Brian Baxter *

January 2004

Producing a monthly newsletter is not a simple task. It requires constant monitoring of media and government papers, cross checking information for authenticity … Information must be accurate and well-researched if people are to act on it with confidence. Accountability is essential to the credibility of an organisation such as SALT SHAKERS … (Salt Shakers Newsletter, August 1996, 2)

The following quotes are taken from the monthly newsletter/journal of the Melbourne-based Salt Shakers theocratic organisation - Salt Shakers Newsletter (SSN), 1995-Aug. 2000; Salt Shakers Journal and variants (SSJ), Sept. 2000-present. Salt Shakers is led by Peter and Jenny Stokes. Having perused the quotes, readers are invited to draw their own conclusions about what life might be like in a theocratic Australia.

Abortion

…[It] is my contention that without exception every [woman who undergoes an abortion] will at some time experience the effects of abortion. At some time in the future there will come a moment of reflection, a moment of clarity, a moment when the enormity of the act of abortion will be brought to bear. From this point onwards the battle is begun with, on the one hand, God whispering ‘I love you, I forgive you’ and on the other the accuser loudly bellowing ‘you are a murderer’. (Anne R. Lastman ‘Post Abortion Grief - Agony in Life’s Garden - A Reflection’, SSN, Sept. 1997, 17)

Every five minutes, a baby is destroyed in Australia, nearly all products of sexual immorality … Unlike my critics, who tend to attack the messenger instead of the message because their arguments are weak, I stick to reality and fact. (Roger Marks, letter in The Gazette (Warragul and Drouin), 1 Aug. 2000, reprinted in SSJ, Sept. 2000, 11)

Answered prayer

Dramatic results occurred during the four years from June 1986, when the Ministries of Ten Thousand Men was active, when more than 200 answers to prayer were recorded … Lionel Murphy, High Court Judge, introduced family law bills threatening the Christian concept of family and marriage. We prayed and several months later he died of bowel cancer. (Desmond Higgs, Salt Shakers Board member, ‘Wanted - 10,000 Men (and Women)’, SSJ, Mar. 2001, 14)

The Church

My view is that the church in Australia needs more persecution, not less. If government and society turned against us, it would make us more determined and more powerful. In all probability we would take over Australia as a result of it, gaining some backbone we don’t have at the moment because we are too busy accommodating sin so as to appear tolerant and loving. (Roger Marks, letter in Herald Sun, Dec. 2000, reprinted in SSJ, Mar. 2001, 10)

Why is the Christian Church suddenly finding so many paedophiles and sex abusers among its clergy? … [T]he main fault lies in revisionist theology. Many of those involved have a theology which disputes both Biblical truth and traditional church teaching. A lack of action by church officials has in turn allowed many of these people to infiltrate the clergy and lay leadership - and they have then made a concerted effort to keep out the conservatives and promote liberal intellectuals and homosexuals in seminaries. They are often assisted by lesbian and feminist nuns … (Peter Stokes ‘”Goodbye Good Men” - A book review and more’, SSJ, Nov. 2002, 15)

Discussion over Biblical interpretation of the second coming or how we should pray is one thing, but discussions over Biblical authority, basic moral guidelines which are consistent throughout scripture [e.g. re homosexuality and divorce], creation, the virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus are totally inappropriate. Many people are becoming disillusioned by the lack of Biblically-based leadership in the church. They are hearing too many ‘viewpoints’ - and become confused and give up … There needs to be a coherent ‘Christian’ view based on the Bible so all Christians are saying the same thing on moral issues. (Peter Stokes ‘The Church is being torn apart from within and taking society down with it’, SSJ, Feb. 2003, 5-6)

Will we soon see berobed bishops ordaining a man accompanied by his adoring bi-sexual family of three ‘wives’ and the other ‘husband’? (Peter Jones ‘Homosexual Bishops: A Theological Oxymoron’, SSJ, Dec. 2003, 8)

Co-education

I think co-educational high schools are a mistake. The temptation to engage in sexual relations is very strong and single-sex schools are better for all concerned … We are not helping [young people] if we let them be put in a situation where temptation is irresistible. (Greg Byrne, letter in Herald Sun, 27 May 1998, reprinted in SSN, July 1998, 10)

