Over the past year or so, the Albanese government in Australia has been promoting a referendum to change the Australian constitution. The purpose is to set up a new constitutional entity made up of indigenous peoples as an advisory body to the Australian parliament. About this proposal I have many concerns.

The first concern is that it is a top-down decision and hasn’t arisen from the grass roots of the nation, unlike the 1967 referendum vote to include indigenous Australians in population counts which was a grass roots movement with wide support, easy to understand, and easy to ascertain if it has been done properly.

The second concern is that a lot of money is being spent by government to push for the Yes vote. We’ve seen government buses with slogans. We are seeing Australian business corporations also displaying alliance with the Yes vote, as they did for the same sex marriage plebiscite. Previously business corporations had zero interest in the outcome of national decisions. But in this age of so-called virtue signaling, it has become de rigueur. This bothers me because it has a coercive impact.

The third concern is the appeal to emotion rather than to reason. It goes something like this, as a nation we are more aware than ever of the injustices meted out to indigenous Australians throughout our history, and we are grieved about this, and think something should be done. This referendum is a something, therefore we should do it to assuage the guilt levels we feel. No one seems to be asking whether this voice to parliament is the best solution or not.

The fourth concern is that we have a history of well-meaning legislation supposedly put forward to better the lot of our indigenous peoples and actually making their lives worse.

The fifth concern is that the actual legislation to enact the referendum change, should it be voted in, will not be written until after the vote. In effect each of us is signing a blank cheque with unknown consequences. We know that the promises of our politicians aren’t worth much, since we are still waiting for them to enact legislation to protect free speech and religious liberty – which was promised as part of the same sex marriage legislation.

The sixth concern is that the letter of this unknown actual legislation could be significantly different to what the various politicians have been promising that it will be. I’ve seen footage of a politician speaking to one group of people saying that the change will be minimal and then speaking to another group of people and saying that the change will be far more than minimal.

The seventh concern is the wedge this proposed referendum is driving between indigenous Australians and non-indigenous Australians. It seems the antithesis of ‘Australians All Let Us Rejoice’ as we sing in the national anthem. If one was truly cynical you could consider it a diabolical invention to inflame racial hatred in this country. We are already facing derogatory terminology if we dare to question this referendum proposal, and being accused of hurting our indigenous folk because we are yet to be convinced that it is a good thing for them, and for all of us.

The eighth concern is that you don’t normally get politicians, corporate business and media singing from the same hymn sheet unless there is a much bigger agenda afoot; and yes, I am deeply worried that it is a W.E.F. agenda or similar.

Let’s step back and look at the objective situation.
​
In Australia there are many hundreds of indigenous nations, tribes and cultural groups.

It isn’t a wonderful photo, because it was taken through glass at the State Library of NSW, but it does give you an idea about the diversity of indigenous nations within Australia.

Now some of them are freshwater people, some of them are river people, some of them are salt-water people, some of them are desert people, some of them are river people, some of them are grass plains people, some of them are mountain people, some of them are rain forest people – and I’m sure to have missed some out.

Each of these indigenous nations has a very strong connection to the geographical area of their nation, and deep understanding about how all the landscape, the plants and animals all coexist. What I need you to see is that it is a local relationship and local custodianship. There are all kinds of multi-layered stories to explain geographic formations and animal traits.

Can you begin to see the troubles that could arise if a river person starts making decisions that affect desert people? Or if a rain forest person starts making decisions that affect grass plains people?

Consider that each of these peoples all have different laws, customs, stories and culture, and that some of these things change according to whoever carries leadership or eldership at the time. For example, one elder may have a prohibition about speaking about deceased people for 3 years, and the next elder may have a prohibition about speaking about deceased people for 10 years.

Now consider that many indigenous peoples are not living on their ancestral lands. This is truer in urban areas than in outback areas. I attempted last year to find out if there were any indigenous people with ancestral connection to the area I live in and still living here. I failed to find any. What I did find were indigenous people with connections to the mid north coast of NSW, to the Riverina region of NSW, and to river people of VIC. I discovered that a former local indigenous leader wasn’t from around here either.

What happens to your region if there are no elders with ancestral connections to represent your region in the voice to parliament?

