hanson, he provokes howls of sanctimonious condemnation from people who claim the right to tell us what we can and cannot say. Someone I know well who is living in the U.S. at the moment said that if he was voting he would vote for Trump. The first reason: no one owns him. He is self financing, so he's beholden to none and can take whatever position he chooses. Myself, I love seeing the loud mouth, self righteous left getting told, the rest of us do not have to think what you want us to. We do not have to accept your standards of political correctness. We do not have to agree with you about how a country should be governed or its people should live. We can think what we think and if you don't agree you will be reminded that freedom of belief goes for everybody, not just whoever the left approve of.

Where does the Western world go from here?  Those who called themselves free thinkers did all they could to eliminate the influence of Christianity but did not have something better to replace it with. They told us they did, and let the show down badly. Will the people of the free world return to what gave them so much good in their society? Christianity teaches respect for all, altruism and peace among people, and that is where we get individual rights from and civic sense in communities. Will we go back to it or keep following the braggarts and jackals in sheep's clothing who tell us their political ideas are better. I look at some people who think they know how we should all live and recall the teaching, "Believing themselves wise they made themselves into fools."  (Parapharasing).
God be with us. Jesus forbear with us. Perhaps the Second Coming is near. Only He knows.

A new outlook.
I'm glad I never had to go to war, but if I ever had to, or if I ever do find myself in combat, I hope it is against a group like ISIS (Daesh). I could fight them with resolve! If I'd been at war against Germans, Italians, Japanese, Vietnamese, Koreans or any other nation Australia has fought against I might have been in combat with individual people I had nothing against at all. But if I fought against the Islamist terrorist calling themselves ISIS then I would know: they really are BADDIES. They chose to be where they are, they personally chose this war. They have done what is abominable, in the murder or children and the persecution of Christians, or any other religious group for that matter. If my nerve did not fail me, if I did not prove to be a coward, I could fight against them with certainty that this is a just fight. Stopping them from doing the vile things they do is a just cause. I pray that God gives victory to all who take up arms against them. I pray that if they are ever a threat to my family or friends God will give me the means to fight them effectively, and not fail to withstand them. Just as the world has faced Nazis, Fascists, Communist terrorists and other monstrosities, so it now faces the renegade Islamists who want to oppress the entire human race. God give us victory against them. The mass murder attacks in France have brought it home to Europe: they can't dissimulate any more or hide behind sanctimonies about conciliating with Islamist grievances. We have to stand up to it. May the only true God be with us all.

When will we ever learn?

When you're under twenty one, or so, it can be really annoying to see older people dismissing your views as if you know nothing at all. And sometimes the oldsters who dismiss you can overlook something they need to know. Their rude disrespect or arrogant sense of superiority can blind them and cost them. But having said that, I'm old enough myself to see why it happens sometimes.
The same old things go around and come around.
I'm a nineteen fifties model. I was born in 1953, the same year the Korean War ended. I can remember newsreaders talking about President Eisenhower. And I can remember one of the catch cries from the time: "Ban the bomb." That was the anti nuclear activism of the day.
I can't recall the exact order or the times when the different politico-social fads went round, but in the sixties and seventies the Western world went through phases of concern about global crowding and famine, then pollution, especially in the very late sixties with acid rain. There was concern about heavy metal poisoning of soils, of water ways, all legitimate concerns, but the point is: these themes came and went, and then came again. There was even a global warming alarm sometime in the sixties. People were afraid the number of humans would generate so much body heat that they would raise the planet's temperature and it would start killing crops and causing starvation.
If you live long enough, you see the same things come and go and then come again. If it's the first time someone's heard it, they think it is new. They don't understand why older people are less impressed. To them (us!) it's a case of 'here we go again.'
I'm convinced the world will end, when Jesus Christ comes again. It will end when God decides the time has come. Nothing humans can do will stop that, nor should it if they only knew what was right. Nor will that day come any sooner than God decides, no matter how much humans think their behaviour changes things. So we have a finite span on this planet, no doubt; but it is rather vain for people to think it all depends on them.
How long before people get it?