Contraception

We don’t tell [kids] to put a condom on their cigarettes to make them safe. (Bill Muehlenberg ‘The Gospel of Safe Sex’, SSN, Aug. 1995, 3)

While contraception has been with us since the time of Onan, the practice was always looked upon as shameful by all major religions … However, the Anglican Lambeth Conference of 1930 changed all that when it declared, for the first time, that contraception within marriage could be considered morally licit. One bishop, Charles Gore, dissenting from that opinion, argued that to accept contraception was to open a Pandora’s box and specifically to open the door to accepting sodomy … When couples use contraception they place a barrier, not only between themselves in their most intimate moments, but also between themselves and God. In effect, they say to God ‘Go away. Keep out’ … Is it any wonder that life is not respected today? (Gail Instance, Executive Director, Human Life International (Australia), ‘How contraception leads to abortion’, SSN, Aug. 1997, 16-17)

De facto relationships

If we don’t want Australian children killed or sexually molested, we must support every government effort to strengthen marriages. De facto liaisons should carry such a stigma that people are ashamed to live together unmarried. (Arnold Jago, letter in Victorian Baptist Witness, Aug. 1999, reprinted in SSN, Sept. 1999, 7)

Evolution

If young people are constantly bombarded with the idea that life has no meaning or purpose, that human beings simply evolved out of some primordial ooze, and are drifting into a meaningless future, then the question that they may need to ask is, ‘why not suicide?’ (Bill Muehlenberg, National Secretary, Australian Family Association, ‘Youth Suicide’, SSJ, Nov. 2000, 5)

Feminism

Christians must not sell our birthright for a mess of feminist porridge. (Alan Barron, Convenor, Institute of Men’s Studies, ‘The battle of the sexes - who won?’, SSN, Dec. 1998, 19)

Feminism is a way-out ideology that has no place in the real world. (Greg Byrne, letter in Herald Sun, 4 Nov. 2000, reprinted in SSJ, Dec. 2000, 10)

Fundamentalism

We must remain ‘fundamentalists’, adhering to the ‘fundamentals’ of the Word of God, not, like [Bishop John] Spong, ‘re-interpreters’ of it. This re-interpreting of the Word puts man’s finite intelligence in place of God’s infinite intelligence. (Peter and Jenny Stokes ‘Editorial’, SSJ, Mar. 2003, 2)

Gay Rights

If there was no Bible there would be no homosexual issue. Everyone would be left to live their lives as they chose, and society would be in total anarchy … Does preaching that homosexuality is a sin make the church intolerant? Good! (Erica Grace, Family Pastor, Rowville Christian Centre, ‘On behalf of those “intolerant” Christians’, SSJ, Sept. 2003, 8-9)

Lesbians should be treated with kindness and pity for their emotional disorder, but disorder should be named for what it is. No tribunal has the authority … to subject a developing child to an upbringing in a perversely disordered household. If a child looks up and has no father, that is a tragedy. If he looks up and sees two erotically involved women playing mummies and daddies, that is a nightmare … Let lesbians find whatever consolation they can among themselves, given their strange and sad affliction, but they must not be allowed to impose their perverse dynamic on an innocent child … (Dr David van Gend, letter in The Australian, 4 Feb. 1997, reprinted in SSN, Mar. 1997, 10)

I am homophobic … I do have what I think is a healthy fear of what the homosexual lobby may accomplish in our society. And I am afraid for my children, when I think how such a healthy, God-given thing as sexuality could be twisted and perverted by people seeking to devour them … (Averil Muehlenberg, then a Salt Shakers Board member, ‘My Manifesto of Political Incorrectness’, SSN, Aug. 1998, 17)

Of course the majority of people are not homosexuals. They are so few in number that they wouldn’t even warrant being called a minority. (Anon. ‘A disturbing view of life at university’, SSN, Oct. 1998, 15)

