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Dean Dwyer: Secularists Gone Wild In Australia AND America · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

• 0:03
  Welcome to Worldview Matters.
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  Discussing controversial issues.
• 0:07
  Discerning current events.
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  Defending biblical Christianity.
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  No topic.
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  Off limits.
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  And now, here's your host, David Fiorazzo.
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  Friends, family in Christ, thank you so much for tuning in.
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  God bless you.
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  I know you pray for us, and we need it.
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  I know you share these episodes, the ones that maybe speak to you, and the body of Christ needs it.
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  And I'm just so thankful for your support.
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  So share this one.
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  I've got my brother back with us from Australia.
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  His name is Dean Dwyer, and he's a wonderful pastor, and he's become a friend across continents, across countries,
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  oceans.
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  And brother, so good to see you.
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  Thanks for connecting early where you're at and late afternoon where we're at.
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  So thanks for your time.
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  I always appreciate our conversations.
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  Thank you, David.
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  Always a privilege to be with you.
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  Yeah, and we're kindred spirits, I believe, and I'm so thankful for you.
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  Before we jump into some of the topics, and friends, I want you to go to harbingersdaily.com and make sure you have Dean's page bookmarked where you can read some of his articles.
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  We're going to be talking about several today.
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  But before we do that, Dean, you had a conference at your church, and some heavy hitters came out.
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  over there to Australia and edified and equipped the body of Christ.
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  Tell us about that, please.
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  What a wonderful time it was.
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  We couldn't actually have it at our church because we couldn't accommodate all of the people that we needed to fit in.
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  So we'd hired a venue in our state's capital city, which is a couple of hours from our hometown.
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  And so we had just over a thousand people at the conference.
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  And we had some familiar names, Amir Safadi and Pastor Barry Stagner.
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  They came out to Australia.
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  And so it was just a brilliant time.
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  And we just, what was impressed upon me, David, and you organize conferences, you know how important conferences are to the remnant believers around the world.
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  But what was really reinforced to me and the comments that I'd received was that it was just so needed by remnant believers in Australia.
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  They just, we're
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  like believers in America, maligned in the political circles, maligned by the media, to a degree as well, maligned by the majority of mainstream Christianity.
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  So when the remnant believers need encouragement, edification, of course, primarily that's received through the word of God, the indwelling Holy Spirit.
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  But what is so important as well is that if you get remnant believers in the same room together,
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  It's just a wonderfully spiritually uplifting experience.
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  And really what it does is tops up the spiritual battery of people so that they just feel emboldened to continue to press on in their faith.
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  So we very much appreciated Amir.
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  He was the Australian leg of the tour was, you know,
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  at the end of a seven-week journey globally for him.
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  And Pastor Barry came out as well.
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  And so we appreciate the sacrifice that they make at great personal and financial cost and their families as well, because let's not forget, David, you know as well as I do, that behind the scenes, there are families that also...
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  give a sacrifice for the ministry as well.
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  So we're very blessed.
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  We've had some other names in the last few years as well.
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  People you know, Brandon Holthouse and Tom Hughes, Pete Garcia, Wanda Gonzalez, Ken Michael, all that have been guests on your show.
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  So the Remnant Church in Australia very much appreciates the effort that these beloved ministries go to.
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  And your own
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  You know, it's a wonderful thing to see people organizing these conferences because it is so needed by the Remnant Church.
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  Well, yeah, it's a little taste of heaven, just a little taste.
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  You know, Bible-believing Christians, fellow Christians, we can lock arms, we can encourage one another and worship and get great teaching from God's Word.
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  Something you said, you said there were a lot of people there.
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  I got a lot of responses that said, we needed this.
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  So the remnant believers kind of feel, some of them feel battle-weary, and we need these type of conferences.
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  And you filled a lot of seats there, and help me understand this, Dean Dwyer, because you've talked a lot on this podcast, and I understand it's true, about the declining biblical worldview in Australia, and even hostility maybe in some, you know, fronts against Christianity.
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  And yet...
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  That was a massive showing.
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  Can you explain that?
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  It just doesn't seem like there would be that many people interested, but I guess, like you said, the remnant believers had to be there.
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  Absolutely.
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  I mean, this was Amir and Barry spoke at four cities in Australia, so a number of the capitals.
