Phill Sacre

Category: Christian

Anything I write about the Christian faith.

  • Being AT church is not BEING church

    Being AT church is not BEING church

    Can you remember LBL – Life Before Lockdown? (It’s a new acronym, I hope it’ll catch on). It feels like life has changed so much in the past year, it’s hard to remember what it was like before. My days were full of activities and meetings – taking a look back in my diary brings back memories of having activities most days: groups, meetings, services, there was at least something on every day.

    My life was in many ways centred around the church. The beating heart of this was the services, especially on a Sunday: in the morning I would go to two services (in our parish there are two church buildings, with a service at each one). Then there would be a service in the afternoon which I was at most weeks. Sometimes there would be an evening service. So each Sunday I was usually at church three times – even four, on occasion. That’s a whole lot of church!

    So – what’s the problem with that? The problem is that I spent so long AT church that I forgot to BE church. Let me explain what I mean by that.

    Church is not a building

    A mosaic of our church building made up of lots of pictures from people in the church

    One of the things that we sometimes explain to schoolchildren (expecting them to be surprised!) is that church is not a building. A building can be ‘a church’ – but all that means is, a building which is dedicated to God for the purpose of the church. The church is really the people.

    In the New Testament, the word ‘church’ never refers to a building. (In the early days there wouldn’t have been church buildings anyway – they weren’t built until Christianity became more established). Christians used to meet in private houses or public meeting rooms.

    In fact, the New Testament uses various metaphors to describe the church, for example as Christ’s “body” (Ephesians 1:22-3), or as a family (Mark 3:34-35). Those are not cold and impersonal – actually it’s the most warm and personal thing you can get! You belong to it simply by repenting of sin and believing in Jesus Christ for salvation. The New Testament sees church as being highly important – but it’s nothing to do with the building.

    We don’t ‘go to church’

    In the days of the New Testament, the church would meet together because they were Christians who loved each other and wanted to meet. It wasn’t their act of meeting together which made them the church: their love for God and each other gave them a desire to meet.

    This is what it says about the church in the very early days:

    All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts

    Acts 2:44-46

    So the believers had everything in common; they put each others’ needs before their own; they met together “every day”. Meeting together wasn’t something they did because they wanted to do church – they met together because they were church! As we saw just now, the church is a body or a family – and Acts shows us what that might look like in practice.

    It’s so important to understand this. A lot of Christians know that ‘church’ is not about the building. But I think we still too often conceive of church as something that we go to to participate in, rather than something that we are.

    Love = being church

    Early on I was playing this song by Graham Kendrick:

    It’s based on Jesus’ words in John 13:

    ‘A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’

    John 13:34-35

    Notice what Jesus didn’t say: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you go to a service once a week.” Worshipping God together is important, but it’s only a part of being the church. I think we in much of the Western world have forgotten that we go to church because we are commanded to love one another.

    Sometimes people say, “you can be a Christian without going to church”. Technically this is true, of course. I’ve spent hours visiting people who would love to come to church, but ill health has made it impossible. But – you can’t be a Christian without being part of the church. If someone claims to be a Christian but has no desire to meet with fellow Christians (let alone love them), then I’d suggest they haven’t understood what it means to be Christian.

    Christians meet together because we love God and each other. That’s how it should be, at least. The word often used is “fellowship” – fellowship is really about Christians meeting together out of love for him and each other. I think we have become far too ‘event-focussed’ – so church is not about being a building, but an event that we go to.

    And then the lockdowns came

    A few weeks ago I said that the lockdowns had given us what we (thought we) wanted. I think the lockdowns have actually been helpful, because they have exposed the truth. This is what I believe has happened in this case. If we see church as an event, then it doesn’t really matter too much if it moves online. You can have songs, Bible reading, sermon, etc – all of those things can be online. The one thing you can’t really have online is fellowship.

    If we’ve learned anything over the last year, it’s that meeting online (whatever technology you use – YouTube, Zoom, Facebook, etc) – isn’t really meeting. Not in the full sense of the word. It’s a very poor substitute for physical meeting. Technology of course has its uses and I have been immensely grateful for it over the last year – but it’s not a substitute for meeting face-to-face.

    Now, here’s a confession. The thing I really missed at the beginning of lockdowns was all the services. Not necessarily all the people. I did miss them as well, I missed them a lot! But, if I’m totally honest, I didn’t miss the people so much as I actually missed the services.