It tells you something!
Thousands of refugees heading to Europe, trying to get a new life, are heading straight into the homeland of their supposed enemy - Christendom! It tells you something, doesn't it? If they wanted to live in an Islamic society, there are stable Moslem nations like Saudi Arabia which are closer. Many of them are living in Turkey after fleeing Syria, or other Islamic nations racked by war, and Turkey is a peaceful Moslem country. So why the West?
Could it be because Christian societies, or even societies with a Christian past, seem to be better places to live. Human rights are better protected. Toleration of belief and opinion are observed. The individual cannot be killed for changing religions, or stoned for (alleged) adultery. Women have the same legal rights as men and are not forced to cover their heads in public, or even their faces. In short, the West with its centuries of Christian tradition is a much safer and happier place to be. It's a cruel irony that so many westerners become jaded and depressed, amidst all that they have. They don't know how bad it can be. And they have been deluded by 'intellectuals' into rejecting the creed that gave us all so much, Christianity. But even so, the West attracts people from nations like Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, as well as some countries in Africa. Seeing all this, wealthy Moslems promise funding to build mosques for them in Europe. Not help where they are and rehoming, but mosques in the heartland of the enemy, Christian lands. And here's some news I found really heartening, reporting in one Australian newspaper. There are a number of Moslem immigrants in the West, notably Germany, attending Christian churches and wanting to become Christians. So the Islamic nations could not only lose some of the people they will need to rebuild their war-mangled countries, they could see some of those they call theirs becoming Christians instead. I pray it's true. I would rejoice in seeing new brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus redeemed for those who want to overthrow and enslave us, forcing us to bow to their religion and attacking ours. How marvellous if that all backfired, and instead of Islam colonising and invading Europe, Christianity took people from the Islamic world.  Some of the leaders of the Moslem world could do with asking themselves why it should be that their people want to move to the West, why Moslem style government does not appeal to those they need to populate what they think are the lands of the faithful.
God will be glorified, no matter how His foes try to bring down Him and His.
Come again, Lord Jesus.

Getting it said.

Donald Trump seems to be doing the same thing in the U.S. that a lady named Pauline Hanson did in Australia a few years ago. He's putting things on the agenda that some people try to avoid. He says things that some people won't say, even if they think them. I believe  western democracy is the best system of government available in this world but one of its limitations is that it's hard to escape 'political correctness', a reluctance to discuss certain issues because the moral blackmailers start jumping up and down throwing accusations at whoever dares speak. Then once in a while we find someone who won't be scared, who says the things others won't say. Whatever you think of them, it seems to me they serve one important purpose. They get subjects out into the public domain and stop the gagging of personal expression. There is a place for that, provided it does not lapse into slander and dishonesty.
It's not my place to say who should win the U.S. presidency because I'm not an American and the citizens of America should decide that for themselves. We in Australia don't like non-Australians telling us how to run our country so we should not tell others how to run their nations. But this I will say: it's good to see someone speaking out about the issues that others try to avoid or try to be so polite about that they end up being less than frank. Donald Trump could be going too far in his comments on migrants from Mexico but the concern about illegal and uncontrolled migration is there. It won't go away because the goody-goodies don't like things said about it. A country has a right to control its borders. In Australia, Pauline Hanson complained about large scale migration changing the culture and nature of Australia, without the agreement of all Australians. She was right, too. Whatever the race issues, Australian people saw our movement into the country on a scale that could change it without that issue being properly considered or publicly debated, but no-one wanted to say so publicly - until Pauline Hanson got up.
There is a place for this, I believe. Say what you think, and let others remember that you don't need their approval to think what you do. If people genuinely respect freedom of speech, then they know of the need to agree to disagree sometimes. That's a test of how real they are, when they claim to support freedom of speech. As well as that, in principle, public opinion matters in a democracy because the views and wishes of the people are part of how they govern themselves. So let them speak. There is a need to stop the pernicious stifling of debate on some issues because the self-styled censors and thought police don't like hearing it. I can talk. I hear things said that strike me as quite appalling, but it's not for me to deny others the right to say what they think. And it's not for them to try silencing me either. So if "The Donald" as "I'm told they call him gets up and says things that others might want to hear said, more power to that. When it's all been said, then the vote. Then people can decide who they want to elect as leader. But let's hear it all said first. That is real democracy.

