"If Liberty Means ANYTHING AT ALL, It Means the Right to Tell You What You Do Not Want to Hear": Thus Spake - No, Not Zarathustra (of 2001 A Space Odyssey Fame), But - That Most Incisive, Penetrating, Profound and Insightful - Yet 'Simple' & Clear of Writers - Eric Blair (i.e. George Orwell) Himself...

And who are we Citizenry of Contemporary Cancel Culture to dare to contradict him, I mean, really? 

Republican Lawmaker Liz Cheney May Be (Pretty Much) All Alone In Her 'Party' (Which Noam Chomsky Has Called the Most Dangerous Institution in the History of Humanity), But She is Right On - In Sentiment At Least - When She Declared (at the Congressional Inquiry the Other Day) That "Trump Will Go, But the Shame [of Those Republicans Who Supported Him in His Attempt to Stage an Insurrection January 6th 2021] Will Remain"

Not that they could give a toss, and sadly it seems they'll be back out in force in 2024, reinstating him into position for the final act in human history before the Almighty calls down the curtain on him permanently.

Yes, the One Above will indeed - one day very, very soon - have the last laugh...

at the last trump...the trump of God 

It's Awful To Be Intolerant OF ANYONE These Days... Oh, We Mean to Say, Unless You Happen to Call Yourself A Christian: In Which Case It's Pretty Much 'Game On'...Or How the Modern (Western) Media - In This Instance That of NZ Inc - Simply Can't Get Enough Dirt (Whether Real or Supposed) Upon Today's Christians, Especially the Institutional Church

Caveat/Disclaimer: 

None of my beef with the aforementioned (media partiality, bias and prejudice), however, pertains to the sexual abuse epidemic (*almost entirely within the precincts of the Church of Rome, incidentally - I'm sorry, that's the blatant truth of the matter) carefully and meticulously and generally bravely uncovered/exposed by the same...

So the New Zealand media has now well and truly taken it upon itself - not fearlessly in the best tradition of in-depth, investigative journalism, but much more in the style and modus operandi, the worst tradition of rabble-rousing populists and other such demagogues - to take the cudgels to the Christian Church and its adherents, to effectively declare 'open season' upon the churches of Aotearoa-New Zealand...

To Be Continued (following some shuteye)...Sorry it's taken so very long (two weeks exactly)...

As I say (making the point I did at the very outset), such 'journalism' is not just over the perfectly legitimate ongoing issue of clerical sexual and physical abuse (of 'minors' within the churches' own ranks) - as indeed the Government's special Commission into Abuse in State Care, long since expanded to include faith-based institutions, has been getting to grips with over recent years (modelled as it doubtless is upon the excellent exposing of such by Australia's own equivalent federal and state-run Police- and Government-instituted inquiries).

Yes, we'd 'all' been only too well aware of and familiar with the long-running scandal of such (sexual and physical) abuse within the (so often unhallowed) precincts of the Roman Catholic Church over recent decades, with only the odd mention from time to time of other Christian bodies (such as the **Sally Army in New Zealand over more recent times)...

...and alongside this long-running national and international story, over the last few years we've seen the saga of 'Gloriavale' for one and all to see - again, an entirely legitimate matter for journalistic investigation (if not the downright persecution that's latterly seemed to replace this more balanced coverage!)

And then, only a couple of weeks/months ago we saw the identification - followed by extensive naming and shaming - of the (pentecostal) Arise Church following some high-profile executive meetings over recent weeks. To 'top' this off, upon Sunday May 29th TV1's 6 p.m. bulletin we witnessed yet another (again, pentecostal/charismatic) church - in this instance the Celebration Church - 'fingered' and effectively outed as well...

As the following afternoon I tuned into RNZ National, was I at all surprised to hear the topic for a half-hour interview being pretty much the same - if with a somewhat different (non-kiwi) angle (and vis-a-vis a Christian ministry I've had a lot of time for over the years, that of Sydney's Hillsong Church and their nationally and internationally high-profile senior pastor Brian Houston)? Hardly; this was now becoming more or less 'par for the course', as the media here (as doubtless has increasingly been the case 'across the ditch' since it was revealed early on in 'Scomo's - the (now former) Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's - tenure that he considered Hillsong and Houston in particular had had a major impact upon his life (and spirituality).

This time evidently Pastor Houston had only just resigned - and so reference was made to the ongoing police investigation there which in turn had undoubtedly precipitated (if not specifically caused) Houston's departure...

To Be Continued (again!)

A Day Later...

