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Sunday, 22nd February 1998
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In August last year we reported on a disgusting development within the Uniting Church - acceptance of open gay and lesbian religious leadership. The gay and lesbian tendencies of certain senior members of the church has reached epidemic proportions with the Wesley Mission now being tarnished with the dark brush of the queer lobby dominating this "so-called" Christian body.
The Wesley Mission produce a television programme every Sunday morning at 6.30am called Swordfish - targeted at children.
This is what the Wesley Mission web page says about Swordfish:
"Swordfish, 6.30am Sunday mornings on the TEN Network"
"Swordfish is aimed at a younger audience than Turn 'Round Australia and has been on air for over four years. Check out the Swordfish homepage (link to home page)."
Now this all sounds very good, a household name church mission held in high regard, a Sunday morning show, national television... excellent and recommended viewing for your children you would think wouldn't you? But beware.
Next Sunday morning, 1st March 1997, Swordfish will be reporting on the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras an event that will be televised by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation live the night before.
Now how could this happen - after all Rev Gordon Moyes, the leader of the Wesley Mission, has taken a strong stand against the gay and lesbian lobby in the Uniting Church. Has he been "converted" or "bought off"? No....
We have to look at a bit of the background to how sick this Uniting Church has become. Using the Internet we can get a bit of the background. We will start by going back to May last year:
Report in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Church's gay sex report offends Moyes
Tuesday, May 13, 1997
By HELEN PITT, Religious Affairs Writer
"The head of Sydney's Wesley Mission, the Rev Dr Gordon Moyes, has accused
the Uniting Church bureaucracy of being "obsessed with sex", after the release
of a report on sexuality.
"To be debated in July, the final report of the Church's task group on sexuality says the Church may consider introducing services to celebrate long-term gay and lesbian relationships. It recommends forming a group of gay and lesbian church members to decide by 2000 the form of such services."
In mid-August Rev Moyes threatened to withhold Au$100,000 from the centre of the gay and lesbian infiltration within the church - a Sydney Diocese led by a self-confessed lesbian, Rev Dorothy McRae McMahon.
Here is an extract from the sermon by Rev Moyes:
Sunday, 10th August, 1997 - (original article link) The Charismatic Holy Man
"The Uniting Church in Australia is still racked by the agenda of the gay and lesbian lobby. One Assembly official, Rev Dorothy McRae McMahon announced she lives in a lesbian relationship and defiantly declares she will continue in leadership. General Secretary Gregor Henderson, says "Dorothy is a most fitting person to be a minister of the word and the Director of the Commission For Mission. I see no reason for any disciplinary action." He also announced that all Uniting Churches may celebrate blessing services for homosexual couples.
"Rev Harry Herbert wrote to the Government indicating the age of consent for homosexual acts by teenagers should be lowered so that adults having sex with boys would no longer be charged if they were 17 or 18 years old. The Eastside Parish announced they would have a float in the next Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras for Uniting Church members. This in total defiance of the surveys reporting 84% of Uniting Church members reject homosexuality as an acceptable Christian life-style and reject the idea of gay Church leaders. This also rejects the written views of over 8,000 members and parishes representing over 50,000 people who wrote to the Assembly declaring their views. The arrogance! The Uniting Church is dying. In the past five years it has lost 25,000 members, the equivalent of closing one church of a hundred members every single week for five years. Loss of people attending would be closer to 50,000. The Commission For Mission headed by Dorothy McRae McMahon has failed. No other Church is dying as rapidly. In the same five years the Anglican Church Sydney Diocese has seen 6% growth in membership and attendance.
