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Christianity

Fox and Friends

01/07/2025 by Australian Family Party

foxIn 1969, former SA Federal MP Bert Kelly was sacked as Minister for the Navy after the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne collided with America’s USS Frank E Evans in the South China Sea. Ministerial responsibility was interpreted differently in those days.

In 2025, Australia is once again on a collision course with the US, this time over our commitment to defence spending – with China again eerily in the picture.

Putting it bluntly, Australia is not pulling its weight and the Americans, who we rely on to defend us, are not happy.

In fact, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, together with his Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd, seem to be going out of their way to annoy our most important ally.

All have made no secret of the fact that they do not like Donald Trump – or even America for that matter – but do they have to take the opposite side on everything?

It brings to mind those two great books – ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ and ‘How to Lose Friends and Irritate People’.

Albanese and Co. have clearly been reading the wrong book!

What they are doing is downright dangerous.

They are jeopardising the Australia-UK-US (AUKUS) agreement which, at present, is our only forward defence plan.

Meanwhile, Chinese warships traverse our waters with impunity.

It is a given that the first duty of any government is the defence of the nation.

However, from the defence of the nation to the Middle East conflict to Russia and Ukraine to Australia’s energy policy and censorship laws, the Albanese government is letting the Trump administration know that we are not on the same page.

In Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Richard Plantagenet (later Richard III) says, ‘How sweet it is to wear the crown.’

Richard covets the crown and expresses his ambition and desire for the throne. He yearns for power and the perceived joys of kingship as he plots against the reigning King Henry.

However, when the question, ‘Where is thy crown?’ is posed to Henry himself, Henry responds that his crown is in his heart, not on his head, symbolizing that true kingship lies not in outward symbols of power but in what the crown represents.

Shakespeare’s insights into human nature and the yearning for power are timeless.

Like Richard Plantagenet, our Prime Minister might be good at getting to the top – be it to the top of a student union or the top of a political party – but once there he has proven himself to be totally unsuited to the role of competent governing.

It’s been said that voters want leadership, they want to be led – “But don’t boss me around,” they quickly add.

The job of a leader isn’t easy, but that’s the whole point.

Anthony Albanese was once asked, ‘Mr Albanese, if you were dictator, what’s the first thing you would do?’

‘Ban social media’, he replied.

How revealing.

That the Prime Minister would ban social media – our most popular means of communication – is brutally authoritarian.

It reminded me of a scene in the movie Oppenheimer in which nuclear scientist Robert Oppenheimer meets with President Harry Truman shortly after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War 2.

Following his successful testing of the bomb, Oppenheimer was known to have uttered the words, ‘Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds’, a quote from the Bhagavad Gita, a holy scripture from Hinduism.

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer told Truman he felt he had ‘blood on his hands’.

Truman angrily responded with the words, ‘The blood is on my hands, not yours. It was me who dropped the bomb, not you’.

With that, the meeting was over, and Truman said he ‘never wanted to see that man again’.

There’s more than a little Oppenheimer in Albanese’s view of himself and the world around him.

There’s an old Greek proverb, ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows only one thing’.

Albanese knows only one thing – politics. It’s all he’s ever done. He’s a hedgehog.

But as we know, the world isn’t made up of just one thing, it is made up of a whole range of competing factors and trade-offs that differ for different people of different ages who live in different places and have different priorities.

Like the ‘crystallised intelligence’ vs ‘fluid intelligence’ paradigm. Crystallised intelligence employs experience and wisdom and knows how the world works. Fluid intelligence knows how to study, learn facts and pass exams. Foxes vs hedgehogs. We’ve all met them.

Harry Truman – a Democrat (America’s version of the Australian Labor Party) was a good President. A Bob Hawke type of President.

Before entering politics, Truman was a soldier and then a shopkeeper. A better understanding of how the world works you wouldn’t get than by owning a shop!

Harry was quite the fox.

The story is told of when Truman was elected President, his former army buddy and shopkeeper partner, Eddie Jacobson, said to him, ‘O Harry, now that you’re President, everyone’s going to start telling you what a great man you are, when you and I both know you ain’t’.

True leaders value the Eddie Jacobsons in their lives.

Anthony Albanese is no Harry Truman – or even a Bob Hawke for that matter.

And Australia is all the poorer for it.

Having said all that, I am consoled by the words of a small child who prayed, ‘Dear God, please look after mummy, and please look after daddy, and please look after my brother and sister and most of all please look after yourself because if anything ever happens to you we’re all going to be in a real mess.’

Thank you for your support.