    Part of the reason for that is that church has always been about services. In my time in the church, it felt like the our purpose was to put on more events. We want to worship God – we hold an event and we all come to it. We want to evangelise – we hold an event and invite people to it. I’ve always been busy running around setting up equipment, or putting chairs out, or the like – so much so that I just haven’t had time to build deep relationships with people.

    Time for relationship

    Friends

    I said before in my post about being human that we were designed for relationships. We serve a Trinitarian God who is, and has always been, a community of other-person centred love. We are made in the image of God, to reflect that other-person centred love. Our human societies – and especially the church – should be a reflection of our triune God.

    Unfortunately, in my experience at least, a lot of churches spend so much time putting on events that there just isn’t time to build meaningful relationships. Taking 30 minutes after a service to have a coffee is great, but it’s not time when you can build deep friendships with people. Home groups are great, and you can go deeper with people, but I’ve found that they don’t often lead to deep relationships either. I suppose that’s not surprising given that in a typical home group, you’ll spend a couple of hours per week together – and a lot of that time will be Bible study. It’s a far cry from holding everything in common and meeting together every day!

    Thinking back over the past year, the people I’ve most naturally kept in touch with have been the people I have the strongest relationships with. It just happened organically, without feeling forced in any way. Some of them have been parents from the toddler group we run at the church. There are one or two people I used to spend a decent amount of time with chatting to each week. That’s the nice thing about those groups – it was a bit of time without pressure where you could just sit down and get to know someone. Unfortunately, it’s that exact kind of spending time together which I think doesn’t happen so much in “ordinary” church.

    Lessons for a post-lockdown church

    I think the big lesson for me from all this is to remember how important relationships are in a church. Church is not found in a building or an event, but in relationships with other Christians. It’s so important to work at those.

    We in the church often don’t help ourselves because we try to busy ourselves with running lots of events all the time. I’m more guilty of this than most – I love events! I love being busy, I love rushing around doing stuff – especially doing stuff for God. So often, just sitting down and talking to someone feels like I’m not doing stuff.

    And, to be completely honest, I think this feeling comes from a wrong view of God: sitting down and having a chat with someone is (usually) an enjoyable experience. Rushing around setting up for things might give a superficial sense of achievement, but it’s not really enjoyable in the same way. Yet I sometimes think that God wants me avoid what I find enjoyable and focus on my view of doing stuff, because I have to lay aside my desires for Christ. Well, it’s true that Christ calls us to take up our cross to follow him, but it’s completely wrong to say that means God doesn’t want us to enjoy ourselves. Rather, we should delight ourselves in him.

    Take delight in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

    Psalm 37:4

    So, in a nutshell, what would I like a post-lockdown church to look like? Ultimately, one where time and space are given to relationships. Where we don’t have to feel like we have to run round and put on events all the time. Where we can get to know each other, and get to know others, properly.

    We are living in a world of social distancing, a world where people are literally told to stay away from other people. I think we will emerge from this pandemic to a world where people are desperate for real, meaningful relationships. Not more Zoom or YouTube events. We the church have something distinct and important to offer the world. We are meant to show the world what it’s like to live without fear in a community of love. Let’s stop rushing around to put on church events, and start being the church.

  • Covid and Biblical Principles: Being Human

    Covid and Biblical Principles: Being Human

    In the third part of my short series on Covid and Biblical Principles, we are looking at what it means to be human. (If you missed them, parts one and two were on safety and truth). This is something fundamental to the discussion, and yet it is often assumed or ignored. I think this issue in particular is one where the Christian faith has a lot to say.

    One of the things that has struck me over the last few months is that, for many people in our society, our understanding of what it means to be human has changed. Let’s delve into the basics of what the Bible says about being human.

    The Bible and Being Human

    Made in the Image of God

    So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

    Genesis 1:27

    This is the most foundational verse about humanity in the Bible. This verse has shaped Western civilisation more than you can imagine. (Read Tom Holland’s book Dominion if you need to be persuaded). For now, let’s think about what it means to be made in the “image of God”. Theologians have been debating this for thousands of years! Part of the reason I think this short verse has had such an impact on our society is that there is no one simple explanation of what it means.

    At the very least it means that in order to understand who we are as human beings, we need to understand something of who God is. We only begin to understand ourselves when we understand God. This is how John Calvin began his famous theological work Institutes of the Christian Religion:

    Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other. For, in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves

    If we only know ourselves, our knowledge is incomplete. If we want to know ourselves truly, we need to know the God who made us. So let’s spend a moment thinking about him.