"The 1996 Church Life Survey shows the Uniting Church has the oldest membership of any denomination and the lowest retention rates of young adults. The Church is also facing acute financial problems. The NSW Synod had to divert half a million dollars this year to keep going. The Assembly heard a funding crisis has hit the Uniting Church and the result could be fatal. The head of a special financial task-force declared "death had taken a grip on the Uniting Church." Yet our leaders persist in alienating our members and seeking to move the Church from its Biblical base! In terms of Church Growth principles - the study of what makes churches grow - the Uniting Church is pig-headedly doing everything that causes churches to die. Our leadership lacks the courage or the will to do what they should. I can only think of the words of Jesus Matt 23:16 "Woe to you, blind guides!"
"Wesley Mission church members give about $100,000 annually to Presbytery, Synod and Assembly. At a crowded Elders meeting this week, it was unanimously decided to with-hold all financial support to the Assembly of the Uniting Church while these attitudes remain. In two weeks we host the NATIONAL EVANGELICAL SUMMIT at Vision Valley for leaders of all Uniting Church evangelical groups. They will plan ways in which our denomination can return to its Biblical roots. Yesterday, a crowded conference called by Evangelical Members in the Uniting Church discussed further strategies. The real issue is: is the Uniting Church still under the authority of the Bible, and does it accept the Bible's clear commands as relevant for today? Those who change moral standards, do so because they do not accept the Scriptures as authoritative and relevant."
The mainstream church came in solidly behind Moyes' stand, an example of that support is shown below:
Subject: Gordon Moyes sallies forth
From: "david bell" david.bell@mlckew.edu.au
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 11:02:14 +1000
Organisation: Methodist Ladies' College
Priority: normal
Sender: owner-insights-l@peg.apc.org
Some concern has been expressed about what Gordon Moyes is up to. It is clear to me that Gordon has decided upon a showdown. He is so angry about the outcome of the assembly that he has launched his own operation desertstorm. And in such a situation the weapons of our warfare are often carnal. Hence the withholding of "Supply". And why shouldn't he? The assembly was a disaster; the concerns of a huge proportion of the church have been all but ignored, and now we have the utterly stupid decision of a parish to enter a float in the Mardi Gras. This has to be the most provocative and thoughtless decision in the whole affair, and I sense that Gordon has had enough.
Gordon Moyes has my support
Rev David Bell
MLC
Melbourne
While the Uniting Church of Australia is remarkably tight-lipped about its interest, in fact, its apparent obsession with gay and lesbian activities - as it's home page (above) proves, it is quick to point the bone at anybody who does not meet its queer, politically correct ideals.
Top of their political hit list is Pauline Hanson:
Australia's church leaders have entered into the controversy associated with independent Federal MP Pauline Hanson.
A pastoral letter to Australian Christians signed by the heads of 11 member churches of the National Council of Churches in Australia warns that "voices that call forth resentment, racism and hate" are getting a hearing Australians normally would not give them.
Remind me of the comment by Jesus that "you should take the plank out of your eye before you try to take the splinter out of someone else's eye".
What the media nor the Uniting Church tell you is that when Moyes took his stand the Uniting Church heirarchy in Sydney had him removed from his post as head of the Wesley Mission just before Christmas and put him on "permanent leave" while they tried to work on getting him out of their corrupted vision of Christianity.
Just a few weeks ago, Rev Moyes was reinstated. Here is a copy of the press release:
Rev Gordon Moyes resumes Superintendent's chair
At a special combined Parish elders' Council and Parish Council meeting held on Sunday, January 25th, 1998. it was unanimously resolved that the Parish of Wesley Mission lodge an appeal to the Synod of New South Wales against the decision of Sydney Presbytery not to extend the settlement of the Rev Dr Gordon Moyes.
This resolution was unanimously ratified by a meeting of the Parish which was called immediately following the Councils' meeting. Wesley Mission's appeal to the Synod is based on the grounds that Sydney Presbytery, in reaching its decision, did not comply with procedures that are appropriate in dealing with extensions of settlements.
