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Wicked governments can criminalize prayer, but faithful Christians will continue to pray for all those lost in sin because we are called to obey God rather than man — and that includes Big Brother.
When George Orwell wrote his chilling dystopian novel 1984, it was meant to serve as a warning of what might happen if the government grew so big and powerful that it could police and punish you for the thoughts inside your own head.
But the modern Left doesn’t read it as a warning — they use it as a blueprint.
And in the Australian state of Victoria, it appears they intend on implementing as much of the Orwellian nightmare as they can get away with, starting by targeting private prayers.
That’s right, a recent law in Victoria, the “The Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021” goes as far as banning any prayers for individuals who are lost in the sin of homosexuality under the guise of preventing “conversion therapy.”
The Victoria Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission website tries to argue that “Everyone has the right to be treated equally and without discrimination. Practices that seek to change or hide someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity are harmful and unlawful. The Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021 bans these change or suppression practices and provides a range of options for preventing and responding to them.”
Everyone has a right to be treated equally. And without discrimination? Not exactly. Not Christians, who believe that homosexuality is a sin and that they should lovingly pray to God for the salvation of those lost in all forms of sexual immorality.
Writing for the Daily Signal, Tyler O’Neil further summarizes the law, explaining that:
“The law also bans ‘carrying out a religious practice, including but not limited to, a prayer-based practice, a deliverance practice or an exorcism.’
The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission lays out ‘prayer practices’ that fall under the ban, ‘with or without a LGBT person.’
According to the commission, ‘prayers that are directed at a person to change or suppress their sexual orientation or gender identity cause harm and are prohibited.’ Forbidden prayers include petitions to God that ‘ask for healing; ask for a person to change; ask for a person not to act on their attractions; talk about a person’s brokenness or need to repent; [and] ask for long-term celibacy.’”
It’s hard to imagine exactly how the Victorian state government would plan to enforce this law, but the law itself is crystal clear: It is now illegal to privately pray for the salvation of homosexuals and/or that they would actively turn from their homosexual lusts and re-embrace rightly ordered sexual desires.
The nature and scope of this governmental intrusion into the beliefs and practices of sincere Christians in Victoria is staggering; the state has done nothing less than declare itself “god” and decided to dictate the tenets of acceptable faith to those under their authority.
As O’Neil so aptly put it: “If calls for repentance violate the law, then Christianity itself has been made illegal in the state of Victoria, home to roughly 7 million Australians.”
It’s also interesting to note that the law doesn’t attempt to ban prayers for repentance from other biblical sins, such as murder, theft, or gluttony. That’s because, in our post-sexual revolution world, only the alphabet sins of the LGBTQIA+ agenda have been elevated to the special status of untouchable “identities.”
The Bible knows nothing of such a special carveout. Romans 3:23 teaches us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and that homosexuality and other expressions of sexual immorality are included in the sins that cause us to fall short. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 states that “Or do you not know that the unrighteous[b] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
The reason that Christians pray for those living in the sin of homosexuality or transgenderism, and also share the Gospel, call them to repent, and, yes, even to convert is because we want to see them saved from their sin and inherit the Kingdom of God.
We do this because the very next verse in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 11, shows us that what is disingenuously labeled as “conversion therapy” is exactly what God does for those who repent:
“And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
“Such were some of you,” says Paul; and the “some” includes homosexuals. God loves to change hearts and lives, and homosexuals are no exception.
But to do this in Victoria now, to hold out this good news, or to even hope and pray it inside the quiet recesses of your very mind and heart, is now illegal.
It’s illegal because the government of Victoria serves another god, and it aims to enforce another religion altogether: the religion of unfettered sexual license and unchallenged degeneracy.
Christians cannot serve this false god nor comply with its demand to curtail their obedience to the one true God, who commands repentance to be preached in His name throughout all the earth. To be a Christian in an increasingly evil and authoritarian age means embracing the role of a dissident and speaking the truth — even when it’s costly.
Finally, it would be a mistake to assume such a law might never come to our home soil. The Daily Signal notes that “27 states, along with Washington, D.C., and one U.S. territory have laws banning ‘conversion therapy’ for minors, according to the pro-LGBTQ Movement Advancement Project.”
Wicked governments might be able to make prayer illegal, but faithful Christians will continue to pray for all those lost in sin, including homosexuals, in honor of the two greatest commandments: love for God and love for neighbors. The Australian state of Victoria might make this a Thoughtcrime, but Christians know what it truly is — a demand for obedience. And when push comes to shove, we must obey God rather than man — or, in this case, Big Brother.
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