    Who is God?

    One of the interesting things about Genesis 1 is that God speaks of himself in the plural. For example, in the verse just before the one I quoted: “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). What does this mean? Does God have some kind of multiple personality disorder, or is it more like the royal ‘we’? It’s neither of those. Over the last 2000 years, theologians have understood from the Bible that God is Trinity. That is, there is one God, who exists in three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

    We can’t spend hours going into all the Biblical evidence and so on here. If you’d like to read a bit more on that, you can see my post introducing the Trinity on Understand the Bible.

    The important point I want to make here is simply this: the Trinity means that God is fundamentally, from eternity, a community of other-person centred love. You could say that God is fundamentally relational. Relationships are not something which are foreign to him, but intrinsic to his nature.

    Now if we bring that back to human beings, we see how big a difference that makes to us.

    We are fundamentally relational

    Because God is relational, and because we are made in God’s image, we too are made to be relational. Relationships are in our DNA, so to speak. Our relationships define us. Think about it: a baby, from the very moment it is born, has various relationships. It has a mother and father; grandparents; maybe brothers and sisters, cousins, a wider family. We are only beginning to understand how important those initial relationships are to its development.

    The Beatles

    But there are also other relationships we have even from birth: a relationship with our wider community (e.g. churches, baby and toddler groups), health services, and so on. As the saying goes, ‘no man is an island’ – and that’s true of the very youngest to the very oldest. We need each other. Human civilisation is built on relationships, that’s the way it was meant to be. The Beatles had it right: “I get by with a little help from my friends”.

    If our relationships are stripped away, you take away what it means to be human beings. It may be appropriate to do this in some circumstances, e.g. prison inmates cannot see their friends and family as they wish for obvious reasons. But we need relationships to thrive and survive, normal human life should be full of healthy relationships.

    If you’d like to read a more in-depth look at this, have a read of this article written by former principal of my theological college, Mike Ovey: The Human Identity Crisis: Can we do without the Trinity?

    We are made to love

    Closely related to the previous point, we are made to love. The second greatest commandment is “love your neighbour as yourself”. This is more than simply having relationships with others in a distant sense: we are supposed to actively love others. As John says, “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18).

    Sometimes love means refraining, as in the Ten Commandments: “Do not murder”, “Do not steal”. Love means NOT doing things to other people. But it also has corresponding obligations: don’t murder someone – instead, treat them with love, as you would like someone to treat you. Instead of bearing false witness, stand up for the truth. And so on. Love involves both the positive and negative aspects of action – doing as well as not doing.

    We have dignity

    Like I said, the idea that we human beings are in the image of God has changed Western civilisation beyond recognition. Think about some of the ideas we hold most dear, e.g. democracy. I love democracy: it’s the idea that Richard Branson’s cleaner has as much say about the leadership of our country than Richard Branson does. This is a profoundly Christian idea, which flows from the idea of us all being made in the image of God: we are all equal, we are all given infinite dignity by our Creator.

    I think William Shakespeare expressed something of this in Hamlet:

    Shakespeake quote from Hamlet: "What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties"

    So what does it look like to have human dignity? I’ve already talked about this in my previous post on freedom so I won’t repeat myself too much. There I said that our dignity as human beings means that we should be given freedom – we are not to be caged up like animals. Our dignity also entails responsibility: we are creatures who have been given responsibility to make decisions, to do good rather than evil, to love our neighbour.

    If our freedom is taken away, if our choices are taken away, then so is our dignity as human beings made in the image of God.

    Faces matter

    Man with face covered

    The final thing before we move onto how all this relates to covid is the way that our faces matter. Western countries have tended not to wear face coverings in the way they do in Islamic or Eastern countries. This is because of the influence of Christianity. Our faces have significance – we are not faceless drones or to be ashamed of our appearance, but made special and beautiful in God’s sight.

    The Bible doesn’t really talk about face coverings or masks. Moses did wear a veil over his face occasionally (you can read about that in Exodus 34). This was because his face was “radiant” because he had spoken with the Lord (Exodus 34:30). The good news is that Christians have been given privileged access to God. Where once we could not see God’s face and live (Exodus 33:20), now we can contemplate the Lord’s glory with unveiled faces (2 Corinthians 3:18).

    In fact, God hiding his face is a sign of his displeasure – so we see the Psalmist in Psalm 102 crying out: “Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress!”