Next consider the problematic definition of who is indigenous and who isn’t. Are you indigenous if you have at least one great-grandparent indigenous (1/8)? Are you indigenous if you can trace any indigenous ancestor back to 1788? When do you stop being indigenous and start being hodge-podge Australian? It certainly matters from a government funding point of view. Does someone who has 1/16 indigenous ancestry have the right to tell someone with two indigenous parents what to do - and how to live their lives?

Believe it or not matters can be even more complicated. We watched a Who Do You Think You Are episode recently about a retired director of an indigenous dance company. Going through his family tree found Australian indigenous, Cook Island ancestry, and Philippine ancestry and more. How many others have such hybrid ancestral connections – and don’t realise it?

What happens if people start identifying with indigenous Australians, even though their ancestry is thoroughly Anglo-Celtic? Do they get government funding as indigenous? Since we are living in the craziness of men identifying as women and vice versa, this is no longer in the region of “la la land”, but a real issue.

It makes far more sense to me that an indigenous elder should have an ex-officio seat at the local government table. That’s where the custodianship is, that’s where the knowledge and commitment is. But it needs to be an indigenous elder with a true ancestral connection to the local government area.

Because of the local focus of indigenous nations within Australia, it makes no sense to me to set up a national body of indigenous to speak to national issues. The concern is that the people interested on serving on such a voice to parliament would be political activists and politicians – unless there is a way to make them hereditary positions. But who is going to say which indigenous bloodlines are more important than other indigenous bloodlines?

What is going to stop political activists from making constitutional challenges to be heard in the high court which could enshrine interpretations at complete odds with the understanding of the people who voted yes to the voice to parliament? How do you protect against people acting in their own interests at odds with the needs of the rest of Australians? How do you protect against people acting for foreign interests at odds with the true needs of Australians?

It all feels like a recipe for chaos, disorder and disunity, with the possibility of pitting one indigenous culture against another one. Chaos, disorder and disunity are at enmity with peace, unity and truth. Shouldn’t we want national decisions that establish peace, unity and truth in our land?
​
That’s why, unless the structure of the referendum proposal drastically changes for the better, I will be voting No.

.........................................
Below is a printer friendly edited version, 4 x A4 pages,
​

This may seem like a very strange topic to bring to your attention, but it does tell a salutary tale about how media has been manipulated. It is of importance to us because media is a pathway to spread the Gospel; and if voices in the media can be muffled, then the God-fearing voices in the media can also be muzzled.

Normally long messages on Twitter either appear as Twitter-threads or as a series of numbered stand-alone tweets. After a person gets to about 30 in a series, and it is generating massive discussion sometimes the Twitter-threads get broken. That’s what happened more than once. Thankfully there were generous people who attempted to put the tweets in chronological order to make them easier to read for those who have little Twitter experience. They had a difficult task.

A bit of background may help. Some weeks after Elon Musk became the owner of Twitter he promised to release information held within the Twitter databases about the events that led to the expulsion of President Trump from Twitter on 8 Jan 2021. To do this Elon selected a few journalists and gave them access to the files at Twitter. However it was a requirement that what they released had to be published on Twitter first before it was published on any other kind of media.

On Saturday 3 Dec 2022, Australian time, the first of the Twitter Files was released via @mtaibbi. It laid the groundwork for what was to follow, and each batch of Twitter Files builds on the previous batch. Bear in mind that if these things were going on at Twitter, they were certainly also going on at other social media sites and in main-stream media as well.

The first one is here, but there is irrelevant stuff between the actual tweets.
Keep going till you get to the very end.

https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-elon-musk-releases-files-on-twitters-censorship-of-hunter-biden-laptop-story

This is part of @mtaibbi’s introduction, which is provided as an enticement to learn more:

3. The “Twitter Files” tell an incredible story from inside one of the world’s largest and most influential social media platforms. It is a Frankensteinian tale of a human-built mechanism grown out the control of its designer.
4. Twitter in its conception was a brilliant tool for enabling instant mass communication, making a true real-time global conversation possible for the first time.
5. In an early conception, Twitter more than lived up to its mission statement, giving people “the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.”
6. As time progressed, however, the company was slowly forced to add those barriers. Some of the first tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters.
7. Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly.
8. By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: “More to review from the Biden team.” The reply would come back: “Handled.”

Although further information was supposed to be released the next day, nothing happened for several days until @mtaibbi released supplemental information.

