"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"

Father God, thank you for the love of the truth you have given me. Please bless me with the wisdom, knowledge and discernment needed to always present the truth in an attitude of grace and love. Use this blog and Northwoods Ministries for your glory. Help us all to read and to study Your Word without preconceived notions, but rather, let scripture interpret scripture in the presence of the Holy Spirit. All praise to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

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Showing posts with label hypocrisy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hypocrisy. Show all posts

Saturday, July 18, 2026

Aussies turning farther and farther from God

 

The 2026 Census Will Show Australians Are Still Turning Away From Christianity


In the 2021 Australian Census, 9,886,957 people (or 38.9% of the population) ticked “no religion.”

The population selecting no religious affiliation grew from roughly 7 million people in 2016 to nearly 9.9 million people in 2021.

Australians identifying as “no religion” rose to 38.9% from 30.1% at the 2016 census and 22.3% in 2011 – an increase of 16.6% in a decade.

The data indicates a massive, multi-generational shift away from Christianity in Australia.

For the first time in Australian Census history, the 2021 results revealed that fewer than half of all Australians (43.9%) identify as Christian, a steep drop from 52.1% in 2016 and 61.1% in 2011.

Fifty years ago, in 1971, that figure was 86.2%.

St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney, Dxwkx, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0


The implications of this are massive, especially when growing populations who practice expansionist, proselytizing religions such as Islam are filling the void.

We can fully expect to see the Muslim population reach 1.2 million and 4.3% of Australia’s population in this year’s census.

It has been roughly doubling every decade, and Shady Alsuleiman, president of the Australian National Imams Council, has been rejoicing at the trend.

“We as a Muslim community, right now, according to the pattern and the trend, we double every 11-12 years,” he said on a podcast in 2025.

“We need to be a part of the decision making,” he said.

“Halal, for example, hijab, for example, masajid [mosques], for example. We need to plan for the next 50-100 years.”

Conversely, Sydney Catholic Schools’ manager and Network Catholic Identity, Dr. Robert Haddad, said overall the religious affiliation numbers for the 2021 Census make very “disturbing reading.”

He said the huge increase in the number of those describing themselves as “no religion” evidences that we are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of upcoming “millennials.”

“For the second census in a row, the number of Catholics has fallen both as a raw number and as a percentage of the Australian population,” he said.

“Unless something dramatic is done, we Catholics and Christians in general, run the risk of becoming an aging and shrinking minority in our own country, putting at further risk our religious freedoms. However, we must resist any temptation to fall back into the ‘bunkerm’ and redouble our efforts to evangelize the culture and emerging generations. We have to promote the faith in ways that are faithful, relevant and joyful all at the same time, which is not an easy task, but definitely a necessary one.”

So what will Australia’s 2026 Census reveal? At this point, the outcome seems painfully predictable.

A further shunning of the foundational pillar of Christianity sounds another death knell for Australia.

How responsible is the Royal Commission into Institutionalized Child Sexual Abuse for the movement away from Catholicism and Christianity? I have no doubt there is a correlation, as there should be.

My concern is that as Aussies turn farther from God, they will gravitate toward wokeism and antisemitism, both of which run hand in hand with godlessness.

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Thursday, July 16, 2026

Beijing's perspective on American trade tariffs

 

Trump built walls out of tariffs on ‘Liberation Day’. Has the US been boxed in?

7-MIN READ
South China Morning Post


Xinyi Wuin Beijing


As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its founding, it confronts a new world order dominated by its relationship with China. In this wide-ranging series, we examine the pressure points and possibilities in those ties, from hard tech to soft power. Here, Xinyi Wu examines how changes to Washington’s trade policy have reverberated through the formerly secure international economic order.

When US President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs against virtually all Washington’s major trading partners in April of last year, some observers heard echoes of earlier eras in American history – much earlier.

The Great Depression had just begun when former president Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, targeting more than 20,000 imported goods in June 1930 despite explicit warnings from over 1,000 economists.


The remainder is behind a paywall. See link above.

