I’ve just published a post to christen my new substack. It’s all about Mike Pilavachi and the lessons the church is (or isn’t) learning.
Two weeks ago, Matt and Beth Redman released a documentary called “Let There Be Light”. It’s all about what happened with Mike Pilavachi – how Mike was able to continue his pattern of coercive, manipulative and abusive behaviour towards young people over many years.
It’s worth watching because it helps to explain the way that abuse works in churches.
At the end of the video, they share some thoughts about what the church needs to do differently in order to help combat abuse. This essentially boils down to, “listen to people, even if they’re not important. Take allegations seriously, consider the possibility that they might be true.”
All of this is absolutely true, to the point of being ‘motherhood-and-apple-pie’. I suspect that no-one on the Soul Survivor team would have disagreed with it at the time allegations against Mike were first raised. No-one seems to question why we actually need to say these things in the first place – this is not rocket science (or whatever the theological equivalent is)!
A couple of things have made me think of atheism lately, which has made me realise how much things have changed in the last few years. I used to spend hours online debating atheists – far too much time, if I’m honest. Time which would have been far better spent doing something more productive. (I don’t think any good ever came out of debating atheists on the internet.)
Some of that debating was done on this blog, and out of curiosity I decided to search for the last time it happened. The last time was back in February 2016, which was when I decided I’d had enough and pulled the plug on it. That’s about eight years ago now. Eight years may not seem like a long time, but with the pace of what’s happening today it’s virtually an eternity. The world is fundamentally different, and it’s a world where atheism just doesn’t seem to belong any more.
There were a couple of things that made me come to this realisation.
1: The Life of Brian
The first thing was watching the classic film, Monty Python’s Life of Brian. I love this film – it’s one of my all-time favourites. I watched it a lot as a student, but I haven’t watched it for a few years. Coming back to the film I felt like I saw it through new eyes. The film is famous for being a satire of religion, but I felt like the critique of religion didn’t really hit the target any more.
The film is heavily critical of hypocritical moralism. It’s the kind of religion which may have been popular amongst the political and media class back in the 1960s and 70s, but it’s no longer the religion of the elites. In fact, it seemed to me like the film would be more accurately targeted at the new religion of the elites – what we might call “wokeism”.
The scene which hit me most of all was the scene where one of the characters says he wants to be a woman:
I know it gets said a lot, but this scene would absolutely never be made in today’s climate! But that in itself is telling. It struck me that what Python thought was utterly impossible happened within a few decades. The idea that a man could actually become a woman is absurd – but instead of mocking the idea, we now have to pretend that it is possible. Now you are mocked (or more likely cancelled) if you are ‘gender-critical’.
A few years ago I read an article which suggested that the new atheists had morphed into the social justice movement (which became wokeism). It should have been an obvious step: as Dostoevsky once observed, “if God is dead, everything is permitted.” It seems that the new atheists actually paved the way for the insanity which is going on at the moment. The atheist critique of religion, such as the Pythons made in the Life of Brian, is far more applicable to this modern secular religion than it is to Christianity.
What I find strange is the lack of self-awareness of some modern atheists who don’t realise that the critique they make of religion applies far more to the godless secular “woke” religion than it does to Christianity.
2: Anti-theist pile ons
A few days ago, I made a video about why we should stop doing evangelism. For some reason, this video seems to have been picked up on YouTube by a lot of anti-religious types who have been commenting – assuming that I’m an ex-Christian, or something like that. (I presume it’s because they haven’t watched the video but are just reacting to the title. This is a depressingly familiar experience to anyone who posts videos to YouTube.)
What struck me this time, however, was how much has changed since I was last engaging with anti-religious types. I’m not sure whether the change has been within me, or whether the world has changed. Either way, the atmosphere is different now. Whereas ten or so years ago Christians might have seemed like dinosaurs, now it seems to me that it’s the atheists who are the dinosaurs. They just don’t fit in this world any more. Their arguments have been tried and found wanting; they have nothing to offer a world in the mess that we’re in.
You can see the way that that people are far more receptive to Christianity looking at what’s happened in the last few years: just to name a handful of examples, Tom Holland’s bestselling book Dominion powerfully made the case that Christianity has made more impact on the Western world than anything else. Jordan Peterson has lectures on books of the Old Testament with millions of views. Several high profile intellectuals have converted to Christianity (e.g. most recently, Ayaan Hirsi Ali – once a member of the new atheist movement). Many public political figures and commentators such as Calvin Robinson and Laurence Fox speak openly about their faith. Many in the freedom movement (such as Eva Vlaardingerbroek) are Christian. I could go on and on.
Christianity isn’t something to be embarrassed by any more; many people are much bolder in speaking open about it – and the world is starting to listen. Where once people weren’t open to the Bible or Christianity, now there is renewed interest. Covid, lockdowns, government authoritarianism, the cost of living crisis, war in Ukraine, and so on – everything is falling apart. A lot of people are putting the pieces together and thinking, “well, maybe doing things without God hasn’t worked out so well after all.”
It just struck me, as I was reading those comments over the last couple of days, these anti-theist types are tone-deaf. They just don’t recognise what is happening in the world, and they have no solutions to offer. All they can do is recycle their tired old cliches about religion. The boot is well and truly on the other foot: once it was Christianity that was on the defensive; now it’s atheism.
All I wanted to say to these people was: “read the room, guys … do you not see how out of place you look today?” It seems to me that it is the atheists who are now on the wrong side of history.
Atheism is a spent force
Twelve years ago, Richard Dawkins did a survey on attitudes to Christianity in the UK. He concluded: “it is clear that faith is a spent force in the UK”.
Well, a lot can change in twelve years. I would argue that atheism is now a spent force in the UK. Twelve years ago, it was kind of cool to be an atheist – a lot of comedians made jokes about Christianity, for example. It was common to attack Christians on the internet for their ridiculous and outdated beliefs. Now, however – things have changed 180 degrees. Given the madness of what is happening in the world, atheism feels like an irrelevance at best. Even Richard Dawkins himself has changed his tune – described himself recently as a “cultural Christian” and that he’d rather live in a Christian country than an Islamic one.
When I look back on the debates I used to have about Christianity and atheism, I think I was far too defensive. Christianity doesn’t need defending. As I believe Spurgeon once said: “Defend the Bible? I’d soon as defend a lion!”
Atheism is the ultimate ‘luxury belief’, a belief which is only possible in a world where things work pretty well. As society collapses deeper into decay and chaos, people realise that Solzhenitsyn’s words are absolutely true: “Men have forgotten God, that’s why all this has happened.” I never needed to defend Christianity from atheists. Rather, I needed to proclaim the truth that, unless we repent and believe in the good news, madness and chaos awaits. That is exactly what we are seeing now.
My challenge to atheists today is the same as it is for everyone: will you repent of your sins and submit to Christ as Lord today, and find salvation – or will you continue in your wilful unbelief and suffer the consequences?
In the words of the writer to the Hebrews, which I will finish with:
How shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?
In this video I want to explain why I think the way the church is going about evangelism at the moment is not helping and in fact even hinders the gospel. I think we need to stop evangelising and start doing discipleship instead.
This video was posted to Understand the Bible, but I think it’s important enough to repost here. If you’d prefer to read a transcript you can read it on that page.
One of the things I find most difficult about modern politics is the question of Israel. Should I, as a Christian, support Israel or not? Should I support Palestine or not? I think a lot of Christians have the idea that all Christians should support Israel unconditionally – or at least, should mostly support Israel. This stems from a belief that the Jews are still important to God’s plans – they are still God’s people, even if they have mostly rejected the Messiah up until now.
The events of October 7th have, once again, brought questions about Israel to the fore. I have been finding it extremely difficult to know what to say: it seems to be highly divided among political lines, with most of the people on the right supporting Israel, and most of the people on the left supporting Palestine. It all seems very tribal.
Part of the problem with a topic like this is that it’s enormously complex, not to mention the fact that people have strong feelings on the matter, plus the matter of people being killed in the Middle East as we speak. It’s difficult to think of an issue right now where the stakes are higher.
I am not capable of unpicking all the complexity and nor would a single blog post be the right way of doing it. However, I do know something about the Bible, and I do think there are real problems with the way some Christians approach the Bible when it comes to the Jews. What I’d like to do in this post is, firstly, explore why I am not a Christian Zionist, and then (tentatively) suggest how this might affect our position on Israel today.
Why I am not a Christian Zionist
For most of my Christian life, up until a few years ago, I never heard the phrase ‘Christian Zionism’. I think it’s a bigger thing in the USA than it is in the UK. In fact, a big part of the problem is that the Christian Zionists in the USA have got real political clout. (There is a large block of Zionist evangelicals in America who will vote for who will best support Israel, and they have a strong lobby at the White House).
However, when I was a child I do remember coming across the idea that the Jewish people were still part of God’s plans and they would be needed before Jesus returned. I didn’t realise at the time that this was a part of Christian Zionism. Other conversations I’ve had since then have made me think that this is common amongst UK Christians, even if they wouldn’t call themselves “Christian Zionists”.
My problem with Christian Zionism is that I think it is based on a simplistic and ultimately flawed reading of the Bible. It’s easy to read the Bible and pull out a few proof texts to show that we should support Israel. At the same time, as Christians we should do better: I believe it was C.S. Lewis who once remarked that the Bible is a book for grown-ups. It will not do to simply take a few texts out of context. This becomes doubly important when people are losing their lives – both Israelis and Palestinians. The stakes are too high for poor theology.
The organisation Christians United for Israel has a page on their website, “Why support Israel?” I thought the best way to begin was to go through these reasons and explain why I disagree. After looking at the Biblical angle, I want to outline a few points for how this might relate to the current situation.
