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Bill Muehlenberg

Bill Muehlenberg

Author, Blogger and Speaker 

Bill Muehlenberg, who was born in America, lives in Melbourne. He is married to an Australian, Averil, and has three sons. He has a BA with honours in philosophy (Wheaton College, Chicago), a MA with highest honours in theology (Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Boston), and is working on a PhD in theology. He is Secretary of the Family Council of Victoria. He was formerly the National Vice President of the Australian Family Association. He was formerly the National Research Coordinator at Focus on the Family.

He currently continues an independent ministry in pro-faith and pro-family activism. He is head of an apologetics/ethics ministry called CultureWatch, started in January 2006. This interactive blogsite features over 3,300 articles and 52,000 comments.

Every time a decidedly evil, ungodly and immoral politician or political party wins office, I ask myself questions such as the one found in my title. It is an oft-heard phrase found in the Old Testament. And these are the sorts of questions all true Christians should be asking at times like this. I not only ask such questions, but I feel sick in my stomach. When I see wicked men strutting their stuff, proud and arrogant, smirking as they think they are getting away with evil, I am reminded of Isaiah 3:9: “The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them!”

And I wonder why evil is allowed to go unchecked, why people are so blind as to elect such reprehensible individuals and parties, and why God allows all this to happen. And I grieve deeply for how much worse things will get – spiritually, morally, culturally and politically – when such ungodly rulers get voted in. With Dan Andrews and Labor getting back in for another four-year reign of terror in Victoria, I just groan within and get on my knees and cry out to God about all this. I do it because I understand that politics is important, and I understand the teachings of Scripture, including the biblical truths that “righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). I do it because I care greatly for the sort of world my children and their children will have to grow up in. I do it because I know that things will simply get much worse, and all that we care deeply about will be further attacked, undermined and destroyed.

The culture of death will simply get worse. The assault on family and children will get even more pronounced. The early sexualisation and politicisation of our children will go from bad to worse. The attack of freedom of all sorts will escalate. Christianity itself will become even more a target of the militants. I care about all this and it grieves me deeply. And I wonder why so many Christians do not seem to care. It seems they could not care less as evil triumphs and wickedness escalates. Worse yet, how many Christians actually voted for the ungodly and immoral policies of the Greens and Labor?

Victorian election results: the political

Obviously I am writing hot on the heels of today’s state election. Dan Andrews and Labor have been returned to do even more evil. While the final numbers are not fully clear, we know that the Liberals have not succeeded in replacing this diabolical government. The situation is this. Prior to the election this was the state of play. The two Houses of Parliament have 128 Members in total: 88 in the lower house (Legislative Assembly) 45 Labor 37 Liberal/National 3 Greens 3 Independent 40 in the upper house (Legislative Council) 14 Labor 16 Liberal/National 5 Greens 2 Shooters, Fishers, Farmers 1 Conservative/Independent 1 Reason 1 Local Jobs Now we seem to have something like this for the 59th Victorian Parliament, as seen in the Legislative Assembly results: 61 Labor 23 Liberal/National 2 Greens 2 Independents Politically, the short story is this: there were big swings to Labor and away from the Liberals and Nationals. It is a bad night if you are a conservative or a Christian. As I have written before, the Libs were certainly no panacea, but they would have been far better than the current mob. They had plenty of shortcomings, but at least they would have put a check on some of the evil Labor policies, and rolled back a few, such as the devilish “Safe Schools” program. But that is not to be, and the radical left agenda of Andrews will now further spin out of control.

Victorian election results: the spiritual

Spiritually, the short story is this: it seems the less Christian Australia and Victoria become, the less conservative they become. The more secular Australia and Victoria become, the more leftist they become. The two seem to go together, and we are on a real downward spiral. One can also argue that most folks – including most Christians it seems – really do not care about the things that matter. As Francis Schaeffer put it decades ago, all that matters for most people is personal peace and affluence. That’s about it sadly. I mentioned above that often God’s people asked God why evil seems to triumph. Many such verses can be mentioned here. A few of them would be the following: -Job 21:7 Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power? -Psalm 73:2-5 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills. -Psalm 94:3 How long will the wicked, O LORD, how long will the wicked be jubilant? -Jeremiah 12:1-2 You are always righteous, O LORD, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease? You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips but far from their hearts. -Habakkuk 1:13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

