When multiculturalism was initiated in Australia, the ‘good feeling’ about it was that we wanted to be a welcoming nation to those from different backgrounds. The hope was that we would continue to learn from each other in some kind of ‘big melting pot’ as the 1970s song suggested. But the idea that cultures carry beliefs that are grounded in different trust paradigms (different faiths) might put a strain on our Judeo-Christian traditions, was rejected.

This has proved to be radically wrong with people of the Muslim faith. In his book Christ and Culture Revisited, D.A. Carson clearly described at least one point of difference that would not only cause an irretrievable rift between faith systems, but would also be an irreconcilable point of difference within a civil and tolerant society. The issue Carson identified was the use of violence as part of spreading the respective belief system. The Koran clearly states that unbelievers need to convert or they are killed.

Mike Johnson Speaker of the House in the US recently expressed his concern about Muslims, “But when you seek to come to a country and not assimilate, but to impose Sharia law — Sharia law is in conflict with the Constitution — that is the conflict that people are talking about. It is not about people, as Muslims; it is about those who seek to impose a different belief system that is in direct conflict with the Constitution.” Johnson was echoing sentiments he expressed last month, when he noted that the Bible does not demand a nation accept immigrants who refuse to assimilate.

We [devout conservative Christians] reserve the right to proclaim Christ, and we will give our lives to maintain that right; but we have no interest in the ostensible “conversions” achieved at sword-tip, and we distance ourselves from forebears who did not see that point clearly.

What might this mean for Australia, currently? Functionally, if we cut ourselves off from our Judeo-Christian heritage, we will lose the capacity to judge well in terms of the ‘rightness and wrongness’ that has built this society in the last two hundred years. We will increasingly become, like many of our leaders, everyday pagans, accepting and participating in different religious ceremonies and rituals, because ‘they are all the same’, so let’s just keep the people we are with happy.

Without a set of core beliefs grounded in universal respect, we will find no civic good that is common anymore. We will wander in the fog of despair and increasingly stimulate our senses to convince ourselves that we are OK. The mist of our lives will make us blind to the real needs of our youth and elderly.

Given that it is not the law that makes good people, but it is good people that make good society possible, what are those who still believe in the Giver of Good to do? Carson expressed it well when he wrote that perhaps… the most attractive outworking by far is found in the individual Christian or group of Christians who, precisely because they live out their faith, become involved not only in bold witness but also in ways of helping others in the community that cross many thresholds normally controlled by government agencies.

Or, as the apostle Paul wrote, we are saved by grace through faith to do the good works God has planned for us (Ephesians 2:8-10) – and this, quoting Paul’s founder, is to be our offering of salt and light to our world, right here, right now.

The world does not realise that another dimension exists outside of this space/time continuum. Without our creator God revealing the truth about our Cosmos and condition we have no understanding and have come up with evolution and the Big Bang as a theory for its existence without a creator God. There is only one place one can go for the true history of the Cosmos and planet Earth and that is God’s Word , the Bible. Fortunately God has raised up ministries like http://www.creation.com and http://www.answersingenesis.com where people can find evidence from PhD scientists that prove the Bible’s history fits the scientific evidence.

The greatest proof of the truth of God’s Word is fulfilled prophecies. God has given us the history of this Cosmos not only from its miraculous beginning but to its fiery end. Moreover, it is fascinating to follow Biblical end times prophecies playing out in our day. Most of the posts on this blog are given over to providing this information.