1. Israel was created by God
I, of course, have no argument with the fact that Israel was created by God. However, for this exact reason, I think we need to be careful: because Israel belongs to God, his rules apply. So, are there any rules we need to be aware of?
They support their point by quoting Genesis 17, but I think Exodus 19:5 might be even more appropriate:
Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.
Exodus 19:5
This verse demonstrates exactly what I mean. God does promise that Israel would be his “treasured possession” out of all nations. However, the promise is conditional – there’s an “if” attached to it. God says IF you obey me fully and IF you keep my covenant. Which leads to the question, what if Israel have not obeyed God and kept his covenant?
I want to raise here at the outset that obedience to God has always been required of his people. Disobedience to God leads to separation from him, and consequently his judgement. This is what Isaiah said:
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken falsely, and your tongue mutters wicked things.
Isaiah 59:2-3
2. God promises a blessing to those that bless Israel
God did indeed promise Abraham that he would bless those who blessed him. However, let’s think about that word blessing. What is blessing? We know from the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) that blessing is not simply a material thing.
Sometimes blessing involves material things, but I would argue that the supreme blessing is to know God and walk in obedience to him. That is the most good that it’s possible to want for someone. Blessing someone is helping them to know the Lord and to walk in his ways – which sometimes means pointing out where they are going wrong (i.e. their sins) and calling them to repent. In fact, Jesus summarises the gospel message as “repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24:47).
The idea of blessing as largely being a material thing (i.e. supplying money, goods, weapons and so on) is something which could only have happened in a materialistic world, like the Western world we live in. If we really want to bless Israel, we should pray for them to seek the Lord first and foremost.
We should remember that God fulfilled his promise to bless the Israelites throughout the Old Testament – and yet that often involved rebuking his people when they sinned. They were eventually taken into exile by Assyria and Babylon because of their stubborn sinfulness. This was, in a sense, all part of God’s blessing. If we are to take blessing seriously, we need to remember that God is the one who defines what blessing is – not Western materialism.
3. Jesus considered Jews ‘his family’
This is the only point where I disagree outright. Jesus told us explicitly who he considered his family:
“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.
Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
Mark 3:33-35
Jesus said that “whoever does God’s will” is a member of his family. As we know from elsewhere, this includes anyone who repents and believes the good news. This fits with what we read elsewhere in the New Testament, for example Hebrews 2:11 says, “Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters” (speaking of all those who have been saved).
I believe the church is Jesus’ family – the church being comprised of both Gentile and Jewish believers. The apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians: “His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two [Jew and Gentile], thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.” In Christ, Jew and Gentile become “one new humanity”, reconciled to God by the cross, which enables them to put away their hostility. There is only onefamily of Jesus’, and that is the church.
This has a direct bearing on how Christians should relate to the modern state of Israel. Loyalty between fellow Christians is greater than any other kind of loyalty. If the state of Israel today are doing things which oppress Christians, then Christians should stand against it. I find it baffling how Christians could side with the Jews over against their own brothers and sisters in Christ.
Think about how the apostles reacted when the early church was being persecuted by the Jews. They didn’t think “well, the Jews are God’s special people, so we have to help them persecute us…”
4. Christians are called to be ‘watchmen’
I’m not sure I even know what this means. They quote Isaiah 62:6-7, which mentions watchmen, but I’m can’t understand exactly what action we should be taking on the basis of it.
This does, however, lead to a serious point about their usage of the Bible. They say that Christians are called to be ‘watchmen’, and then go on to quote from Isaiah – which is part of the Old Testament (addressed to the Israelites). This raises the question of how the Old Testament relates to the New. How DO commands which were given to the Israelites relate to Christians – if they still apply to the Jews?
Part of the problem, it seems to me, is that Christian Zionists do not think deeply enough about how the two testaments relate – especially, how the New Testament fulfils the old. (This is the strength of Rob Dalrymple’s book). We need to reckon seriously with verses like 2 Corinthians 1:20, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ.” Every promise God has made is fulfilled in Christ. At the very least, that should stop us from giving simplistic interpretations of Old Testament prophecy.
5. Christians have a duty to bless Israel
The verse they quote is Romans 15:27, “if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews’ spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings.” I’ll come back to Romans in a moment, because I want to address it separately. I already addressed the question of ‘blessing’ back in point #2.
6. Christians should pray for Jerusalem
Once again – as in point #4 – we have the problem of how the Old Testament relates to the new. Psalm 122:6 does indeed say to pray for the peace of Jerusalem – and, in fact, I have no problem praying for the peace of Jerusalem. (As I would pray for the peace of any earthly city!)
However, for Christians, we need to think a bit more deeply about this. Jerusalem is not just a physical place – it’s a symbolic place. God put the temple in Jerusalem as the symbol of dwelling with his people. That’s why it was such a significant place for the people of Israel. The temple was central to the Old Testament understanding of the people relating to God.
However, where is the temple now? The physical temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70AD – as Jesus predicted. However, Jesus himself is now our temple (John 2:21). Those who are united to Christ by faith have access to God in a way which was never enjoyed by the Israelites. This was symbolised by the curtain temple being torn in two when Jesus died (Matthew 27:51). Now we can enter into the Most Holy Place through the blood of Jesus (Hebrews 10:20).
Although there is still an earthly Jerusalem, this is no longer how we have access to God. Instead, there is a heavenly Jerusalem which all Christians come to (Hebrews 12:22). This new Jerusalem represents God dwelling with his people, and one day it will be complete – John sees a vision of the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven in Revelation 21.
The point of all of this is to say that, for me as a Christian, ‘Jerusalem’ in the Bible doesn’t represent a city on earth, so much as where God dwells with his people – in the hearts of every believer. Again, this is not to say that we shouldn’t pray for the peace of earthly Jerusalem – but rather that the earthly city of Jerusalem doesn’t have the same theological significance it once did.
7. God has not forsaken his people
Once again the quotation is from Romans, which I will come on to. In general, I think this is a good point, which is that God does not neglect or go back on his promises. I would say though, as in point #1, that these promises came with the condition of obedience.
God’s faithfulness to his promises means that he will always save those who are trusting in him – but he will punish those who are disobedient. He punished the Israelites many times throughout the Old Testament for turning away from him – and in fact, this is Paul’s point in Romans 11:5 when he talks about a “remnant chosen by grace”. On that note, let’s move on to think about Romans.
What about Romans?
I have just finished preaching through the whole book of Romans, and I feel that I’ve learned a lot along the way. A lot of the debate about the place of the Jews in God’s plans centres around passages in Romans, none more so than 11:26: “all Israel will be saved.” What does this mean?
I’d like to offer up a few thoughts.
Firstly, the church in Rome was made up of both Jewish and Gentile Christians, and they seemed to have real problems with unity. The Jewish Christians looked down on the Gentile Christians (as was customary for Jews of the day), and the Gentile Christians could be contemptuous of the Jews (Romans 14:3, 10). Paul’s response to this is to focus both groups on Jesus. His point is that the gospel requires everyone to repent and believe – it humbles us all. The problem with the Jews is that they were too proud of their law-keeping abilities. They didn’t think they needed Jesus. The Gentiles, on the other hand, became proud because they thought God had chosen them over his own people.
The point that Paul emphasises over and again is that of unity. Jewish Christians are part of the same body as Gentile Christians – and they should worship together and support one another. He makes the point in Romans and Galatians that those who have the faith of Abraham are his descendants (Romans 9:8; Galatians 3:7) – i.e. both Jews and Gentiles alike who have faith in Christ share in God’s promises. In the gospel, God does not distinguish between Jew and Gentile (Galatians 3:28).
Secondly, Paul’s expression “all Israel will be saved” is a puzzling one. He also says in the same letter, “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel” (Romans 9:6). In another letter, he describes the church as the “Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16). Whether this is what Paul means here is unclear. I think on balance that Paul is talking about the full number of Israel who are appointed to salvation – the elect – rather than all Israel without distinction. But it’s hard to say exactly and I wouldn’t like to be dogmatic about it. Paul’s overall point is to hammer home the message of unity in Christ, that was his overriding concern and it should be ours too. I should also add that, whatever one thinks about the verse, it does not entail any specific political or military action in the 21st century.
Thirdly, and perhaps most controversially, I am not convinced that the group Paul refers to as “the Jews” still exists. Romans was almost certainly written before the destruction of the temple in 70AD. Christianity at that time had not really emerged as something separate – it was still seen as a movement within Judaism. In other words, there were still faithful Jews who could keep all the Old Testament laws including sacrifices. This is no longer the case. You actually can’t be Jewish today in the way that Old Testament Israelites could be. As I said, Old Testament Israelite religion was centred around the temple – you can’t just take the temple out and everything else remain the same.
Modern day Judaism is very different to what Paul would have been familiar with, and it’s hard to imagine what he would have made of it. I don’t think that, when Paul referred to the Jews, he would have intended a group of people who only saw themselves as Jewish “culturally”, by physical descent, and not religiously. I’m sure he would have thought it anathema to say that a Jewish person could be a secular, atheistic Jew.
The main point I’m trying to make here is that, when it comes to the Jews in the book of Romans, “it’s complicated”. In particular, I don’t think it’s possible to draw a straight line from anything Paul says in Romans to political action today related to the state of Israel.
Other Biblical prophecies
One of the things which Christian Zionists sometimes refer to is prophecies which they believe have been fulfilled by events of the last hundred years. You could obviously write a book about this, and some people indeed have (see e.g. Rob Dalrymple’s book which I mentioned above). I’d just like to add that, in God’s world, prophecy does not need human beings to decide what that prophecy is and act upon it for it to be fulfilled. God’s words will be fulfilled, regardless. He knows the end from the beginning.
