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CHAPTER 3

HOPPING ABOUT WITH KANGAROOS CAN BE INSTRUCTIVE
THE UN CAN BE LESS SO!

This is also NEWS 104  (April 3, 2000) - but wait for it, it comes later!
Do not be concerned about that : there is a lot more to come later,
in the history of this little globe!

The kangaroo without doubt has much relationship to the Australian symbolism. It has also a teaching lesson to impart on spiritual things.

First, its boxing proclivity: with its relatively small front paws it has engage in deft action to repel. So the Christian, though weak compared with the well-furnished powers of this world, can use his capacities with effect, by deploying them deftly (Ephesians 6). Thus the short-drawn sword of the Spirit, the word of God, can inflict grievous wounds by precision application, to the stoutest hearted, and strike to the heart.

Again, its long and powerful hind-legs can slash and create enormous damage; while they double as rapid flight agencies. So for the Christian, what moves him on, the leading of the Lord, can remove him from needless danger, for he is not heedless - and we note the removal of Joseph and Mary to Egypt until the time came when it was in accord with the purpose of the Lord for them to return to their homeland, per clear guidance of the Lord (Matthew 2 - which also shows the guidance about return).

Yet this same capacity for flight, this motion to and from a land, was used to instal Christ in the land where He had to die the most triumphant death of all, so that His parading before Pilate was like a general at home in a rejoicing crowd, except in this case, the crowd simply did not see it; though they would see the results of ignoring that triumph. The rejoicing therefore had to be proleptic, an inward rejoicing that is not tainted or tarnished by the cries of men (Hebrews 12:1-2, cf. 11:10, 27).

In another sense, although His demeanour and purity made the victory assured even before death came, that liberation of death which was merely the anteroom to life that broke death (Acts 2:24), because it simply could not hold the perfectly pure creator of life, it held promise for far more than His own triumphant overthrow of death, like a cloud before a whirl-wind, in His own person*1.

It provided life unsurpassable, with a present deposit and lively continuance, by passport as a donation to all who should ever come in faith to Him as Lord and Saviour, in repentance and reality: and far more was to follow. When He arose from the dead on the Sunday (hence the worship day for all Christian peoples), then the greatest work of all time was done.

No dam, no space probe, no war, no triumph is even a button hole to the shirt of this work. The creation of the universe itself, magnificent, exuberant and munificent though it was before the curse, and robed with splendour and furnished with beauty as it still is as judgment obtrudes, this yes even this pales into the shadows of things past, compared with this PERSONAL outlay on our behalf, from and in the One who created us. In an analogy, to be born is one thing; to be loved is another.
 


 


Yet all this is preparation. The final point is this: it is that He was sacrificed, not merely providing a help AT the bar of sacrifice, or by means of it: no, there is far more. HE WAS THE SACRIFICE.
It was He Himself who constituted the sacrifice.

This involved mockery, contempt, the personal experience of the guilt of sin vicariously, the aweful separation in that time of war, when the powers of condemnation and shame were lethally arrayed on Him, like giant lasers, to reach to His soul (Isaiah 53:6), while the crowd was full of false glorying and deadly desire for His doom, lampooning (Matthew 27:39-42), mocking, ridiculing with vast knowledgeability and immovable sarcasm, like shafts into the abyss, lit with dark light. It involved slow death.

It reached into the hinterland of consciousness with agonising love in the environment of unhallowed hostility, like doctors trying to kill the patient; like sabotage against a country at war with a dictator. And that sabotage was monumentally from the denizens of the 'church', the temple crew, the religious crowd, just as today He is betrayed afresh by many of those who calling themselves ministers (cf. prediction in II Peter 2) and churches (cf. likewise Acts 20:29-30, II Timothy 3, II Thessalonians 2), depart from His word and make peace, all over again, with the cultures of this world, in order to shanghai the name 'church' and hollow out a safe, suitable or salubrious spot for themselves, in the religious climate of the times!

HIS sacrifice, however, that occurred but ONCE (Hebrews 7:26, 9:1-10:14). In Hebrews 9 that is OFTEN said.

IF it is sacrifice, it is willing (John 10:17-19, Hebrews 9:14), and done by Himself, done once, done with suffering (Hebrews 9:26) and done with blood (9:22). Not as with Rome, which breaches all these things did He act. His betrayal, not just in one but in multiplied multiples,  reaches now new heights of inglorious contempt, both in its attitude to Him and His word (though the name is spoken often enough, and sometimes with overtones of endearment, like the kiss of Judas, even chanted!) and in the register of all that is contemptible in history.

That, in our symbolism, is like then the legs of the kangaroo. Christ was powerfully brought to the field of service, just as earlier He was removed from meaningless death, to provide first His pronouncements of peace, His announcements of truth and His testimony of His identity, the everlasting word of God made flesh. We who are His (and if YOU are not, reader, consider your ways, and Proverbs 1 in particular) - we have legs of guidance and initiative for Him, under His word and through the wisdom of His grace (James 1), as promised.