As it became clear that we would have more disastrous Labor rule, my mind turned to the ancient Israelites. They too experienced this. Prophets like Jeremiah warned them that their sins – unrepented of – would of necessity lead them to divine judgment. The dreaded Assyrians and Babylonians – at the time perhaps the most wicked and blood-thirsty nations around – would be used by God to judge Israel. While most folks deserved their fate, there would have been some devout and godly Jews who bewailed all this. They would have been asking God the hard questions. They would have cried out to Yahweh, asking why HIS people would be so severely judged, and why such godless, pagan nations would seem to so thoroughly triumph. Well, we know the story: we know that these times of judgment and exile were temporary. We know that eventually the Jews were able to return to their land and rebuild. Yes, much was lost, and much had to be done – they had to start over in so many ways. And that too may be our fate. Thus the godly amongst us will cry out to God. Our hearts and spirits are utterly devastated. ‘Why God do you allow such evil and wicked rulers to get away with murder?’ And that is literally what this government is doing with its diabolical abortion and euthanasia laws.

They ARE getting away with murder, and blood is on their hands. And God will not hold them guiltless. But if the Lord should tarry, eventually this government will come to an end. Perhaps more godly and principled politicians and parties will arise to take their place. As I keep saying, politics alone cannot save us, but a return to less evil rulers will be a step in the right direction. And in terms of the bigger picture, one day ALL the rule of evil will come to an end. One day all these politicians will be judged. One day the wicked and the arrogant will no longer flourish. Yes it hurts terribly in the meantime if you are a child of God, and you ache with what breaks God’s heart. In the same way Christians and others suffered horrifically under godless Soviet communism for some 70 years. How many were killed, tortured, imprisoned and exiled by this monstrous regime? Millions upon millions.

People cried out: “Where are you God?” But eventually the wall came down and the evil empire came to a crashing end. One day the Andrews’ empire of evil will end – as will all wicked human rulers and nations. Yet, in the meantime the godly amongst us will travail in pain, crying out to God for mercy. We will be asking, “How long O Lord?” We will grieve and hurt, and feel overwhelmed at times when evil comes in like a flood. But we will also know what God promised in that passage (Isaiah 59:18-20): According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay, Fury to His adversaries, Recompense to His enemies; The coastlands He will fully repay. So shall they fear The name of the Lord from the west, And His glory from the rising of the sun; When the enemy comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. The Redeemer will come….

Saturday, 24 November 2018 10:26

The Labor/Greens Ongoing War on Christianity

With the crucial Victorian state election just hours away, the two major hard-left political parties in Australia have told us yet again how much they hate Christianity and how much they want to see it silenced altogether. While Victorian Labor and the Greens will be unleashing yet more damage and devastation if re-elected, the federal parties also continue their war on Christianity. Consider several recent items which demonstrate all this. The first concerns the Greens with more anti-Christian bigotry. They have come up with yet another bill to further clamp down on free speech and religious expression. The Institute for Civil Society offers this frightening headline: “Greens’ 2018 Schools Bill to Regulate Sermons?”

Sunday, 11 November 2018 08:09

More on the Melbourne Moslem Terror Attack

Islam and terrorism go together like, well, Islam and terrorism. While non-Muslims can commit acts of terror, and while not all Muslims are terrorists, we do know that the overwhelming majority of terrorist attacks since September 11 for example have been carried out by Muslims in the name of Islam. But the ‘M’ and ‘I’ words are hardly ever mentioned as each new incident of this occurs. Indeed, our authorities and the mainstream media are often loath to use the ‘T’ word as well. Usually, instead of speaking about terrorism, we hear about ‘lone-wolf attacks,’ those who are ‘mentally ill,’ and so on. The obfuscation, excuse-making, and cover-ups are getting to be as routine as the attacks themselves. Yesterday’s attack in Melbourne by a Muslim terrorist – the most recent of a string of such attacks – was yet another good illustration of all this. Our secular left media outfits refuse to give us the whole story of what is happening. For example, I just looked at a lengthy online ABC article on the attack, and there was no mention of the I or M words. mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-09/bourke-st-attacker-shot-after-car-fire-stabbings-one-dead/10483608?pfmredir=sm&fbclid=IwAR3IDRy0XLUqD3CnQ7rrSPaSdZiG-ZmAVUm8xA2WmFCN29vzKUt9oaE8NUA