Halloween

In the USA, occult killings happen every Halloween. In Australia, media reports have indicated the possibility of human sacrifices in satanic rituals in Melbourne and Brisbane. (Jean Claude Boulenaz, Director of Teen Challenge, Brisbane, ‘Halloween - Is it a harmless ritual?’, SSN, Oct. 1997, 13)

… [T]here are regular reports each year of children disappearing on this night of death, or who receive sweets or fruit laced with drugs and even parts of razor blades. (Selwyn Stevens, Jubilee Resources NZ, ‘Halloween - It Isn’t What It Seems!!’, SSN, Oct. 2002, 4)

Harry Potter

Arguments would always arise between my mother and I when we would begin to talk about the topic of ‘Harry Potter’ … My mother would always warn me about the dangers of reading the book, yet I never really took seriously what she was saying … [One night], my mother’s words were circling around my mind. Could Harry Potter really be evil? … I closed my eyes. Then suddenly, it felt like I was sinking into my bed. My head was spinning uncontrollably … I couldn’t move, not even to open my mouth to shout the name of Jesus. Then I saw a vision of Harry Potter flying his broomstick towards me … Then the vision just ripped into darkness. Out of the blue, a dark evil figure was walking towards me. Freaked out, I struggled to open my eyes. However, that just led me to a vision of bright orange flames which looked so real. After a few tries, I managed to shout the name of Jesus and everything disappeared in a split second … The next morning, I realised that my mother was right … (Ruth Budiman, Year 10 student, ‘A young girl’s wake-up call about Harry Potter’, SSJ, April 2002, 6)

Hell

The dead continue to live … They live on personally and consciously, remaining essentially and recognisably what they were … Some go to a place of happiness, while others go to a place of horror … [The dead] do not have trite things to say to the living. If they could return and speak with their loved ones [which they cannot], they would have one common message: ‘Hell is real, and it is terrible! Oh, watch out! Repent! Fly to Jesus before it’s too late!’ (Andrew Lansdown, Life Ministries WA, ‘Talking with the dead’, SSJ, Nov. 2002, 12-13)

Interpreting the Bible

Jesus said we must come unto him as a little child. I wonder how many children can discern [just which part of the Bible] is myth, which is hearsay, which is just history … Once we tear away one passage because we think it doesn’t fit today’s rational world we might as well throw the whole book away. Who are we to decide that one page is right and one is wrong? Only when the church of Jesus Christ believes that every word of Scripture is true will we understand the true dynamic of the book … (Peter and Jenny Stokes ‘Editorial’, SSJ, May 2001, 2)

Marriage

If it’s true, as Monash University experts say, that smaller numbers of women getting married is the result of more women getting higher education …, then we should discourage women from getting higher education. I’m serious. More women not marrying means more young people growing up in an atmosphere where casual sex … is ‘normal’. More young people with no idea who their father is. More on the streets. More dead on the streets. More seemingly not dead … but totally self-absorbed and spiritually as good as dead. (Arnold Jago, letter in Herald Sun, 17 Oct. 1998, reprinted in SSN, Nov. 1998, 10)

Andrew McIntyre of the Institute [of] Public Affairs in Melbourne recently wrote an article … urging people to stay married even when differences arise. He said there are NO irreconcilable differences. (’The Importance of Fathers’, SSJ, Sept. 2001, 8)

Prostitution

So serious is the degradation involved in prostitution, that Leviticus 21:9 declares, ‘If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she must be burned in the fire’ … Such evil is repulsive to God, and deserves severe punishment … [Solomon] points out that the physical beauty and sensual behaviour of women has extraordinary power over men. And prostitutes use that power to manipulate men for financial gain … Men in a brothel may be alive physically, but they are spiritual zombies. Alive to lust, they are dead to love, dead to relationship, dead to fidelity, dead to purity, dead to reality … Like the prostitute herself, the prostitute-user is dead to God, having no more communion with him than a corpse with a loved one. (Andrew Lansdown, Life Ministries WA, ‘A Biblical Perspective on Prostitution’, SSN, April 1998, 3, 4, 7)