You can read it in full here:
https://radiopatriot.net/2022/12/07/second-twitter-file-thread-supplement-to-the-1st-thread/

Here is a mini summary:

“On Tuesday, Twitter Deputy General Counsel (and former FBI General Counsel) Jim Baker was fired. Among the reasons? Vetting the first batch of “Twitter Files” – without knowledge of new management.
The process for producing the “Twitter Files” involved delivery to two journalists (Bari Weiss and me) via a lawyer close to new management. However, after the initial batch, things became complicated.
Over the weekend, while we both dealt with obstacles to new searches, it was @bariweiss who discovered that the person in charge of releasing the files was Jim Baker. He had been something of a Zelig of FBI controversies dating back to 2016, from the Steele Dossier to the Alfa-Server mess.”

Within a day or two the second set of Twitter Files was released. It has the inside scoop on shadow banning. Yes, many suspected this was happening, but to see actual evidence of it was stunning.

https://radiopatriot.net/2022/12/08/twitter-files-part-2/

Here are the introductory tweets for this second set of Twitter Files:

2. Twitter once had a mission “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.” Along the way, barriers nevertheless were erected.
3. Take, for example, Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) ) who argued that Covid lockdowns would harm children. Twitter secretly placed him on a “Trends Blacklist,” which prevented his tweets from trending.
4. Or consider the popular right-wing talk show host, Dan Bongino (@dbongino), who at one point was slapped with a “Search Blacklist.”
5. Twitter set the account of conservative activist Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) to “Do Not Amplify.”
6. Twitter denied that it does such things. In 2018, Twitter's Vijaya Gadde (then Head of Legal Policy and Trust) and Kayvon Beykpour (Head of Product) said: “We do not shadow ban.” They added: “And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.”
7. What many people call “shadow banning,” Twitter executives and employees call “Visibility Filtering” or “VF.” Multiple high-level sources confirmed its meaning.
8. “Think about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what people see to different levels. It’s a very powerful tool,” one senior Twitter employee told us.

The rest of this series of tweets shows that shadow banning based on political viewpoints and ideology did happen. Unless you know how bad it got, it will be difficult to understand the next series of tweets.

The third set of Twitter Files was about how President Trump, while he was still President, was shadow banned in various ways before and after the 2020 American presidential elections.
Yes, while he was still in the Oval Office.
It is serious stuff. 67 tweets worth.

https://radiopatriot.net/2022/12/09/twitter-files-part-3/

Here is part of the introduction:

5. Whatever your opinion on the decision to remove Trump that day, the internal communications at Twitter between January 6th-January 8th have clear historical import. Even Twitter’s employees understood in the moment it was a landmark moment in the annals of speech.
6. As soon as they finished banning Trump, Twitter execs started processing new power. They prepared to ban future presidents and White Houses – perhaps even Joe Biden. The “new administration,” says one exec, “will not be suspended by Twitter unless absolutely necessary.”
7. Twitter executives removed Trump in part over what one executive called the “context surrounding”: actions by Trump and supporters “over the course of the election and frankly last 4+ years.” In the end, they looked at a broad picture. But that approach can cut both ways.
8. The bulk of the internal debate leading to Trump’s ban took place in those three January days. However, the intellectual framework was laid in the months preceding the Capitol riots.

The fourth set of Twitter Files sadly were not numbered, and they might not be all in this link because there was a 2-to-3-hour gap between part 1 and part 2. Look for posts on 11 December from @ShellenbergerMD for the missing tweets. The previous set of Twitter Files took us up to 6 January 2021. This set takes us from there to 7 January 2021.

https://radiopatriot.net/2022/12/10/twitter-files-part-4/

Here is part of the introduction:

“For years, Twitter had resisted calls to ban Trump. “Blocking a world leader from Twitter,” it wrote in 2018, “would hide important info... [and] hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions.”
But after the events of Jan 6, the internal and external pressure on Twitter CEO @jack (Jack Dorsey) grows. Former First Lady @michelleobama , tech journalist @karaswisher , @ADL, high-tech VC @ChrisSacca, , and many others, publicly call on Twitter to permanently ban Trump.
Dorsey was on vacation in French Polynesia the week of January 4-8, 2021. He phoned into meetings but also delegated much of the handling of the situation to senior execs @yoyoel, Twitter’s Global Head of Trust and Safety, and @vijaya, Head of Legal, Policy, & Trust.
As context, it's important to understand that Twitter’s staff & senior execs were overwhelmingly progressive. In 2018, 2020, and 2022, 96%, 98%, & 99% of Twitter staff's political donations went to Democrats.
On January 7, @Jack emails employees saying Twitter needs to remain consistent in its policies, including the right of users to return to Twitter after a temporary suspension After, Roth reassures an employee that "people who care about this... aren't happy with where we are"”

