Jesus Revolution Producer: ‘I’ve Never Seen Such a Profound Response to a Movie’

By Suzanne Bowdey.

Jon Erwin happened to be doing research for another movie when he stumbled on the iconic cover of Time Magazine from June 21, 1971. A copy in good condition goes for about $2,000 on eBay today, but Jon managed to snatch one up in 2015 — years before his movie made the psychedelic Jesus a collectors’ item. Back then, making a film about the 1970s revival known as The Jesus Revolution was a distant dream. Today, it’s a blockbuster reality — one that continues to exceed everyone’s expectations, in the box office and real life.

The news that “Jesus Revolution” crossed the $39 million mark this past weekend may have been a shock to Hollywood, but to Erwin — the movie’s writer, producer, and director — it was further proof that he’d happened upon something special eight years ago. He’d been working on another true story, “Woodlawn,” when he was “awestruck” by the parallels between the hippie movement’s desperation and the desperation of today.

“I’m a filmmaker. I’m curious by nature,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch.” “And so I read this article. At the time, you couldn’t find it online. It was this 10-page spread about what God was doing at an incredibly similar time of hopelessness and despair. … And the more I read, the more I felt: Can this happen in my generation? Can this happen in my life?” At 40, Jon said, “nothing like this has ever happened to us.” “And the more I studied it the more I wanted to make a movie.”

Erwin was set to make “I Can Only Imagine” next, based on MercyMe lead singer Bart Millard, with other true stories like “I Still Believe” (Jeremy Camp) and “American Underdog” (Kurt Warner) on the horizon. Carving out time for another project was tricky. By the time “Jesus Revolution” was released, it was the longest he’d ever worked on a movie.

But in the end, Jon pointed out, it was a testament to “God’s perfect timing.” “That the movie came out as revivals are happening around the nation is so cool. And I love all the movies that we’ve gotten to make, but I’ve never seen such an incredibly profound response to a movie and, and lives changed as people watch it. So it’s a privilege to get to bring this movie to the screen.”

A stellar cast, led by Kelsey Grammar (“Fraser”) and Jonathan Roumie (“The Chosen”), team up to reach a 70s generation that’s trying to find meaning in sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Despite his initial reluctance, Pastor Chuck Smith’s (Grammar) stodgy church is overtaken by barefoot hippies who follow evangelist Lonnie Frisbee’s (Roumie) invitation to stop searching and give their lives to Jesus.

The movement explodes, packing out Southern California’s Calvary Chapel and eventually moving to a big white tent where thousands come to know Christ, including Greg Laurie (Joel Courtney), who wrote the book the movie is based on. Laurie’s incredible story, from a tragic childhood to a spiritual awakening that led him to found Harvest Christian Fellowship, has resonated with audiences and critics (who gave the film an A+ CinemaScore rating).

For Erwin, one day in particular stood out. “[It was] by far the favorite moment I’ve had on set — and I think you feel it in the movie. You know,” he told Perkins, “it takes several miracles to make a movie. But I’ve never felt a day like the day we shot the baptisms in this movie. We thought it was very important to go back to the real Pirate’s Cove [where Smith and Frisbee baptized so many people]. And we did. And for a film, that is a very difficult place to go. It’s like a crater, very jagged rocks. You have to go up and over to get onto that location. … [But] I’ve never felt anything like it. We all felt it that day. There was a level of spiritual power there that I’ve never experienced in my filmmaking career before.”

At one point, they were filming with about 400 extras, and Roumie “came up out of the water and said, ‘This is real for people. … People are coming up to me and saying, I want to be baptized for real. I’ve just made a decision for Christ.’”

While they were shooting the part with actor Joel Courtney in the water, Jon said he was stunned to find out that “the real Greg Laurie was baptizing a member of the cast that he had struck up a conversation with a couple hundred feet away and none of us even knew [about it]. … I think you feel it when you watch the movie. But the power that is in the movie we felt on that day.”

Grammer, arguably the most well-known cast member, hasn’t been shy since the film’s release about the role faith plays in his life. “I’ve had some tragic times,” he admitted in an interview with USA Today. “I’ve wrestled with those and worked my way through them — sometimes rejecting faith, sometimes rejecting God even… But I have come to terms with it and found great peace in my faith and in Jesus.” If Hollywood doesn’t like it, Grammar shrugs. “It’s not cavalier — Jesus made a difference in my life. That’s not anything I’ll apologize for.”

In the meantime, Erwin still marvels at the impact the film is having. He’s seen videos of people praying outside the movie, or getting baptized in fountains outside the theaters — or in lakes the next day. “Not many people know this,” he told Perkins, “but 1972, which was the culminating year of the Jesus Movement was the most baptisms ever recorded in a single year, at least by the Southern Baptists. So wouldn’t it be cool if that happened again and we beat that record?”

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Originally published at The Washington Stand. Photo credit: Jesus Revolution.

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‘Christian Nationalism’ Isn’t Cultural Coercion, It’s A Moral Imperative

‘Christian Nationalism’ Isn’t Cultural Coercion, It’s A Moral Imperative

A governor of a highly populous Western state has erected billboards adorned with a verse from the Bible in other states advocating for specific policy positions. A U.S. senator running for reelection equates voting to “a kind of prayer for the world we desire” and defines democracy as “the political enactment of the spiritual idea that each of us was created, as the scriptures tell us, in the ‘Imago Dei’ the image of God.” 