Because the decision of Sydney Presbytery is now under appeal, the Parish meeting also agreed unanimously that the Rev Dr Gordon Moyes be invited to continue his duties as Superintendent of Wesley Mission. At a meeting of the Pastoral Relations Committee of the Sydney Presbytery held on Tuesday, January 27th, 19998, approval was given for Dr Moyes to continue his duties as Superintendent of the Mission, pending the outcome of the appeal. The Wesley Mission family and friends welcome the return of Dr Moyes from annual leave.
Rev Dr Tony Chi,
Senior Minister
The press release is followed by a very interesting article headed "Moyes down, but is he out?"
We have kept a copy of this web page for our archives, here is an extract:
"Negotiations are being conducted within the Uniting Church to try and reinstate Dr Gordon Moyes as head of Wesley Mission in Sydney.
"An outspoken critic of 'liberal' decisions and the trend toward ordaining homosexuals in the Uniting Church, Dr Moyes was effectively sacked shortly before Christmas when the Sydney Presbytery of the Uniting Church voted not to renew his appointment on 31 December. His sacking sent shock waves through the Uniting Church around Australia.
"Dr Moyes had headed the mission, one of the largest local church-based Christian organisations in Australia, including a large welfare arm, a Bible and arts training college, as well as many other ministry organisations, for 18 years."
From the above you will note that Moyes has been out of touch with the Wesley Mission for a critical period between Christmas and late January... a period during which the forces of evil have played out their trap.
Now one of his own initiatives, Swordfish, will report back about the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras to young children on a Sunday morning commercial television programme - just hours after the event. This is not good enough.
This is what we need to do:
Finally let us not forget that it is Cheryl Kernot, (commonly known as "princess precious" by the media) who as a Uniting Church member has been active in pushing and supporting the gay and lesbian line of the church.
Kernot is a key member of the drive by the Uniting Church to embrace gay and lesbian ministers saying, "The Uniting Church is the only church I could belong to. It's progressive, inclusive and has a strong sense of social justice and speaks up."
A very powerful political voice in a church in disarray.
A voice who jumped ship last year and had been promoted of late by the Australian Labor Party as their representative of the struggling mums and dads in this country.... what a bunch of sickos!
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Indonesia crumbles into disarray.
Three ethnic Chinese millionaires distributed thousands of food parcels today to needy Indonesians in slums and villages, answering a government call to help ease the country's economic crisis and thus stem further unrest caused by rising food prices.
"The donation is an effort to help the people to get their daily needs," the Reuters news agency quoted prominent businessman Liem Sioe Liong as saying.
So far this year, rioters in about two dozen towns have targeted Chinese merchants by stoning, looting and burning shops. Five people have died in the violence.
Ethnic Chinese, who make up only 3 percent of the population but control most of the country's wealth, often are singled out during political and economic instability. Chinese merchants in several towns have donated rice and money to the poor and set up reduced-price markets to appease their angry neighbours. Indonesians accuse them of raising prices indiscriminately and hoarding food.
A spokesman for the attorney general's office warned today that food hoarders could face the death penalty.
"It's probably to scare people to release the stocks that they have," a food market analyst said.
The official Antara news agency said the threat came after authorities discovered thousands of tons of rice, sugar and soybeans in warehouses in and around the capital, Jakarta.
Officials have warned that hoarding is a subversive act. Authorities have also threatened to shoot rioters, but security forces so far have exerted minimal force in quelling the violence that has broken out on several of the archipelago's islands.
Indonesians have become increasingly concerned about the country's food supply since an economic crisis erupted eight months ago. Prices of staple foods such as rice and cooking oil have skyrocketed, and the value of the nation's currency, the rupiah, has plunged at least 70 percent. A severe drought has hurt food production, but it is unclear how the coming rice crop will be affected.
"It's still premature to say," the food market analyst said. "The crop seems to be delayed. A delayed crop is not the same as a failed crop."
Domestic food production dropped about 4 percent last year, and a similar decline is expected this year. Farmers have irrigated their fields to offset some of the damage.