Then there are the pouches. In the kangaroo is a pouch for the little ones, which may adhere to the teat in this covered situation, and have a carry bag of the utmost convenience, until mature enough to sally forth. So in Christ, there is a carry bag. What does it say in Isaiah 40:9-11?
 

"O Zion,
You who bring good tidings,
Get up into the high mountain:
O Jerusalem,
You who bring good tidings,
Lift up your voice with strength.

Lift it up, be not afraid:
Say to the cities of Judah,
'Behold your God!'
 

"Behold the Lord GOD shall come with a strong hand,
And His arm shall rule for Him:
Behold, His reward is with Him,
And His recompense before Him.
He shall feed His flock like a shepherd;
He will gather the lambs with His arm,
And carry them in His bosom,
And gently lead those who are with young."


Again, of the same Lord, before He came to earth, we read:
 

"In all their affliction He was afflicted,
And the Angel of His Presence saved them;
In His love and in His pity He redeemed them;
And He bore them an carried them
All the days of old.

"But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit;
So He turned Himself against them as an enemy,
And He fought against them...
As a beast goes down into the valley,
And the Spirit of the Lord causes him to rest,
So you lead Your people..." , from Isaiah 63:9-10,14.


There is a carrying, and if the young one rises up in folly and departs when it has rest, then on its own head it is. One is reminded of Isaiah 1:2:
 
 

"Hear O heavens, and give ear, O earth!
I have nourished and brought up children,
And they have rebelled against Me:
The ox knows its owner
And the donkey its master's crib;
But Israel does not know,
My people do not consider.

"Alas sinful nation,
A people laden with iniquity,
A brood of evildoers,
Children who are corrupted!
They have forsaken the Lord..."
 

This carrying, when it is a matter of leading and helping and undertaking and guiding with grace and unction, peace and assurance, is truly beautiful. It is in direct contrast to indexed 'magnificence' and glamour, to  the loud little lowness of sin, rebellion and spiritual aeronautics which would jump over the moon, instead of over the fences and containments of life, to bring forth results that count, where they count. When the pouch is forsaken prematurely, as if man had no need of God, despite the hostility of much of the environment, of the asteroids of produce ruin, as if he were merely charmed and not cherished into existence that he might serve God, then the pitiful ruin of the delusion is apparent.
 
 

BEING CARRIED, OR BEING CARRIED AWAY

Mars! Evolution! creation by default without a computer for the default setting to apply! Man who makes electronic marvels while he unmakes himself! What a brood of evil all of this really is, and how low it will fall before it hits the impermeable glueish mud of filthy scum at the bottom of the drying pools which he misuses in his grandeur.

UN morals to determine what is what; the blast on Australia as an outcome of its moral grandeur. This is that reported recently in the Australian press, and responded to by the Howard government with thought of minimising UN ties, because of political intrusion and inadequate information, the twin errors attributed to the UN adverse report on this land, re aboriginal treatment (cf. Advertiser, April 3, 2000, p. 2). Without here going into the fine details of who should have done, should do this or that by this or that law or ordinance, one notes the morals of the case are multi-faceted, but perfectly clear, when flames settle and reality is accepted. But is this the desire ?

The UN ? IT KNOWS that there COULD BE no ground for removing ANY children from their parents, EVEN IF it involved cases of multiple incest and gross and outrageous, repeated abuse, drunkenness and the total eclipse of opportunity. It is not here the place to comment on the historical variabilities of the case: various welfare concepts, vicious misuse of power, murderous grossness, humans for convenience with the abolition of the inconvenient, tender thoughts for protection, nurture for advance, opportunity for education to develop talent, proper procedures and discretion,  and all the rest of the wholly mixed up assemblage of the history in this case.

It is enough to look at the grossly simplistic utterances of UN on the question, while the crowd wallows in guilt it cannot logically accept, and some merely abuse with more loathsome follies, the help in fact given to some. It is not simple. There IS no solution to the present in myths about the past, be they moulded to this philosophy and selection of segments or to that! There is NO answer to the aboriginal 'problem' except in Christ.

First, it is a matter of viewing them as FULLY HUMAN, and not the coddled, cuddlesome babes of undeveloped heredity. Certainly, races can inbreed and their talents can tend to deplete, while an easy environment can sometimes sap industry; but this is not the same as something that is simply not there. Without a sense of responsibility and aided initiative which has the same assessment criteria as do others, they  are merely insulted and harassed, not helped into some kind of social dignity. Despair or dispiritedness can be achieved as well by socially contrived smiles and procedures on a humuliating assumption base, as by actual affliction! We are all human, and patronising puniness of thought and concept hardly helps anyone. One social worker spoke in detail of simply repeating social procedures over and over, in the hope that perhaps, somehow, some day something might work.

In fact, mercy should be shown, and some sense of special help because of those who did afflict them, some here, some there, in the past. However aid in this sense is quite different from degradation which allows them, if they will as happens in some cases, to play the system with contempt for the manipulable directors of aid.