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  So Brisbane, we had 1,000.
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  Melbourne, I think they had about 1,600.
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  Adelaide, they had about 800, which is great for Adelaide because that's a smaller capital.
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  And then I think Perth had around 1,000 as well.
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  So...
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  Great numbers and probably exceeded our expectations because, unfortunately, we did have to turn people away.
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  We thought 1,000 would be plenty, but we were caught short, unfortunately.
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  We probably could have pushed it to 1,200, 1,300.
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  But, look, the remnant is strong in Australia.
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  It's just unfortunate that we're so disconnected.
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  I mean...
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  Australia geographically is not that much smaller than the United States, but we're just spread out so much.
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  And there's to a degree of disconnectedness amongst the remnant church because we're not able to assemble all that often under these conference banners.
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  So when we do put on these conferences, it is encouraging to see just how strong the remnant is.
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  And this is the necessity of these conferences, because as you said, it really recharges people and,
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  Yeah.
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  And there's a real need for it.
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  Now, when I caught up with Brandon Holt House last week online and we had a Zoom Q&A with a few remnant believers in Australia and some in New Zealand.
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  And when I'd asked Brandon, because he's been here for the last three years running conferences, and I said to him,
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  do you believe Australia was in a better or worse condition spiritually than you originally thought before you came out?
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  And without hesitation, he said worse.
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  And so when I was talking to Amir as well, you know, they see what happens in Australia.
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  They know that things are sliding spiritually in Australia and remnant believers feel that.
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  And I think that to a degree, as I said, because we are maligned in the media,
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  through politicians and throughout mainstream Christianity, which doesn't appreciate our focus on Israel and Bible prophecy, then it can feel a very isolating experience.
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  And so when you're in a room with other remnant believers who are like-minded, it is, as you said, a microcosm of what it's going to be like when we're all home together.
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  Amen.
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  Amen, brother.
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  So, friends, if you're in that area, I mean, Iser Street Baptist Church, Toowoomba, Australia, and Pastor Dean is the pastor and president there.
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  So let's talk about something that you wrote about calling it a slippery slope.
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  of Australia's spirituality.
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  In other podcasts that we've talked with you, Dean, you said it wasn't always like this.
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  It was almost a Christian continent, but not even close anymore from what you've described.
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  And you say there's a deliberate campaign of atheism.
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  That's a kind of a flip from maybe what it was many, many years ago.
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  So talk to us about this slippery slope a little bit.
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  And by the way, friends, you can find this at harbingersdaily.com.
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  Dean wrote this about a month ago.
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  We're just going to go through some of his articles here.
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  So what's the slippery slope, Dean?
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  Yeah, well, thanks to Harbingers Daily for the ongoing opportunity.
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  I've been focusing on things concerning Australia over the last few articles because there is some alarm amongst remnant believers at the approach that the Australian government and judiciary are taking in relation to matters concerning Christian worldview.
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  Yeah.
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  Australia's population still sits at around the 28 million mark, so much smaller than America in population.
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  But of that, about 1.3 million people attend a church on a weekly basis.
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  So we're talking roughly 4.6% of the population who are in a church regularly on a Sunday morning.
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  Wow.
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  What I was careful to emphasise though in that article, we have around 10,600 churches throughout Australia.
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  But you take those statistics and what I've been careful to emphasise is that there are people attending a church.
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  But...
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  We know, and you know, David, that not every church is applying a literal hermeneutic.
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  Not every church is following a biblical worldview.
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  Not every church is teaching the full counsel of God.
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  So when we come down to the metrics of saying, okay, well, yes, 1.3 million or 4.6% of the population in Australia are attending a church weekly, but...
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  But we have no way of measuring if they are attending a church that is teaching the whole counsel of God and is applying the correct interpretation when it comes to Israel and biblical prophecy.
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  So we would assume that the number of people who are in good, solid,
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  churches is even lower than 4.6%, which is extremely alarming.
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  And I think as we've talked and I've talked to others, particularly Brandon recently as well, he says exactly the same.
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  So I'm sure you have many parallels in the United States.
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  Yes, you're right, and we've talked about some of those parallels.
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  We better be careful, not be careful, we better be aware that this is happening here in our country, guys.
