Welcome to
country is one of those modern phenomenons that you see everywhere, find hardly
any ordinary person supports, but that is continually promoted and supported by
the elite classes of society. And not just the elites of secular society, churches engage
in this nonsense to. I know of church services which have begun with either a
welcome to country or acknowledgment of country before the service has even
referenced the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer. I sat at a major denominational
meeting where the chair of the denomination’s board got up and did the
acknowledgement of country and then prayed. It was a travesty to behold it happening.
It is insufferable to see continually at the start of every major sporting
event some middle aged guy get up mostly naked and dance in some smoke
ceremony, it is blasphemy to see church services and meetings begin with it.
But one denomination
has said no more, as reported by Caldron pool,
“The Presbyterian Church of Australia has banned its
congregations from conducting the Welcome to Country in their worship services.
The General Assembly of Australia (GAA), which gathered in
Sydney last week, deemed Acknowledgement of Country practices “inappropriate
for public worship where the call to worship centres on God.”
Moderator-General David Burke outlined the decision in a
letter to Presbyterian congregations on Thursday, noting the wording of
acknowledgments of country “almost invariably carries overtones of an
Indigenous spirituality inconsistent with Christian belief.”
Burke added, “As Christians, we have to avoid wording that
suggests final ownership of land is vested in people rather than with the
Creator.”[i]
Praise God. This
is what we need to see happen more and more. It has felt like for some time now the
march of “progress” (really regress) or radical liberalism has been inevitable and unstoppable. But
for those of us who know our history we know that there are all sorts of swings and roundabouts
in the development and history of nations. Sometime nations progress towards higher
Christian ideals, sometimes they regress to paganistic ideas and call this
progress. Our nation has been in the throws of one of these declines in recent
decades. But there are green shoots of hope showing that a turn many be coming.
It was also
really encouraging to see the Presbyterian minister Mark
Powell given a platform on national T.V. to explain why the Presbyterian
church has made this move.
Progressivism
is not inevitable. Mostly because it is
not really progress, but regress back to a more primitive and heathen
worldview. Society can only cope with so much regress before things start to
really fall apart. And despite what some people would have you think, the church
is still strong in the West. It is largely asleep and it is converged in many
places. But there are large and growing segments of the church who are taking notice
of how God would really have us be good citizens and they are starting to
become more active in opposing the move back to paganism.
It is really
good to see this, so be encouraged. I think more moves like this are
down the track. The Voice to Parliament has not gotten the support from society
that the elites thought that it would. More and more people are
discontented with the direction progressivism is taking society, and more and
more people are starting to make the right kind of noise about heading back
towards sanity. Praise God.
List of references.
[i] Staff Writer, Caldron Pool, 2023, https://caldronpool.com/presbyterian-church-of-australia-bans-welcome-to-country/?fbclid=IwAR0sfM7Lz7Qsbhke9hhNA31Dr1vA3qPTvSYKgurPfJnIqoV-RqWN29a_pfs
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