And now for the latest instalment in the ganging-up upon churches in NZ Inc (in particular): this past week we've heard the hoo-ha caused in the LGBT community - the local contingent in Tauranga, anyhow - in regards to a school associated (I believe) with the Bethlehem Baptist Church - Bethlehem College? - being 'implicated'/'outed' (if you will) due to its inflexible position vis-a-vis LBGTs or suchlike...

But surely any organization whatsoever, whether secular or religious, has the inherent, inalienable right and prerogative to determine its own membership - entirely free of outside intervention or interference?

But apparently not, or no longer here in Aotearoa...

Add to that the clear and unambiguous pigeonholing and attempted - thankfully, wholly unsuccessful - taking down of National's latest leader Christopher Luxon...

...for nothing more (nor less) than his apparently sharing a commonplace, and moreover genuine heartfelt conviction (among evangelical Christians) over the utter sanctity (inviolability) of life (in the somewhat crass phraseology of some upon other matters, 'from the womb to the tomb'). That was due to his seeing such sanctity of life as including/embracing the life of the unborn child - interestingly, not in regards to how the selfsame principle applies in that other recently much vexed issue of euthanasia - but though serious and repeated, determined and persistent attempts were made to get him to label it as murder, these were all stillborn, failing as it were 'in utero' - but not for want of trying! 

Luxon simply failed to take the bait, well and fully realizing the hole they were trying to dig for him. Does that mean he was being disingenuous or not straight up? It all depends upon one's perspective upon the matter, and upon the questioners themselves. Personally I'd respectfully suggest that said media self-appointed inquisitionists were themselves the ones persisting in a species of disingenuity!

But be that as it may, these media zealots had already - and far more successfully - tried their wares upon Tauranga's now-retired M.P. Simon Bridges, someone whose conservative Christian views were long an anathema to the core of their very being. Just observe the frequently snide way in which one-time National Party leader Bridges was treated by many mainstream broadcasting ****'journalists' over the while he thus served, especially whenever it came to his well-known and much-derided 'outdated and outmoded' conservative Christian views upon (what were once known as purely) 'conscience issues' - such - to be sure, quite effective - pigeonholing being never so evident as upon the recently-enacted Gay Conversion Therapy legislation.

Yes, NZ Mainstream Broadcasting Media Inc has now long since entrenched itself rather firmly and definitively in the camp of supposedly enlightened and progressive kiwis - those with no readily classifiable moral compass, as in those subscribing to moral relativism and situation ethics in such matters.

However upon that ever vexed issue of abortion - the right to life versus a woman's choice (as it is ever presented in media shorthand) - the real culprit upon selfsame matter was former National M.P. and cabinet minister (and one-time church minister) Alfred Ngaro, whose own - apparently scandalous - reference to wholesale New Zealand abortion (since it was decriminalized back in 1977) as tantamount to a holocaust got him in no time flat into real doggy doo-doo.

It was a declaration which had to be walked back lickety-split due to the predictable if understandable outcry that such statements ever evoke from the Jewish community in general - and the sensibilities of self-righteous kiwi femi-nazis in particular. (Although I shouldn't say or suggest Ngaro had to do so - one ever remains a free agent to declare one's hand and real allegiances and arguably a better person would've stuck to their legitimate guns and even resigned over the principle if push came to shove.)

And so we've apparently now entered a day and age in which it's become fair game to give it to NZ churches one and all, in other words the media has declared open season upon the same...only they haven't the inherent honesty and decency and integrity to declare their (obvious) hand, thus making it seem that a perfect storm of trouble has long been brewing among these 'self-righteous' denizens of the land, which their brave journalism is only now at long last bringing to the fore and the rightful attention of every man, woman and child throughout the length and breadth of the land of the long white cloud...

To Be Continued (again!)

Well aware that said media know they can always claim - as they doubtless constantly and smugly reassure themselves - "We're only doing it in the best interests of vulnerable members of the community" - I for one am no longer (if ever I was) fooled by such patent disingenuousness, and was pleasantly surprised the other day to find a close relative - whose own views upon social/cultural/religious matters and questions are somewhat or majorly more liberal than those of Yours Truly - readily agreeing to the gist of what I am about to outline...

...a Pandora's Box of real and/or alleged wrongdoing by said churches, much of which is in fact highly debatable (as to whether it - even remotely - reaches the threshold of publicly-nameable and shameable 'transgressions')...