One has, on the other hand, seen aboriginal people in a real Christian setting with very different attitudes, where with a place and a part in things, a meaning and a hope are to be found, and zest; but the stale solemnities of evolutionary concepts of  patronising aid, in terms speciously divorced from the requirements of discipline and concentration, are likely to help nobody, unless their directors. It is useless to disclaim this; for the concepts are endemic in our diseased society, constantly pushed, on TV a virtual barrage of anti-sermons and simplistic substitutes for scientific method. Such views, underlying and sometimes overt,  tend to convert a difficulty of adjustment into a disease of the spirit, and to reinforce it until the cultural individuality of the aborigines, becomes an identification in something, debased out of all obvious resemblance to what they brought with them, at the outset. It is not that these things may not be seen, as one experiences multiplied cases of the matter.

The intemperate condemnation of well-meaning and at times highly advantageous help to afflicted children (as is a readily verified possibility), misused to the uttermost, and deprived, because some bureaucrats and administrators did not show enough sensitivity to win the Nobel award, or made mistakes, or were even heartless and thoughtless, is merely one more political folly. There are many streams in that river, and it is an insult to ask any people to apologise for what was merely one of the tributaries, and then to repent of what in many cases was in fact a deliverance for some of the children.


It is time the simplistic calls of the UN and others for what are immoral pretences was replaced by some sense of history*2, and of the human responsibility realities. What you do, you repent of; what  you do not, is not your case. Instead, if you are moved, you seek to remedy it, as some nations did in measure for the Jews after the last war, and not before time!
 
 

MOVABLE MORALS, AND THE WORLD IN TEARS ?


 



Does it point out, in all equity that the Jewish people is in a minute coastal slice of country, far less than they once had, and that the Palestinians, many of whom left voluntarily when the wheels of victory seemed assured in 1948, after the Jews would be thrown into the sea, are surrounded by masses of lands of Moslem rule ? that the Jewish territory is intensely vulnerable to military attack AS IT IS, and that the thought of reducing it still further is morally unthinkable, deserving of the utmost rebuke ? Not at all. If so, it must rebuke itself. (For that matter, is the papacy so exercised, and all the more in view of Pius XII's appalling silence in World War II, on the topic ... of the holocaust transpiring in his midst, relative to the concordat nation of Germany ? cf. The Frantic Millenium and the Peace of Faith Chs. 6,10).

Where is this morality, and to what does it apply, when it moves with such serpentine wriggling, and crawls about so basely! But let us return to the concept of repentance... and the aborigines who ARE being given MUCH aid in MANY pensions and ways (as one has verified in some cases), as well as having some recognition in various territories handed back, though the land was never fully occupied by them, in their sparseness, by any available information. It is NOT that more should not be done; but what is done, should be done with far more moral discrimination, to ensure it does not abase, become the mere method of degradation, or the fuel for excitement of leaders with the desire of power.

The world ? It does not repent of the mischiefs of some kingdoms, some kings and some nobles; it is NOT ONE WORLD. It is made up of individuals. Nations likewise are historic continuities, but not continuums. There is no sinking of identity of individual into nation. If some Germans did not conform to Hitler, do they apologise for what he did! Is there no end to modern myths in this most knowledgeable generation ? But when the truth is despised, myths are certain to arise in any people: they have to have something with which to atone for their relentless and remorseless ignoring of the realities of life, found only in the God who made them, and in His word.

Aborigines, very possibly an export some time ago from Southern India, where various cultural and linguistic elements are found to be in common, have developed in a vast and rich land, which housed comparatively few of them, certain leisurely and perhaps in some ways pleasant means of action, and religious elements too. These were by no means all of this kind! Although it has been shown (see  That Magnificent Rock Ch.8 , pp. 245ff., 251ff.) that there has been a considerable belief in one God, the Creator, on the part of many aborigines, there have been various myths and the like, which as in some other cases, have come into the arena. The concepts as there shown, are not all to be admired, nor are they all by any means all replete with dignity for women, for example. To depart from facts is not advantageous for anyone.

To forgive offence is one thing; or to express regret that some things have happened; but to forget or suppress, and hence to be able to distort history, that is another, a resource, in the end, for lies. Those who want these can have them; there is no law to stop it; but it is well that so far, there is no law to require adherence to the intemperate outpourings of political ideas, as if they were facts, and in some cases, as if they were not themselves mere delusions of ideology, with no time for facts.

Are we then in nostalgic sentimentality to make some sort of shrine of the religion of some Australians, because they were here before the European culture ? Is it to be paraded and taught as if it were in some way sacrosanct, beyond other religions, because some had it ? Is all fidelity to God to be relinquished, and a relativistic relationship to all religions to be encouraged (do NOT condemn ANYTHING in this arena, for ANYONE! is the code), because some happened to have a certain approach (very variable, it seems, moreover) who were in this land before some came to hurt, and some to help, as is normal in human relationships (but not of course, good for that reason)!
 