Is this the sinister emergence of Christian nationalism — the right-wing, fascist, “Handmaid’s Tale” hellscape that’s supposedly lurking just around the corner? No, in fact, that’s far from the case.

The first vignette actually speaks to a recent push by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had pro-abortion billboards installed in multiple red states, with ones in Mississippi and Oklahoma featuring Jesus’ words from Mark 12:31: “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.” And in the second example, these words were spoken on the campaign trail by Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock.

The usual takeaway is to point out the hypocrisy behind the adulation that’s typically showered only on the left’s public use of Christianity. But the deeper point is that Newsom and Warnock both show that using Christian arguments and verses from Scripture for the purpose of securing political victories is unexceptional — and even good. As Stephen Wolfe argues in his pathbreaking and provocative book “The Case for Christian Nationalism,” Christians should follow suit, though certainly not in enacting those particular policies. 

Rigorously and relentlessly argued, Wolfe uses the freighted term “Christian nationalism,” a phrase often deployed as a cudgel against evangelicals, to rally Christians behind a positive conception of public life that is grounded on the rich doctrines of 16th and 17th-century Reformed theology and the American political tradition. He builds on the important work of ad fontes, or a return to the source, that Protestant scholars and institutions have undertaken in recent decades.

Above all, Wolfe aims to cultivate “a collective will for Christian dominion in the world” — a will that has been crushed by a combination of elite evangelical rhetoric that buttresses 21st-century pieties, a bicoastal ruling class that is hostile to orthodox Christians, a conservative movement that has mostly failed to preserve American institutions, and a suffocating psychological malaise that has gripped the West. He gives Christians the intellectual tools to break through the nearly impregnable wall created by a combination of “third way” politics, neo-Anabaptism, and unprincipled pluralism and reestablish a way of life that is conducive to Christian flourishing.

Christian Nationalism Explained

Wolfe’s simplest definition of the controversial term “Christian nationalism” is a “Christian people acting for their own good in light of their Christian nationhood.” It encompasses the myriad ways Christians should be working to establish Christian conditions not only in their homes and churches — but also in their villages, towns, cities, states, and, yes, nations. Key to this project is recovering the solid ground of what the Reformers and their heirs frequently called the book of nature, which they saw containing truths that were consistent with the book of Revelation. They understood that God gave us minds to act within the confines of the created order — that Christians do not need a positive command from the Bible for every action they take.

Wolfe teaches that the concept of the nation flows from man’s very anthropology. Standing with Thomas Aquinas and the New England Puritan Samuel Willard, he contends that even if Adam and Eve didn’t follow the serpent’s wiles, mankind would still have “formed distinct civil communities — each being culturally particular.” This is because weaved into man’s nature are social and political faculties that irresistibly “lead him to the fundamental things of earthly life, such as family formation and civil society,” writes Wolfe. “The nation, therefore, is natural to man as man, and the matured earth would be a multiplicity of nations.” 

Implicit in this argument is the Reformed teaching that while Adam’s fall infused man’s entire nature with sin, it “did not eliminate the natural gifts,” as Wolfe notes. This doctrine is popularly known as total depravity, the often misunderstood first point in the TULIP acronym (an anachronistic 19th-century pedagogical device). As Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck wrote, though “numerous institutions and relations in life of society such as marriage, family, child rearing” and “man’s dominion over the earth through science and art” have “undoubtedly been modified by sin … they nevertheless have their active principle and foundation in creation, the ordinances of God.”

The cornerstone of Wolfe’s project is the well-known theological doctrine that grace does not destroy nature but instead perfects it. In other words, Christianity does not overthrow civil order, the non-sinful traditions of the people, and general decorum — the natural sinews that preserve society for posterity. 

As John Calvin taught in a sermon on 1 Corinthians: 

Regarding our eternal salvation, it is true that one must not distinguish between man and woman, or between king and a shepherd, or between a German and a Frenchman. Regarding policy, however, we have what St. Paul declares here; for our Lord Jesus Christ did not come to mix up nature or to abolish what belongs to the preservation of decency and peace among us.

Grace elevates the natural gifts, completing them because they are now aimed at both earthly and heavenly goods. For example, once a husband puts his faith in Christ, he and his family receive baptism and his work is directed to his home and then outward to the temporal world, what the Reformers called the civil kingdom. Grace does not make him into an androgynous being or cause him to leave his family behind to live in a church with other autonomous Christians. 

One of the many controversial aspects of Wolfe’s project for modern readers involves his teachings on civil laws and magistrates. Laws should reflect the natural law, protect natural rights, and, as legal historian Timon Cline has taught, direct “men to virtue,” pointing him to “higher truths.” Though the civil magistrate “cannot legislate or coerce people into belief,” Wolfe argues that he can “punish external religion — e.g., heretical teaching, false rites, blasphemy, sabbath-breaking, etc. — because such actions can cause public harm.” In fact, he proposes that the magistrate can even point citizens toward Christianity as the true religion. 

For dissenting Christians, Wolfe counsels that “wide toleration is desirable.” While non-Christians should be “guaranteed a basic right to life and property,” he contends that they should not be allowed to undertake activities that could harm Christianity. 

Though these were standard features of Christendom throughout Christian history, modern Christian statesmen would need to exhibit careful judgment in applying them today.