    How are we doing with covid?

    Let’s take these principles and think about how they’re working out with covid.

    Freedom

    I’ve already written about freedom before, so I won’t go over old ground. As a society we have endured two lockdowns (so far), where it has been illegal to leave your house except for certain circumstances. But outside of those lockdowns we have also been under various legal restrictions which have restricted who we can see and when. Where I am currently living, it is basically illegal to go into someone else’s house to pay them a social visit.

    Not only that, but the government has seen fit to use a Behavioural Insights Team to try to coerce us into obeying them. Rather than being presented with the facts and given the dignity to make our own decisions, the government have made an intentional decision to ‘twist our arm’. In other words, manipulation.

    Relationships

    Bob Moran Cartoon

    One of the worst things to happen over the last nine months is that our relationships have been curtailed. We have been unable to see each other in the way we used to. I’ve seen some absolutely horrible footage over the last few months: e.g. at a funeral, someone was prevented from putting a comforting arm around someone else. There was a woman who was arrested for trying to take her grandmother out of care.

    But it’s not just the big things, it’s also our everyday lives: we have been kept away from even casual friendships. Things which we used to be able to do – e.g. pop out for a coffee with a friend – are now impossible. As we saw, life is all about relationships. We literally need each other to survive. Keeping us from each other is dehumanising.

    There are times when this is appropriate (e.g. prison). Is it appropriate during a pandemic? I don’t believe so – not to force people to stay away from their friends and family. Keeping us from our nearest and dearest is leading to some serious ill effects. For example, the Guardian reported recently that Covid poses the greatest threat to mental health since the second world war. When you dehumanise people, you break them.

    You simply can’t isolate people from their friends, family and support networks and then expect them to cope with a pandemic.

    Covid is a serious disease, but dehumanising people is worse. We need each other, especially at a time like this. Lockdowns may stop the spread of a disease to some extent (although I believe their effect is very small indeed, which is why we seem to keep needing them). But forcing human beings not to be human has far worse consequences.

    Masks and social distancing

    One of the interesting things about masks is that they are not simply neutral items of clothing. As soon as you put one on, you feel different. I’ve had to stop wearing one now because of health issues, but when I wore one to go to the shops it had a noticeable effect. It made me want to keep quiet and not talk, for one.

    Whenever you see someone wearing a mask, it’s a constant reminder that they are a potential bearer of infection. This is a far cry from seeing each other as people to be loved! As the second greatest commandment says, “Love your neighbour as yourself”. One of my biggest worries about covid is that we will end up as a society staying away from each other. This is not how we were designed as humans! It’s deeply damaging and destructive.

    But aren’t the restrictions necessary?

    There may be people who reading who agree with the points I’ve made, but still think: but aren’t the restrictions necessary? No-one likes masks and social distancing, no-one likes having to stay home. But we do these things to protect others. Isn’t that a good enough reason?

    I don’t believe so, for the following reasons:

    Firstly, I believe that dehumanising us is never right. Remember that lockdowns first originated in China, which was then copied by Western societies (as “Professor Lockdown” Neil Ferguson recently pointed out). China is not a country known for its good human rights record! China does not have a history of seeing people as God’s image bearers. Even if lockdowns work (and I’m not sure they do), I don’t believe it’s right to treat people in this way.

    Secondly, I believe that dehumanising us makes things worse. As I said, when you cut people off from their families, friends, and support networks, it makes them much less able to cope with life. This is why we’ve seen the issue of mental health grow like never before. But I also believe that keeping us away from our relationships may have negative physical health consequences. Spending time with people is not just good for our mental health, it’s good for our physical health too. When we are isolated, it causes problems.

    Thirdly, I am not convinced the restrictions are even helping. So much of the restrictions depends on the existence of asymptomatic transmission – that is, you could be transmitting the virus even if you don’t feel ill. This is certainly not proven science – the BMJ wrote about it just before Christmas. The point they were making is that things are unclear. Certainly not clear enough to justify asking everyone to undergo these extreme measures, beyond sensible precautions (e.g. staying home if you are ill). More worryingly, there is evidence that face masks and the like are actually causing more problems.

    We don’t have time to go into it all now – I mentioned a few other issues in my previous post on truth.

    I hope that this post has been helpful in at least setting out some of the issues, even if you disagree!