 

THE ABSOLUTE ASSURANCE OF
ABSOLUTELY IGNORANT RELATIVISM
AND THE TESTIMONY OF TRUTH

Are people to be paid more if they conform to this concept ? Is God to be made a dial twiddle for the convenience of a new breed of bureaucrats who would help man, as in the case of the Russell Report in Victoria (see Lead us Not into Educational Temptation!), in order to meet the moral mandates of the United Nations, who know no God who is knowable, and lead into the paths of death, as if it were a religion in, for and to  itself: offensive to God, invasive of nations, contemptible in relativism and devoid of logical ground ? What then would it have ?

Are all men to be brothers according to a UN formula, reaching even to 'child rights' which in fact become UN rights over children; and is this to be so,  because sin does not matter (cf. The Other News Appendix 1), Christ is irrelevant, His sacrifice is to be ignored, His resurrection to be despised, His diagnosis to be rejected, and His words to be countermanded. For did He not say (John 8:44), "You are of your father the devil!" to many who were in fact VERY religious! Why ? Because of this: that for all their religion and religious 'knowledge', they did not EVEN know HIM, who proceeded and came forth from the Father (John 8:42), DESPITE all the identikit provided in the scriptures, and despite all His works, would not commit themselves to Him, but rather to His murder! Small wonder then they would die in their sins (John 8:24), not believing in the I AM  (John 8:58, A Question of Gifts VII) who is back of all that is, including the power to deny Him! Lies and murder, He declaimed, are of the devil. But HE did not kill; it was they who killed.

But as to Him in the UN, and in the knowledgeable alleys of religion (Joyful Jottings14, esp. Appendix), where it is seen how to get things desired for a 'church' or State, it is not convenient; for such is the passion of man, that many would use even this to kill, as the Roman Catholic organisation did, being carried away to the power and ways of this world, and love of dominance over it.

As has been noted on the present site,  this false love is in Roman Catholicism’s very  base and application, both (cf. SMR pp. 902ff., 1065ff., 1088Gff., 1058-1059, 1036, 1053). It is in fact anti-Christian in desire for power over the kingdoms of this world, in Christ's name, an attainment which the Saviour Himself despised (John 18:36). Moreover 'regret', as recently papally expressed, for the actions of 'some Christians' who were heretical in fact, in causing pain to others, 'in the service of truth', when it was in reality wrought in the enforcement of blasphemy,  idolatry and service to the world-loving prince of this world (cf. SMR pp. 1042ff., John 14:30), is therefore not relevant to the case of the evils done (SMR pp. 1032ff.) by Roman Catholicism (cf. The Frantic Millenium and the Peace of Faith Chs. 6, 10).

Some Christians in the service of truth then afflicted others, of other religion ? Where THAT happened, however, virtually to the man, the Inquisition DID NOT HAPPEN. The apology does not cover the case, brazens out the heresy, retains the categorical error, and authoritatively fails even to acknowledge the actual case, in its own terms continuing as ever, unrepentant. It does NOTHING to repay, and makes in contrast the Australian government's approach to aboriginal needs, might seem almost to aspire to the height of munificence, moral responsibility and concern. That is, relatively speaking!

Apart from these lacks in the so vocal apology, what is the case in view ? The inquisition ? It was a case wholly different, antithetical in fact to the one for which apology is made by the papacy. It is the power of one man or religious organisation to invade the lives of others with religiously directed force that is the true object of regret: the power of one organisation, drunk with the blood of the saints as Revelation puts it - or at least as the last participant in that "Babylon" (cf.Biblical Blessings Ch.2 ), to enforce its dictates, whether by bureaucratic means, or plain murder and theft that is in view.

IS it in the service of ANY truth to steal ? does it satisfy ANY morals, to kill what disagrees with you ? you, a mere man, or Biblically divorced group of men who use the sufferings of the Saviour as the ground of making others suffer, even death and disqualification, or enforced education in heresy that wars with the word of God ? and is it not in the very interests of befouling heresy to have ANY man make himself the master and direct, at ANY time what is to be done with those who disagree!

Is there ANY rock like the Lord, and WHO is a rock BUT the Lord!

Does not the Bible repeatedly state this, so that any who would use such a title is SEIZING THE DECLARED PRIVATE PROPERTY OF THE LORD (Psalm 18:31, 62:1-3, I Samuel 2:2, II Samuel 23:3, Deuteronomy 32:4, 15-18, Matthew 23:8-10, 7:24ff., I Cor. 10:4, cf. SMR pp. 98-99, 628-630, 1055-1056, 1061ff.). Is there then apology for that foundation, and source of the betrayals of Christ through the enforcement of heresy, to death, which is the actual case ? Of course not. How could there be ? Is not Rome capable of infallibility, and where a few million deaths, of Jews or Christians, are concerned, what infallibility of doctrine enables the 'leader' to wink at it ? or indeed, in the inquisition, to make papal bulls, paper tigers, to ensure that the death is real and organised, as indeed did the good 'catholic, Hitler in his own time.


 


 


No, these things are not in the pouch of the kangaroo; and there is no tenderness of upbringing here. This is the bouncy infant that rushes out untimely, to brash exploits and silly deeds. The NURTURE of God does not remove HIS OWN judgment on human follies, but assuredly it does not allow humans to direct the religious life of others according to their desires, whether RC or UN, Communist or Nazi, bureaucratic by 'deplorings' or governmental by selective funding.