The analyst said the overall food supply "is a problem in the sense that Indonesia will have to put up dollars to buy food..."
"But in terms of the total food supply, I think it's not a matter of life and death as such," he added.
Indonesia, which has the world's fourth-largest population, is a major rice producer. Imports make up only 10 percent of domestic consumption. Recent import deliveries have been held up because of the economic crisis, and that, as well as the drought and weak currency, have led rice prices to soar 50 percent or more.
There are apparent moves afoot in New Zealand to sell off the public roads.
Transport Minister Maurice Williamson is Machiavellian in his comments that the Government is not committed to wholesale commercialisation of New Zealand's roads, says Labour transport spokesperson Harry Duynhoven.
Williamson has publicly stated there is no intention to privatise the New Zealand roading system.
Interesting that the though has even been raised....
BOMBING THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION
by David Orchard
So the nation with more "weapons of mass destruction" than any other tells us to beware of Iraq. The country which has done more invading than any in history warns, "Iraq must be stopped." Iraq "may" possess and "might" use chemical and biological weapons, says the U.S. — which has used them repeatedly, from Vietnam to Cuba, and now proposes to blow whatever amounts Iraq may have into the atmosphere, with nuclear weapons if necessary.
Iraq is an "unpredictable rogue state," announces Washington, which in 1991 fired 900 tons of depleted uranium into Iraq, drenching it with permanent, radioactive contamination. Iraq is a threat to world peace, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair declare.
Did Iraq overthrow Guatemala's government, 1954? Attack Cuba and assassinate Congo's prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, 1961? Invade the Dominican Republic, 1965? Drop 10,000,000 tons of bombs, chemicals and napalm on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, 1965-1973? Overthrow and assassinate Chile's Salvador Allende, 1973? Invade Grenada, 1983 and Panama, 1989? Saddam Hussein is accused of being a modern Hitler.
How has a small, virtually landlocked country, dependent on imported food and exports of oil — both cut off by sanctions — publicly stripped of its weapons, embargoed and guarded by a phalanx of the world's most advanced weaponry, inspected 2,186 times over seven years, incapable of even flying over its own territory, become equal to Nazi Germany? War may come, our leaders say. How is war possible when only one side has weapons? Is the operative word not massacre?
Iraq is a Third World country, smaller than the province of Saskatchewan; its population is roughly 20 million with an average income today, according to the New York Times, of $2 per month. Devastated during the one-sided 1991 Gulf War — U.S. officials referred to it as a "turkey shoot"— Iraq has since been bled white by seven years of sanctions and embargo. Since 1991, over one million Iraqis have died a slow starving death, (two-thirds of them children, making mockery of the U.N. declaration on the Rights of the Child), and millions more are suffering physical damage and drastically shortened lives.
The majority of the population is reduced to "semi-starvation," according to the World Health Organisation. Radiation-ravaged and deformed children are denied any relief from their agony by an embargo harsher than that imposed on Germany following World War II.
The recent U.S. Bishop's statement to President Clinton reads, "Epidemics rage, taking away infants and the sick by the thousands..." The starvation of a population is clearly prohibited by international law, even during war, yet under this embargo a child is dying in Iraq every ten minutes.
Now Iraq faces another overwhelming attack by the world's superpower — and a few sycophantic spear-carriers, including Canada. This is not a U.N. action. The Security Council has not authorised it and the U.N. Charter does not authorise member states to take unilateral military action. In 1804, Haiti was the first Latin American country to achieve its independence, through a slave revolt.
The U.S., supported by Britain, imposed a 60-year embargo on the island; it did not want slave rebellion at home. For almost 40 years, Washington has embargoed Cuba and attempted to assassinate its leaders. Independence in the Caribbean continues to be an offence.