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  If you're watching and listening from the United States, there's a lot of work to be done, not only in our country, but in the church, in the body of Christ, as a remnant believer.
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  But let's go to some of the...
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  The percentages from the census from about five years ago, Dean, that you put in the article, Christianity, no religion, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, there still seems to be a majority of people who would, I guess, profess Christianity.
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  Can you break that down for us, please?
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  Sure, and that's the key word, David, is professing Christianity.
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  And so we'll come to that shortly.
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  But yeah, you're right.
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  The statistics, so we go back to the 2021 census.
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  And the reason that I wrote the article or felt compelled to write the article is that when it came to the conference that we had with Amir and Pastor Barry,
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  because we couldn't fit everyone in that we'd like to, there was a comment made by somebody who was looking for tickets who had said, well, wouldn't it be wonderful if every Sunday, every pastor of a Bible-believing church had the same problem, that there were too many people, not enough seats.
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  So this is what compelled me to examine where Australia's at spiritually.
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  And if we go back to, let's go back to 1971,
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  So back then, 86.2% of people in Australia identified as Christian.
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  Wow.
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  50 years later in 2021, this is 50 years.
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  We're not even talking a generation.
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  That number has effectively halved and it sits at 43.9%.
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  Wow.
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  And this is what's so interesting.
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  We've just gone through the census a couple of weeks ago in Australia.
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  So everyone's eagerly awaiting the results to see where the percentages now sit.
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  Because in contrast to that, the no religion percentages, if we go back to 1911,
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  Only 0.2% of people in 1911 identified as having no religion.
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  Now, you go to 1971, that was 6.7%.
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  And then 2021 jumped significantly to 38.9%.
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  So that gap is closing very, very swiftly.
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  The next after that is Islam, which continues to be a major concern amongst people in Australia, currently sitting at 3.2%.
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  And as we know that that will grow significantly as well.
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  So it's very unfortunate, David.
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  But as we say, professing Christianity is...
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  is hard to measure because we have undoubtedly people that attend churches that do not have a personal and saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
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  And so what happened during the census, which I focused on in the article, is that there was a major push for...
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  from organisations that were trying to capture people who had perhaps walked away from Christianity or were only professing believers or those who believed they were Christian because they went to a Christian school or were raised in a Christian household.
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  And this campaign was really focusing on that segment of Australian society where they wanted to ensure that those people, when it came time for the census, did not automatically select Christianity as their religion, but that they would select no religion.
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  And so the reason that they gave for wanting to ensure that happened was because, as we know, there's a big slice of pie we call a federal budget.
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  And they want to ensure that federal funds are directed away from Christianity and away from Christian programs.
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  so that they can funnel those funds into secular and, as we know, very left-leaning progressive agendas.
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  So that was what was behind that push with the recent census.
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  So it was a very public campaign.
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  Yeah, and I like what you said.
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  You explained that further in your article.
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  I just want to share.
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  You said these atheists have launched this campaign to get people to record No Religion, and their website says, millions of Australians still mark a religion they were raised in, not one they live by.
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  Ooh, but you know what?
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  Let's point the finger right back at us guys here in the States.
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  And not that we have people in churches that believe in no religion, but people aren't living out what maybe their parents were raising them to be as far as Christian churches.
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  And it's a mess.
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  So you want to wrap this one up and we'll go to the next article, Dean?
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  Yeah, absolutely.
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  As you pointed out, I mean, the organisations behind that campaign were the Atheist Foundations.
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  So look, unfortunately, as you said, it's all politicised, unfortunately, and they were trying to take some funding away from Christian programs.
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  But as you said, when we talk about atheism, and there's the well-known psalm,
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  which reads in part, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God.
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  And so what's in view there is more practical atheism than intellectual atheism, which means that people are living a lifestyle which indicates in their view that there is no God.
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  And so it's a very unfortunate fact that the atheist foundations are, in their view, they might be looking at trying to appropriate federal funding in a different way than,
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  But the reality is that we're dealing with souls.
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  We're dealing with an eternal reality which is going to strike every person the moment of their death.
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  And I ended with a saying that has been in history, which is on earth atheists are many, in hell there is not any.
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  And so this is what they overlook is the fact that there is an eternity and they will have to answer that.