Furthermore, I do not believe it is appropriate to take some contentious (and that’s being charitable) interpretations of prophecy from the Old Testament and the book of Revelation, and then say they are being fulfilled in the creation of the modern state of Israel. Some Christian Zionists have the idea that Israel needs to be supported, to trigger the battle of Armageddon and the return of Christ.
All I will say is – as many Jewish people have pointed out – is this really fair to Jews, to use them as bait in the return of Christ? Is it really loving to them? Much more on this could be said but I don’t have time right now. Suffice it to say that I encourage interested readers to look into the topics involved and study the Bible for themselves with a decent commentary.
What did Jesus say?
I appreciate I’ve gone on for long enough, so I just want to close this section with one more point. What did Jesus have to say? Look at this exchange from John’s Gospel:
“Abraham is our father,” they answered.
“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”
John 8:39-47
Jesus could not be clearer here. “You belong to your father, the devil”, “the reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God”. Jesus puts these Jews, children of Abraham, squarely in the same camp as the rest of humanity. Physical descent from Abraham counts for nothing. Spiritually, they are as blind as anyone.
I believe this is how Jesus treated those Jews who rejected him – and we are not above our master.
So, what about Israel today?
I appreciate that this has been a long post already, and I haven’t said half of it! I will be much briefer in this section. What I’d like to do in conclusion is draw a few principles together.
#1:Everyone – including Jews – have the right to live in peace and safety. Not specifically because they are Jews, but because of our common humanity. Nobody – Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Christian – should live in fear. I know that many Jews do not feel safe after the events of October 7th. The police can and should clamp down on any antisemitic violence.
#2: It’s not my place to say whether Israel has a right to exist. I think there are some questions which are, as they say, ‘above my pay grade’. The question for me is not whether Israel has a right to exist, it does exist. There’s a joke about someone stopping to ask for directions, and the man replies “well, I wouldn’t start from here”. The fact is, I can’t change the events of the last hundred years or so. Those in this country who have a problem with Israel have the right to campaign peacefully and seek to change things via democratic means. But, regardless of the history of the British and Americans in the creation of Israel and other countries in the Middle East, what happens there is now their business.
#3: Israel should be held to the same standards as any other country. This is the part where I think a lot of people who are pro-Israel need to listen to people are pro-Palestine. Sometimes when I listen to pro-Israel people talking, you could be forgiven for thinking that Israel is the only country which cannot do any wrong. As a Christian, I believe there is one set of moral standards which governs us all. If any country – whether ourselves, allies, or enemies – violates those standards, it’s important to speak out about it. If Israel are doing what is wrong, then they should be held to the same standards as any other country.
The fact that what Hamas have done is evil does not excuse Israel. The fact that Jewish people experienced the terrible evil of the holocaust does not give them a license to commit evil acts. This is in no way to excuse Hamas or to say we should do nothing. But, in the pithy aphorism I learned when I was a child, “two wrongs don’t make a right”.
I do appreciate that many Western folks, myself included, are concerned about Islamist groups such as Hamas (and, indeed, I have written about Islamism before). I am not at all trying to give Hamas a free pass. However, I believe that we will only make headway against groups like this when we hold ourselves and our allies to an impeccable moral standard. If Israel are not acting rightly, then they should be called out. This does not exclude responding to Hamas or Islamists either, but we cannot have one moral standard for ourselves / our allies, and another for our enemies. One of the problems with the situation in the Middle East is the West (especially America’s) unstinting support of Israel (“The United States has given Israel more aid than any other nation since World War II”), driven in large part by the Christian Zionist lobby.
I do not wish to go into the rights and wrongs of Israel here, but I recently read Ben White’s book Israeli Apartheid and interested readers may wish to read it to see what all the fuss is about. I also found this Al-Jazeera documentary (two parts) helpful. (I know Al-Jazeera will not naturally be pro-Israel, but it’s helpful to hear from Christians in the region). There’s also an article about terrorism in Israel’s history by Tom Suarez, from a speech delivered in the House of Lords.
There are real problems with Israel which are simply overlooked. One of the biggest problems is the Israeli state’s definition of being Jewish. That is, you can become an Israeli citizen if you are Jewish (by physical descent) – unless you’ve converted to another religion. You can remain a Jew if you are an atheist, however. So you can be an atheist Jew, but not a Christian Jew. Explain that one to me?! … And those who are not Jewish cannot become Israeli citizens. There are many more examples.
#4: The only hope for peace is the Prince of Peace. I believe Jesus, the Prince of Peace, is the only hope for peace across the world – especially in the Middle East. My hope is that all Christians everywhere would seek and pray for all people to turn to the Lord Jesus, rather than trying to play political and military games in the Middle East and aiming to trigger Jesus’ return somehow.
Postscript, updated July 2025: for anyone interested, I have recorded a follow-up piece on Understand the Bible looking at who the inheritors are of the promise in Genesis 12:
Over the last few weeks I’ve seen a few people talking about the question of what is and is not a “salvation issue”. The presenting issue is sexuality and marriage (yes, again). Jayne Ozanne, who is a vocal supporter of same-sex marriage within the church, wrote an article in Premier Christianity arguing that sex outside marriage is not a “salvation issue”. In that piece, she maintains that repentance is not necessary for salvation:
Of course, repentance is important. It is something we do when we are so overwhelmed by love that we want to change, in order to become more like the source of that love. It is not, however, the condition on which our salvation hinges. We see that in Jesus’ act of abundant grace while he was dying on the cross. We know it from his proclamation in John 3:15: “that whoever believes in him may have eternal life”. No caveats. It is simply what God does for us.
I think she makes an important point here. Salvation is ultimately about God’s love for us: it is a gift from first to last. The question from our perspective is how we respond to that love. Jayne rightly points out that God’s love brings about real change in us – repentance. However, I would disagree with her about the necessity of repentance in the Christian life.
What I want to do in this post is to think through this issue from the Bible. I believe the way people tend to think about salvation issues is misconceived, and I’d like to suggest a more helpful way of framing the issue.
What is a salvation issue?
A salvation issue is an issue which is so important that it is critical to believe in order to be saved. Traditionally this has included belief in the Trinity. Take the Athanasian Creed, for example. This creed is one of the three creeds which are officially recognised by the Church of England. You can still find it in the Book of Common Prayer, even if it is rarely used these days. This is how it begins:
Whosoever will be saved: before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith. Which Faith except everyone one do keep whole and undefiled: without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
Book of Common Prayer
In a nutshell, this is saying that you are not saved unless you hold to the whole of the Christian faith, including the doctrine of the Trinity (as explained in the rest of the Athanasian Creed). In my opinion, this is not far from how a lot of people think about salvation issues: you must subscribe to a certain set of beliefs, otherwise you are out.
The problem with this approach it that it seems almost arbitrary. If understanding the finer points of the Trinity (for example, hypostatic union) is necessary for salvation, then many people are not going to be saved. I didn’t study the Trinity until I was at theological college – many churches simply don’t go near anything theological (sadly – it’s so important!)
And, let’s be honest – how many people understand everything they need to understand about Christianity when they become a Christian? We don’t start out with our theology fully formed. For all of us, Christianity is a lifelong journey of learning.
I appreciate that a subject like the Trinity might seem academic – for a lot of Christians, it’s something that you just have to believe even if you don’t understand it all. (They obviously haven’t come across my series on the Apostle’s Creed yet!) But clearly Christianity is not simply a matter of belief but behaviour. At the end of the day, our beliefs are demonstrated by the way that we live. Let’s home in on those moral issues.
How moral issues matter
All Christians agree that some behaviour is right and some is wrong. Jesus’ summary of the gospel message, according to Luke, is “repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24:47). We know that we need to be forgiven and that we need to repent of our sins. But the question is, where are the red lines? And are all red lines equal? For example, someone who steals something trivial from their friend has done something wrong, but that’s clearly not as wrong as murdering them. Is stealing a salvation issue? Is murder a salvation issue? The second is clearly more serious, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for us to become burglars.
We also know that everyone falls short of what God requires – as Paul puts it, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Everyone needs forgiveness. So, someone could steal or even murder, then be genuinely repentant and find forgiveness. There are examples of both in the Bible – Moses and David, for example, were guilty of murder and adultery respectively. In fact, almost everyone God used in the Bible was guilty of some egregious sin at some point.
So, how do we know which moral issues are the key ones? And how do we know how far past the red line we’re allowed to go before we’re out? These are both good questions – but both of them stem from a misunderstanding. Let’s think about morality in general.
Which moral issues are salvation issues?
Perhaps the biggest reason why people have a problem with moral issues being salvation issues is that it seems so arbitrary. People imagine that there are two lists, “salvation issues” and “non-salvation issues” – and they have been distributed almost at random. So, someone who crosses one boundary is safe, whereas someone who crosses another is condemned to judgement. If this was how it worked, I agree this would be grossly unfair.
Fortunately, this is not at all how it works – God doesn’t have two separate lists. The whole law (i.e. the Ten Commandments) is actually an integrated whole. Jesus sums up the law in two commandments: firstly, to love the Lord with our heart, soul, mind and strength; secondly, to love our neighbour as ourselves. As he says, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:40). This is repeated elsewhere in the New Testament: Paul says twice that love is the fulfilment of the Law (Romans 13:10; Galatians 5:14).
If you want more about the Law and how it is fulfilled by love, check out my book: Confused by Grace!