Thankfully not all media outlets here are guilty of such cowardice and grovelling before the political ideology known as Islam. The Weekend Australian today had its front page devoted to this latest jihad attack, and the big, bold headline said this: “Violent Islam strikes Bourke St”. Well done. Queensland MP George Christensen was right to say this: “Thank goodness one Aussie media outlet isn’t afraid to say it as it is. This is not violent extremism, mental illness, disaffected youth violence or some other politically correct term: it is radical, violent Islam, plain and simple. If you cannot identify your enemy or their ideology, you will never defeat them.” Thank you Weekend Australian and thank you George. You offer us a breath of fresh air in a culture in which creeping sharia and stealth jihad are growing increasingly pervasive and untouchable. In my article on this attack yesterday I said I would offer updates: billmuehlenberg.com/2018/11/09/life-and-death-in-melbourne/ Here then are some further developments concerning this horrific attack, both coming from the Daily Mail:

The brother of the knife-wielding Somali terrorist who stabbed three men, one fatally, in Melbourne’s inner-city has been revealed as an ‘ISIS sympathiser’ who allegedly planned to execute a major terrorist attack. Mohamed Khalif, also known as Hassan Shire, 31, was shot and killed by police after deliberately crashing a car filled with ‘barbecue-style gas bottles’ and rampaging through Melbourne’s Bourke Street with a long knife on Friday afternoon. In a press conference, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said Khalif was well known to counter-terrorism officials due to his relatives’ links to terror. Khalif’s 21-year-old brother, Ali Khalif Shire Ali, was arrested in November of 2017 in relation to a foiled terror attack in Federation Square, also in the heart of Melbourne. Police allegedly intercepted plans late last year to attack Melbourne’s cultural arts precinct on New Years Eve 2017. www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/somali-born-terrorist-who-carried-out-bourke-street-attack-is-the-brother-of-an-isis-sympathiser-whose-bomb-plot-was-foiled/ar-BBPwqOa?ocid=spartandhp&fbclid=IwAR13-lBparhP5J2_kW_0_aNG8d-voazsehYjWi1ww_7j5CL2s-aaaSlQYy8
And a more recent update:
A house linked to the Somali terrorist who stabbed a man to death and injured two others in Melbourne’ Bourke Street before being shot by police has been raided by counter-terrorism officers. Heavily-armed officers wearing tactical gear and masks swooped on the home in Werribee about 8am on Saturday as they continue to investigate Hassan Khalif Shire Ali’s attack. The house is believed to be that of the lone wolf terrorist’s father, who also brought up Khalif’s brother Ali Khalif Shire Ali who allegedly plotted an attack on Melbourne’s Federation Square on New Year’s Eve. His family are inside the house and cooperating with authorities. Khalif’s wife, who police also believe to be radicalised, was missing on Friday night but has since been interviewed by police. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6373671/Police-raid-terror-den-linked-Bourke-Street-Jihadi.html
Also, Andrew Bolt has offered us a running list of other refugees who committed acts of Islamic jihad on Melbourne’s streets. And this is now becoming rather predictable:
Past terrorist attacks by Muslim refugees here: -Somali-born Yacqub Khayre [in June, 2017] murdered a worker at a Melbourne apartment block, held a woman hostage and shot three police after telling Channel 7: “This is for IS, this is for al-Qaeda.” Before that: -Farhad Jabour, an Iranian “refugee”, killed police accountant Curtis Cheng while shouting “Allah is the greatest”. -Man Monis, an Iranian “refugee” and Islamist, staged the deadly Lindt cafe siege while professing support for the Islamic State. -Numan Haider, an Afghan “refugee” and IS recruit, stabbed two police in Melbourne. -Mohammad Ali Baryalei, an Afghan “refugee”, became a recruiter and fighter for IS. -Saney Edow Aweys, a Somalian “refugee”, plotted to attack the Holsworthy Army base.
Not all of these cases were in Melbourne – the Man Monis attack was in Sydney. But this is becoming all too routine and commonplace. We let in Muslim refugees, they act out their Islamic faith, and we scratch our heads and wonder why we keep seeing all this carnage repeated. Yesterday I quoted one legal expert who made the case for clamping down on this. I repeat part of what he said:
The problem is that we simply do not know who to trust amongst a religious group that largely despises our democracy, culture and laws, and that do not even accept the principle of religious tolerance and separation of powers. Although jihadists are not drawn exclusively from the first-generation Muslim immigrants, a large Muslim immigration to Australia invariably provides a larger recruiting ground for terrorists and other Islamist militants. Both the influx of asylum seekers from dysfunctional majority-Muslim countries and the constant influx of Muslim immigrants to Australia naturally exacerbate the threat of Islamic terrorism on our soil.
Surely our experience, and that over other Western countries, demonstrates that we need to rethink our immigration policies, and we need to start getting real about where the actual threats are coming from. Until we do, we will keep seeing more blood on our streets and keep wondering why so many innocent men, women and children must keep on being murdered – all to appease a violent religious ideology.
Wednesday, 07 November 2018 18:24