Santa Claus

The Santa myth says that Santa ‘knows when we are sleeping, he knows when we’re awake, he knows if we’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!’ In other words, Santa is omniscient, all-seeing. Yet the Bible clearly says that only God is omniscient … This is no ‘little white lie’ - this is major blasphemy! … Even worse, Santa Claus is also known as Father Christmas, a blasphemous title … (Pastor Steve McNeilly, Churchill Crusade Centre, ‘Should we believe in Santa Claus any more?’, SSJ, Dec. 2001, 3)

Sex education

The current wisdom on sex education runs something like this: the more the better, and the earlier the better. Young people are encouraged to experiment with sex, to feel comfortable with sex and to enjoy sex. The other component of the modern sex ed gospel is of course ’safe sex’ and condom use. As long as a condom is in the equation, there [seem] to be no limits as to what children can do. (Bill Muehlenberg ‘The Gospel of Safe Sex’, SSN, Aug. 1995, 3)

The most alarming recommendation [of the 2003 'Sex in Australia' survey] was ‘Let’s get sex-ed into primary schools!’ Yes, despite all the … evidence that sex education has failed, they want to start it even earlier! Yes, at PRIMARY school! … We must take sex out of our schools BUT to do so we must be prepared to properly discuss it in our homes. Parents must … be prepared to talk about sex, abstinence, condom failure, homosexuality, the truth about abortion … (Peter Stokes ‘Let’s talk about sex’, SSJ, May 2003, 18)

Sexual obsession

… I guess the new [WA State] Labor Government has things other than sex on its mind. But given its rush to draft laws to allow men to sodomise each other at a younger age and to buy women in brothels and to ogle women in pubs, we could be forgiven for thinking that Labor is obsessed with sex … We want to warn people that sex in any other context [than heterosexual marriage] brings guilt, strife and even (through abortion, AIDS and jealous rage) death. (Andrew Lansdown, ‘Obsessed with sex?’, SSJ, Feb. 2002, 6)

Patrick Means, in his book ‘Men’s Secret Wars’, highlights a disturbing fact. In a confidential survey of evangelical pastors and church lay leaders, 64 percent of these men confirmed they struggle with sexual addiction, including pornography and other secret sexual activity … Men, when it comes to the affairs of the mind, we simply must not go there … If it is magazines, stay away from newsstands; the Internet, then pull the plug; cable TV, then disconnect; your wife’s catalogues, then ask her to cancel the subscription … Women, it is time to wake up … You must understand how hard it is for your husbands and sons to be pure of thought … Most of all, you must recognise how much we need your help … (Jeff Syrios ‘It’s About Sex’, SSJ, May 2002, 13-14)

How can we secure ourselves from being swept away by a tidal wave of lust? … Restrain the brain which becomes addicted to endorphins and encephalins, heroin-like chemicals released with sexual activity. By snapping a rubber band on your wrist whenever inappropriate thoughts occur … addiction can be reduced by 80% in 30 days. (’Lust Busters: Practical Assistance’, SSJ, May 2002, 16)

Single mothers

God did not want single women to have babies, otherwise he would have made us androgynous … The State (our taxes) should not have to pay for these women to indulge their own selfish lifestyle choices. (’All Discrimination Is Not Wrong!’, SSJ, Sept. 2000, 8)

Stem-cell research

Perhaps the real reason that embryonic stem-cell research is so important to certain people is the huge fortune being made overseas by using foetuses (aborted babies) for the very expensive face-cream industry. (Mary Slater, letter in Herald Sun, 26 Aug. 2002, reprinted in SSJ, Oct. 2002, 10)

Tolerance

We have largely become a tolerant church indulging in compromise … Here are some issues … Feminism: Men are unnecessary, family break-up, working mothers, children in childcare. Homosexuality: No population growth, self-indulgence, promiscuity and disease … Multiculturalism: Loss of identity as a nation … (Ian Slater ‘What Is Tolerance?’, SSN, Nov. 1997, 13-14)

Christianity is a religion of love, but not of tolerance. There are many illustrations in the Old Testament … The call to tolerance is contrary to all Jesus said in Matthew 5 when he said, ‘I did not come to change the law or the prophets’. (Peter and Jenny Stokes ‘Editorial’, SSJ, Feb. 2002, 2)