The problem people have is that they see the commandments as being ‘standalone’, a simple list of arbitrary rules that God has made. However, this is the opposite of the truth. The commandments simply express God’s will for us – to love him and one another – in ways we can understand. But, as Jesus made clear in the Sermon on the Mount, they are not the sum total of what God requires of us! All of us fall short all the time of the love that God requires of us. It’s not the case that there are some issues that God puts in the “salvation issue” box, and others that God doesn’t. There is only one issue in the “salvation issue” box, and that’s love.
Is sexual sin a special case?
As we have seen, in a sense all sins are equal – because all sin comes from a lack of love. Some people argue that sexual sin is just like any other sin, and it’s not something to get worked up about – any more than, say, gossip or slander. However, I believe this is not paying enough attention to the Scriptures. Sexual sin does seem to be given particular attention in the New Testament. For example, Paul says:
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.
1 Corinthians 6:18
Paul says that sexual immorality is a sin against our own bodies. This is in line with the rest of the New Testament teaching – let me quote a few other examples:
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honourable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-6
Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
Hebrews 13:4
Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways.
Revelation 2:20-22
Many sins are condemned in the New Testament, but it does seem that the NT writers seem to give particular attention to sexual sin and often make reference to punishment about it (something which they don’t tend to do for other sins). Why should this be the case? Two reasons: (1) sex is a hugely powerful thing; (2) God intended sex to be all about love.
No-one doubts that sex is a powerful thing, it’s simply not the same as any other human activity. This is a point that many feminists such as Louise Perry have made repeatedly – e.g. ‘sex work’ is not the same as any other kind of work. Why is sex so special? Because sex is supposed to be the high point of love – it’s the most love you can give to someone with your body. In fact, we used to use the term “making love” – which seems quaintly old-fashioned these days.
When sex and love go together, it’s a beautiful thing. However, when sex is divorced from love, it becomes hugely destructive. When sex becomes about lust – that is, wanting to use someone for our own gratification – it can cause deep damage and trauma. This is why it’s given such a prominence in the Bible. Treating someone badly sexually is on a deeper level than, say, stealing from them – even though both are wrong.
So, sin is a big deal – but, as we have already said, all of us are guilty of it. We know that we need to repent of our sin, but how do we know when we’ve repented enough?
How much repentance is enough?
We started out this post by quoting Jayne Ozanne, who argued that repentance was not necessary for salvation. I have already quoted Jesus’ summary of the Christian life, which – by contrast – says that repentance is fundamental to the Christian life. Take her example of the thief on the cross: he recognised Jesus as Lord, and then his life began to change – he rebuked the other criminal. Although his life didn’t last long enough for him to change much, it’s clear that from that point onwards, he wasn’t the boss any more – Jesus was. This is absolutely crucial.
Someone who has lived a very immoral life might find their life changes overnight when they become a Christian. Many people have testified that their lives changed almost instantly when coming to Christ. But the truth is, for most people that’s not the case: for most of us, life is a long journey of slow transformation. As we worship, pray, read the Bible, and ask God for his help, we gradually come to understand the sin in our lives and recognise where we need to repent. Maybe there are things which God wants to get out of the way immediately (e.g. if you’re a bank robber or prostitute!), but maybe there are other things which can wait. The point is not whether we have repented enough, but rather – who’s the boss?
Jesus said:
Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.
Mark 3:28-29
What is “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit”? Jesus means to attribute the work of God to the work of Satan instead. This is clear from the context: he spoke while people were saying that he was driving out demons by the power of Satan. But his words show us more broadly how we can be guilty of this sin.
The Holy Spirit makes God and the gospel ‘real’ to us – he helps us to do more than simply know information about God, but to really know God. One of the things he does is to convict people of sin (John 16:8-9). If we start to feel guilty about something, it is probably the Holy Spirit. Of course, Satan can also make us feel guilt – there is such a thing as false guilt. This is why we need the Bible to guide us as to whether something is wrong or not. But the Spirit helps us to repent day-by-day, to lead us to grow in the ways that God wants us to.
Sanctification – the process of growing in holiness – is a work of the Holy Spirit. The love we need is the fruit of the Spirit working in us. We need to “keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25) every day, and allow him to shape us and mould us according to God’s will for our lives.
Therefore, to resist this process is to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit is persistently warning you about a particular sin, calling you to repent of it, then to ignore that warning and continue to sin is ultimately to blaspheme against God. This is why passages like this one from Hebrews 10 sound such a stark warning:
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.
Hebrews 10:26-27
If we deliberately keep on sinning, we show that we love our sins more than we love God. We show that we are not willing to let Jesus be Lord of our lives, and we show that ultimately we fall foul of the first greatest commandment.
Conclusion
A few years ago, I attended a training event by Living Out. Sam Allberry – who is himself same-sex attracted, and seeking to live by the traditional teaching of the Scriptures – recounted working with a young man who was struggling with these issues. He said that they met every week for about six months, until it got the point where Sam had to say: “if I could convince you from the Bible that marriage is between a man and a woman, and sex is for marriage, would you believe it?” For this young man, it was too much – ultimately he loved his own sin more than he loved God.
Jesus said:
Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 10:37-39
Being a Christian is not an easy path – Jesus never promised it would be. We need to love him and listen to him more than anything or anyone. If Jesus calls us to a difficult life (which is all of us, by the way) – then we need to embrace it, whatever that means for us. The point is, Jesus is the King of my life, not me. If anyone doesn’t submit to him about what he tells them to do, they demonstrate that they are not living with him as the King. Therefore – not Christian.
It’s not about having a list of moral issues which are on the “salvation issues” list, and if you’re unlucky enough to do one of them you get sent to hell. Rather, through our daily moral choices – under the guidance of the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit – we demonstrate who is really Lord of our lives.
Postscript: Are lockdowns and safeguarding salvation issues?
Over the last few years, I’ve disagreed with many established churches and church leaders about various issues, in particular lockdowns and safeguarding (these are topics I talk about on Sacred Musings a lot). Could these issues be salvation issues as well? I believe so.
Take lockdowns, for example. At the start of the first lockdown, most of us were caught napping. Most of us didn’t have a thought-through theology of government, or of what churches should do when the government asked them to close. That’s fair enough. But more than three years have passed since then. Churches and church leaders have had ample opportunity to think through these issues. Is there any sign of thinking through the role of government, and how Christians should relate to a secular world? Is there any sign of genuine sorrow for the way that they acted, and repentance?
As I said earlier, how we respond to these things shows who we really believe is the Lord. Have churches shown that the State and the secular establishment is really Lord? Have they sided with the chief priests, who in one of the most shocking moments in John’s Gospel shout out: “We have no king but Caesar!”
Three conspiracy theorists walk into a bar… you can’t tell me that’s just a coincidence.
David Icke, a prominent ‘conspiracy theorist’
When I was growing up, conspiracy theorists had a bad reputation. A conspiracy theorist was someone who usually had too much time on their hands and was obsessed with ‘out-there’ theories about what the shadowy elite pulling the strings were up to. In the intervening time, things have not changed: conspiracy theorists have as bad a reputation as they ever had.
However, that doesn’t seem to have made conspiracy theorists go away. In fact, their numbers seem to be growing. So much so that the BBC recently created a new post called a “disinformation correspondent”. Earlier this year she recorded a series called Marianna in Conspiracyland, looking at the rise of conspiracy theories. (As a side note, she was also caught lying on her CV – we may come back to that later).
I suspect most Christians don’t think much about conspiracy theories – not least because of the social stigma attached to conspiracy theorists. After all, who in their right mind would want to be associated with people who believe that lizards run the world, or that Bill Gates is using 5G to turn us all into robots?!…
All this will make what I am about to say sound crazy, but please bear with me. I am going to argue that Christians should be conspiracy theorists – or at least, should be prepared to believe conspiracy theories.
I suspect part of the reason people avoid conspiracy theories is because they don’t understand what a conspiracy theory actually is. They think it’s just something crazy which no-one sensible should go near. So, before we get into the Bible, I want to briefly look at the definition of a conspiracy theory.
What is a conspiracy theory?
A big part of the problem when talking about conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists is the way that they are portrayed in the media. Conspiracy theories are either portrayed as extremely ‘out-there’ – such as being ruled by lizard men – or portrayed as believing there is a shadowy cabal of rich, powerful people pulling the strings in the background.
Both of these views of conspiracy theories have some truth in them: there are definitely some ‘out there’ theories which most people will probably find too extraordinary. And conspiracy theories, at heart, involve believing that we are not being told the whole truth – deliberately lied to, even – in order to further the interests of rich and powerful people.
Conspiracy theory, an attempt to explain harmful or tragic events as the result of the actions of a small powerful group. Such explanations reject the accepted narrative surrounding those events; indeed, the official version may be seen as further proof of the conspiracy.
Britannica, “Conspiracy theory”
This is a fairly standard definition. However, I believe that we need to think more deeply about it. Last year, PANDA wrote an article about Covid-19 called “Cockup or Conspiracy?”, which looked at the question of whether covid was a ‘conspiracy theory’. The article gives various pieces of evidence why covid needs to be examined in this way, but for our purposes the most interesting paragraph is this one about structural deep events:
Professor Peter Dale Scott (University of California, Berkley) developed the concept of the ‘structural deep event’ and this is useful in capturing the idea that powerful actors frequently work to instigate, exploit or exacerbate events in ways that enable substantive and long-lasting societal transformations. These frequently involve, according to Scott, a combination of legal and illegal activity implicating both legitimate and public-facing political structures as well as covert or hidden parts of government – the so-called deep state which is understood as the interface ‘between the public, the constitutionally established state, and the deep forces behind it of wealth, power, and violence outside the government’. So, for example, Scott argues that the JFK assassination became an event that enabled the maintenance of the Cold War whilst the 9/11 crimes likewise enabled the global ‘war on terror’, and that both involved a variety of actors not usually recognized in mainstream or official accounts of these events. It is important to note that Scott claims his approach does not necessarily imply a simplistic grand conspiracy, but is rather based on the idea of opaque networks of powerful and influential groups whose interests converge, at points, and who act to either instigate or exploit events in order to pursue their objectives. [My emphasis]
I think this is a very helpful way to think about conspiracy theories. Most of us find it hard to imagine a secret, shadowy cabal of the rich and powerful gathering together to plan terrible things so they can further their own agenda. Let’s face it, the level of organisation required would be phenomenal! How could they get away with it – without anyone finding out? If that is a conspiracy theory, then I agree – it’s hard to see how that could be true.