Wrong approach.

A study reported in the Australian press yesterday said that homosexual people  report lower levels of happiness in life than heterosexuals. The professor running the study said that this reflects on society, because, he says, it treats homosexuals badly. That was predictable, and I think honestly it shows the same blindness that people often do when trying to alleviate a problem. It could be that homosexuals are unhappy not because society makes them unhappy but because they are doing something that God did not intend when He made the human race. I know some people would attack me furiously for this but that's in God's hands.
Homosexuality is forbidden by God. The Bible says that. So to try living that way is to depart from the way of life God intended His children to live. Apparently there is no such thing as a homosexual type brain.
People want society to change to accommodate them. Society does not decree essential human nature and how life is supposed to be lived. The Divine did and does that. Flying in the face of it is futile. You can't reinvent the universe to suit a doctrine.
We need to seek God's way, not invent new ways to be and say it's about being modern. Some things are timeless.

They don't deserve to be here.

Like millions of others, I'm disgusted by the actions of a migrant to the United States who launched a coward terrorist attack and killed four U.S. marines. That person chose to enter the U.S. seeking permission to live there. The U.S. government accepted them, on behalf of the people of the nation, and in response this migrant turns on the place. They probably expect they will be welcome in Paradise as a hero. It is contemptible, not brave. If they were genuinely brave and heroic they could join an armed conflict and fight, not pretend to be a civilian non combatant and launch an ambush. It is pathetic hypocrisy to ask to live in a country and then turn on it. I can hear the usual sanctimonious do-gooders making their excuses, and I think that's all humbug. This was the act of a punk wanting to get a life by cheating, looking for a cheap and tinny way of being a hero. It is also treachery. When two other wanna-be heroes detonated the bomb at the Boston Marathon, a newspaper in Australia published a cartoon which I thought was worth keeping and framing. It showed the Statue of Liberty holding up the torch and calling on people to come to the new land, and two rats scampering in, taking the chance to get something they did not deserve. Well said! It is quite literally like asking for someone's help, getting into their home and then turning on them. I can see no excuse, nothing to be said in defence of those who do such a thing. We have the same problem in Australia. Migrants who needed Australia, it did not need them; and on being allowed to come here and take out citizenship they turn on the people of the country that gave them what it did not owe them. I wish the United States well in upholding the traditions that Western civilization is rightly acclaimed for, and that the world should be glad of: personal freedom, the rule of law not despots, and humanity towards others. I wish for the thwarting of those who would undermine the West with addle-headed stupidity and applaud those who attack it in the name of a doctrine that oppresses people. Like Australia and Britain, my two parent countries, the U.S. is not perfect and like other Western nations it has suffered through political correctness and left wing thinking compromising natural justice and common sense; but it still stands, and the tide might turn soon. God bless us all.

Encouragement.

These events are a few weeks old, but I felt today that I had some thoughts to put down. Reported in the press, a couple of Christians who run a bakery were approached to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, proclaiming 'support gay marriage', and the Christians declined. As far as I'm told they were not hostile, they simply did not take up the offer of some business on conscientious grounds. Christian teaching rejects the notion of same-sex relationships and the bakers seem to have felt that they were acting untruly to their own beliefs to make a cake celebrating such a relationship. So it seems the same-sex couple did not simply take their business elsewhere, they had to start a lawsuit over it. They can have their same-sex relationship, I know that, but they cannot tell other people 'you have to approve and want to be part of it.' So they set out to make trouble for people who stood by their own convictions. The next development was, as I heard it, an appeal went out seeking help for these Christians, and the response was such that they have been given much more money than they would lose if they lost the lawsuit, so they are better off than if they had knuckled under and done what the non-Christian society tries telling them to do. I was delighted to see that people will stick by them and back them up when they stand by their beliefs and convictions, and will not be told they have to celebrate something they do not believe in because an intolerant society, proclaiming 'freedom for all', takes away their freedom. This is not about beating up on same-sex couples. it is asserting that Christians, Jews, or others who do support the idea of same-sex coupling can stick by their own beliefs. They are NOT trying to stop the homosexuals from having their wedding. They merely choose not to be personally involved. We must all have that right to our conscience. I will not turn up at a homosexual or lesbian wedding ceremony and throw bad eggs. I'll leave them to it. But I will can not be told I have to attend the ceremony and show approval of it. That is what real tolerance actually involves. We can't stop certain things but we can't be told to support them. It was really good to see other standing by this couple instead of abandoning them to suffer, with people making pious comments like "I don't judge" and letting the Christians suffer for acting on their own convictions. I say again, they did not try to stop the wedding, they simply chose not to be involved. If those who set out to sue them feel refuted by the support the Christians received, let them just get this: they can do their own thing but not force others to tell them they're wonderful. A bad thing it is to curtail freedom under the guise of protecting it.

