Lyle Shelton Quits Australian Christian Lobby To Enter Politics
Today the Australian Christian Lobby announced a change in leadership. Through their YouTube channel Chairman of the ACL Jim Wallace appeared with Managing Director Lyle Shelton to announce Lyle was quitting the ACL after 10 years with the organization to pursue a career in politics.
During the video he stated “Last year during the marriage campaign, I felt very much drawn to the political side of things for the partisan side of politics. With that in mind … I’ve decided to make a big step to move back to my home state of Queensland”.
Because the ACL is non-partisan organization Shelton did not announce on this video who he would be running with but said that another announcement would follow shortly. It has been widely reported now that he will join Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives to be their Queensland Senate candidate at the next federal election. This is widely tipped to be confirmed tomorrow when Shelton appears at a community meeting in Toowoomba.
Wallace later in the video announced that Shelton would be replaced as Managing Director by his chief of staff for the past two years Martyn Iles who also heads up the Human Rights Law Alliance which aims to represent Christians who are being discriminated against for practicing their faith.
Wallace stated that Iles’ background would gear ACL up for the pending fight to defend religious freedoms and claimed his youthful age would allow him to reach and engage the next generation of Christians in Australia. Iles declared “there’s never been a more crucial time in history in Australia for the Church and for Christian people to continue to engage with law and with politics and with culture”.
The new vocations of Shelton and Iles will certainly be eagerly anticipated as issue of faith and religious freedoms are sure to continue to dominate Australian politics.