The kangaroo has a few things to teach us; especially if we look at the creation in terms of the Creator, and at Him in terms of what HE SAYS!

But what He says! If there is one thing which stirs up the fighting qualities of our lost race it is the idea, the very idea, that the God who put His speech so superbly into our every living cell, in an exploit of miniaturisation and symbolic logic of the most profound and admirable marvel, should care or dare, indeed, to SPEAK TO US! WHO does HE think He is! What, to tell us something ... did you hear, to DIRECT US! Why we, like Mormons, would grow up to be gods and then it is OURSELVES who do the directing. GOD indeed telling us!

We will evolve, indeed, say others, and become whatever it is some of us have been hankering about for so long, become our OWN religion and NONE will tell US ANYTHING! WE will be our own gods, say the sods of earth, into which the creative hands of the Creator put design (SMR pp.211ff., 135, 252Eff, Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium 13, Repent or Perish 7, Stepping out for Christ Ch. 5, Joyful Jottings 5), and with it spirit (SMR pp. 348ff.), that they might stand on their own two legs, before arthritis sets in, and declare their boastful plaints. If equipped as a mirror for truth, then man is in the PRESENCE of truth, in order to mirror it; and in that case, his validity DEPENDS on that, its existence; and if it is not there, then he is merely throwing words to the wind. If it is, then he needs to apply himself to finding it, where it is, as shown in SMR 1.

Without that, ALL his argument is mere verbiage of confusion and profusion. Even to argue that this is the case depends on the truth being in existence, and man able to mirror it; and with that, there is the admission of the whole point. TRUTH is, or man can never have it, a mere fragment of events, a reactor. With logic, it is FOUND; without it, the irrationalist is merely self-condemned as automatically invalid.

NURTURE is needed, and one must allow the Lord to be carrier of conscience and foundation for growth, and use the sincere milk of the word of God, and not intemperately rush out into this world, as if it were merely a dream, a joke or a place in which to swagger off to Mars, to evolutionary mythology or to religious impositions, making laws for man as if God were in the habit of relishing the jokes of the mighty, at the expense of their victims. We have seen the religious type, the specifically irreligious type, the bureaucratic type, and we are going to see, if we stay long enough to witness it, the combination type.
 

This will be the ultimate brashness and will try to hop over all the earth, with fighting legs. It is not pretty, but then, ignorance masquerading whether as Rome or the antichrist (The Other News 5, Biblical Blessings Ch.2, SMR pp. 732Bff., 750Bff.), Stalin or Mao, it is never pretty. It succeeds only in trying the saints and achieving the right force for the ledger of judgment, in the end; for there is an end, when the judgment sits. It is not the puny pretences of man which will be the criterion, but that very truth which he so illogically suppressed, and indeed murdered once in the flesh, and often in spirit.
 
 

THE UNIQUELY AND SOVEREIGNLY ATTESTED LORD:
JESUS CHRIST

It is not all bad. It is only the surface of the orange which is pitted. There is the love of God Himself.
What a marvel is that - and to contemplate this, see Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Chs. 9, 10, 11, 12. There is that sacrifice, and there is holiness and wholesomeness and the beauty of holiness and the power of God, and His pardon and purity, who needs make no apology for He REALLY IS WHO HE SAYS HE IS, and not some sinful substitute of false church or spurious state. Christ as Lord is going to rule, logically necessary, spiritually authentic, testimonially without comparison (Repent or Perish Ch.7, Joyful Jottings 21, 23, SMR 502ff.).

The life within one's spirit is untamed and natural, because reconstituted, regenerated and moulded towards what it should be, lovingly affiliated with its free Father,  and pardoned and empowered
with Christ. With Him, it can flourish, as He is its deviser and author with the Father from whom He proceeThe life within one's spirit is untamed and natural (Proverbs 17:22, 18:14, Colossians 3:10), because reconstituted, regenerated and moulded towards what it should be, lovingly affiliated with its free Father,  and pardoned and empowered with Christ. With Him, it can flourish, as He is its deviser and author with the Father from whom He proceeds, and the Spirit who proceeds from them (John 15:26, I Cor. 3:18ff., John 8:42, Hebrews 1).

The heart broken for sin (Psalm 32, 51, Acts  9, Isaiah 66:2), humbled before truth, is happy to be so; and now it is in the life adopted for glorious things, of which God is the centre, the fragrance and the wonder. Like hills on the road elevating the traveller, so may come the time to see if one has strayed, and then contrite,  to repent, and realise the strength of the One who endues not only with pardon, but with power to overcome: with chastening if need be (Hebrews 12), but with delight as is His, who made us for His own people. There is nothing alien any more, for those whom He adopts (Ephesians 1:5), He cherishes.

They are His. For it now is a life abundant, sincere and real, unoppressed and blessed.

Is it REALLY ?

