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Apostasy is real – and a real concern.

Jesus made it crystal clear that there would be those who will turn on Him, and turn on God. They would be ashamed to even side with Christ and His teachings, and they would disqualify themselves from any claims to being His real disciples.

He spoke about this often, and all four gospels give us warnings about this. Consider just these four passages:

• Matthew 10:32-33 ~ Whoever acknowledges Me before others, I will also acknowledge before My Father in Heaven. But whoever disowns Me before others, I will disown before My Father in Heaven.
• Mark 8:38 ~ If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when He comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.
• Luke 9:26 ~ Whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when He comes in His glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
• John 5:22-24 ~ Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. He who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father, who sent Him. I tell you the truth, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.

As these explicit and sober warnings indicate, there is such a thing as apostasy, rejecting Christ, and being ashamed of His words. It happens all the time. We, of course, see non-Christians doing this routinely, but perhaps worse yet, many folks calling themselves “Christians” are also doing it.

Indeed, during the past week, I have written a number of articles on some pretty nasty examples of this Christ-rejection. The three cases that have really stood out were these:

• The pagan Kamala Harris refusing to attend a long-standing Catholic charity event, and telling two young Christians to get out of her rally (while Vance welcomed and affirmed similar folks at his rally).
• The shocking move to have Christian students at a Christian school not be allowed to wear Christian crosses so as not to offend others!
• The appalling staff and student walkout at a Catholic university when a Catholic speaker simply reiterated basic Catholic social teaching.

These recent cases of Christ-denialism and Christ-rejection are just the tip of the iceberg. As stated, we expect the misotheists and angry atheists to carry on like this, but more and more, we are seeing “Christians” doing just the same. Be it “Christian” churches or denominations or institutions or schools or leaders or pastors, big-time apostasy is all around us.

Counselling and Refunds

It is that last episode that I wish to further speak to, with some really bizarre updates to the story. I refer to Catholic conservative Joe de Bruyn who gave some standard Catholic teaching at the Australian Catholic University, only to have many (most) in the audience rudely and immaturely walk out on him!

But it is what the big cheeses at the ACU did next which should really shock you. Various media outlets reported on this. One of them began their coverage this way:

The Australian Catholic University will reimburse attenders of a graduation ceremony where Joe de Bruyn sparked a walkout with a speech denouncing abortion and same-sex marriage, as the university also revealed it had urged the former union chief to reconsider his remarks before he delivered them. De Bruyn’s address, delivered on Monday evening, prompted major backlash after he compared abortion to the “human toll of world war two” and alleged same-sex marriage went against “every society on earth”.

The vice-chancellor of the ACU, Prof Zlatko Skrbis, wrote to staff on Tuesday afternoon confirming the university was aware of the contents of the address ahead of time and had allowed the speech to go ahead despite “strongly encouraging” De Bruyn to reconsider his remarks.

He said staff would be offered face-to-face individual therapy and group counselling sessions at its Melbourne campus on Wednesday, noting the “hurt and discomfort” felt by the speech. In a statement, the ACU confirmed students would also be issued a full refund of their graduation ceremony fees, to be processed automatically in the coming days, in recognition of the fact it was an “unsatisfactory experience for many who attended”.

“The university was aware that Mr De Bruyn planned to speak about a number of polarising issues in his occasional address and asked him to consider a speech that was better aligned to the occasion and more directly celebrated the achievements of our students,” they said.

“We are deeply disappointed that the speech was not more befitting of a graduation ceremony. We do not censor our speakers but recognise that the content of Mr De Bruyn’s address caused distress and offence to many in the audience.”

Skrbis said in his email an honorary degree was conferred on De Bruyn in “recognition of his dedication to the rights of workers, educational advancement, and improving social welfare”, adding they did “strongly encourage” him to reconsider his speech ahead of time. “I understand this may have affected you personally and we deeply regret any distress this has caused to our community,” he wrote.

Skrbis said the university was “not in the business of censoring occasional addresses or dictating content to our guest speakers”, which would be “completely at odds” with its values of freedom of expression and academic thought. “However, we did strongly encourage Mr De Bruyn to reconsider his speech through the lens of the graduating students’ achievements, hopes and aspirations,” he said.

De Bruyn told Guardian Australia ACU advised him there would be a “diverse audience” for his speech when he provided it in advance and suggested it might be “wise to make some changes”. But he said they didn’t specify what issues should be amended, and noted it had been left at his discretion.

“Here I am, a Catholic layman being offered by ACU an award for my services to the Catholic church,” he said. “If I can’t talk about issues that have confronted me in my professional life that I tried to deal with consistent with my Catholic beliefs, then what am I getting an award for? I thought it was fair and sensible.”

Wow, and wow again. This is just so wrong on so many levels. Here, we have a “Christian” university apologising for having a strong Catholic giving a strong Catholic speech. Um, what would they prefer? In the future will they only have atheist speakers come in? Or Muslim speakers? Good grief.

And they are offering counselling for those who were offended? Really? What a bunch of snowflakes. What a bunch of woke wonders. ‘Mommy, that man hurt my feelings. Fix it!’ And these are university students – and staff? What wilted pansies we have here. They cannot even handle hearing mainstream Catholic social teaching that has been the norm for two millennia.

If they hate the church’s teaching on these issues so much, why are they even there? And if the university is so ashamed of this teaching, why the charade about calling themselves a Catholic university? Why not just be upfront with folks and change the name? Here are a few possible names that they could happily run with:

• The Australian Progressive University
• The Australian Woke University
• The Australian Secular University
• The Australian Leftist University
• The Australian Cry-baby University

They are grovelling to the world’s secularists. They are embracing worldly values and beliefs while rejecting the clear teachings of Christ and the disciples. They are Christ-denialists. They are Christ-rejecters. They are men-pleasers. They are cowards. They are apostates.

Shame on them. I repeat one of the many clear warnings made by Christ:

“If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when He comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

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Republished with thanks to CultureWatch.