The fifth set of Twitter Files reveals the internal communications on 8 January 2021 which led to the permanent suspension of President Trump, who was still officially the President of the United States of America until 20 January 2021 when Joe Biden was sworn in.

https://radiopatriot.net/2022/12/12/the-twitter-files-part-5/

Here is an introduction to this set of files, which may or may not be the full set of files:

7. There were dissenters inside Twitter. “Maybe because I am from China,” said one employee on January 7, “I deeply understand how censorship can destroy the public conversation.”
8. But voices like that one appear to have been a distinct minority within the company. Across Slack channels, many Twitter employees were upset that Trump hadn’t been banned earlier.
9. After January 6, Twitter employees organized to demand their employer ban Trump. “There is a lot of employee advocacy happening,” said one Twitter employee.
10. “We have to do the right thing and ban this account,” said one staffer. It’s “pretty obvious he’s going to try to thread the needle of incitement without violating the rules,” said another.
11. In the early afternoon of January 8, The Washington Post published an open letter signed by over 300 Twitter employees to CEO Jack Dorsey demanding Trump’s ban. “We must examine Twitter’s complicity in what President-Elect Biden has rightly termed insurrection.”
12. But the Twitter staff assigned to evaluate tweets quickly concluded that Trump had *not* violated Twitter’s policies. “I think we’d have a hard time saying this is incitement,” wrote one staffer.
13. “It's pretty clear he's saying the ‘American Patriots’ are the ones who voted for him and not the terrorists (we can call them that, right?) from Wednesday.”
14. Another staffer agreed: “Don’t see the incitement angle here.”

Notice that President Trump was declared innocent of violating the Twitter Terms of Service, yet he was still permanently suspended from Twitter. His account was re-instated by Elon Musk in recent weeks, although it has yet to be used. So the first thing a viewer of @realDonaldTrump’s account will see are these non-inciting tweets.

Many of the tweets that form the Twitter Files are backed up with screenshots of actual internal Twitter communications with some of the names and dates redacted.

What is on this blog-page is only a taster of what is in the full five Twitter Files. Please read and absorb it all. Understand that this kind of social media behaviour has been impacting countries throughout the world, not just America. Reading them certainly made me angry, as they should. But it should spurn us both to prayer and to action. Prayer that such evil is drained away completely and never holds sway again. Action that shares with others what you have discovered; and shares it as far as possible with those who have only ever heard the shadow banned version of events.

For evil to flourish all that is required is for the good to keep silent.
​
May God help us do what we must. Amen.
 

As followers of Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life, it is important that we stand up for the Truth when deception is rife. We believe, that however painful it is, 'The Truth will set you free'.

That's one reason why I am posting this information today.

The other reason is that because I am doing my darndest not to use the big social media organisations, the blog becomes the best way to share (word of mouth and email being the other remaining ways left).

So here are the trilogy of reports into the 3 Nov 2020 Presidential Election in the USA prepared by Dr Peter Navarro. They are known colloquially as the Navarro reports.

The website contains all three reports:
navarroreport.com/

But you may like to read them in order...

The first one is 'The Immaculate Deception'
img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/be36dc6d-0df4-4c20-addf-fca72be46150/The%20Immaculate%20Deception%2012.15.20.pdf
Investigating the six key dimensions of electoral irregularities

The second one is 'The Art of the Steal'
img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/be36dc6d-0df4-4c20-addf-fca72be46150/The%20Art%20of%20the%20Steal%201.5.21%20FINAL.pdf
Investigating how it happened, or how it was enabled and permitted to happen

The third one is 'Yes, President Trump won'
img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/be36dc6d-0df4-4c20-addf-fca72be46150/The%20Navarro%20Report%20Volume%20III%20Final%201.13.21-0001.pdf
Tabulating the numbers and kinds of electoral irregularities in each of the contested States, and comparing the total with the margin of 'winning' votes for Joe Biden.

I have read all three reports.
I recommend that you read them too.
I recommend that you share them, and invite others to read them.