For 30 years the U.S. blockaded Vietnam. Vietnam's crime? It defeated the U.S.A. Now the U.S. refuses to lift the embargo against Iraq. Why? Almost a century ago, Britain seized the Persian Gulf area, and carved a border between Iraq and Kuwait — a division never accepted by Iraq and renounced formally by it in 1961 after it overthrew the British-imposed monarch and achieved independence.
In the 1930s, Britain conceded the entire oil reserves of the region to U.S. and British interests. In the 1970s, Iraq nationalised (with compensation) its oil industry and its citizens achieved a very high standard of living. In 1989, a high power U.S. delegation visited Baghdad and demanded Iraq privatise its oil industry. Iraq refused. Today Iraq stands in the way of complete U.S. (and British) control of the oil resources of the Gulf.
In 1951, the Mossadeq government of Iran nationalised its oil. Britain and the U.S. imposed draconian sanctions and two years later the U.S. overthrew Mossadeq, calling him "that madman." In the early 1970s, Libya nationalised its oil reserves and built impressive health, education and construction projects in that once impoverished nation.
President Nixon publicly reminded Libyan leader Moammar Gaddaffi of Mossadeq's fate and U.S. officials began referring to Gaddaffi as a "Hitler," a "terrorist" and a "mad dog."
In 1986, the U.S., supported by Britain, bombed Libya, wounding Gaddaffi's wife, injuring all seven of his children, and killing his infant daughter.
When Pierre Trudeau's government introduced the National Energy Programme, 1980, with its goal of 50% Canadian ownership of the industry, Washington, outraged, publicly warned that "relationships are sliding dangerously towards crisis."
U.S. officials, referring to the 1973 Chilean coup, spelled out a plan to topple Trudeau by "destabilising" Quebec and Ontario.
Now Ottawa has volunteered to help Washington unleash the world's most horrendous weapons in an illegal and profoundly racist holocaust against the defenceless citizens of the cradle of recorded civilization. Call it privatisation at the point of uranium-tipped missiles.
----------- DAVID ORCHARD is the author of The Fight for Canada: Four Centuries of Resistance to American Expansionism (1993) and the founder and chair of the Citizens Concerned About Free Trade. He farms in Saskatchewan. He can be reached by telephone: (306)652-7095 (r) (306)244-5757 (o), by fax: (306)244-3790 and by e-mail.
Making the
news" -
From one of our informers:
Had a phone call tonite, the protesters are going to be targeting the rally on Friday night at Mt. Ommaney. The one with David Etteridge speaking. They are placing posters/flyers up at the university and expect a fair few students to join them. It could get a bit hairy.
They are also after info about the meeting at Beenliegh PYC and want to target that as well. They can't decide whether to target breakfast, lunch or dinner!!
They gave their petitions to Kevin Rudd at a meeting at Mt. Gravatt and asked him what he was going to do about it (meetings at Morningside). He told them to vote Labor!! Also told them what they were doing was virtually useless, so they have suspended protest's at Morningside for awhile.
I'll let you know if I get anymore info.
Name withheld.
Dear Editor,
Kayleeen's letter floored me. Qantas 'the Australian airline'? Don't you remember the float, dear? It was advertised on the telly every few minutes for months at a cost millions, probably more than we got for the airline. We sold it!
Perhaps you believed the 'mums and dads' bought it? Did your mum and dad buy any of it? Don't you remember how they stuffed up the sale and 'sold more of it than they meant to' (a likely story)? The last I heard British Airways owned it.
Perhaps this is why you young Australians aren't ropeable that over 90% of Australian corporations are now foreign-owned. You really believe the government can sell your country, but you'll still have it too! Read my 'economic rationalism' article this week, Kayleen, and start to get politically active. Soon foreign-owned 'Australian' airlines won't be hiring any Australians at all, white or otherwise. They'll be recruiting where labour is cheaper. If they can get Indonesians for 39 cents an hour, what chance have you got, even if you speak Cantonese and Swahili?
Graham Strachan.
Another perfect day in paradise.
Have a good one.
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