Christendom and America

Wolfe’s project is not a theocratic endeavor, with the church lording its power over the civil realm. Instead, he writes that the “classical Protestant position is that civil authorities” should “establish and maintain the best possible outward conditions for people to acquire spiritual goods.” And these goods are acquired through the church, whose ministers preach the Word and administer the sacraments. This doesn’t imply that Christianity is naturally weak absent state support. Rather, it means Christianity should infuse all of life, causing the magistrates of all nations to guide their citizens toward the highest ends.

In fact, as Joe Rigney has noted, civil government favoring and promoting Christianity “has been the dominant position in the history of the church for the last 1500 years.” Key confessions and catechisms of the Reformed tradition, including the original Westminster Confession and the Second Helvetic Confession, teach the good of religious establishments and charge those in political authority to uphold both tables of the Ten Commandments.

Early Americans were influenced by this understanding of Christian political order. According to Davenant Institute President Brad Littlejohn, the Founding Fathers “were certainly ‘Christian nationalists’ by the contemporary definition — that is, people who believed it important that America should publicly describe and conduct itself as a nation within a Christian framework.” Most state constitutions privileged Christianity — in most cases specifically a Protestant kind — and featured mentions of God, religious tests for public office, taxpayer funding of clergy and churches, Sabbath laws and laws against blasphemy, and Christian prayer and instruction in public schools well into the mid-20th century.

Christianity in a Negative World 

What about the place of “cultural Christianity,” an important pillar of Christian nationalism that has been heavily criticized by public theologians such as Russell Moore and Ray Ortlund? Wolfe contends that the critics commit a category error because it was never intended “to bring about anyone’s salvation.” Having a robust culture infused with Christian themes and imagery instead prepares citizens “for the reception of the Gospel.” It is a social power that internalizes the normal patterns of life that revolve around regular participation in Christian practices. 

As Wolfe rightly asks, would these critics look to subject families to “relentless hostile social forces” such as drag queen story hours, transgender ideology being taught in public schools, rampant porn use, and worse? Are active hostility and open persecution — that is, the circumstances first-century Christians faced — the only cultural conditions suited for the spread of Christianity? The history of Christendom renders a rather clear verdict on these questions.  

Christians are not called to conserve mid-20th century Supreme Court rulings. Begging for the table scraps of religious liberty carve-outs will not suffice, and “prudence” that is actually capitulation to the regnant cultural ethos will only hasten our nation’s slide into anarchy. To appropriate a famous G.K. Chesterton quote, the business of Christians “shouldn’t be to prevent mistakes from being corrected.”

In a “negative world,” to use Aaron Renn’s useful taxonomy, in which our magistrates oversee an establishment complete with a “regime-enforced moral ideology” that is hostile to Christianity, Wolfe gives Christians a coherent intellectual foundation that can withstand the gale force winds of our age. But political theory cannot enact itself. Christians must have the courage, manliness, fortitude, and strength to lay the groundwork in the decades ahead for what will assuredly be a multi-generational effort.


Mike Sabo is the editor of RealClear’s American Civics portal. He is a graduate of the Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship at Hillsdale College. He and his wife live in Cincinnati, Ohio.

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Will ‘Jesus Revolution’ be the Best Movie of 2023?

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“Daddy’s Here”

During our earthly pilgrimage, we all have an innate longing to be home with God our Father, Who created us to be with Him for eternity, in joy and peace.

I recently experienced a few unexpected days in a public hospital, following a routine medical procedure. A spike in my temperature later that day led to a visit to emergency, and subsequent admission to a ward for observation.

After a five-hour wait, I was wheeled on a bed to the ward and settled down to sleep. Sleep did not come easily that night as one of the patients in my room, talked loudly in his sleep. It seemed like I’d not been asleep for long before I was gently woken by a nurse at 4am.

She wrapped my upper arm in a blood pressure cuff, placed a clamp on my index finger to measure oxygen saturation in my blood, and stuck a device in my ear to take my temperature, the regular four-hourly obs (observations)!

I got off to sleep again and awoke the next morning to take stock of my surroundings. The small ward had four beds, each enclosed by curtains. Later, I was to discover who my fellow patients were.

My Fellow Patients

Next to me was an elderly Vietnamese man I will name Trang who never left his bed, and had to be spoon-fed his meals. I only heard him speak two phrases in English, “I want to go home” and “Thank you”.

Diagonally opposite me was another elderly man named Stefan. He was Croatian and very deaf. Whenever he spoke in person or on a mobile phone call, he was very loud. Nurses had to raise their voices when communicating with him.

Both he and his wife were living in a nursing home. His wife was suffering from a form of early dementia, and the separation from each other was very painful for them.

Directly opposite me was an Aussie woman named Janelle. Doctors were having difficulty diagnosing why her heart function and blood pressure were fluctuating so. She had been away from her three children now for nine days and was understandably anxious to get home.

She was finally discharged after her cardiac specialist brought her the good news that her condition was not what they had first thought.

Her bed was refilled by Claire, a young woman profoundly disabled by cerebral palsy. Her only communication was groans and cries as she seemed to struggle for every breath she took.

Helpless and Distressed

One day stretched into another. The doctors were concerned that I may have contracted sepsis, an infection of my blood. They wanted me to stay for at least 48 hours, to ensure that the blood cultures they had taken from me showed negative results.

On the third day, I was feeling well in myself. No infections had been detected in my body but I found myself becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the suffering of those around me.

