REBUILDING WESTERN CIVILISATION IN AN AGE OF DISRUPTION AND DISUNITY

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This was the second London meeting of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), a unique organisational experiment founded in the belief that “a civilisational moment has arrived” – that the West will sink further into individual unhappiness and loss of conviction or find the keys to restoration and renewal. It intersects with politics, religion and public policy, but it isn’t owned by any of them. More than 4000 people from more than 90 nations met in London this week to give tangible meaning to the vibe.

Speaking on the theme of “Responsible Citizenship and the Social Fabric,” one of the strongest messages at ARC came from clinical social worker, author, and parent guidance expert Erica Komisar. Komisar made it clear that parents are primarily responsible for the plight of today’s children.

Komisar said it was best to raise children in “caring, faith-based communities that promote self-sacrifice, volunteerism, and empathy.”

In her longer conference paper, Komisar said the “tear in the social fabric” was undeniable.

She said: “We are raising children who are self-centred, and self-focused and without the inclination or ability to take responsibility or to sacrifice for others. This change is occurring despite the research that shows how happiness is tied to the ability to give to others and giving to others is tied to happiness. Only Christians raised in faith-based families will teach children this truth.

“Our children are affected in many ways from this shift towards self-centredness. Some are just less happy, more dissatisfied and more bored with their lives. Others are more obviously symptomatic, suffering from depression, anxiety, ADHD, suicidal thoughts, personality disorders and loneliness – all of which are on the rise.”

The culture is at the heart of the issue. Komisar quoted Pew Research that 18 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds do not want to have children and only 45 per cent of young women in the poll want to have kids.

“They feel that having children is a burden which would require them to sacrifice time, money and personal freedom,” Komisar writes. “When they do have children many do not want to raise them themselves.

“The repercussions of three generations of self-centredness and a lack of empathy mean parents are modelling their selfishness to their children.”

The cultural transformation has seen men and women being taught that children were “an afterthought to their education, career and personal goals”. Komisar said: “If we place our ambition above those we love there is a price to pay.”

In her advice on parenting, Komisar said: “Prioritise your children over your work or any of your other pursuits.” She warned of the myth that women “can do it all at the same time”. The culture, however, cultivates the notion that the individual is more important than the family or community. The wider environment beyond the home is important – once again, Komisar said it was best to raise children in “caring, faith-based communities which promote self-sacrifice, volunteerism and empathy”.

In conclusion she said: “It is only by changing ourselves that we can change the path for our children and that we can change the world.”

Donald Trump’s triumph is a victory for the working class against a “Luciferian” elite, according to Jordan Peterson, the popular Canadian author, speaker, podcaster and sage of conservative activism. He also asks an important question.

“When the culture is so fragmented that those presumptions become questionable, then the split goes all the way to the bottom. The question we’re asking ourselves after the death of God, so to speak, is what spirit rules?

“The classic answer to that is that when the unifying deity suffers its demise, it’s always the diversity of pagan hedonism, and the clamour for power, that emerges. Those are the principles that society collapses into when a more transcendent, unifying ethos disintegrates. It’s power and hedonism. Those two dance. It’s not sustainable.”

A lot of ARC’s work, he says, is about projecting a different narrative for the West: “The fundamental narrative of the West, the fundamental book of the West, is the Bible. There’s no getting away from that, not without paying a major price.

 https://youtu.be/dvzwp2Upjiw

HOPE FOR AUSTRALIA – TREASURER ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

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Treasurer’s Speech on Religious Liberty Scott Morrison MP

 Address to the House of Representatives – Marriage amendment,  4th December 2017

“I was amongst the 39 percent that voted for the traditional view of marriage to be maintained. As a nation we must now move forward in grace and love, as my Christian faith teaches us.
Image result for picture of Scott Morrison in Parliament giving speechI will respect the democratic outcome of this Australian Marriage survey, both nationally and in my own community, by not standing in the way of this Bill.
However, with the closure of one debate, a new one commences. This new debate is not about opposing same sex marriage, it is about sensibly protecting religious freedoms.
There are almost five million Australians that voted no in this survey who are now coming to terms with the fact that on this issue, they are a minority. That did not used to be the case in the Australia they have lived all or most of their lives in.

They have concerns that their broader views and their broader beliefs are also in the minority and therefore under threat. And they are seeking assurances at this time.
Assurances, rightly or wrongly, that the things that they hold dear are not under threat also because of this change.
On the night of the first referendum to establish our federation in June 1898, Alfred Deakin prayed ‘thy blessing has rested on us here yesterday and we pray that it may be the means of creating and fostering throughout Australia a Christlike citizenship’.
In an earlier speech campaigning in Bendigo for the Federation he quoted a local poet defining the true Australian goal of Federation as for ‘us to arise, united, penitent, and be one people – mighty, serving God’.