However, as the article points says, if by ‘conspiracy theory’ you are talking about opaque networks of powerful and influential groups whose interests converge, who can act together to instigate or exploit events – then you are dealing with something much more realistic and believable. Given this definition, I would say that ‘conspiracy theories’ are not beyond the realm of imagination.
There’s much more that could be said, but this is supposed to be a post about Christians and conspiracy theories, so let’s get to looking at the Bible.
Reasons that Christians should be conspiracy theorists
#1: Christians should be committed to the truth
One spiritual practice which I have adopted over the last few years – and which I recommend to everyone – is to read a Psalm every day, alongside your daily Bible reading. The Psalms are wonderful, and they help to embed the truths that we learn in other parts of the Bible. The Psalms are about spiritual and moral formation – helping us to learn to love God, to pray to him, and to learn his ways.
What’s interesting to me about the Psalms is how much they talk about truth. Psalm 15 is a typical example:
Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?
The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart; whose tongue utters no slander, who does no wrong to a neighbour, and casts no slur on others;
Psalm 15:1-3
You could multiply examples like this throughout the Psalms, not to mention many other parts of Scripture. I think Psalm 15 is particularly helpful, though, because it teaches us two things about the truth. Firstly, we should “speak the truth from our heart”. If we love other people, we should speak the truth (as Paul puts it, “speaking the truth in love”, Ephesians 4:15). I love what the economist Thomas Sowell says about truth:
Sowell is absolutely correct. If we truly care about other people, we need to speak the truth. We know that God “does not lie” (Titus 1:2), and we need to be like him – in contrast to Satan, who is the “father of lies” (John 8:44). The only thing we should care about is whether something is true or not, not whether it is a ‘conspiracy theory’ or not.
#2: Christians should speak the truth about others
The second thing we learn from Psalm 15 is that Christians should not cast a slur or slander on others. That means we should not only speak the truth in general, we should also avoid speaking a lie – especially when it is a lie against someone else. To put it into today’s language, we mustn’t blacken someone’s name or drag their reputation through the mud.
Let me emphasise again how seriously God takes the truth. I will quote here from the Heidelberg Catechism, answer to Q #112, “What is required in the ninth commandment?”
I must not give false testimony against anyone, twist no one’s words, not gossip or slander, nor condemn or join in condemning anyone rashly and unheard. Rather, I must avoid all lying and deceit as the devil’s own works, under penalty of God’s heavy wrath. In court and everywhere else, I must love the truth, speak and confess it honestly, and do what I can to defend and promote my neighbour’s honour and reputation.
How is this relevant to conspiracy theories? Two ways. Firstly, some ‘conspiracy theories’ are actually based on eyewitness testimony. We’ll come back to this at the end, but let me quote you from the end of the Corbett Report documentary on 9/11 whistleblowers:
What is especially galling when the so-called “skeptics” use the “someone would have talked” fallacy is that the whistleblowers have in fact done everything possible to publicize their stories—holding press conferences, filing formal appeals, joining whistleblower organizations, and making themselves available for interviews. For their heroic efforts, these brave men and women have been fired from their jobs, shunned by former colleagues, smeared by the mainstream media, and ignored by the public.
If we dismiss people – especially eyewitnesses – without hearing them, that is effectively calling them liars. If we do this casually, are we not guilty of bearing false witness against them?
Secondly, going back to what I said at the start, the label ‘conspiracy theory’ or ‘conspiracy theorist’ can be hugely damaging. If something is a conspiracy theory, it can be dismissed and need not be engaged with. Likewise, if someone is a conspiracy theorist, they can be dismissed and cast aside. Christians of all people should beware of slandering their neighbours. It is literally one of the Ten Commandments!
By all means disagree with someone, by all means debate and make them prove their point. But we must not dismiss people by labelling them as ‘conspiracy theorists’, or indeed any other demeaning and belittling terms.
I don’t like to bring my own experience into this, but I think it’s important to say I know how much this kind of thing hurts. When covid hit, within a few weeks I started coming to the conclusion that the lockdowns were a tremendous blunder. I spoke out about it publicly on social media and online. Three years on, myself and many others who raised the alarm are being vindicated by the day. It seems that not a day goes by without another newspaper article talking about the catastrophic and unnecessary effect of lockdowns. But, when I spoke out at the time, I got huge pushback. One person even sent me a private Facebook message and said that I was a bad Christian for speaking out.
There are people who haven’t spoken to me recently, people who I would have considered friends, because of my views. (Or at least, I suspect it’s because of my views, I think most people avoid me without saying why.) This is simply not an acceptable way for Christians to behave.
#3: Christians should be aware of fallen human nature
Christians of all people should be aware of the tendency of the human heart towards evil. As far back as the book of Genesis, we read:
The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
Genesis 6:5
Paul assembles a litany of quotations in Romans 3 about the wickedness of humanity:
“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Romans 3:10-18
As it says – “their tongues practice deceit”. The fact that people do not believe or speak the truth is highlighted.
There are many instances in the Bible of people who refused to believe in the truth. One such example is the Pharisees. In Matthew 21:23-27, they come to Jesus to question his authority. Jesus tells them he will answer if they answer his question: “Was John’s baptism from heaven, or of human origin?” The Pharisees discuss it and refuse to answer – they know they are trapped: they can’t say it was of human origin because they were scared of the people; but they can’t say it was of divine origin because Jesus could turn around and ask why they didn’t believe him. What’s interesting for our purposes is that they didn’t consider what was true or not. They didn’t think about which possibility was true – they were only interested in what was politically expedient.
We know that human beings are made in the image of God, but we also know that human beings are fallen. In the succinct phrase of the prophet, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). We also know that the closer people are to power and wealth, the greater the temptation will be to act in a sinful and godless way. Lord Acton famously said:
Too often I think people are unwilling to investigate ‘conspiracy theories’ because they don’t believe that people could be so wicked – especially not in the Western world. I believe that Christians should be able to rise above this: we should not have a rose-tinted view of the human heart. Is that not why democracy was invented in the first place – so that power could be held accountable? So, why should we think that – even in a democratic country – our leaders are immune from the influence of evil?
Think about this question: who does it benefit to demonise ‘conspiracy theorists’? It seems to me that it’s a rather ingenious way for the rich and powerful to avoid having to answer tough questions.
#4: The Bible literally says there will be conspiracies
Psalm 2 begins like this:
Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?
Psalm 2:1
The word ‘conspire’ means to come together or ‘throng’. It is used four times in the Old Testament, once here and then three times in Daniel 6 (which is in Aramaic – it’s the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew word) – where Darius’ officials conspire against Daniel. This is the same pattern that we find throughout the Scriptures, where the rulers of the earth band together for wicked purposes (e.g. Revelation 16:14). We know that, when men get together, persecution of Christians tends to follow. That is nothing more than what the Bible predicts will happen.
At the very least, Christians should be aware that powers and authorities can misuse their authority – and that includes controlling what people believe is true. Dismissing ideas as ‘conspiracy theories’ without properly investigating them is to side with the rich and powerful. This is, again, not something that God approves of. It is not wrong to recognise the power dynamics involved in the media and the authorities – powerful people can use their power to their own advantage. I think Western Christians are far too often naive about this.
#5: The resurrection was the original conspiracy theory
Something which only struck me recently about the resurrection account is the way that the Jewish leaders spread an ‘official narrative’ about Jesus’ resurrection:
While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.
Matthew 28:11-15
There was an official story about the resurrection, which was circulated by the Jewish authorities. However, it was not the truth! There were many eyewitnesses who saw Jesus alive (see e.g. Luke 1:2, 2 Peter 1:16, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 etc).
Christians do not believe the ‘official story’ about Jesus: we believe the eyewitnesses, that Jesus has been raised from the dead. If we are prepared to stand firmly on the resurrection, even if it means being outsiders amongst our friends and family, surely it’s not too much to ask to stand on the truth in lesser ways? If we’re willing to embrace the label of “Christian” – and all the shame it carries with it – are we not also willing to bear the label of “conspiracy theorist”, so long as we are standing on the truth?
Final word
Please don’t misunderstand me here: I’m not trying to say that Christians should be gullible, and believe any and every conspiracy theory going! My point is that we should be prepared to listen to people who are critical of the mainstream narrative. Especially people who are eyewitnesses, and people who are prepared to speak out at significant personal cost – reputational damage, career prospects etc.
Let me give you a couple of examples to close with.
Flight MH 370. You might remember a few years ago the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370. At the time it was a huge mystery, with a huge search operation in the South Indian Ocean. A few months ago, Netflix did a series looking at different people’s theories as to what happened. The one I find most convincing was Florence de Changy, who has written a book called “The Disappearing Act”. She is a brilliant investigative journalist and travelled around the world speaking to eyewitnesses, searching for the truth. I believe her version of events is much more plausible than the official narrative – it does seem to be a cover-up job. But you’ll have to read the book to see what she says!