The US Mid-Term Elections

On November 6 America had its mid-term elections, As the name implies, it comes between the presidential election cycle (in this case, between 2016 and 2020). This year all 435 seats in the House of Representatives were up for grabs, 33 of the 50 Senate seats, and 36 of the 50 governorships. Republicans held sway everywhere before the election: a Republican President plus a Republican-controlled House and Senate, and a majority of state governors. While we do not have the final numbers yet, it appears that the Republicans have kept three of the four, with the Democrats winning back the House.

Tuesday, 23 October 2018 14:48

The State Sexualisation of our Children

The militants’ war on our children and their attempt to sexualise them has been going on for many decades now. Sexual perverts like Alfred Kinsey of course led the way here, claiming children are sexual beings from birth. He and his cronies even conducted diabolical experiments on babies and toddlers to “prove” their claims. One simply has to be aware of one chart from his book on human sexuality to see how demonic this guy was.

Sunday, 14 October 2018 06:03

Babies, Militants and the Media

Blue skies and plenty of sunshine – a great day to march for the babies again. The ninth annual March for the Babies in Melbourne just finished. Several thousand passionate and peaceful marchers – men and women, children, grandmothers and grandfathers – marched to remind Melbourne, Victoria and the world that we do not accept the mass slaughter of the unborn. Since the horrific abortion on demand law was passed here ten years ago, there have been over 200,000 babies killed with official state sanction. Some 20,000 poor preborn children are taken to their slaughter each year thanks to one of the most liberalised abortion laws in the world. But we were not alone. Prolifers also marched this afternoon in Brisbane because they are about to vote on a similar nasty piece of legislation.

Wednesday, 03 October 2018 05:19

C.S. Lewis on Equality

Great thinkers and writers often think and write about many great things – and a great many things. The noted Christian apologist and academic C. S. Lewis was one such person. Although he had his area of specialisation – English literature – he was conversant in, and wrote about, a myriad of subjects. Thus he could write about theology, he could pen children’s stories, he could engage in the debates of the day, and he could deal with many of the great thinkers both past and present. He also wrote on philosophical, historical and political themes.

Wilberforce Publications, 2018. In this extremely valuable and superbly researched volume everything you wanted to know about social science research and the issue of homosexual parenting can be found. Research on this topic is relatively new, for the simple reason that having numerous children being raised in same-sex households is relatively new. But for several decades now many folks have sought to claim that children fare just as well in homosexual households as in heterosexual households – maybe even better.

Friday, 31 August 2018 22:24

This is How We Take on the Trans Lunacy

Militant trans activism is so bizarre, so idiotic, and so completely illusory that it must eventually collapse under its own weight. It seeks to defy everything, including biology, DNA, truth and reality itself. Eventually such lunacy and delusion must self-destruct – either that or it is the end of civilisation as we know it. And we can help this moonbeam movement to implode by playing its own game and using it against them. If they want to revel in irrationality, fantasy and moral and mental myopia, let’s just take what they offer and take it to its logical conclusion.

Friday, 17 August 2018 08:33

Venezuela: Socialism Kills

Long ago Winston Churchill rightly warned, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” We have now had a century of socialism and we know he was absolutely right. It never works, and it simply impoverishes the masses. The elites do very well, thanks very much, but that’s about it. Of course leftists will forever make excuses. Whenever you point out yet another failed socialist experiment, their favourite line is: ‘But that’s not really socialism’. Yeah right. One of our most recent and most tragic test cases of the deadly nature of socialism is Venezuela. The place is now a full-tilt socialist hell-hole, and that despite having the world’s largest known oil reserves. But it was not always a basket case.

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