In my past hospital experiences, God had given me many opportunities to share Jesus with fellow patients, but this time it was so different. I could only pray for those ‘confined’ with me in this ward.

It is such a helpless feeling to be faced with human suffering that you can’t do anything about. I considered the condition and needs of those near me.

There was Trang, unable to do anything for himself, “trapped” in his own body, who just wanted to go home.

Then Stefan, who cried often over being separated from his beloved wife, unable to be with her to comfort her.

Claire had been in real distress this morning as nurses tried to clear her clogged airways with a suction tube. By this stage, I was feeling quite miserable. I wasn’t without faith but I was experiencing anguish over the broken condition of humanity, and cried softly to myself, praying that all would know the saving work of Christ in their lives.

After all this distress, a light unexpectedly broke through the darkness I was sensing. Claire’s father came to be with her. He stood at her bedside, and I heard him speak the following words:

“Daddy’s here. It’s all right.”

The oppressive atmosphere of suffering in the room suddenly lifted. From being in a state of distress, I now heard different sounds coming from Claire’s throat. She began to coo and I almost perceived laughter in her vocal noises. Even her father asked her, “Are you laughing at me, Claire?” I couldn’t believe the change in her. Daddy was with her and everything would be all right!

Wonderful Truths about God

God was showing me some wonderful truths.

Like Trang, we all have an inbuilt need to go “home”, but it’s not our physical bricks-and-mortar home. Our true home is to be with our Father and for Him to make His home with us.

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (John 14:23)

Stefan felt the pain of separation from his beloved, but this is only a reminder of the more profound separation that exists deep within us. God felt the separation between Himself and fallen, broken humanity. Rather than being overwhelmed, He did something about it.

He sent His Son Jesus to experience this for Himself. Through his death for us and His resurrection, Jesus destroyed this separation forever, and has brought us into an eternal union with our Heavenly Father.

For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Rom 5:10)

Dear Claire reminds us through her disability, that we are all helpless to save ourselves. We are completely reliant upon God to do the work of salvation for us and in us. All of us need to rely fully on God’s grace and mercy every day of our lives.

Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Finally, Claire’s father reflected the voice of our Creator in these gentle words,

“Daddy’s here. It’s all right.”

If Claire in her physical condition could be calmed and given delight by the words of her daddy, how much more, when we listen to Father God speak His words to us, we will experience whatever trauma, distress or suffering we may have lifted off us, to be replaced instead with His love, joy and peace.

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27)

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Photo by Pixabay.

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Closing the Door on the Light: Abolishing Protections in Anti-Discrimination Laws

First I want to address the issue of the protection of religious bodies. Once legislators started to add to discrimination law protected attributes such as for sexual activity, which we have in Victoria and one other jurisdiction, sexual orientation, and gender identity, we were no longer dealing with attributes like age, sex, or race, where there would be a 99.9 per cent consensus that it was wrong to treat anyone differentially on the basis of those attributes in most circumstances.

Once we moved into law for sexual activity, sexual orientation and gender identity, we entered into an area of controversy because “lawful sexual activity” would include sex outside marriage and adultery. Some people think adultery is fine, but other people do not.

So, when these attributes were introduced into legislation, the pressure came on to think about the groups – mainly but not exclusively religious groups – that will not be happy with a law that says they cannot differentiate or treat people differently on the basis of lawful sexual activity, gender identity or sexual orientation.

Now, instead of taking a nuanced view of this, the architects of anti-discrimination law back in the 1980s just said, let’s describe what it is to discriminate as broadly as possible. We’ll put in a really broad definition of discrimination. So, any adverse conduct in employment in relation to a person or any adverse conduct in relation to a student limiting any benefit that a student might get; really broad.

And then they thought, oh, there is going to be a problem at religious schools, because religious schools might not treat everyone the same, if a person’s sexual conduct is contrary to the religion. So, we’d better have an exemption – I prefer to call it a “balancing provision” – for religious bodies and educational institutions.

The classic form of exemption is like the one in the Northern Territory Anti-discrimination Act, which permits religious educational institutions to discriminate in relation to who they employ as staff in schools. If the discrimination is on the grounds of religious belief or activity, or sexuality, and is in good faith to avoid offending the religious sensitivities of the people of the religion to which the school adheres, it has to be in accordance with the doctrines or tenets or beliefs of that religion.

So, if it is the case of a teacher who engages in serial affairs or serial adultery, for instance, you do not have to employ that person, even though that would be unlawful under an anti-discrimination act that prohibited discrimination on the grounds of sexual activity. When it came to sexual orientation, a similarly broad definition of discrimination was applied, with pretty broad exemptions.

Looking again at the Northern Territory. Late last year, the NT removed that exemption totally. So, now religious schools in the NT do not have the benefit of that exemption in the case of employment and they have to prove a genuine occupational requirement. That is, they have to prove that the staffing position in question, whatever it is, genuinely requires that the person the school is looking to hire personally holds the same religious belief and adheres to the same moral standards as the school.

Now, under this amended legislation, the school has to show why in practice it is applying filters about sexuality, sexual conduct and religion to staff. These rules about not discriminating also apply in relation to students and board members and so on.

In Victoria, last year, a new law came in, through the Victorian Equal Opportunity (Religious Exceptions) Amendment Act, that limits the freedom of religious schools to discriminate in employment decisions and regarding students. So, for example, in terms of employment, the Victorian law says religious schools, colleges and universities have to prove the following things:

That it is inherent to the staffing position that the person conform to the doctrines, principles or beliefs of the religion of the religious educational institution.