  • Thank God that Jesus did NOT maintain a safe distance

    Thank God that Jesus did NOT maintain a safe distance

    Over the last couple of weeks I have written about Biblical principles and covid (safety and truth). After Christmas I will, God-willing, continue – but for now I just wanted to share a brief thought. This is what it says in John 1:14: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”

    Jesus, the Word of God, became flesh – a human being, like us – and lived as one of us. What an amazing thing to think about, especially in 2020.

    Jesus didn’t keep his distance

    One of my favourite Christmas carols is Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour.

    This carol tells the story of how Jesus, who was rich beyond all splendour, came down to us for love’s sake. It begins:

    Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,
    All for love’s sake becamest poor;
    Thrones for a manger didst surrender,
    Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.

    Jesus Christ, the Son of God, could have kept a safe distance away from us. His were ‘Sapphire-paved courts’ – all the treasures of heaven. And yet he exchanged that for the lowly birth – a manger and a stable floor. Why? “All for love’s sake”. Because, out of love, he couldn’t keep away.

    Jesus came to us to heal us

    In Matthew chapter 8, we read of how Jesus healed a man with leprosy:

    When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.’

    Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’ Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy.

    Leprosy in those days was a horrible disease – but not just because of its physical effects. It meant that you had to live away from the community, and it even separated you from God (you couldn’t go into the temple). Lepers had to shout ‘unclean, unclean’ to keep people away from them. Lepers, you might say, were doing social distancing before social distancing was a thing!

    Jesus, however, did not keep his distance. Jesus even comes up to the man and touches him. But Jesus doesn’t get ill – instead, Jesus’ touch makes the man clean. The leper was healed of his disease, and able once again to enjoy life in the community and life with God.

    The leprosy was symbolic of something deeper which is wrong with all of us: sin. Sin separates us from each other, and it separates us from God. But Jesus comes to us in our sinfulness, forgives us, heals us, and restores us to right relationships with God and each other.

    Go and do likewise

    Christians are commanded to love one another as Jesus loved. As Jesus said: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35). Jesus’ love is the model for our love.

    One of the things I have found most difficult about the last year is the social distancing and masks etc. It’s changing the way that we see each other: rather than seeing each other as people to love, we are starting to see each other as people to avoid because they might be bearers of an infectious disease. I think long-term this will cause far more damaging effects than covid.

    What I want to say, this Christmas-time, is simply this: Jesus could have kept his distance. He could have stayed away from us – it was his right to do so. He didn’t have to, as a hymn puts it, “exchange the joy of heaven for the anguish of a cross”. He could have stayed away. But he didn’t – because he loved us.

    My hope and prayer is that covid will not change the way that we see each other. The restrictions may be necessary at times, but fundamentally we are all human beings in need of love. When you look at another person you are seeing someone made in God’s image who needs love. We mustn’t let the restrictions interfere with how we see each other.

    Jesus came into a world which had a sickness far worse than covid. He came to save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). He came to heal and to forgive. Let’s follow his example.

  • Covid and Biblical Principles: Truth

    Covid and Biblical Principles: Truth

    In my previous post I looked at the Biblical principles of safety. In this post we’re going to look at another principle which is very relevant to the current situation: truth. I want to outline a few Biblical principles for truth, and then if there’s space at the end talk a little about how we’re doing with the current situation.

    Biblical principles of truth

    God’s existence is the basis of all truth

    I’ve just been reading the Francis Schaeffer Trilogy. In the first book, “The God who is there”, Schaeffer basically says that the whole concept of truth depends on God’s existence. If God doesn’t exist, anything goes: we can’t trust our senses, we can’t trust our intellects – eliminating God ultimately undermines any basis we have for rationality. On the other hand, if God does exist, that is the God of the Bible, then truth exists: he created the universe in this way and not that way. He gave us minds and he wants us to use them. The ultimate foundation of all truth in the universe is God.

    As a side note – I wrote a post on Understand the Bible last week: Why you should read Schaeffer – True Spirituality. If you’ve never read his writings, they’re well worth reading.

    The whole scientific method ultimately depends on God’s existence. This is why science flourished in a Western, Christian society – and many of the early scientists were Christians. Science requires a belief that there is a world out there and that we can discover something true about it. Only God, the Christian God, can provide the foundation of that belief. (If you’d like to know more about that, check out Part One of the session I posted last week about Genesis and Science).