Our Constitution went on to proclaim …

WHEREAS the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth … with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal.
Then in S116 our Constitution deliberately afforded a protection ‘that the Commonwealth shall not make any law .. for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion.’
This is the religious inheritance of our Federation, our Constitution, from more than a century ago. If we ever act in dissonance with these founding principles, it will be to our peril.
This is not to say that Australia is a nation with an established state religion. It is not. We are thankfully free of such a restriction on our liberty.
Such freedom though should not be used as a weapon against the importance of faith, belief and religion in our society, or as a justification to drive faith and religion from our public square. At the same time, protection of religious freedoms cannot be used as a cloak for religious extremism, that undermines our freedoms.
We may be a secular state, but we are not a Godless people to whom faith, belief and religion are not important. Quite the contrary. It is deeply central to the lives of millions of Australians. In my own church, like many others, we refer to Australia as the great south land of the Holy Spirit.
Whether you raise your hands, bow to your knees, face the holy city, light incense, a candle or the menorah, faith matters in this country, and we cannot allow its grace and peace to be diminished, muffled or driven from the public square.
Separation of church and state, does not mean the inoculation of the influence of faith on the state. The State shouldn’t run the church and the church shouldn’t run the State. In fact, separation of church and state was set up to protect the church from the State, not the other way around. To protect religious freedoms.
As I argued in my maiden speech in this place, secularism, secular humanism, is no more our established state religion than any other. It is one of the many free views held by Australians. It holds no special place of authority in our Commonwealth.
For millions of Australians, faith is the unshakeable cornerstone of their lives. It informs their identity and provides a genuine sense of well being. It is the reason why people can look beyond their own circumstances and see a greater purpose. For countless Australians, faith is life.
In my maiden speech to parliament almost ten years ago, I spoke of the two key influences on my life – my family and my faith.
And how my faith in Jesus Christ was inherently personal, not political or preachy. As Christians we do not lay claim to perfection or moral precedence. In fact it is the opposite. Conscious of the frailties and vanities of our own human condition, Christians should be more conscious of the same amongst those around us. This is why faith encourages social responsibility – the bedrock of faith in action…
The fragrance of faith has washed over society for centuries and helped to shape and mould it for the better.

Our own nation was founded, built and undeniably shaped by Christian values, morals and traditions that helped to unite a fledgling country. A nation blessed and formed on Christian conviction. These issues of faith are not only gifted to us by our Federation fathers, but the many generations of Australians who have come to us since, including those from non-Christian faiths and experience… But there was one thing that could never be stripped away, through a millennia of struggle. One thing that sustained these stoic (Maronite)  communities. It wasn’t the governments that came and went with the wind, it wasn’t the leaders that so promised peace. It was their faith.
A faith that routinely stared adversity in the face and prevailed. A faith that held families together. When everything else was a struggle, their faith stood strong. A faith that the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese Maronite Australians brought with them to Australia from as early as the 1860s. But so too did the many Greek Orthodox migrants, Coptic Christians from Egypt, still being persecuted in their home country today, Syrian Christians from both Orthodox and Catholic faiths and Armenians.
And for the many Chinese, Korean and Filipino Australians, of Catholic, Baptist, Anglican, Presbyterian and Pentecostal faiths. Some brought their faith with them, others found it here in Australia.
When most of these migrants came to Australia it was not the Government they first turned to, to assist them to adjust to their new life in Australia. It was their local church or other religious community. If you want to understand the strong opposition to changing our marriage act in western Sydney and elsewhere you must understand the central nature of faith and community to the lives of these and so many other Australians.
Nine out of the top ten electorates that voted No are represented by Labour members, and are comprised of the vibrant faith communities that I have just spoken of.
I would urge them all of these Labour members to be freed up, released from any constraint, that would enable them to stand with their constituents now in supporting amendments that deliver the protections of religious freedoms that are currently absent from this Bill.
To pretend this Bill is whole and satisfies their concerns is to confirm a lack of understanding and empathy for those who hold them.
These Australians are looking for acknowledgement and understanding from this Parliament and their representatives. They are seeking assurance that changes being made to our marriage laws will not undermine the stability, and freedom of their faith and religious expression – what they teach their children, what their children are taught, the values they share and foster within their families, community, within and without their Church walls.
This a reasonable request that this Parliament should support.
commend the PM for initiating the Ruddock Review in protecting religious freedoms. Few people understand these communities and the issues and risks as well as the former Attorney. But that process is not, nor was it designed to be a substitute for sensible action now in this Bill.

To fail to make improvements to this Bill now would demonstrate a failure to appreciate not only the underpinnings of our own liberal democracy and Federation, but the nature of modern multicultural Australia.

I commend my colleagues both in the Senate and this house for standing firm on their convictions and beliefs; both representing their faith and those in their communities that share their values. I will be joining many of my colleagues in supporting amendments to be moved by the Members for Deakin, Mitchell, Canning and Mallee.

I will be joining them in moving amendments to ensure that no organisation can have their public funding or charitable status threatened as a result of holding views that are consistent with the traditional definition of marriage between a man and a woman.

The test of faith is the fruit that it produces. That is what Jesus taught in his parable of the fig tree.

The fruit of faith based organisations has been extraordinary – Mission Australia, Wesley Mission, Caritas, Anglicare, Baptist Care, our religious schools – the many Christian organisations involved in providing pastoral support in our schools – their funding through grants and other programmes and support through our tax system must continue to be about what they achieve, not what they consider to be the definition of marriage.

We need to ensure these protections are put in place.

It is now time to pass a truly inclusive Bill that recognises the views of 100% of Australians, not just the 61%, and I urge the House to not miss this opportunity.