Salt Shakers Journal Summary July 2008

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Editorial (in full below)
Australia - The ‘lucky’ country? Really? Australia - A Great South Land? Really? Try telling our young people that.

Marriage and Family- Nailing up the Coffin
Peter Stokes looks at the importance of marriage and the family and new Commonwealth discrimination laws that aim to give more rights to homosexual couples.

News and Action
Cloning; Planet Slayer; Euthanasia – Federal; Victoria - Euthanasia

Victoria Abortion: VLRC Report
The Labor government tabled the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s Report on the ‘Law of Abortion’ in the Victorian Parliament on 29 May.

Update on Fuzzy Logic
Dr. Murray Adamthwaite looks at one more fallacy- the ‘common factor’ fallacy.

Overseas aid, Family Planning and abortion
Jenny Stokes looks at the guidelines that facilitate the prevention of aid being used for abortion and shows they are being attacked.

Commonwealth Discrimination: Stage 1
The federal government has started changing 100 Commonwealth laws to ‘remove discrimination’ against same-sex couples.

Destroying Innocence
Our society values children and has implemented strict laws to ensure they are protected. This was particularly evident last month with the arrest of 90 men, including a teacher and a youth worker, in Australia for possessing child pornography after downloading it through the internet.

The Indian thinker, Abu al-Al-Mawdudi
Rev Dr. David Claydon examines the thoughts and philosophy of the founder of Jamiet-e-Islami.

Pornography: Turning back the tide
Two recent court decisions highlight the impact that Christians can have against the tide of pornography. We need to be alert to what is being promoted and speak up!

NSW: Fathers and Lesbians
Last month we reported that the NSW Parliament was considering changing 57 laws to grant rights to same-sex couples, in particular giving rights to lesbian couples who have children through IVF.

Islam: Funding of University Chairs
Jenny Stokes looks at the increase in the number of universities accepting funding from Muslim countries to establish Islamic departments.

‘Hate’ laws in Canada
Canada’s federal ‘hate crime’ law and various province human rights laws are increasingly being used to shut down free speech in Canada.

World News
USA: Exxon Mobil; Belgium: Euthanasia; Belgium: Free speech; USA: University and homosexuals; UK: 3 parents a possibility.

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Editorial (full version)

Australia - The ‘lucky’ country? Really?
Australia - A Great South Land? Really?

Try telling our young people that.

A recent report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare said Australia has managed a slight reduction in the number of teenage suicides, but the latest figures also show that “in the past decade there has been an alarming rise in the number of young people who intentionally hurt themselves, with more than 7,000 taken to hospital in one year.”

We all know that youth suicide has long been a significant issue in Australian society. Why should this be?

Proverbs 29:18 states, “Where there is no vision (revelation), the people perish.”

Now while there are clearly many references to people having spiritual visions and revelations from God, what sort of lack of ‘vision’ is there, in Australia today, that would cause them to self harm or suicide?

Another scripture found in Hosea 4:6 says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”

One can see, therefore, that knowledge and vision are closely related and the lack of them can have dire consequences for society, especially for the young who are looking for a sense of purpose and belonging. They are also looking for a future and when those visions are clouded, when their knowledge about who they are, where they come from and where they are going become worse than cloudy, more like very dark, what result should we expect?

What vision or knowledge do they lack? Just what are our young people ‘seeing’ today.

I do not think it is stretching the point to say that most young people lack any ‘vision’ or

understanding of what life really is about today. God does not exist, ‘creation is a myth’ they are told, they are here by random chance. Accidents of ‘nature’.

They have a vision of materialism - what you have makes you who you are. Your looks, your size, define who you are.

The future is grim because humans cause global warming. There are too many of us for the world to survive much longer. The ABC is telling very young children their lifestyle should only let them live to 5.1 years old - too bad if you are six - how long have you got before you explode? (see page 6) Global death through planet warming is all they have to look forward to.

Cyberspace is more real to many than a happy family. The pain of marriage breakdown, of parents with drug and alcohol problems, or simply workaholics paying the bills of materialism, is too much for many of them.

Our girls are being told a career is more important than a family and boys are being told they are unnecessary.

The vision of a happy family has been shattered so they don’t look forward to a happy future with a husband or wife and family.

They don’t see proper role models of men and women and are repeatedly confused by messages that being homosexual is OK - they find it hard to know what a true man or woman is any more.

Our young people desperately need to see visions, revelations of a loving God who created them - a God who is in control of the world.

We all have a job to do, if the next generation is to see the right visions and have the right knowledge to survive.

Yours in Christ Jesus

Peter & Jenny Stokes