As the saying goes, all that is necessary for evil to win is that good people do nothing. Thus, this is my little 'something' towards the cause of good and the cause of truth.

The other little 'something' all of us can do is to pray.

Since it has become clear that this situation is far more than just human beings behaving badly, you might like to use this prayer:

St Michael the Archangel
Defend us in battle
Be our safeguard against all the wickedness and snares of the enemy
May God rebuke him we humbly pray
And do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host
by the power of God
cast into Hell satan and all the evil spirits
who prowl around the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.  
  

Have you felt a hunger for the truth recently?
If so, you are not alone.

Currently the nightly news on TV contains a lot of poorly disguised advertisements, ‘stories’ designed to increase fear, a lashing of political spin and something about sport. Whatever it is, it can no longer be called news.

The newspapers aren’t much better. My ‘go-to’ sections are the death notices and the comic page (if it exists). I then turn to the section on world news to gauge whether or not there is any balanced reporting, conclude that it isn’t there, and put the newspaper down. That’s if I have picked it up at all.

I am finding that my scrolling time on Twitter is shorter than ever, and that the levels of overt censorship are disturbing. When I dig down into the comments, it seems that the trolls have been more active than ever, and that comments that dissent from the opinions of the trolls are harder to find.

Some sub-reddits on Reddit are even worse.

On the good news side, there are valiant people writing blogs and sharing links to breaking news. May God bless them, encourage them, and help them to keep on going.

On the downside, trying to determine what is fact and what is nutcase conspiracy theory is exhausting.

There’s a massive battle going on to determine whether our future will be under the great global reset (totalitarian socialism) or under God’s divine reset. Yet so many are still asleep to the reality of the battle and the far-reaching consequences of the outcome.

Therefore my hunger for truth is growing, and my tolerance for banality is decreasing.

Where can truth be found? In the Psalms, and in the accounts in the Bible that display God’s unchanging character.

In every age there is a time of reckoning, where God goes through the accounts of communities and nations, and where judgement comes upon nations that have flouted His laws and reward and advancement comes upon nations that have kept respect for His laws and decrees.

When God decrees against a nation, it is a forever decree. Pick up your bible, read through Ezekiel 29, especially verse 15, and ponder it seriously. ‘Egypt will be the weakest of kingdoms and no longer dominate other nations; I shall reduce her, and she will not rule any more over the nations.’ This is still true today. Does this not induce awe?

2 Peter 3:9 reminds us, ‘The Lord is not being slow to carry out His promises, as anybody else might be called slow; but He is being patient with you all, wanting nobody to be lost and everybody to be brought to change his ways’.

In recent times we have seen nation after nation introduce laws completely at odds with God’s eternal laws (eg abortion, euthanasia, laws against God’s plan for marriage and family, laws against God’s plan for biological gender, laws that permit experimentation and alteration to DNA etc), we have seen corruption in the judicial and political systems, and in the means of communication.

God is still God. There are times when the leniency of mercy ends, and the day of reckoning and the day of judgement begins. God is not to be mocked. Even if the punishment is delayed, it still arrives; and the longer it is delayed, the more severe the balancing of God’s scales of justice will be.

That time of reckoning is soon.

The heinous injustice of firstly the electoral fraud and corruption in the U.S.A presidential election, and secondly the refusal to acknowledge the electoral fraud and corruption, and the refusal to co-operate in changing the unjust outcome, is tipping the scales towards the day of reckoning. Since if the Lord of all justice permits this gross injustice to stand, it calls into question the very nature and character of God. Will the Lord of all justice not see justice done on earth, and done speedily?

But the ultimate outcome rests with us.

If we do nothing, then the reckoning will happen through the persecution of the good; increased darkness, blatant evil and horror will be our punishment.
If we take God more seriously than ever before, and plead for mercy together with true repentance, then He will purge the world of the sources of corruption, if we have sufficient resolve to co-operate with Him in ridding the world of it.

It takes something like this for a nation to get sufficient resolve to do the necessary painful work of change. For example, the electoral methods in the U.S.A. have been different between counties and between states, with no political will to standardize them and remove the openings for corruption, because from time to time each side benefits from the possibilities for such corruption.

During these difficult weeks following 3 Nov 2020, the flaws have been glaringly obvious. This is a once-in-a-lifetime, maybe even a once-in-several-centuries opportunity to clean the system up once and for all. Woe to the U.S.A. and to the rest of the world, if this opportunity isn’t taken with resolve and gusto.