Before the religious educational institution can take any adverse action on this basis, it has to prove that the person cannot satisfy the inherent requirement because of the person’s religious belief or activity (Note that it is about the person’s belief, not about the person’s sexual conduct, whether the person has a lawful occupation as a sex worker. That is a lawful occupation in Victoria, and the ACT now. You cannot look at those things. You can only look at whether their religious belief or religious activity does not conform to that of the religious educational institution.)

You also have to be able to prove that whatever action the school or college or university took in respect to the staff member or the applicant for a job was reasonable and proportionate in the circumstances.

It is causing religious educational institutions considerable heartburn to work out how to deal with this, in terms of their staff, their hiring process, their ongoing performance review and performance management of staff; and also, in respect to students.

Which brings us to the federal Sex Discrimination Act and the federal Fair Work Act. These have some exemptions for religious bodies when they engage in discrimination or differential treatment for religious reasons.

The federal Sex Discrimination Act currently says that a religious educational institution can discriminate in employment in good faith in order to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents to the religion or creed.

The Federal Government referred the matter to the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC), asking for recommendations on how to do two things:

How to remove those freedoms of religious schools to discriminate in employment decisions and regarding student conduct.

And how to allow religious schools to maintain a community of faith by selecting staff who have the same religion as the school.

The ALRC produced its consultation paper in early February. It is amazingly unbalanced, thin on international law, and its analysis is not a good starting point to come up with any sort of balanced solution to the dilemma.

Let me give you a quick flavour of what the ALRC is recommending. It has some pretty bizarre proposals. It proposes that the rights of religious schools to preference people of faith in the selection of staff should be limited only to teaching roles; not the nurse, not the administration staff, not the maintenance person. And only those teaching roles where the observance or practice of the religion is a genuine requirement of the role having regard to the nature and ethos of the institution. For example, the religious studies teacher or a chaplain.

Another proposal that the ALRC has come out with is to say that religious schools must employ teachers who may not share or support the religious beliefs of the school. That employment, though, can be terminated if the teacher actively undermines the religious ethos of the school.

Yet even religious education teachers cannot be required to teach beliefs concerning sexual orientation, gender, identity, marital or relationship status, or pregnancy, in accordance with the religion of the school, unless such teachers are given the freedom to discuss with students alternative views about other lifestyles, other relationships, other sexualities.

It is worth noting that such strictures do not apply to a political body.

‘Conversion Therapy’

The second issue which we might discuss in more detail relates to suppression practices laws. These laws are being passed around the country. They started in Queensland and the ACT and Victoria, Tasmania will have a bill this year. It’s not clear where Western Australia is going; it said it was going to pull back a bit.

These laws are usually badged as “conversion therapy” laws, but they run much more broadly than that. For example, in Victoria, suppression practice is defined as any practice or conduct that includes a conversation directed towards a person, regardless of the person’s consent: that they have asked for the conversation or asked for the counselling is utterly irrelevant.

Conduct has to be in relation to the person’s sexual orientation or gender identity and it has to be for the purpose of changing or suppressing that person’s sexual orientation or gender identity or inducing the person to change or suppress their sexual orientation or gender identity.

So, in any discussion – with a group of young people or old people doesn’t matter – where you say, this is our understanding of God’s will for your sexual identity or sexual orientation or your gender, you are at risk of being accused of inducing a person to change or to suppress their gender identity or sexual orientation.

The legislation is not fully explicit in saying that that practice can include religious practice, such as praying with someone, or exorcism or referring someone on to a counsellor or a psychiatrist or psychologist.

The legislation is so broad that it causes concerns about what can be said in sermons, in Bible studies, in discussions; when working with youth, youth pastors; and what teachers or a student welfare officer in a school can say.

We have already seen an example of the consequences in Tasmania. Under Section 17 of the state’s Anti-discrimination Act, a person must not engage in conduct that offends humiliates or intimidates, insults or ridicules another person on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual activity in circumstances in which a reasonable person would have anticipated that the other person would be offended, humiliated, intimidated, etc.

A complaint was made under this provision against Archbishop of Hobart Julian Porteous when he approved the distribution of a publication produced by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Don’t Mess with Marriage. The complaint was withdrawn subsequently.

Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia currently have recommendations to government to introduce laws like this, which are called, in shorthand, harms-based speech laws.

Interactivity of Laws

How might these three types of laws interact? Let’s say you are at a school and you are saying to someone, that this type of expression of sexuality, sexual relations, sexual activity is not in accordance with the beliefs or ethos of the school.

Someone might come by and say, well, you are inducing me to change or suppress my sexual orientation or gender identity. You can say, no, there was no inducing of anyone to suppress or change.

Then might come the accusation, you are discriminating against me on the basis of my lawful sexual activity, sex orientation or gender identity. Then the exemptions or balancing provisions under anti-discrimination law would come into play in your defence.

A third possible scenario is that someone might say, “I just heard in chapel or in religious studies class about the teachings of the religion on sexual orientation or on what is appropriate sexual practice or on gender identity, and that a reasonable person would have thought that that would offend or humiliate or insult me because of my sexual practices or sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Now, none of this is to say that anybody should be insensitive towards young people in particular or anybody in this regard. It is to say that the law is intruding in at least these three ways very substantially into the freedom that religious schools and colleges and religious bodies have to express, both in word and in conduct, appropriate conduct rules for members, for students, for staff, and to express the religious teachings of the organisation as they relate to sexual activity, sexual orientation and gender identity.