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  And as we know, the only hope that we have is Jesus.
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  And so this is more than just the slice of the pie.
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  This is about souls.
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  And this is why we push back on these programs and these campaigns.
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  Yes.
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  Friends, love people enough to tell them the truth.
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  Let's not look down our noses at atheists or unbelievers or even people who are hostile.
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  And I'm saying this going, man, sometimes you just want to get in their face and defend yourself or whatever.
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  But no, they really need Jesus.
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  I hope they receive the gospel and receive Jesus and believe before it's too late.
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  Let's go over to...
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  Same topic, your article on August 14, secularists once again have grown tired of Christianity's influence in Australia.
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  Dean, help me understand even that headline, because the influence, it seems like it's fading and it's long gone, but there's still, as you said, a remnant influence.
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  in Australia.
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  So what's the battle there?
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  Give us some examples on how secularists have grown tired of this influence.
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  Well, I think for the most part that comes through, and you've spoken about this a lot, through the education system.
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  We have an education system in Australia which is still the predominant choice for a number of parents.
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  There's probably roughly 62% of people who are still in government-approved schools.
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  And so at the moment we've seen some hostility from governments around the world to the choice that parents make to homeschool their children.
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  And so in Australia, there was an uneasy peace between homeschoolers and the government, but the government has started to make some noise around the homeschooling environment because what they've essentially said is that...
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  The concern they have is that with faith-based schools and those who are homeschooling, that they will not mix with people of other races, other faiths throughout their entire schooling life.
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  And in their mind, they feel that that is socially unacceptable.
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  will not lead to social cohesion in Australia.
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  So that's really upset a lot of people in Australia from that point of view, because as we know, government approved schools are simply the ideological pipeline that the government uses to force their propaganda onto impressionable minds.
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  So what we see with the statistics coming out of Australia is that homeschooling is becoming a very real option for a lot of parents who are essentially fed up.
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  with the extreme ideologies that are being taught to their children, particularly around environmentalism and transgenderism, et cetera.
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  And so they're making the decision in droves.
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  I mean, the homeschooling statistics are exceeding expectations.
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  In my home state, homeschooling, I think, has increased 232% recently.
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  So we can sense that Aussie parents are growing tired of
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  the propaganda that exists in the education system.
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  More than just propaganda, brother.
• 20:04
  It's interesting.
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  I mean, there's a lot in this article.
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  There's too much to get into now.
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  It's going by way too fast today, brother.
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  But do you want to just give us a couple more points from the article?
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  Maybe we'll try to squeeze in, touch on another one?
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  Yeah, well, look, you know, in Australia, unfortunately, we are just seeing problems.
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  And there's another article coming out very soon I'll mention as well, where we're seeing a judiciary which is demonstrating very much an anti-Israel bias in some of its rulings as well.
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  So we're seeing across the different branches of government in Australia, the legislative,
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  a degree of hostility.
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  They're deploying a degree of aggression to Aussie Christians.
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  And, you know, we've spoken as well before about the fact that some states are trying to ban prayer in homes.
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  They're trying to redirect the mind of children away from
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  an education in Christianity, the knowledge base that can be provided through a biblical worldview.
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  So secularists in Australia, as I said, they've really come out of the woodwork since the census and unfortunately really come out of the woodwork in a post-October 7 world because they're
• 21:33
  I think in their minds, they are sensing the death knell of Christianity and they're trying to drive the final nail in the coffin.
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  Now, we know that's not going to be the case, but what it's producing is, unfortunately, a Christianity which is growing weaker.
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  in terms of its ability to be able to withstand some of the hostility which exists in the culture.
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  And so this is the importance, David, of shows like yours and ministries where we're able to boldly stand on the truth because...
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  If we retreat, then we know that that vacuum of secularism and atheism is going to fill that space.
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  And so this is the agenda that they push.
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  They want to ensure that Christianity is pushed from the public space and so that they get to fill that ideological vacuum with their own progressive agenda.
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  And we know that we just can't leave people helpless to that agenda because it is godless and it is hopeless as well.
• 22:36
  I want to emphasize something you said, Dean, and I agree with you, brother.
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  If Bible-believing Christians retreat, I say if, but let's face it, in Australia, in America, that is what has happened.