9/11. This is, by comparison, a hugely emotive issue. However, having watched several documentaries about it, and in particular seeing a number of eyewitness accounts and various different angles, have come to believe that the official narrative is not the truth. That’s not to say I know exactly what did happen and who is to blame! But, at the end of the day, one has to look into the facts. I suggest starting with the documentary on the International Center for 9/11 Justice, also the Corbett Report series on 9/11.
At the end of the day, few things are more important than the truth. The church is the the “pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). All truth is God’s truth. If we commit ourselves to seeking the truth in every aspect of life, not just the truth of Scripture but the truth of the world, then we will be doing what is right.
I’ve been thinking a lot about safeguarding recently. If you’re involved in church circles it’s difficult to avoid – not least because church leaders being investigated for safeguarding is becoming a depressingly regular occurrence. The latest leader to fall is Mike Pilavachi, who is the co-founder of Soul Survivor.
Commentators keep telling us we need to have better safeguarding to protect against these things, and I’ve seen many Christian leaders and organisations vow to improve their safeguarding. Few people, however, are asking the question: is there a DEEPER issue in the church? Is there a reason why we keep having these safeguarding failures in the first place?
I want to argue that we will never solve the safeguarding problem until we actually grasp the fullness of the Biblical gospel. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that safeguarding is actually preventing us from having a safer church. The more I think about it the more I realise that safeguarding is simply adding to the problem.
Let me explain. There are two broad headings – firstly, why the gospel in itself is sufficient for safeguarding; secondly, why safeguarding is problematic.
A quick disclaimer
Before I dive into my problems with safeguarding, let me say that my crosshairs are aimed at the way the church – and especially the Church of England – practices safeguarding at the moment. I think safeguarding has some value, especially in secular institutions. In fact, I’ve seen safeguarding work quite well in institutions such as schools, where it is in place to protect children. Safeguarding procedures have a place when they are sensibly used and implemented.
My problem is with the way we do safeguarding in the church, and specifically the way that it’s practised by the Church of England (although I expect there will be similarities across denominations). The church is not a secular institution and should do things differently.
Why the gospel in itself is sufficient for safeguarding
The gospel is the remedy for sin
I can understand why safeguarding is such a big issue at the moment. I can think of several recent, high-profile examples involving church leaders without even trying: John Smyth, Jonathan Fletcher, Ravi Zacharias, and now Mike Pilavachi. Unfortunately, there are too many examples of church leaders who have been able commit abuse and not be held accountable for it. Sometimes their actions have been covered up, they’ve moved on quietly and never been reported to the police.
It turns my stomach that people who have committed horrible abuse could have just been allowed to continue without any punishment. At the same time, no-one seems to be asking how these things could have been prevented in the first place. Christians, more than anyone, should recognise the power of sin. As Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). However, Christians should also experience the transforming power of the Holy Spirit to help us obey the Lord. “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).
Jesus was very clear that the way to deal with sin in our lives is not to impose more rules upon ourselves, as the Pharisees did, but to repent of our sins and turn to him and the power of the Holy Spirit. (In fact, this is basically what my book Confused by Grace is about – I had to get a plug in somewhere!). The way we deal with sin, according to the New Testament, is to repent of our sins and pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to do that which we cannot do in our own strength. If we rely on our own strength, we’re dead in the water – but if we walk with God and trust in him, he will transform us and change us. That’s the most important lesson I’ve learned about safeguarding: the best way the church has to prevent problems is by ensuring that everyone is walking daily with the Lord. That goes double for anyone in church leadership.
Healthy people do healthy things
Should we expect Christians – especially Christian leaders – to be doing what is right? Look at what Jesus had to say about false teachers:
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
Matthew 7:15-20
Jesus said that the way we can identify false teachers is by their fruit. What does he mean? I’m sure the “fruit” is not people being converted. I hear that Jordan Peterson has actually led some people to faith – even though he isn’t a Christian (or at least, wasn’t – I’m not quite sure where he stands now). If even a non-Christian can, in some sense, lead people to Christ, it’s clearly not a good measure of spiritual health.
It seems most likely to me that the fruit Jesus is referring to is actually the fruit of the Spirit, which Paul defines as: “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Note that ‘fruit’ is singular: love is the fruit, and the rest of the list are aspects of love. Any true Christian, who walks by the Spirit, should be bearing the fruit of the Spirit in their lives. Not fruit in terms of ministry accomplishments or number of people converted, but in terms of a godly and mature character.
Going back to what Jesus said, if a Christian leader shows signs that they are not bearing fruit of the Spirit then that should be a grave concern. It shows that they might, in fact, be a “ferocious wolf”. Christian leaders are sinners just like everybody else, of course, but in general a mature Christian should be growing in love rather than abusing people. If a sinful pattern of behaviour is not changing and – more than that – goes on over many years, this is a big warning sign that they are not close to God.
What I am driving at here is that the gospel should be a greater safeguard against wrongdoing than safeguarding procedures. If someone is spiritually healthy, they should be bearing the fruit of the Spirit and not committing abuse. In short, the most effective form of safeguarding by far is seeking to ensure that everyone is mature in Christ.
The seriousness of sin
Another mark of spiritual maturity is an understanding of how egregious sin is. For one of my Understand the Bible videos the other day, I quoted this passage:
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honourable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-8
Paul says, “no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister”. That’s what we want, isn’t it? He then goes on to say: “The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins”. God hates sin, especially the kind of sin which does “take advantage” of others, those who are perhaps weaker or more vulnerable. Christian leadership should be servant leadership, not the kind of leadership which abuses the position to fulfil one’s own sinful desires.
If someone in church leadership is taking advantage of others, that is a big deal. A church leadership team who really believed this should deal effectively and decisively when it came to sin. They wouldn’t cover it up or excuse someone’s actions. Especially not if there was a pattern of problematic behaviour, as there was when it came to Jonathan Fletcher and (it seems) Mike Pilavachi.
Conclusion
If the church really believed the gospel in all its fullness, there would be no need for safeguarding. I cannot stress this enough. I’m not saying that any church could be without sin – we will never be sinless this side of the Lord’s return. I am saying, however, that if Christian leaders were godly and mature, if there were healthy structures in place to ensure spiritual accountability, and so on – you could dispense with safeguarding in its entirety and nothing bad would happen. Sin would be dealt with appropriately, people would be punished where necessary, and so on.
The reason I feel the need to start with this is, as I said at the beginning, no-one is asking the question why we seem to have so many safeguarding issues at the moment. Rather than focussing more and more on our safeguarding procedures, I believe the time has come to step back and say there is a bigger issue at stake here – the issue of the gospel. The fact that so many church leaders are falling shows that there are serious problems with what we believe about the gospel – and that is a far more serious issue than safeguarding.
Why safeguarding is problematic
I have argued above that the gospel is sufficient for safeguarding in and of itself. However, I think it is also necessary to go further and explain why I believe that safeguarding itself is problematic. Let me outline the problems I have with safeguarding.
It cannot substitute for the Bible
As I have argued above, healthy Christian leaders should not do the kind of things that the likes of Ravi Zacharias and Jonathan Fletcher did. But there is another aspect to it. Christians who are growing in maturity should come to have a love for righteousness and a hatred of sin. Psalm 36:2 says that those who do not fear the Lord “flatter themselves too much to detect or hate their sin.” By contrast, those who love the Lord should “hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matthew 5:6). Those who are godly should also have a deep sense of God’s justice (Psalm 11:7).
Those in church leadership – whether in church or parachurch ministry – should not be on their own. There should be other godly, mature Christians around them. Therefore, if someone in church leadership does not hunger and thirst after righteousness, he should stand out like a sore thumb. And if he does do something wrong, the other mature Christians around should respond appropriately: recognising the horror of the sin that has been committed, but with love and compassion for both the sinner and the sinned against.
Here’s the problem with safeguarding. Safeguarding is trying to ensure that justice is done, which is a good thing. But, God is more concerned with justice than we are. The more godly we are, the more concerned with justice we should be. So if people aren’t godly enough to be concerned with justice without a safeguarding process, why should they pay attention to it with a safeguarding process? The problem here isn’t the process. The problem is that people do not have a big enough sense of justice and the seriousness of sin – and that can only come from God. The solution, again, is a deeper Christian maturity, not more red tape.
It doesn’t get to the root of the issue
Another problem with safeguarding is that it is doesn’t get to the root of the issue. If someone has sinned, the goal should to point out their error in the hope of their repentance and restoration. In other words, in the church, the goal of treating someone who has fallen into sin should always be to bring them back to God. That is how we express love for sinners. Paul says, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13). You can see the love in the process Jesus describes in Matthew 18:15-17 – point out to someone the error of their ways, hoping for their repentance – but if they do not listen they should ultimately be treated as a non-believer.
This isn’t to brush sin under the carpet – far from it. It is actually a way of both treating sin seriously and honouring the gospel which forgives sinners. That doesn’t mean there should be no consequences: someone who has done something illegal should be punished for what they have done, and it might be necessary to remove someone from a position of responsibility. But the goal should always be repentance and reconciliation.
This is very different to the way safeguarding operates. Safeguarding isn’t about confronting someone with their sins and leading them to repentance. Safeguarding is not designed to get to the root of the issue, and as such it will never actually bring about a safer church. Safeguarding, as a friend of mine (a former CofE vicar) said to me recently, is more of a PR exercise so the church could be seen to be “doing something”. He also told me that safeguarding was about as far away from the Biblical way of doing things as you could get.
The only Biblical way to stop things from happening again is through repentance and faith, and the genuine power of the Spirit to change us.