*Incidentally, although most people have been only too well aware of and familiar with the long-running pattern of such abuse in the RCC, there are very occasionally also reports of other major Christian churches: the Anglican Church in the UK from time to time, and of course any 'Christian' outfit that's generally considered a cult is fair game, but just the other day upon the 700 Club the headline bulletin outlined how the Baptist Conference of (the Southern states of) America was instituting an entire new process and procedure vis-a-vis its own exposing and dealing with and to instances of sexual abuse (in particular) within its extensive ranks.

Said relative also reminded me this evening, after I recalled the Canadian Government some little time ago seeming to lump all abuse under the (rather and all to) convenient rubric of state (school)-based abuse - my mentioning how that was quite convenient for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to do as a card-carrying Catholic - that in Ireland at least (and I believe also possibly Canada) there were RCC 'institutions' of sorts which had indeed been 'outed' over recent months and years for the mass burials of children in their care; children 'bequeathed' to them evidently by unwed mothers and the like. (Though upon more considered reflection I pointed out that that didn't in and of itself necessitate any underlying scandal as such, only that said institutions had the care of these minors and so had various (burial) duties to occasionally attend to etcetera. Not that what happened was a-okay, but the substance of the issue had somewhat different grounds.

To make things even more complicated apparently such Catholic schools and the like were also often funded by state monies, so that any responsibility - including in Canada to indigenous kids who were in said institutions (as in state schools etc in Australia in decades past, i.e. the so-called 'Lost Generation' who were adopted out to families and thereby lost contact permanently with their biological parents) - could at times by sheeted home to the state and thus any (significant) church involvement could rather conveniently be ignored...

**This (far and away) ***most popular of churches amongst the general kiwi public is of course better known as the Salvation Army, but the shorthand I use is an indication of just how well-respected and endearingly regarded the church long since has been here (doubtless for their plethora of well-publicized 'good works' in so many contexts).

***For your interest I'm not and never have been a member of said church, so my remarks here can hardly be deemed the result of native bias, prejudice and/or partisan promotion. I'm simply stating well-known and accepted fact.

****Do I actually believe such reportage is worthy of the term 'journalism'? Hardly, unless one assumes that real journalism doesn't require (even a modicum of) those time-honoured and long-cherished values of balance, fair play and impartiality. But fool me, those were the very essentials of what I myself - a one-time reporter, Chief Reporter and later Editor of my own high school student newspaper back in the day - ever understood true journalism to be about; and interestingly they still remain at the head of the list of those attributes the Broadcasting Standards Authority still uses to decide upon complaints placed before them (including by Yours Truly a couple years ago).

Addendum/Postscript (June 22nd 2022):

If such ostensibly 'impartial and disinterested, unprejudiced and unbiased' media were true journalists - i.e. such in anything other than mere name - they would surely - just occasionally - present (at least some of) 'the other side of the story'...

And is there such or what!

For instance...

#The uncanny, 100% accuracy - cf that of well-known fortune-tellers and psychics and the like down the years - attested by (among others, secular) historians and archaeologists alike - of seemingly innumerable biblical predictions [prophecies], whether in the Older or Newer Testament/s. Such predictions/prophecies are (well, if necessarily, partially) documented/chronicled in such (admittedly Christian) literature as Hal Lindsay's acclaimed (New York Times) 'Bestseller of the Decade' The Late Great Planet Earth, Arthur Maxwell's - of Uncle Arthur's Best Stories fame - Today, Tomorrow and You (also known as Your Bible and You) - among numerous others...

#In addition battles and wars were won, and enemy armies repulsed/routed and thereby ultimately defeated and destroyed - just using WW11 as a classic case in point, how about such incredible 'incidents' as the Allies' unexpected victory in North Africa, which helped turn the war; the uncanny fog which descended across the British Channel for three days and nights thus providing needed time for the Brits to prepare themselves sufficiently for the Nazis' seaborne and airborne invasion; and topping all of these, the Nazis' unexpected and spectacular defeat in the then Soviet Union after massacring tens of millions of Russians when the nation entered its coldest winter in 200 years...? 

#The undeniable, incontrovertible fact that many major 'helping' institutions of the modern era - hospitals, hospices, orphanages etc - originated in the desire centuries back/millennia ago of medieval Christians to fulfil the biblical mandate of their Leader, Who, it is recorded, "went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil"...

#Most of all the great social reforms/movements - even well into the 20th century - were pioneered/initiated by fearless and tireless Christian individuals, both female and male...such 'things' as the U S Civil Rights Movement (Dr Martin Luther King Junior); the abolition of slavery (President Abraham Lincoln in the U S; William Wilberforce before him in (then) Great Britain); prison reform (the Quaker Elizabeth Fry); the demise of 'sweated [child] labour' (various preachers) etc etc etc... 

Need I go on?