Filed Under: Australia's economic future, Australian Politics, Christianity, Foxes and hedgehogs, Nuclear energy, Political language, President Trump, South Australia

Noughts and Crosses

28/04/2025 by Australian Family Party

CrossFrançois-Marie Voltaire, the world’s most famous atheist, once proclaimed that although he didn’t believe in God, he employed devout Christians to be his accountant, his cook and his barber because, he said, ‘I don’t want to be robbed, poisoned or have my throat slit!’

Voltaire’s credo is a variation of the admission by another famous atheist, Richard Dawkins, who has taken of late to describe himself as a ‘cultural Christian’. He feels ‘at home’, he says, in the Christian ethos, going on to say that substituting Christianity with anything else ‘would be truly dreadful’.

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves of Christianity’s great contributions to the world.

Most of the world’s languages for example were put into writing by Christian missionaries.  More schools and universities were started by Christians than by any other group. Motivated by a sense of concern for others, Christians established hospitals, aged care organisations and welfare agencies.

The elevation of women was a Christian achievement, as was the abolition of slavery, cannibalism, child sacrifice and widow burning. Before Christianity came along, almost every civilisation and culture practised slavery or human sacrifice.

Countries which today enjoy the greatest civil liberties are generally those places where the Christian gospel has penetrated the most.

There is a Chinese proverb, “The tears of strangers are only water”. When there is famine or genocide in Africa, for example, Christianity says, “Those people are human like us, we need to help them”. Other cultures say, “Yes, it’s a problem but it’s not our problem”.

The ‘equality of human beings’ is a Christian idea which led to the abolition of slavery and international human rights. US Founding Father Thomas Jefferson said, “That all men are created equal is self-evident”. Most cultures throughout history however, reject this. ‘Inequality’ is what is self-evident they say – height, weight, strength, intelligence, truthfulness, talent etc. What Jefferson was referring to of course was ‘moral equality’. Each life is as valuable as any other.

Closer to home, the Reverend John Flynn founded the Flying Doctor Service and the Australian Inland Mission. His Presbyterian Ministers were known as ‘the boundary riders of the bush’ and were responsible for establishing communication through the inland pedal wireless.  Early colonial Governors Macquarie, Hunter and Brisbane were committed Christians. Governor Macquarie personally promoted the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Sunday School Movement. And Australia’s Constitution begins with the phrase, “…. humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God ….”

Which brings me to a disturbing but symptomatic example of attempts to remove Christianity from the public square – in this case, quite literally.

For more than 30 years, a small church in the Adelaide Hills village of Houghton, has erected three crosses at Easter time. The crosses are simple but strong structures which have steel ‘cleats’ attached to them to enable the crosses to drop into pipe sleeves in the ground. After Easter, the crosses are removed, the pipe sleeves capped, and a small amount of dirt and grass placed over the caps awaiting re-discovery the following year.

Easter

For reasons known only to local government bureaucrats, but obscure to common sense, the local council this year saw fit to remove the crosses shortly after they were installed.

The improbable reasons given for removing the crosses were that the Council had been ‘inundated with complaints’, that ‘no permit had been issued’, and ‘there were public safety concerns’. As one resident put it, ‘Safety concerns? What were they concerned about? That they’d go out there one morning and find someone had been nailed to one of the crosses and they would get the blame?’

EasterNot only had the crosses been removed, but a ‘Parking Infringement Notice’ had been attached to one of them together with a card inviting the reader to contact the Council for further information. This I subsequently did, only to be threatened with ‘another fine’ if the church didn’t immediately repair the slight depression in the ground where the crosses once stood!

One is always loath to attribute to malice what can be better explained by over-zealous bureaucracy, hence a post on Facebook and subsequent local backlash over the Council’s actions did result in an immediate offer by the Council to reinstate the crosses.

Regrettably, the industrious Council inspector had not only removed the crosses, but for some inexplicable reason had also dug out the in-ground sleeves which made it a major task to re-assemble the display.

As for the alleged ‘inundation’ of complaints – none having ever been recorded over the previous 34 years – the Houghton Church and its local residents enjoy a relationship going back 150 years. A local calendar features the following description of Houghton Church:

‘In August 2025, the Houghton Uniting Church will celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the laying of its foundation stone. Throughout that time – including through two World Wars and other cataclysmic events – Houghton Church and its members have been a source of comfort and care when needed. It has also been an important connection point for community events including its annual Christmas Carols on the Green and Pancake Tuesday events, as well as being an active participant in Remembrance Day and Anzac Day services. And of course, Weddings, Christenings and Funerals held at the church provide a service to the community during life’s ever-present milestones.’

These Councils need to be reminded of the old saying, ‘Be careful what you wish for’.

Banning Christianity from the public square is one thing, but trying to ban it from the local village square takes it to a place where even angels fear to tread …!

Thank you for your support.

Filed Under: Australian Character, Christianity, Culture Wars, Family Policy, Freedom, Officialdom, Prayer, Religious freedom

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