Yes, WHEN and IF it is Christian life (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 21). Man needs nurture and truth, peace and relationship with the absolute source of his being, to be active and valiant for the truth, and joyful in his God. But first he must find Him, and as to that, God has come to SHOW HIMSELF in human form, to SHOW THE SACRIFICE in human desolation and to SHOW THE POWER in predicted and presented miracles in profusion, even to the point of terminating the swank sway of death (cf. Hebrews 2:14-15), that awful arbiter and terrible destiny of body, as it would be if unrebuked by a love greater than its depth.

To reject this acme, this alpha and omega Jesus Christ is certainly to be open to harrowing and harassment of heart. It is to be closed to the destiny of truth. It is to be paled to the robustness of reality. On the other side,  to receive Him is to open to persecution and humiliation; but what, do not even sportsmen suffer much for their goals, and do not even poets agonise on their constructions and
creations ? Is it a man who will not stand for what is right ? Perhaps, but the man of God is fortified from the Lord who made him, and it is joy to the just to act for the Lord (Acts 4:24ff., 5:40-41).
Are we to conceive of man as ninnies who want only comfort for the flesh and autonomy for the misguided soul, in a universe where quite frankly such is not granted to him and where, since God is his author, the very concept is mere delusion! But to know God as Father, it is to find the place of abode, the height of aspiration and the centre of understanding.

Without that, it is the axe of life. With it, the acme (Isaiah 26:1-4, Philippians 4:6). And is not the position, unlike the case of some myths, both modern and ancient, just the same for women and children; for who can close the account for another, and is not every soul vital and precious to the Lord, and are not all HIS property, and will not He who would have all to be saved, act to some account ? Indeed, He has already done so, and His judgments are not those which take pleasure in the death of the wicked, but move where the love of Christ is not received, His sacrifice is not acceptable and His strength is not desired.
 
 

END-NOTES

*1
See on this:

Barbs, Arrows and Balms Appendix 3,
Biblical Blessings Ch. 15, Extended Endnote 2,
Acme, Alpha and Omega Ch.  11,
With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Ch.  3,
The Magnificence of the Messiah, Endnote 1,
SMR Ch. 6 and  Index,
The Kingdom of Heaven …9, Section 14,
Joyful Jottings 25,
A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 15, 16,
Stepping Out for Christ Ch.  5,
Things Old and New Ch. 2, Excursion 2A;
LIGHT of DAWN Ch.  3;
Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Chs.  5, 6.

 
 
 

EXCURSION ON ABUSES,
SHAM, SHAME AND CONSTRUCTIVENESS

*2 Now on April 6, 2000, we have the radio report that the Victorian parliament has decided to declare there was a stolen generation, apparently in simple and flat contradiction of the facts, since John Howard has announced that about 10% were taken (for different reasons). How is 10% a generation ? stolen or not. Does arithmetic have to be in obeisance to politics also! Is theft the term to be generically used for so many acts of such different cast and calibre, motivation and result ? Is vapid generalisation to become de rigueur ? Someone may refer to a ‘rippling effect’ and claim that it is no use claiming it is a matter of 10%; and another group wants to protest at the failure of parliament to acknowledge their existence.

Now all this is the erratic use of language. Evidently it IS in fact 10% or so, which were for one reason or another, with wisdom or without it, removed from families. To say it is not a generation is merely by abuse of terms, to be deemed equivalent to stating that the 10% does not exist. It is the generation which does not exist, as deportees, removed, separated from families so that, whether in good homes or less so, it might receive the advantages realistically or otherwise, imagined for it. Since this does not exist, does someone have the righteous option of pretending, or imagining that to deny that 10% IS a generation is to deny that such individuals exist!

It is precisely such political stomping which creates division, spreads misconception and inflames hearts. Even the term ‘stolen’ pre-supposes that the intention was theft, or that it was in the vast majority of cases at least, carried out with the intent of handling someone else’s profit for one’s own rapacity. In that sense, this too is to put kerosene on the sticks. It is not accurate, just or apt for any remedial action, since it simply mis-states the case.

The fact appears to be quite simple: benevolence, sometimes amiss, and sometimes more apparent in intention than in execution, mixed with bureaucratic lack of imagination at times, or planning insensitivity or worse, removed a small fraction of a given generation of aboriginal people from their parents. It is not known that in nearly every case this was an act of aggressive violence in a family situation, grievously denying natural protection; but it appears that in many instances the protection was needed, the opportunity for development was sought.

This is not to excuse intrusiveness, but it is also not to excuse negligence. Both were the dangers, on the one side and on the other; and neither side was anywhere near perfect. In neither case is it apparent that there was no case for any action, or for all the action taken in the way it was taken.

It was NOT a generation that was taken; it was not a third of a generation, or a quarter or a fifth. That is the first fact. It was not aptly called theft, since this was neither the intention nor, by any known statistics (and some of these things could involve deception, self-deception also, at this distance),  the uniform conception at the time. That is the second fact.