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  Too many, not all, but way too many pastors, Christians, churches have taken their influence, removed their influence out of the public square and kept it behind church walls.
• 23:03
  Well, what happens then?
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  There is some void that's going to be filled with something.
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  Look back to America, the education system.
• 23:11
  Remove God from...
• 23:13
  Voluntary prayer to God, the Bible, Ten Commandments, that has been filled with ABC, anything but Christ.
• 23:21
  Look what's going on in our schools today, from transgenderism to socialism to LGBTQ and you name it, anti-Semitism.
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  That is...
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  on purpose because we backed off and gave them that ground.
• 23:36
  Dean, I'm running out of time, but let's talk briefly in the last several minutes here about your article about how the Australian government views homeschooling as a threat.
• 23:48
  Because it is.
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  Because if you homeschool your kids, they're not going to get the government-approved, quote-unquote, education.
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  So it says controlling the worldview of children.
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  Talk to us in the last couple minutes about this battle.
• 24:05
  Well, as I said, one of the ministers came out recently.
• 24:09
  So you have to remember that in Australia, unfortunately, we have a very left-leaning government at the moment under a prime minister called Anthony Albanese.
• 24:19
  And so he sent out one of his ministers to really...
• 24:26
  bring the hammer down on some of the homeschooling that occurs in Australia.
• 24:30
  And obviously they see that as a threat because the statistics are telling us that people are moving away from a government-mandated system.
• 24:37
  But it was interesting that in one of his comments, this is what he said.
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  He said, there are reports of quite extreme or conservative curricula being used gives pause and reflection if this trend continues.
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  What is being taught to these kids?
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  And so you didn't have to be Einstein to figure out that.
• 24:59
  I think what he's talking about is that he's concerned that in the homeschooling environment, kids are being taught a conservative curricula, which is based on historical, scientific and no doubt biblical fact, which we know to a left-leaning progressive government is seen as extreme curricula.
• 25:19
  So it was a thinly veiled attempt to, you know, malign the Christian homeschooling community because there are a lot of Christians that do homeschool.
• 25:29
  And so I turned it back around on him because I was, you know, somewhat offended that he would ask that very question.
• 25:36
  And I'd said in the article that Aussie parents...
• 25:40
  have the right to ask the very same question, what is being taught to our children when they go into the ideological pipeline you call government approved schools?
• 25:50
  Because they come out unrecognizable after 13 years of schooling, and particularly if they attend university, because in one of the other articles, I pointed out that identity politics was prevalent in about half of some of the university courses
• 26:07
  back in 2020 in Australia.
• 26:09
  So we know that the worldview adopted throughout some of the curricula or most of the curricula, not only in the schooling system, but also in the university education system is very much opposed to the biblical worldview.
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  So we have a right to ask as Christian parents, the same question, what is being taught to our children?
• 26:30
  Because it is unacceptable.
• 26:32
  Yeah, and this is the battle we're facing on this continent, too, in America.
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  And homeschooling is growing, by the way.
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  I mean, if there is any glimmer of light or a good thing about COVID, that is one thing.
• 26:47
  It took a lot of kids out of the public schools, not necessarily to pursue a classical Christian education, but at least to not be under the government's policy.
• 26:56
  thumb and their indoctrination, but more to come with Pastor Dean Dwyer.
• 27:00
  Again, friends, read some of his great articles.
• 27:03
  So we understand what's happening to Australia, because as I often say, what happens in the UK doesn't stay in the UK.
• 27:09
  What happens in Australia doesn't stay in Australia.
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  And if you're in the United States, if you're in the Midwest like we are, what happens in California...
• 27:18
  or New York doesn't stay there either.
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  So we've got to be better at staying true to the biblical worldview and teaching our younger generation.
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  You know the drill, making disciples, preaching the gospel, standing on truth, but lovingly and respectfully, truth in love.
• 27:34
  Brother, thank you so much.
• 27:35
  God bless your ministry.
• 27:36
  We appreciate you.
• 27:39
  Thank you.
• 27:39
  Love you, David.
• 27:40
  Thank you, Matt.
• 27:41
  Thank you again, friends.
• 27:42
  God bless you.
• 27:42
  And as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.
• 27:46
  See you next time.