Blood on our hands?

Just recently a young Australian named Jake joined the Daesh death cult calling itself IS. He left his home in Melbourne, got to the IS so called 'homeland' and became yet another young person who has been drawn to that that cause. The latest report alleges that he became a suicide bomber. Some of his blog posts indicate that he expected to die. So he's gone the same way as hundreds or thousands of youthful people, some of them from the U.S. or Australia or Europe, who've been consumed by the evil thing that claims to be retaking the world over in the name of God. There are those who find excuses for people who do this, and for Islamic terrorists generally, trying to argue that it's the Western world's fault, we've provoked them, and so on. I say humbug, I don't accept that at all. But I do have one observation to make. Jake Bilardi was sometimes bullied. He was pushed around and given a hard time, to the point where it seems it left him wanting to lash out and get back at the tormentors; and instead, he let himself be persuaded that he must die trying to change the world, by people who are worse than the tormentors who gave him a hard time. That's part of the wretchedness of it. The cause he took up is no improvement on the thing he wanted to change. Now I won't accept that it is everyone else's fault he made this choice. Millions of people suffer from the oafish and cruel treatment of others. They do not all decide to kill or maim and try to convince themselves they are doing something heroic in the process. But as soon as I heard, and saw evidence of this kid being bullied, I thought of others like Eric Harris and Dylan Kleibold who carried out the horrible mass shooting at Columbine High School; and others who have turned maniac mass murderer after being trashed and mistreated by those around them. It is TOO EASY to say they were driven to it, and it could insult them by suggesting that they are too simple to take responsibility for their actions and abide by moral choices like the rest of their society. For all I know, the people mentioned and others like them might have done something desperate even if they had not been aggravated. I can't tell and I won't accept that they are blameless victims. But one thing I know: when someone is bullied or trashed by people who do it just because they can get away with it, then those victimising them are doing evil and should be confronted by the fact. Human beings have a soul and a conscience. It is moral laziness and wickedness for them to push around and victimize someone they see as weaker, or someone they despise because that person does not impress them. They justify their behaviour by saying life is a competition and the cream rises to the top. SO DOES THE SCUM. People who win in this world and hold others in contempt would do well to read the parable of Rich Dives and Lazarus the beggar. Dives had plenty in this world, and did not care for those who were starving. Dives went to Hell and the beggar who starved went to Heaven. Those who misuse those they are able to misuse will answer to God. The day is coming. God will make people realize what they refused to accept in this life. Come again Lord Jesus.

Humans propose but God will decide.