Those therefore who are not called a ‘generation’ because they do not constitute one, cannot justly protest and pour contempt on the action they so degrade and amplify. Even more, they cannot pretend their existence as removed persons, is being compromised as a status, because they are not amplified into a ‘generation’. The ‘rippling’ effect would be real, and depending on the case would be the nature of the ripples. But a rippling effect of some thefts, such as your lounge suite, does not constitute the removal of your entire household gear.

Let us however, with judicious use of words, look at another case for comparison. The removal of MOST of the JEWS from some European countries DOES give some credence to the concept that they were a killed generation, though even that phrase would need better formulation than merely that. They assuredly were an invaded generation, since the major part of their wealth, homes, posts, status, and physical existence was … removed. It was removed with malice; it was removed to death; it was not removed in hope; it did not incorporate any benevolence for those concerned. It involved deliberate and prolonged torture. The aim was the advance of others, and the demise of the Jewish people.

Yes, in this case one could almost talk of a generation, but not as a killed generation, and scarcely even as a lost one. More aptly, it would be an invaded generation and perhaps a decimated one. That is factual. It is terrible, and it is true.

Quite as terrible is the UN action towards Jews which so unlike the case in Australia, with such gross distortion compared to theirs, were hounded and impounded, cut and slashed, exposed to all but inconceivable and intentional brutality, far below what is accorded to animals, with godless zest, without feeling, without hope, on evolutionary premises, not to develop but to doom, not to protect but to remove all protection, not to educate but to reduce their human remains to the smashed relics that mock at creation, and slash at the divine hand which created their own lives and minds.

The divestment of their land and even their capital city, still in view, is a mockery for satire and a ground for contempt, as it continues its awe-ful march, while from the same hand comes invasion of the Australian situation with what appear racist distinctions. (Cf. the coverage of the facets of the contemporary Jewish case in Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium  Ch. 10).

To compare the Jewish case to what in some instances would surely appear misplaced benevolence, and in others merciful deliverance, which was occurring in Australia, with intentions of better prospects, education, and care (with any other mixed motives, the Lord knows, that may have been there), in this case directed towards a small fraction of another people in this country might indeed require an apology! The ‘rippling’ effect with the Jews was the rippling of gas in lungs, of death in masses, of torture and evil experimentation with bodies, of contempt that desired remission of life, removal of bodies, use of bones for soap, gold in teeth for treasure. It is precisely when such comparisons are made that the full extent of the degrading and tortuous misrepresentation of the Australian case appears.

The present duress which appears in the Afghanistan case of the mistreatment of women is far more to the point than misrepresentation of errors of the Australian past, and degradation of intentions in a verbal slather. It is something being perpetrated now, without any apparent regard for the talent development, but rather by all appearance, for the repression of women, the hiding away of talent and the removal of many from existing professional careers! (Cf. Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch. 2, End-note 1).

There it appears to be no question of making enormous endeavours to rectify wrongs, and to extend the often good intentions of the past in better ones now, but of the simple degradation of women AT THE PRESENT TIME. Has the UN stepped in with vigorous speech ? Perhaps it has … certainly it appears that it should do so.

What of the Australian case, the aboriginal ‘stolen generation’ then ?

Is language of accuracy to be abjured for some social reason, or truth to become abhorrent ? Is it not possible to say that many cases of forcible removal from parents, in some cases for good reason, but in many perhaps with too little, occurred ? or something more detailed yet, which with due accuracy fits the results of careful research ? or is any such formulation as this,  not sufficiently flamboyant ?

Do WE not act in some family cases, according to law, irrespective of racial background ? and that there are such aboriginal cases as are severely limited by parental vices,  is currently a matter of observation. In one such case, where there has been long a battle between relatives, several children miss enormous amounts of school because the father departs for this or that new domestic situation that appeals, by all reports including his own, and those from various sources, in a drama of many years duration.

Meanwhile they are growing up.


 

The UN for its own part, in dealing with the Rights of the Child has invented a new and devious intrusion into the home which bears amazing comparison to the case of aboriginal removal. Here however the parent may be left baby sitting what comes to a marked degree, effectually  a government child, and that in his/her own house, so that the torture becomes internal as well! (cf. The Other News, Appendix 1).

In fact it goes further than some have done, and the 'rights of the child' concept appears difficult to differentiate from rights of the UN! Children as shown in the Appendix cited above, are to be brethren in a world community of man made morals and mores. As likewise there made manifest, this is to offer violence to the God of the Bible and to the ways of Jesus Christ, such as is customary in this world in its epochal turnings, and constitutes religious intolerance and discrimination of a high and imperious order.

Far from wishing intervention of ANY kind, therefore, one has rather to consider the breaching of all possibilities in some children by such events as listed above, and the need for one of two things: an opportunity for them to develop their talents with some fairness of consistency, and the more so if they wish it; or else action that will facilitate this. At the State level, it should involve neither the exclusion nor the inclusion of dictates based on philosophy, and religious liberty without impediment in any direction that does not irrationally incite to violence: allied to no mere assumptions of what is in the best interests of the child. Religion and religious organisations should be available freely, with the same care.