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Originally published at News Weekly. Photo by Sora Shimazaki.

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Armageddon – Part 2: Lessons from the Cold War and the Birth of Cold War II

This is the second of a three-part series inspired by the novel Armageddon by Leon Uris (1963). A remarkable, fictional story based on actual history, from the American perspective, of the end of WWII in Germany with particular focus on the administration of Berlin.

If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us!
But passion and party blind our eyes,
and the light which experience gives us
is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834)

The Declaration of the Cold War

The Berlin Airlift was a resounding success! It was an outstanding achievement, but the Cold War was born. When we think of the Cold War, I guess most of us think of the territorial divisions that defined the ‘East’ from the ‘West’. These terms are still with us today, particular the phrases ‘Western Democracies’ and ‘Western Culture’.

We think of Russia and China as the world’s communist stronghold in the case of Russia, and the fascist dictatorship in the case of China, balanced against the western nations’ democracies. Then we think of the arms race and the nuclear threat, hence the term the ‘Cold War’, and the passionate hope and prayer that the opposing nuclear deterrents will be enough to keep either side from repeating the nuclear devastation unleashed on Japan to end World War II.

But let me take you back to the Berliners in the late 1940s. They did not really see any of these physical manifestations of communism that we recognise today. Rather, they would have sensed the psychological warfare raged against them — they were the heroes of the Cold War by their resistance against the communist agenda, their recognition of the threat and their willingness to sacrifice dearly for the prospect of freedom and liberty.

Imagine the culture of the time. Each of these points is a lesson for us today:

  1. The world that survived WWII were on food rations, crippled with grief for lost loved ones. Therefore, they could hardly ever lift their heads above the parapet and look out at other parts of the world. They were simply in survival mode and coming to terms with their own post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
  2. With the trauma of WWII and the wounds still open and weeping, who could have imagined the emergence of a new enemy, especially one from within their own ranks of the Allied powers? The natural instinctive reaction would simply be one of denial. They may have seen some ‘news’, but it would not have fitted into their existing paradigm, so they could not have made any sense or order out of the events unfolding around them.
  3. The Russians had marched through eastern Europe and ‘assimilated’ nation after nation on their westward march. But they were halted in Berlin. To their surprise, they met resistance. Not so much a military resistance, but a resistance from the civilian Berliners. Their tried and tested methods sprang into action, and wave upon wave of psychological warfare was unleashed on the Berliners by the Soviets. One example will suffice. They claimed that only they could ensure the permanent defeat of the Nazi threat. They claimed that the western powers were simply a cover for the re-emergence of Nazism.
  4. The Berliners were the new frontline against the new enemy. As a people utterly devasted by defeat and slaughter, they could still see through the communist lies and propaganda. I take my hat off to the Berliners! Arguably, they were the ones who ‘won the peace’ after WWII. They were the ones who fought for the freedom of thought and liberty of allegiance.
  5. From the start of the Cold War, there was intense pressure to conform to the communist vision. Many of the western Allied soldiers’ families wanted to leave and return home. They saw that the Russians had the upper hand, therefore resistance was futile. Back in the United States, federal parliament was bitterly split. The battle for hearts and minds was fierce, and in the end was resolved by courageous leadership.

The Birth of Cold War II

I would now like to suggest that we are witnesses to the birth of the Cold War II in our day and generation.

  1. I think we are in a war, a largely psychological war, but there are military manifestations in various pockets around the world. Perhaps the seeds of this idea were sown for me by Douglas Murray’s The War on the West (2022). Murray identified the enemy of the West as being from within the West. The enemy is a traitor among one of our own, just as the Russians in the late 1940s turned on their ‘own’, their fellow Allies. I see these internal forces as just as determined to enslave us and strangle the life out of our democracy as the communists did at the height of the first Cold War.

  1. The enemy’s tactics within the Cold War II, being primarily psychological at this stage, have most certainly taken ground, as demonstrated by the fact that the majority of people still look to their governments and authorities to ‘look after them’, to subsidise their back-to-work initiatives, and to build artificial price caps on energy costs to cushion us from hyperinflation created by them. Yes, the enemy’s tactics are working in the production of a compliant, submissive populace, willing to do their master’s bidding.
  2. Today, just as in 1948, the majority of us are still traumatised from the Covid panic years and the wounds are still open and weeping in many places, though it’s remarkable that it’s so easy to forget some of the pain, as we were effectively conditioned into acceptance of the pain for ‘the greater good’. Therefore, how can we expect people to put their heads above the parapet and look out across the nations of the world to identify a new threat; surely, we have had enough troubles in recent times, we are not looking for another!
  3. The new frontline against Cold War II can be found all around the world. We are connected digitally in contrast to the tangible community that the Berliners knew in the aftermath of WWII. Yes, the new frontlines are drawn by those people who can see the threat and are prepared to take a stand against it. In this context, I take my hat off to the thousands who have lost their jobs as a result of their stand, and to the thousands whose families and communities have been shattered by division and breakdown in relationships, and to the thousands who have literally lost their lives already in Cold War II.
  4. The battle lines are drawn today between those who recognise the threat of Cold War II and those who don’t. The latter can’t see that there is anything to fear — they simply say, ‘We are all in this together, we must make sacrifices for the common good when called to do so.’ I find that the division is largely one of silence and an unwillingness to name the elephant in the room. This is in stark contrast to 1948, when heated debates were common.

