Salt Shakers Journal Summary April 2008

Editorial (in full below)

The headline stated “CDC study finds 25 percent of teen girls infected with STD”. The study, released by the Centers for Disease Control in the USA, has found that “More than 3 million teen girls aged 14 to 19 years-old have an STD, and that among sexually active teens, the rate was 40 percent.”

Subscribe to the Salt Shakers Journal

Another difficult issue…
We have occasionally run what we call ‘another difficult issue’ - simply to get us thinking and talking about the hard issues. The following article is sure to get us some feedback because it deals with Capital Punishment, an issue where Christians are on both sides and hold opposing views.

What does the Bible say about Capital Punishment?
Augusto Zimmermann presents a biblical case for Capital Punishment, briefly looking at its institution by God and then the worldview issues at play.

Our web page on ‘capital punishment’
We have posted a number of articles on the topic of ‘Capital Punishment on a new page on the Issues section of our website: http://www.saltshakers.org.au/html/P/490/B/0/

News and Action
Swearing in of federal MPs; Victoria: Euthanasia; Federal: Euthanasia.

Alcohol and Binge Drinking
The role of alcohol in teen parties often goes unreported. But binge drinking and alcohol and drug abuse are all prevalent in the youth party culture. The connection between alcohol, drugs and violence is becoming patently obvious to readers of Melbourne’s newspapers.

R18+ Computer games
The Rudd government recently gave a commitment to consider “updating the classification system for games to include an R18+ rating.”

Welfare groups supporting ‘diversity’
Jenny Stokes looks at church welfare groups supporting and even running groups that affirm homosexuality and encourage same-sex lobbying and advocacy.

Ongoing matters of concern
ACT Civil Partnerships Bill; Victoria - IVF/Surrogacy; Victoria – Abortion; Victoria – Euthanasia; WA - Human Rights Bill; SA - EO Act amendments.

The Choices of Life Program
The Choices of Life program provides an interactive school presentation for Primary and Secondary students on the facts and choices surrounding the beginning of human life.

University and Summit
Joy Clements shares her experience as a young Christian at university and how the Summit Conference gave her a biblical framework to be able to address the secular worldviews one is constantly assaulted with.

Salt Shakers one-day Introductory Worldview Courses
Salt Shakers one-day ‘Introductory Worldview School’, run by Peter & Jenny, includes an overview of worldviews and 3 DVD lectures by overseas speakers from the Summit course to whet your appetite.

National Day of Thanksgiving
This year the National Day of Thanksgiving will be held on Saturday 10 May 2008.

More on climate change…
Garnaut Review; International Conference; and Biofuels and climate change.

Another side to a ‘sorry’ story
Elders from the aboriginal community of Aurukun in Cape York, Queensland, have called for children over the age of 9 to be removed from the community, saying justice, education and child safety standards have collapsed and that it is not safe for them to remain.

Sydney Mardi Gras- the ‘Biggest Yet’!!
Peter Stokes looks at the crowd numbers for the Mardi Gras and reveals the usual sham by the organizers in trying to make the event look successful.

Victoria Same-sex register
The Victorian Legislative Assembly (Lower House) passed the same-sex ‘Relationship Register’ bill on March 11.

More Discrimination!
Christian couples continue to be discriminated against because of their Biblical beliefs on homosexuality.

Interfaith Centre for England
A multifaith centre, costing £6.5 million (A$13.6m) will be built in Guildford in southern England.

Political Correctness
Charlton Heston said “Political Correctness, what does it mean? It means that telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can’t be far behind.

World News
USA: Companies & sex change; UK: Baby born healthy; UK: Blasphemy law; USA: Hillary and homosexuals.

Editorial (full version)

The headline stated “CDC study finds 25 percent of teen girls infected with STD”

The study, released by the Centers for Disease Control in the USA, has found that “More than 3 million teen girls aged 14 to 19 years-old have an STD, and that among sexually active teens, the rate was 40 percent.”

The immediate response in the USA was to blame public policy and sex education.

OK, so this is the USA, but is it any better here?

In Dec 2006 a La Trobe University study of 2000 Year 10 and Year 12 students across the nation found 35 per cent had had sex, 6.1 per cent reported it had resulted in pregnancy, while 7.5 per cent said they were “unsure.”

What was the response to this bad news? Academics slammed the Federal Government for inadequate sex education in schools and called for more!!

Ironically, that’s always the cry from the ‘academics’. Yet, despite all the increased sex ‘education’ and ‘safe-sex’ promotion, there has also been an increase in the incidence of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and the latest figures show that the rate of condom use in Australia has actually declined since 1997.

The attitude of academics and governments alike seems to be, ‘The medicine is not working, in fact it is causing increased side effects, but hey, let’s not ask why, let’s just increase the dose’!

There is, of course, also the appalling sexualisation of society through the media and especially in marketing aimed at children and young people. Then there is the growing ease of access to pornography, for

both boys and girls, on the internet.

But, despite all this desire today to always blame someone else, the bottom line still comes down on parents. Are we adequately training and protecting our children and young people?

We have been watching ‘Brat Camp’ on TV of late. The young people, boys and girls, are really in a mess and they are sent to a US desert to do it tough and learn about respect and responsibility.

But I can’t help feeling that in many cases it should be the parents that go into the desert to reflect about responsibility, because the parents on this program so often seem to have put themselves first, some have walked away from their marriage commitment, others have simply delegated their responsibility to welfare agencies, school teachers, etc. It is often so clear that they did not lose control, they simply never took control or responsibility in the first place.

Sadly, though, even good parenting can so often be undermined by peer pressure or our society’s lasse faire attitude to morality.

We believe one solution is for parents to learn how to teach their children to respect themselves and make good informed choices.

One way of doing this is to get involved in and encourage your church or your child’s school to invite Bruce Coleman to run a ‘Choices of Life’ course.

This excellent program, developed by Bruce after years of interaction with young people, aims to help them take control of their lives. To give them the power to make the right choices. ( More details are on page 11)

Unless the fight back for our youth starts at home, and in our churches, we will lose another generation to ‘the world’.
Yours in Christ Jesus
Peter & Jenny Stokes