So how hungry are you for truth?

Are you willing to do what it takes to stand up for truth?
How much are you praying about it?
How much are you adding in a bit of self-denial to those prayers?
Have you been independently investigating the available evidence, and weighing up what both sides have been saying, and seeking God’s gift of discernment?
Have you been liking and sharing sources of truth?
Have you been telling those in positions of authority that you expect them to stand up for truth, no matter what?

Jesus Christ is the same today, as He was yesterday, and as He will be forever.
He is the one who transforms Saul the persecutor into Paul the intrepid apostle.
He is the one who does not tolerate the fraud of Ananias and Sapphira; and punished them with immediate death.
He is the one who makes the cripple at the Beautiful Gate whole.
He is the one who warns the seven churches that none of them are measuring up to His will for them, and that there will be dire and major consequences if they don’t respond positively to His warnings.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

May God grant that you learn this the easier way, than the hard way.
​
Hunger for truth! 

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 28
​
Let us pray for our political leaders. St Paul tells us in 1 Tim 2:1-3 that our top priority should be praying for kings and those in positions of high authority. Unless those who govern have God in their hearts, the lives of those they govern are going to be rather miserable. Knowing that the better the leader, the happier the people, helps us understand why Jesus as King of Kings, and the Kingdom of God He invites us into, are so important.

A quick look at the current local political scene reveals why the situation is so disturbing, and in need of prayer:

We have the citizenship crisis which has already caused by-elections and the introduction of new inexperienced members to parliament (particularly in the senate).

We have doubt about the short term and long term political stability of the current federal government.

We have a lot of vitriol in the media resulting from post-mortems of the Queensland state elections, as we wait for a final result to emerge.

We have the Victorian lower house poised to pass euthanasia legislation into law.

We have a federal government seemingly willing to pass same sex marriage legislation without ensuring safeguards of freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom to teach traditional marriage, and freedom to practice religion.

We have members of parliament who have said they will vote to pass same sex marriage legislation despite the plebiscite vote in their electorates being No.

So let's pray....

We pray for those politicians who did the right thing and resigned from parliament when they discovered they were dual citizens. For those not returning to political life may God guide them to where they can best serve the needs of the communities in which they live. For all those who are candidates in by-elections, may they be given the grace to truly listen to the people in their electorates and the courage to work for their highest good. May God grant that any unworthy candidates, due to corruption and significant moral failings, not win their elections.

We pray for those who have recently won parliamentary seats in elections, and those who will be chosen in the by-elections to come. May each one of them be given special graces of both moral and spiritual conversion.

We pray for those politicians who up until now have been too weak to stand up against the prevailing majority and to speak up for the truth, and who due to weakness have not defended human life from natural conception until natural death. May God grant them the grace to fear His opinion of them far more than they fear the opinion of their parliamentary colleagues and leaders. May God remove the blinders from their eyes, so that they can clearly see the truth and eternal consequences of each decision they make, and the requisite courage to act accordingly.

May God raise up a new breed of politician, a breed firmly convinced that the success of a government is measured by how well they have served the poorest and most vulnerable in our communities.

May God raise up candidates for election and public office who are worthy of being voted in. May our election choices from this point onwards not be between bad and worse, but between great and excellent.

May all those who have been guilty of corruption in public office, or guilty of turning a blind eye to corruption in public office be each granted a true spirit of conversion, penance and reparation.

May those elected leaders who have betrayed electorates and colleagues and leaders for the sake of political and financial gain be given the grace to repent and to seek forgiveness and pardon from God and from all whom they have wronged.

May all of our political leaders be given the will to remove from parliaments all the processes that waste time and resources, and the grace to come together respectfully and bipartisanly to seek the very best solutions for the common good not only of those they were elected to serve but of all humanity as well.

We pray for those political representatives who see politics as a game of thrones and who only see value in short term sound-bite or photo-opportunity wins and not in getting things right for the long term. May God convert them amazingly, or remove them gently from office. O God, please raise up a new breed of politician who wants to enable long term good to be done and who is unconcerned who wins the credit.

We pray for the political king-makers and party whips, may they be given the gift of Samuel to discern who has the anointing of God upon them for leadership, and all the gifts needed to properly train and prepare them to govern with the wisdom of Solomon.