The dynamic of victims and abusers
Safeguarding doesn’t deal with what you might call plain vanilla “sin”, as we talked about above. Safeguarding focusses on abuse, which is quite broadly defined. Obviously there are some kinds of abuse which are absolutely clear cut, where one person is the victim and one person is the abuser. However, life is often more complex than that. Safeguarding doesn’t seem to recognise this, however – it divides people into ‘victims’ and ‘abusers’.
It seems that if someone does a good enough job at presenting themselves as a victim, they get absolved of any sin whereas the person who is accused gets all the blame. We live in a society where there is an enormous power to claiming victimhood – see, for example, Mike Ovey’s paper Victim Chic: The Rhetoric of Victimhood. (I would highly recommend reading it – I talked a little about this in my post about Accepting Evangelicals). One of the problems with designating oneself as a victim is that it has a totalising effect: the victim becomes pure and spotless, whereas the victimiser becomes the distillation of pure evil.
I think we can see this dynamic at work in the safeguarding process: as soon as a complaint is made, we have a “victim” and a “victimiser”. In other words, the safeguarding process virtually assumes that abuse has happened from the get-go. The whole process is ripe for people to take advantage of. There’s a line in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible which has always stuck with me since I studied it at A-Level: “Is the accuser always holy now?” In the world of safeguarding, it seems that they are. There is no redress for someone who makes a vexatious complaint, but it might do untold damage to the person who was accused and their family / church.
The more I see safeguarding at work, the more uncomfortable I am with the dynamics of victim / abuser. The Bible says we are all both victims and abusers: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We all deserve God’s judgement for the way we have treated others. As I said before, this is not to minimise sin in any way, but rather to say that the safeguarding process forces an unhealthy and unbiblical way of looking at the problem before you’ve even started.
Again, this is not to say that there are no genuine victims. Of course there are. But victims need to be dealt with in the Biblical way, as I tried to explain above.
The process is itself abusive
My final problem with safeguarding is that the process is abusive in itself. In the conversation with my former vicar friend, he told me that the Church of England had conducted a review into its safeguarding processes a few years ago and found that the process was abusive. He had actually been involved in a number of safeguarding issues previously, one of them serious, and said that the process did not enable him to support anyone properly. It treats people as cogs in an administrative process, rather than people to be loved.
Another friend told me that he knew someone – a vicar – who has been suspended from his parish for three YEARS because of a safeguarding complaint. Firstly, the police had to do an investigation which came up with nothing. After that, the church needed to do an internal investigation. This man has been unable to minister for three years.
How is this fair or just? How is this even safeguarding anybody?
It’s not surprising that many people have called for the Clergy Discipline and safeguarding measure to be reformed – and hopefully it will be. But we need something far deeper than a reform of the law and the safeguarding / CDM processes.
Conclusion: Safeguarding is not safe
At the start, I said that safeguarding culture was actually preventing the church from being safe. That’s because the focus is on safeguarding instead of the gospel. If the church was going deeper into the gospel, and helping people to be spiritually accountable, it would do far more to stop safeguarding issues than any process.
Instead, what I think is happening is that safeguarding is becoming a substitute gospel. Safeguarding seems to be used increasingly instead of the Biblical pattern of repentance and reconciliation. It looks to me very like Pharisaism, which Jesus came down so hard on in the gospels. Every time a safeguarding issue happens, rather than considering whether there were problems of spiritual accountability and ‘gospel’ / theological issues, there are calls for more red tape: more procedures, more box ticking, less trust, and so on.
At the same time, the calls for more safeguarding are obscuring the gospel message which has the power to transform sinners.
More…
I’ve written about safeguarding before on this blog, you might appreciate these posts:
I’ve written a book! It’s a Christian book – here’s the blurb:
Many people are confused by grace.
For example, have you ever considered questions like these:
Why should we obey God if he forgives us anyway?
Do Christians need to obey the Ten Commandments?
What does it mean to have freedom as a Christian?
This book will help you to answer these questions and put the pieces of the Christian life together. You will discover how God wants us to obey him. It’s not a matter of obeying the law in our own strength. Instead, we need to love through the power of the Holy Spirit.
I’m going to be doing a video about it in the next few days, which you will be able to see on Understand the Bible, but you can buy it now from Amazon (Kindle or paperback editions available).
Some years ago, when forums were all the rage on the internet, I used to spend hours online debating atheists. To be honest, debating things on the internet was always a frustrating experience. Firstly, all the participants (including myself) did it not because we really cared about the other person, but because we wanted to be right. We wanted to win an argument! That’s never a healthy position to debate anything meaningful.
The other problem with the Christian-atheist debates I used to participate in was the distinct impression that, whatever I said, it would never be good enough. I could never produce enough evidence, or make a good enough argument. In fact, I often felt that I had been judged as ‘wrong’ before I even opened my mouth. The atheist in question had an ideological commitment to me being wrong which could not be changed with facts or argument.
Of course, this shouldn’t have come as a surprise me, or to anyone who’s read Romans 1:21-23 (in short: mankind substitutes God for a god of his own choosing – unbelief is a spiritual thing. We actively want to find reasons to reject God). Unfortunately, we tend to think most people are rational and can be persuaded if you give better arguments – it’s an easy trap to fall into.
These days I tend not to participate in online debates – too often I think debate on the internet reveals more about someone’s prior ideological commitments than it does about their desire to engage. Whether it comes to religion or politics, or any contentious issue these days, people tend to go with what feels right rather than what the evidence actually says.
There are all sorts of reasons this could be the case – I’m sure it’s always been like this to some extent. But I think it’s very much in evidence with the covid vaccines.
Tweeting about VAERS
The other day I posted up a tweet about VAERS statistics. VAERS is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System for the USA (Britain has its own system called Yellow Card), and the idea is that if there is a problem with any particular vaccine it should be picked up. For example, if a new vaccine was introduced which caused a nasty (perhaps lethal) side-effect, even for a small number of people, this could be picked up and the vaccine withdrawn.
Anyway, a few days ago I read an interesting blog piece by Prof Norman Fenton, which contained a piece of information I found hardly believable:
"In all 32 years of VAERS reporting a total of only 9,754 deaths (and 878,053 adverse events) were recorded for ALL OTHER vaccines combined. So, in just 18 months, 3 times as many deaths for covid vaccines have been recorded than in 32 years combined for all other vaccines."
When I read this, I just had one of those moments of clarity. I mean, three times as many deaths for covid vaccines in 18 months than in 32 years combined for ALL OTHER vaccines! It might help to see it on a graph – courtesy of someone who replied:
Do you get that impression when you listen to the media? Do they even mention this kind of information?!
What was most interesting to me, however, was the response the tweet got. This is one of the few tweets I’ve ever posted which has gone a little bit ‘viral’ – it’s been retweeted over 100 times at the time of writing. I got some pushback from a couple of people.
The pushback
A couple of people took me to task for being misleading. The main criticisms were that (1) people are encouraged to report anything to VAERS; (2) it’s easier to report now due to the internet than it used to be; (3) VAERS contains an unspecified number of obviously spurious claims about vaccine deaths – i.e. just because it’s reported doesn’t mean it’s a confirmed vaccine death. (One person in particular provided a number of examples).
Frankly, I found it pretty astonishing that people would argue in this way. I appreciate that just because something is logged on VAERS doesn’t mean that it’s a confirmed vaccine injury. At the same time, the system didn’t massively change in 2020. I don’t think all of a sudden a bunch of “anti-vaxxers” have been staging a co-ordinated campaign to try and game the system! And even if only, let’s say, 10% of the reports of vaccine deaths are legitimate, it would still be far higher than for any previous year. (And many people estimate that VAERS and other systems actually under-report vaccine injuries by up to a factor of 10).
Additionally, we do know that there are many legitimate reports – for example, the HART group recently published reports of child deaths in VAERS. We know that some people have been killed by the vaccines, for example Vikki Spit’s fiance. We also know that there have been many injuries from the vaccine – there are many testimonies of the vaccine injured on the Real Not Rare website. There are also worrying statistics about non-covid excess deaths in the UK, which might coincide with the vaccine rollout.
It just seems completely logical to me that a new vaccine (not just a new vaccine, but a new type of vaccine using technology which hadn’t been deployed like this before), which is licensed only under emergency usage, which hasn’t gone through its full safety trials, could cause problems. This has happened before – vaccines have had to be withdrawn. It’s not unprecedented. Big Pharma get it wrong – in fact the biggest two criminal fines in history have been against vaccine companies.
So, why is it that many people seem so unwilling to even countenance the possibility that the vaccine might be to blame? Every time a sports start drops dead, or a presenter collapses on TV, or an adult suffers “sudden adult death syndrome” – people are falling over themselves to say they don’t know what the problem is, only that it’s definitely NOT the vaccine because they are “safe and effective”. Any time anything negative happens, it’s explained away as a mysterious coincidence. This doesn’t seem to be looking at the data fairly or with an open mind.
What’s the problem here?
A religious commitment
All of this reminds me of my discussions with atheists back in the day. The experience is very similar. I’ve had the same feeling many times over the last couple of years when it comes to covid: people are willing to give anything the government / ‘experts’ say a free pass, but if you try to quote a scientist about covid it is treated with suspicion. It’s like I am disturbing a religious commitment: you’re not allowed to question the lockdowns, because that’s ‘dangerous’. You’re not allowed to question the vaccines, because that’s ‘anti-vaxx’.
The arguments in question, or even the authority of the sources quoted, don’t matter: all that matters is that people who believe in the official line need to find a way of justifying what they already believe – that the official line is correct.
It seems to me the evidence is insurmountable now that covid vaccines are dangerous. At the very least, the government should be urgently investigating. The media should be looking into it – it should be front page news. But that’s not happening – almost all you hear is “safe and effective”.