That children of any race in this land should be ABLE to be educated in some way opening the mind to genuine disciplines rather than hidden philosophies, and without presuppositions or presumptions based merely on racial past, does indeed matter. Far more restraint and genuineness of education is required than the South Australian government is currently showing to children, aboriginal, British or other in their past. This is required if they are to be treated with fair and genuine liberty.

Indeed, there is what could with far more justice be called a ‘stolen generation’ now in the Government schools of this State, as has been showed in major detail in Ch.8 of That Magnificent Rock (TMR), and to repeated governmental officials in South Australia. No suggestion of rational reply involving the issues at stake, the topic in question,  the force-fed dictatorship of organic evolutionism, has ever been received. What is being received, weary day by wearisome day, is in effect slanted teaching by direction from the Education Department, at the pleasure of the political authorities, from whom comes the reply that there is NO intention of changing this thing.

We are beholding the awful ceremonies of the


of whatever colour,
 

 


for rational debate, open education, personal assessment,
 


rather than thought and creation,
in suicidal oblivion of logic
and staggering abuse of scientific method
(see That Magnificent Rock Ch.1, SMR Ch.2, A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-9, Stepping out for Christ Chs 2, 10, Wake Up World, Your Creator is Coming ... Chs. 4, 5)
 

This PRESENT political abomination continues, but no cry for ‘Apology!’ is widely heard; nor is there any appearance that it is about to be stopped, in favour of what Dr Kouznetsov, the holder of the Lenin prize for science and of various doctorates in bio-science, when visiting this oppressed State, called an open education. No, the children are to have slanted preferences, in fact not in accord with scientific method as has been demonstrated to be the case in the TMR Ch.8 noted; and the nature of what is being said on all sides, is not to be given exposure.

Selection is unnatural in this field, an unacademic exercise in exploitation of a collapsed concept (op.cit). Shame here seems to know no place, though its grounds are clear enough. Cannot these magical concepts stand on their own two academic feet, that they must be nursed, and surrounded by the guards of political intervention! Is this not in fact quite like Hitler youth, where the party line was imperative! There too, there was no option; there too, strife was the way. (Cf. SMR pp. 127ff..)
 

What reparations are to be made to THESE children, abstracted in mind,
invaded in spirit ?

Have not the authorities in this instance, been told, urged, given academically prepared grounds for remedy, not in some future epoch, but at this present time,
while the outrage is occurring, one already 12 years old ?

Have they not had opportunity NOW, in the graphic present, for reasoned reply in the arena concerned, and yet on this remained as silent as joy in a drab funeral march ? Is there even any audible cry to penetrate the process, directed by citizens to the heart of our rulers ? Other than this one, there seems at this level, not now very much.


However, the fundamental need for these our children, is not so much apology and verbal dramatics, but actual sound teaching and true prospects for THEIR future. Regret for these illicit invasions, past any question of ambiguity, would certainly not be inept in this instance. It is necessary however to be constructive, to do better than this, and to help.

But let us leave this current horror in the area of fact, and return to the uproar which seems to be developing in assessment of things past.

There are shames and shames, just as there are shams and shams; and it is often convenient to confuse issues, or sham with shame or vice versa, in the interests of whatever new social pliancy may arise with its evocative appeals.

Judgment however is not so swayed, and facts are non-inventable.

Truth and mercy are needed; not fabrication, linguistic abuse and emotive outpourings allied to vacuous proceedings neither helpful nor circumspect, which readily become as abusive of past people and their intentions and the scope of their actions, as the alleged abuse is deemed to have been, in the first case.
Just concern should be for the betterment of prospects, judicious and necessary outlays for opportunity,  advance in talent and domestic stability for the children, not for the meeting of pangs created in part by fashions of phraseology where reality is lost in the glamorous spectrum of spectaculars in social philosophy, and the vagaries of political management.

To violate either of these vital concerns, truth or mercy, is almost the ultimate social fallacy; for error begets error, and harshness can evoke foolish response. Integrity and grace are needed, in which principles of acute responsibility, genuine challenge and standards of discipline, as with other races and peoples in the social complex, provide from mercy the landing gear for learning, labour and grace.

This is the need: not oscillations in social dynamics, with either embittered hearts or insensitive minds.  To many of many backgrounds have difficulties come, and many are the errors of all races, and not always has even any benevolence appeared. Kindness and sympathy, concern and constructiveness in the face of deeply felt sufferings, however met, are apt for those afflicted, where it can be received. Effort to create opportunities, sensitively conceived, while really valued and utilised by the recipients, is to the point. Exaggeration and degradation of past actions, however, does not help the removal of degradation and error from present ways.

Gracious and thoughtful provisions are needed, on all sides. It is needed for one race, it is needed for all; and to all is the call to responsibility and self-control, with the application of talent and the awareness of opportunity, to use it while it is here.

Proverbs 3:3 is here valuable especially: "Let not mercy and truth forsake you: bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart…" This is by no means a set of synonyms for gullibility and volubility, or even false distinctions among races, and demeaning patronage. It is however an exhortation to ensure that in the interests of particular cases, truth is not lost in some trade-in, and that in the endeavours to be just, mercy is never to be forgotten.