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Wednesday, July 15, 2026

On Being a Christian in Islam > Bogus blasphemy claim in Karachi; Egyptian police arrested Christian victims of Muslim attack

 

Pakistan: Muslim mob traps Christians in their homes, stones police vehicles over bogus ‘blasphemy’ claim


As we have seen with Muslim mobs in Pakistan, the mere allegation is enough. No actual proof is required.


Protest Erupts in Pakistan after Christian Framed for ‘Blasphemy’

Morning Star News, July 10, 2026:

LAHORE, Pakistan (Christian Daily International–Morning Star News) A violent protest erupted in Karachi, Pakistan on Thursday (July 9) after unidentified persons mailed a desecrated page of the Quran to a Muslim shopkeeper along with photographs of a Christian and his mother, sources said.

Asif Bastian, a Karachi-based Christian rights advocate, said the envelope was delivered to Waleed General Store in Qazafi Colony, Baldia Town. It contained a burnt page of the Quran, photographs of 40-year-old Catholic Azeem Javaid and his mother, and an image of her national identity card.

“As news of the alleged desecration spread, several hundred Muslims, including activists from religious parties, gathered outside the street where Javaid’s home is located and began protesting,” Bastian told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “Around 10 to 15 Christian families live on that street, and they were effectively trapped inside their homes.”

The protesters hurled stones at police vehicles after officers arrived at the scene, forcing an initial withdrawal, Bastian said. The Sindh Province government deployed paramilitary Rangers alongside additional police to bring the situation under control.

“The government’s timely intervention prevented what could have become a major tragedy,” he said. “After officials assured protest leaders that police would conduct a thorough investigation and examine CCTV footage from the Saddar Post Office, where the envelope was reportedly mailed, the demonstration was called off.”

Bastian said authorities later used an armored police vehicle to evacuate Javaid’s family to a secure location.

A source close to the family, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the incident appeared to be an attempt to falsely implicate Javaid in a blasphemy case or incite a mob attack against him.

“Javaid has a stable job and has never been involved in any religious controversy,” the source said. “He has had financial disputes with some individuals, so it is possible someone sought to frame him. It defies logic that a Christian would desecrate the Quran and then mail the material, along with his own photograph, to a shop directly across from his house. No one would deliberately implicate themselves in such a serious offense.”

The source said the family remains under police protection at an undisclosed location. Javaid, who was at work when the incident occurred, has also gone into hiding while authorities investigate the case….

So far, this seems like an unusually good response from police and Rangers.



 


Egypt: Muslim mob assaults Christians as it attacks church, police arrest the Christians


The police freed them only after they abandoned their complaint against the Muslims who attacked them. As in Pakistan and elsewhere, Christians in Egypt can expect no sympathy or protection from authorities. If Muslims victimize them, those authorities will all too often side with the people who are doing the victimizing, as a Muslim will know that if he defends Christians against Muslims, he will face opprobrium (and possibly violence) from his fellow Muslims. Also, Muslim police officers know that the Qur’an tells Muslims to be “ruthless to unbelievers, merciful to one another.” (48:29)

Egyptian police vehicle, cattan2011, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0


Police arrest Christian victims after attack on Coptic church

by Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post, July 12, 2026:

Egyptian police arrested four Christian men who had been assaulted by a mob during an attack on a Coptic place of worship in Egypt, and freed them two days later once they abandoned the complaint they lodged against those who beat them.

The attack took place in the Upper Egyptian village of Tal Al-Quiblya in Minya Province on Wednesday, according to the United Kingdom-based religious freedom advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), citing the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR).

A crowd of Muslim residents, most of them women, children and teenagers, reportedly pelted the building with stones while chanting sectarian abuse.

Several Christians suffered injuries. Witnesses on the ground say that the structure and the priest’s car had been damaged.

Officers arrived rapidly and restored order, though only after taking the four Christian men into custody. Their release came on Friday, conditioned on the withdrawal of their complaint against the attackers.

An unknown number of Muslim residents were also arrested….

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has urged that Egypt be added to the State Department’s Special Watch List, which marks states that have carried out or tolerated grave abuses of religious freedom.

Prosecutors have used the country’s blasphemy statutes against people for voicing or defending their beliefs, imposing anything from fines to jail….