I've read two political commentators who advanced the same interesting explanation for our world's recent troubles. Their explanation is that for several centuries after the beginnings of Islam in the Seventh Century A.D. as the Christian calendar dates it, Moslem attackers were very successful in conquering the areas around them. Starting in what is now Saudi Arabia, they expanded the Caliphate, the area ruled by Islam and according to its law. For a time they reached into Spain and other parts of Europe. That was where El Cid made his name, the Spanish warrior who led a successful fight against Moslem invaders from North Africa. Part of Eastern Europe also were under their rule. That is why there are still Moslems on Bosnia, and other parts of what was once Yugoslavia, and the Eastern parts of what was the Czar's Russian empire and then the Soviet Union. There was a time when the Islamic rulers of the Middle East reached that far. Then the tide turned, Christianity or at least nominal Christian powers and rulers beat them back. Then after the Renaissance, and the great advances of European civilization up to the Industrial Revolution, Europe returned the 'compliment' by invading the Middle East, with Napoleon Bonaparte taking Egypt. So by the reckoning of some Islamic thinkers, history has 'gone wrong' and they need to set it right. Their view is that Islam is meant to rule the whole world and they have to make that happen. So if they mean to keep making that happen the rest of the world has a fight on its hands. What some people, myself included call the 'free world' is going to have to resist the attempts by militant Islamists to impose a world wide caliphate or Islamist state on us all. If these commentators are right then we can expect more of the sort of attacks that we've seen in Paris and Sydney recently, and in Canada when a soldier on ceremonial duty was killed. Now some of the left respond to this by carping about the attempts of Christians to impose their beliefs. It is true that some vile things were done by the conquistadors in South America. There were also the Crusades, which caused great bloodshed and by some accounts atrocities also. That response by the fashionable left was predictable. They will try to say that 'religion' as they call it, will always cause conflict. But is the Christian approach, the GENUINE Christian approach, ever as barbarous and the behaviour of the Daesh (or IS) invaders in the Middle East, murdering children because they refuse to renounce their beliefs? Whatever has been done by Europeans calling themselves Christians, the way of Jesus was to spread the WORD, the GOOD NEWS, not to commit wholesale genocide. And here is a critical point. Jesus in person told his followers that if a village would not receive them in His name, then depart from it and shake the dust of it from their feet. He did NOT say to kill them all, as have some of the barbarians claiming to represent Islam in Syria and Iraq today, or the thugs who attacked the World Trade Centre towers, or who bombed busses in England or firebombed a night club in Bali. Jesus said to leave them, and go on elsewhere, NOT to threaten them with death if they will not convert. And Christianity, by the authority of the Bible, does not mandate death for people who renounce the Christian faith. THAT IS THE DIFFERENCE. So I defend Christianity, asserting that it does not have the record of bloodshed and cruelty that other belief systems have employed in attempting to spread their influence. I have this confidence also. Though shocking things may yet happen, the TRUTH will triumph. Jesus will prevail, and His Word will be heard all over the world. Come again, Lord Jesus. The world waits in pain for the return of its Saviour.

It's come to us.

It's come to us.


Just before Christmas, we had a terrorist incident in Sydney, N.S.W. the capital of my home state. It had to happen, we're part of the world that the militant Islamists have directed their hate against. An individual entered a café and held people hostage for hours before finally shooting two of them fatally, a lawyer and the café manager. It caused huge grieving in Sydney, as the press reported; and made the news overseas, I've been told. It came a bit close to home, as well. My wife and I don't live in Sydney but four of our children do, and one of our sons and his girlfriend have been in that café where it happened. We're thankful they weren't there that day, needless to add. But I'm struck by the way some people are still trying to minimize the influence and significant role of militant Islamism in this thing. I don't say "Islam" because I know well that many practicing Muslims do not involve themselves in, or sympathise with, this terrorist and hostile behaviour of that sort. But it is futile at least and blindly stupid at worst to pretend that Islamism, militant fanatical offshoot of Islam is not anything to do with it. It is. The gunman involved forced some of those he was holding at gunpoint to display an Islamist flag in the café window and invoked the cause of Islamist retribution against the west for fighting against the cult that calls itself Islamic State. So militant Islamism is involved, it is not just a case of one person being disturbed as the apologists have tried to argue. This attempt at playing down the terrorist danger is akin to the appeasement of Hitler that the leaders of Europe engaged in, in a futile attempt to stop a war. It's like the proverbial ostrich burying its head in the sand. The hope seems to be that if you ignore the thing it will go away. That's part of the problem the western world has in facing and dealing with this business. Some people, the 'new age' quasi left are trying to tell us there is no threat here and we should not act as though there is. If I was more paranoid I would suspect them of trying to undermine the resolve of the western world, specifically Australia here, to face the danger and recognize it. My question: what do they hope to achieve, and how long do they think they can keep insulting peoples' intelligence and keep credibility.
I hear that the surviving Boston bomber is going on trial. What sort of things are being said about him? Are people trying to claim he is a victim?