I do not see a new ‘Berlin Wall’ being built, but I do see the new ‘prisoner-of-war-camps’ being commissioned all around the world, to corral agitators, protesters, and rebels. There seem to be all the hallmarks of ‘walls’ around these camps to keep the renegades in; in contrast to the Berlin Wall’s design to keep their own in, preventing them from defecting to freedom.

Whichever way we look at it, division and segregation can never spell freedom and liberty of thought and allegiance. Openness, tolerance, and mutual respect are the qualities of a community I want to leave as a legacy for my children. These characteristics are all built upon personal responsibility and small government, as opposed to the abrogation of responsibility to big governments and global big businesses.

The Cold War II’s Agenda

I have reflected deeply on the nature of this agenda. I believe the mastermind to be the devil and his angels. His fingerprints are all over it:

Therefore, Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through Me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10: 7-11)

I believe there are many ‘diversionary tactics’ that distract, divide, dilute and dilute our attention. But if we look at the devil’s core values, stealing, murder and destruction, this will help us identify the true nature of his agenda. This is in direct contrast with Jesus’ agenda to bring life and life to the full. It is interesting that Jesus is the ‘gate’, not the devil. It is Jesus that decides who may come in and go out, and who may find pasture.

Who is the devil using to outwork his agenda? First of all, stealing. Sadly, I suspect there will be much more overt manifestations of theft to come, but so far, we have seen soaring fuel prices and artificial scarcity of sources of energy, resulting in inflation fuelled by planned irresponsible government spending over the past three years. So, the first agent of the devil’s agenda, national governments, in perfect harmony across the world.

Secondly, murder. The perpetrating and legitimisation of abortion, the murder of infants:

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones. (Leviticus 20: 1-2)

Yes, child sacrifice has been known for thousands of years, but God plainly abhors it, and notice He holds ‘the people’ responsible for its eradication. I believe we are responsible for allowing the practice of and legitimisation of abortion. So, in this context, our governments who have sanctioned the practice and our healthcare system that carry out the practice are responsible, but we have not stopped them.

Further, evidence of murder would be the administration of un-tested, unsafe, and ineffective medication resulting in sudden adult death syndrome (SADS), increased numbers of miscarriages and the potential for future infertility. All these measures being the responsibility of the global pharmaceutical industry and our healthcare systems overseen by our national governments. This strategy of the devil has been working very well at depopulating the world, with the immediate focus being the western nations.

Thirdly, destruction. War meets this criterion and is the most obvious evidence of the work of the devil. But destruction can be evidenced in a wide array of phenomena. I would illustrate this with wildfires. It seems to me that many wildfires have been fuelled by Green agendas that have left forests untended for too long, resulting in dangerous levels of tinder for fires to consume.

I also note that some catastrophic floods have been exacerbated by the cessation of preventative dredging of tidal estuaries and the indiscriminate land clearing that has denuded the landscape of vegetation, that would otherwise have captured sufficient rainfall and lessened the destructive floods. In these instances, the responsibility for the destruction would again be the Green agendas that have failed to recognise the biodiversity of different habitats. Then in turn, Green agendas have been incorporated into ‘both sides’ of politics, who in turn bear the responsibility for the destruction.

Here I have sought to illustrate the work of the devil under the three headings of stealing, murder and destruction. Naturally, this is a gross simplification of the nature of the fallen world — in reality it is much more complex; but I have found this rationale a helpful vehicle to seek to understand the nature of Cold War II.

We Ignore Cold War II at Our Peril

Just as in the days of the first Cold War, many could not see it at first. There were intense debates on how best to respond. Let us learn the lessons from history and not be caught out in Cold War II. I believe that the writing is on the wall for us all to read.

___

Photo by Pixabay.

Thank the Source

History Belongs to the Intercessors, Part 1: Our Need for Prayer

Prayer is essential for God’s will to be done, His kingdom to be established on earth as it is in Heaven.

Behind the greatest evangelist of the Second Great Awakening — Charles Finney — knelt a man of intercession: Daniel Nash.

Finney, through his passionate appeals for people to come to God, saw hundreds of thousands of conversions happen all over New York and beyond in the early 1800s. Unknown to most, this move of God contained a secret weapon. Nash.

Weeks in advance of an outreach by Finney, intercessor Nash — along with Abel Clary — would come, praying within the community, crying out and asking God for His intervention in the hearts of men.

Nash had been a burned-out pastor. But through prayer during an illness, he found personal revival with God. And through prayer, would go on to fuel a national revival.

History belongs to the intercessors — we are the ones who are really stirring up national revival and change.

A Nation in Crisis

We are now in 2022 — a long time past the days of Charles Finney and Daniel Nash. But our nation is in more need now than even then.

It has been 246 years since 1776 when our republic was born. The founders of this republic gave us a gift, and we have a responsibility to protect it and keep it.

In 4 short years, America will be 250 years old — the only democratic republic in history that has survived this long.

This is a pivotal moment, and we all know as Christians with discernment that America is at a crisis point. Will we make it to America’s 250th birthday?