We pray that a new spirit of unity come upon our political parties, so that factional divisions may recede before the needs of the common good of the people they were elected to serve. May the days of political point scoring, as the priority above all else, be over.

Heavenly Father, please may we live to see political leaders whose one desire is to please You, to seek You and Your holy will, to do Your will, and to serve the people You have entrusted to them to the best of their ability. May that day of rejoicing be soon. Amen.
​
St Thomas More, pray for us
Blessed Charles of Blois, pray for us
St Vladimir of Kiev, pray for us
St Stephen of Hungary, pray for us

Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 13
​
We are living in interesting times politically. If our prophets are to be believed, it is part of a shaking by God to remove corruption so that the structures of the culture of death can be undone and the structures of a culture of life rebuilt.

In our nation a citizenship scandal has been unfolding, and several electorates are facing by-elections because their former representative was technically a dual citizen of another country at the time of his/her election. Given just how much post WW2 migration there was to this country, and how many children of those brave immigrants are now of an age to be politically engaged, it isn't really surprising. What is surprising is that no one really took this part of the Constitution seriously until now.

Out of this process three options are possible. The emergence of worse leadership, the emergence of 'more of the same' leadership, and the emergence of new leaders with good morals whom we'd be happy to vote for. What is the only way of ensuring that we get the third option – lots of prayer!

I'm desperately unhappy about the current leadership of our major political parties. I'd love to be able to vote for a political leader who had both the vision and the capability to put the needs of the weakest and most vulnerable first.

Knowing that God's providence goes before us, we have to believe that there are good leaders waiting in the wings, ones who have a particular calling from God on their lives for this very purpose. They probably don't look like much at the moment (think David, Gideon, Joshua and Elisha) but God knows that they are capable of great good. They don't even have to be believers (think Cyrus).

These are the ones we should be praying for now, the ones that have been in God's preparation rooms for a while - and if there is sufficient prayer – who will soon be in leadership. Of this we can be sure, that the enemies of God have them in their sights and are trying to keep them hidden and considered of no account.

These chosen leaders need our prayers now. They will need our prayers later too, but now is a particularly important time to pray, especially as the political landscape gets more fluid and turbulent. In fact, every time you pray for our leaders (which you are already doing as per St Paul's exhortation in 1 Tim 2:1-3) you should pray for their successors as well.

Enough talking, let's pray….

Heavenly Father each day we pray as Jesus Your Son taught us, and pray that Your kingdom may come. He asked us to pray it, so You must very much want to answer it. Forgive us for not being as passionate about Your kingdom as You are.

To usher in Your kingdom we need leaders after Your own Heart. We need the new David's, Moses's, Joseph's and Solomon's, but without the moral weaknesses that undid so much of their good work.

Only You, Lord God, can raise them up to accomplish Your whole purpose. Only You, Lord God, can bring to nothing all the delays and obscurifications of the enemy. Only You, Lord God can give them the Wisdom that sits by Your side. Only You, Lord God, can call together the support teams that they need to govern effectively, who will get them the truth, and tell them the truth and work for the best solutions for the maximum common good of our peoples.

Please send Your Holy Spirit upon them to give them the gifts and charisms that they need to lead Your people, and the ability to inspire others to goodness, and the ability to call forth and encourage the gifts and charisms of others into productive teams.

If some of them need a Damascus Road experience like St Paul, then please work in their lives to bring about a powerful conversion to You and Your ways.

Many of them have been blinded by the falsehoods promoted by the culture of death. In Your great goodness dear Heavenly Father please remove all instances of this blindness from them and grant them the clarity and beauty of Your truth.

Please grant to them the grace to be able to stand up for Your truth, no matter how heavy the pressure to give in to any unholy political party policies.

Please help them to root out of their lives any immorality and any inappropriate relationships.  Bless their spouses and their children, and bless and protect the relationships of love that bind them together.

In Your goodness please call forth teams of intercessors who will pray for these chosen leaders whom You are raising up in our days, and who will pray for them unremittingly.

Please grant to these chosen leaders the precious gift of prayer, that they may seek You and Your will for them and those entrusted to them daily and diligently. Grant to them an earnestness to seek Your solutions and strategies for the good of the nation, and to always consult You as their best and closest counselor in all of their decisions.

May these chosen leaders be given the gifts necessary to foster unity, mutual respect and co-operation between nations.
Amen.