Before the shooting starts.

                                               Before the shooting starts.


So far, we don't have the horror in Australia that has shown up again in America: school shootings. It might only be a matter of time. I pray we never see it again, in the U.S. or Finland or Scotland or wherever else has seen this sort of evil.  But IF anyone asked me how to stop it, I'd have one idea apart from the same-old same-olds about gun control, armed guards in schools, etc. Not that I'm criticizing attempts to stop it, it's just that there is one I've not heard anyone suggest so far.
Everybody, be careful how you treat everybody else. You know, the Golden Rule? Treat people the way you prefer to be treated yourself?
Perhaps I'm being too obvious. Or is the obvious being forgotten?
The two boys who cut loose at Columbine were, I've read, social isolates who were bullied and rejected  by others. The young man who perpetrated the horror at Sandy Hook Elementary was beset by mental or psychological disorders. By some accounts his family, being survivalists, had a suspicious view of the world around them. Our press have not  yet gone into detail about the two shooters who attacked this week. The young man who shot up a college campus in Virginia was described as an outsider. If I'm misinformed, by all  means tell me how. But consider if you will what I'm saying here. Would people lash out and perpetrate the abomination of mass killing if they felt that the society they were part of  cared about them, that they were among friends?
I could be over simplifying. Sometimes a person becomes isolated because they have driven others away, not because others rejected them. But I'll stick by one point here. Having spent thirteen years in schools as a student, four years on a  university campus as a student and twenty five years in schools as a teacher, I'm sure I know this: some individuals get everybody else's stuff dumped on them because too many people want someone to look down on, and they pick on whoever they think will put up with it. That is to say, they are pettily spiteful, insecure and small  minded, and cowardly in the way they look for someone who will 'take it', while crawling to anyone who they are scared of or want to be seen with. It's a sad world sometimes. So I'm still wondering, would people lash out and do the shocking things they do if they thought they were hurting someone they had reason to care about?
Boys need to avoid showing contempt for girls, and girls need to avoid showing contempt for boys equally. Young respect the old, older ones respect the young.
I once replied to an email which came from a stranger, to see what they wanted. It seemed they did not know that the email had even been sent to me, and instead of saying that politely because it was really not my fault, they came back with "I don't even know you, you creep."  Silly girl. That was uncalled for. In my case it did not spark retaliation because I'm not a nut job about to explode, but it is the sort of dopey uncalled for rudeness that sometimes proves to be the last straw.
This had been said before: societies which are crowded, where people live physically close to each other, are the ones with the most developed codes of etiquette for treating others. Politeness is a social lubricant which can avoid offense. Simple courtesy or kindness can defuse anger in others, or at least not trigger a reaction that ends in blood.
Of course it's not all that simple. The things going on inside someone's head can be complex and make them impossible to predict. But I wonder: if more people took the trouble to be civil, instead of 'no-one messes with me' abrupt, would we see fewer outbreaks of rage?

It could be worse.

It could be worse.


It doesn't always help to be told to count your blessings, if you're feeling dismal because you see everything in such a negative way that nothing looks good. That's the trouble: it's the way you feel, no matter what objective reality is. But a sermon I heard recently was a valuable and timely message for  me. The pastor, who has a son with serious health problems, related how he had a flash of realization one day in the past. He was well and truly down over his son's suffering, and the pain it was causing the family; and the message was sent to him in the Spirit, that God is still worthy to be praised. There are things we can never understand in this life because our perceptions and our intelligence are too limited, from the perspective of the God of this universe. We can't see things He can and make sense of them and the reason why He is letting them happen. The text for that message was Job, not surprisingly. It was something I'd read before but it did not hurt to hear it again. We will have some wretched times in this life but we should never let go of that realization, God has not forgotten us and is still acting for our benefit. He is still the True and Only God.
Now I've said this, I just hope I don't undergo and time of trouble. But whatever happens, well, the truth is the truth. May we always be upheld by that knowledge.