When we think about America right now — the decay in our educational systems, media, entertainment, government, business ethics, and more, we must look ourselves straight in the face and realise that we, as believers in Jesus, are not having the greatest impact on our culture.

Why is that?

National Prayerlessness

I believe the root of this failure is our individual loss of a daily connection with God.

We don’t pray. We don’t spend time with Jesus.

We have many weaknesses in the modern Western Church, but none is as glaring as our national prayerlessness.

If we are honest, the last few years have been an eye-opener within the Church. We have been exposed by fear and unbelief and have seen our personal tendencies to run to anything but God in the middle of a national crisis.

If God doesn’t awaken the Church in this hour in history, we are in trouble.

And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. (Romans 13:11)

Back to the Basics

Prayer. It is the first spiritual discipline that we all think we know and understand — but really, few of us do.

If we truly understood prayer and realised the value of it, we would prioritise it in our lives and in our local churches. Unfortunately, in our modern Western church culture, our prayer meetings are the smallest gathering on our weekly or even monthly calendars. They are obviously not sexy or entertaining enough.

A woman told me the other day that she is a member of a church with over 3,000 members and their weekly prayer meeting has only two people attending it.

Let’s take a moment to think about prayer in our local churches.

Does your church have a corporate prayer meeting? How often is the prayer meeting? How many people come to it?

Just those questions alone are exposing to the modern church. But when we pile on thinking about the reality of our own devotional lives, we can all see the weakness.

Prayerlessness is rooted in a key problem: We don’t really believe prayer works. 

If we really believed in prayer, the effectiveness of prayer would absolutely change everything in our lives. Our calendars, our priorities, and our goals. Everything!

E.M. Bounds — the famous 19th century Methodist Episcopal pastor — said this:

God shapes the world by prayer. The more praying there is in the world the better the world will be, the mightier the forces against evil… The prayers of God’s saints are the capital stock of heaven by which God carries on His great work upon earth. God conditions the very life and prosperity of His cause on prayer.

Prayer is a Real Commodity

Have you thought about prayer being a commodity of Heaven before? It is tangible and real.

Let’s read this:

Now when He (the Lamb) had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. (Revelation 5:8)

Look at this powerful picture of the golden bowls full of incense — holding the real tangible prayers of the saints.

When we pray, God hears us, and He collects those prayers. This is an incredible picture of prayer that is something that we can get our heads around.

Prayer is a real commodity.

Just like we go to the bank and deposit a check — prayer is a deposit. Just like we look at our investments on our phones and buy and sell stock — prayer is a stock purchase. Just like we invest in our marriage by spending time with our spouse — prayer is an investment in relationship.

If the world is going to see revival — and better yet, another Great Awakening — we need to cry out to God. We need to ask Him to grow faith in our hearts to believe that when we talk to Him, He hears us. And that when we petition Him, it changes hearts and lives.

This is what the world needs in this hour of history.

The world needs a praying Church.

Prayer is Action — Not Just a Spiritual Buzzword

This is my personal mandate from the Lord for this season: “Go find the awakening church and plug them into simple habits of prayer, voting, and engagement.”

When our little team of politically active Christians started Christians Engaged a few years ago, we identified three areas of weakness in the American church that we felt called to strengthen:

  1. Habitual prayer for our cities, states, and nation including our elected officials.
  2. A call for believers to vote in every election and to vote biblical values, and
  3. Encouragement for Christians to engage in our culture and take action to be “salt and light” in every space of influence.

Prayer wasn’t just a spiritual buzzword that we picked to talk about something spiritual. No, prayer is the only thing that really matters!

What the World Needs Most

In reality, prayer is the only thing that can change our nation.

Hearts are only open to God through prayer. Cities are truly impacted through prayer. Systems can only be reformed by people of wisdom who are covered in prayer.

What does the world need in this important moment in history?

The world needs YOU! Your participation. Your heart. Your care. Your prayers. Your votes. Your engagement in the culture.

Your intercession.

What is an intercessor? We answer that in Part Two of our History Belongs to the Intercessors series.

___

Originally published at The Stream. Photo by Eduardo Dutra.

Thank the Source

Heliosorcery (2022) – Exposing the Occult Origins of Heliocentrism (Full Documentary)

Planetlamp

The purpose of this documentary is not to provide scientific, practical, or Biblical evidence against heliocentric doctrine. But rather, to trace the presently raging cosmology dispute back to its ancient heritage.

We will review the hot political and religious climate in which heliocentrism
was reborn.

We will question whether it was more than a love for science which motivated the medieval hierarchy to get behind Copernicus’ new theory.

We will investigate lesser known facts about the celebrated champions of sun-centred cosmology; their powerful associations, and their hidden obsessions.

Gathering the common threads which tie the various players together, we will follow the steady evolution of this paradigm, marking the dramatic effects it has had upon the character of society. And we will ask the question: Who benefits?

Read ‘The Cosmology Conflict’ by Chris Sparks:
https://www.earthenvessels.org.au/bib

For more information visit:
www.earthenvessels.org.au

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
03:07 The Protestant Reformation
16:11 Gnosticism
26:04 Copernicus
31:32 The Jesuits
42:20 Galileo
48:29 Newton & Hermes Trismegistus
57:39 Kepler & Hermes Trismegistus
01:03:56 The World That Forgot God
01:07:53 Darwin, The Big Bang & NASA
01:26:44 Conclusion

SourceSouth Australian Gov Criminal Organisation

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