Why is it like this? Many people, myself included, have observed that the way covid has been dealt with by the government and media has been very religious in nature (I talked about this here and here, for example). When people don’t have a religion, it’s easy to fool people into accepting a secular religion so long as you don’t actually talk about “god”.
It’s complicated. But it seems to me that the reason we can’t have an honest conversation about the covid vaccines is because people believe in them with a kind of religious fervour. In my experience, this is something which can’t be defeated with mere facts and logic. But I do believe and trust in a God who is able to raise the dead, so I am confident that this period of madness will not last forever.
In my latest podcast, I mentioned that I had recently come under some criticism for the way that Sacred Musings is getting political. In particular, some friends who had been supporting me for the last year or so stopped their support because they believed me to be moving towards a divisive political ideology.
I suspect they would not be the only ones to think that Sacred Musings is divisive. I mean, politics is kind of divisive by definition, isn’t it? So why get involved in it, when it might put people off hearing about Jesus? I have previously argued that Christians are not politically left or right, and also that Christians should be very careful about getting involved. So, why have I now decided to get involved?
My aim in this post is to spell out why I think Sacred Musings is important and why I believe it is right to be ‘political’ in the way that I do.
Jesus is political
The first thing to say is that you can’t say “Jesus is Lord” without making a political statement. We’ve lost some of the force of this in the 21st century, but in the early days of the church this was a dangerous thing to say: in the days of the Roman empire, they used to say “Caesar is Lord”. Saying “Jesus is Lord” means that Caesar is not Lord – and not every worldly authority takes kindly to that kind of thing. (Try saying it in North Korea, for example).
Saying “Jesus is Lord” means that everything in the world needs to be submitted to Christ’s Lordship. Abraham Kuyper famously said: “There is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus does not cry out, ‘This is mine!’” (Interestingly, Kuyper was Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1901-1905, as well as being a theologian.)
What this means is that Christ has something to say about everything in our lives, not just the spiritual stuff: he cares about government policies as well as personal morality. This is not to say we can manufacture utopia by right government policy, but that Christians can and indeed should have something to say about government policies.
It should be plain from these quotations that the One we preach is not Christ-in-a-vacuum, nor a mystical Christ unrelated to the real world, nor even only the Jesus of ancient history, but rather the contemporary Christ who once lived and died, and now lives to meet human need in all its variety today. To encounter Christ is to touch reality and experience transcendence.
John Stott
So, Jesus is relevant to everything. That’s the theological reason to be ‘political’. But there is another more practical reason why it’s important to get involved in politics.
Everything is political
The second reason to be political is that it’s impossible to avoid at the moment: everything has become politicised now. Even football – footballers have been ‘taking the knee’ before games, and England football managers have been preaching about racism!
Politics is no longer about the best way to run a country. It has become as much about values as anything, and the use of power to effect positive change. In fact, it’s become very religious in nature: it wants to save us from our ‘sins’ – be that racism, or carbon emissions, or any number of other issues. Politics has become preachy. And I believe it is my duty, and that of every Christian, to ensure that the messages being preached are right – we need to judge it by what the Bible says. (As I hope people do with my preaching).
Politics is no longer about whether you believe in big government or small government, or the welfare state, or free healthcare, or anything like that. It’s nothing like traditional Conservative vs traditional Labour arguments of old. The new, modern politics is there in every sphere of life, preaching its values to us. Whether we like it or not, Christians need to analyse what is being said to see whether it is in accord with the Scriptures and Christian teaching.
To say nothing is to say something
Let me quote once again from John Stott:
What is certain is that the pulpit has political influence, even if nothing remotely connected with politics is ever uttered from it. For then the preacher’s silence endorses the contemporary socio-political conditions, and instead of helping to change society and make it more pleasing to God, the pulpit becomes a mirror which reflects contemporary society, and the Church conforms to the world. The neutrality of the pulpit is impossible.
That last sentence is a killer: “the neutrality of the pulpit is impossible”. As we started out with, saying “Jesus is Lord” is a political statement. You can’t say “Jesus is Lord” without saying anything about the problems in society. If you don’t ever relate the Bible to what’s happening in society, you are doing people a disservice!
Politics has become very contentious today. But if Christians and especially Christian preachers do not speak on contentious issues, people will think those issues are either neutral (i.e. the Bible doesn’t have anything to say about them), or – worse – think that the Bible is on their side. Because politics is all about values today, so many people believe they are on the side of goodness – it’s those bad people over there who are the immoral ones. If Christian ministers do not speak into that situation, we will not challenge people in the areas they need to be challenged.
When the church looks like the world…
In my latest podcast, I summarised Mike Ovey’s address from GAFCON II, which I think is a hugely insightful deconstruction of the root problem of the Western world. He talked about how the church doesn’t talk any more about repentance, except for certain sins:
Now I want to be careful as I say that, because Western churches do repent of some sins, the legacy of racism, the history of colonialism, sins of social injustice within their cultures. But what fascinates me is that these are sins that the world recognises as sins in Western culture. It’s very safe in Western culture to say that racism is a sin. Very safe to repent of it. It even wins a certain admiration from the world.
It’s always difficult to be sure about people’s motives, but when western churches repent of the history of colonialism and the murder of indigenous peoples, are we doing it because it is offensive to God or because it is – rightly – offensive to the world? I think the acid test of whether our repentance is really towards God is when God and the world disagree. If the benchmark of what counts as sin and requires repentance is really God’s will, then we will repent ourselves and call for repentance when God has said something is sinful, and will do so even when the world says otherwise. I very much fear that we fail this acid test, because I’m afraid that where we do repent, we repent of the things that the world finds offensive. As we all know too painfully, things that the Western world doesn’t find offensive, like sexual sins, the Western churches are increasingly disinclined to condemn. Repentance like that: is it really turning to God, or acknowledging the world?
Mike observed that, when the church publicly repents, it repents of things which are offensive to the world. In fact, he even says that repenting of certain sins wins you a certain admiration from the world. It makes me think of Jesus’ words from Luke 6:26: “Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.” When the world is congratulating you for the sins you are repenting of, one has to wonder what is going on. Especially when one is not saying anything about issues which the world does not think of as sins.
This brings me to the bishops of the Church of England.
Bishops and politics
Recently, the entire house of bishops wrote an open letter to the government condemning the plan to process asylum seekers in Rwanda. They said: “this policy should shame us as a nation… This immoral policy shames Britain”. Rarely have the bishops spoken with one voice for an ethical matter like this! They didn’t speak like that against same-sex marriage, which is much more simple and straightforward in the Bible. They don’t speak like that against abortion, or about victims of grooming gangs. Only the Rwanda plan caused them to come together to talk about morality.
So why should the bishops think it appropriate to speak on this issue, but not the others?
What’s interesting is that the friends I mentioned who contacted me were proud of the bishops for speaking out about the Rwanda plan. I wonder by what measure the bishops were to be commended for speaking out, whereas I was to be condemned for speaking out on other issues in Sacred Musings. Why was this issue acceptable, whereas the issues I speak about unacceptable?
CofE bishops certainly don’t shrink back from being political: over the last few years they’ve talked about Brexit, climate change, arms dealing, raising taxes to help the poor, institutional racism, and so on. All of which are political issues, and even divisive to some extent. In the case of the Rwanda plan, according to polls I believe it was about 50-50 support / oppose. We know that Brexit has been hugely divisive, but Justin Welby didn’t mind nailing his colours to the mast: he once said the EU was “the greatest dream realised for human beings since the fall of the Western Roman Empire”.
It seems to me the root problem here is that the issues I speak out about go against the grain: they are not the kind of issues which will get you a pat on the back from the media, or make front page news. In particular, I often speak against ‘experts’, which makes me appear like a loony to a culture where ‘experts’ are idolised. The issues the bishops speak out on are never the kind of issues which you’re not allowed to speak about.
I think many Christians today think that whatever the Guardian thinks, or whatever the general left-liberal viewpoint, is basic Christian common sense. This is why bishops speak out about issues which might be approved by the Guardian, but not on traditional Christian issues like abortion or same-sex marriage. The church has simply baptised the secular morality of the age without question.
Bringing it into the open
What I’m trying to do with Sacred Musings is not put myself six feet above contradiction. In fact, I saw on Twitter earlier that someone who had different political views to me had been engaging with the podcast – something I welcome.
The point is, by exposing your ideas to scrutiny, you can debate them and refine them. By making them open, and in particular trying to base them on the Bible, we can come to the truth together. This does require bravery, because it means talking about things we don’t always want to talk about. At the same time, it will be good for all of us because I believe when we discuss and debate these things openly, our ideas improve.
In fact, this is exactly what it says in the book of Proverbs:
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
Proverbs 27:17
I found it telling that in the original message, my friends did not actually deal in any of the arguments that I made. They did not show where I was wrong from the Bible, or even where I had made logical / factual errors. (I’m sure I have made some). If they had, we could have talked about it.
And this is the problem: when you don’t submit your own opinions to the Bible, you end up thinking your opinions are basic, common-sense, ‘correct’ opinions, whereas other people are being divisive. “We are simply following common-sense Christian views… your opinions are the divisive ones.”
This is why I feel compelled to continue with Sacred Musings. I feel that we have lost our way as a society, we have largely lost our Christian instincts, and even Christians have succumbed to secular thinking. As Harry Blamires lamented way back in the 1960s:
‘The Christian mind has succumbed to the secular drift with a degree of weakness and nervelessness unmatched in Christian history … As a thinking being the modern Christian has succumbed to secularization.’
I want to help us rebuild a Christian mind. And if that means coming to conclusions which some people think are ideologically offensive, then so be it. I only ask that, if you disagree, you make a better argument rather than simply calling me wrong.
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