    The X-Files

    The fundamental, take-away point here is that (to borrow from the X-Files) the truth is out there. It’s never pointless to try to find out the truth. The truth is not political, or determined by those who have the most power. It’s out there, and we can discover it. And, what’s more, it is the truth whether or not people believe it or not. My daughters like to listen to an artist called Colin Buchanan, and his song Truth is still true says truth is still true even if you don’t believe it. This is fundamental to science.

    God is truthful

    God is not just the fount of truth, he is also truthful. That means he is truthful in what he says. You can see this many places in the Bible. For example, Titus 1:2 talks about God “who does not lie”. One of the conditions for testing whether a prophet was truly from God or not was whether what they prophesied came true or not (Deuteronomy 18:22). The Psalms often associate God with truth, e.g. his laws are true (Psalm 119:142).

    Jesus himself said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). Jesus claimed to be the truth (John 14:6), and that anyone who followed him would be living in the truth which brings freedom.

    So God is not just the foundation stone of truth, but he speaks truth to us. When we listen to God, we listen to the truth. In particular, this means that the Bible is true and trustworthy: when we listen to the Bible, we are listening to God’s words – words which are true.

    Satan is the father of lies and enemy of truth

    “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.”

    John 8:44

    If God is the foundation of truth and always truthful, by contrast Satan is the Father of lies. It is, in fact, his “native language”. You can see that from the beginning – when he deceived Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden (Genesis chapter 3).

    God is truth, anything less than the truth does not come from him but from the evil one. I think it’s important to make the point that there are forces of evil out there who are seeking to lie and suppress the truth. Romans 1:18 says we human beings “suppress the truth” – we don’t want to know the truth about God, so we suppress it. We exchange the truth about God for a lie (Romans 1:25).

    Whenever truth is honoured in a society, God is honoured, because God is truth. Jesus said “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me” (John 18:37). Whenever truth is not honoured in a society, it is not God who is honoured but Satan.

    Christians should be concerned with the truth

    Because God is truthful, Christians should also be concerned with the truth. I like to read a Psalm every day, and recently I’ve been struck by how many of them speak of our truthfulness. For example, Psalm 52:3 says of wicked people: “You love evil rather than good, falsehood rather than speaking the truth.” By contrast, Psalm 15 says that God loves someone of integrity, who “speaks the truth from their heart”.

    When God rebukes the people of Israel through Jeremiah, he says “Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they weary themselves with sinning.” (Jeremiah 9:5). The people routinely lying to each other was evidence of how depraved they had become. The people of God are to be different – Ephesians 4:15 says we should speak the truth in love to one another.

    The ninth commandment forbids us from bearing false witness against our neighbour. This is how the Heidelberg Catechism interprets it:

    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.

    If you’re interested in learning more, you might enjoy the Understand the Bible session on Commandment #9 here.

    Those who fear the Lord, who know that what he says is truth, should be concerned about truth – not just the Bible, but all truth. All truth is God’s truth. There is no sacred / secular divide when it comes to truth – if something is true, then it is God’s truth. We should stand up for and defend the truth wherever it is necessary.

    Truth is sometimes difficult

    The final point I want to make is that truth is not always welcome. As Jesus said in John 8:45, “Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!” Because truth is godly, there will always be ungodly people who want to lie or distort the truth. The truth can be hard for us to hear.

    This is why Proverbs 27:6 says, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.” The path of wisdom is recognising that sometimes telling the truth wounds us – yet it is good for us. This is why we should trust and appreciate friends who love us enough to tell us the truth. People who want to manipulate us will never tell us the truth. They will only ever want to tell us what we want to hear. The people who love us enough to tell the truth should be prized.

    This doesn’t mean we should seek to be offensive in telling the truth! It’s possible to tell the truth in a nasty way. The film The Invention of Lying is interesting about that – just because something is true doesn’t mean you have to just come out with it! If the truth is going to be offensive, we might as well try to make sure that it’s the truth causing the offence, not the way that we say it.

    So, how are we doing with covid?

    One of the interesting things about the covid-19 situation is the way that truth has become politicised in the extreme. I wrote a little about this in my previous post about political truth. Let me expand on that a little.

    Whenever I post up something on Facebook which is from a more ‘lockdown sceptical’ perspective (the whole fact that there are sides to begin with is a bad sign), it usually gets jumped on. The thing is, most of the time people don’t respond to the actual scientific or logical points being made. Instead, people often focus on the people. (In football speak, the play the man – not the ball).

    For example, a few weeks ago in a discussion someone pointed me to this piece on the Byline Times. It largely focusses on the politics of people who question the science of lockdowns. There are very few facts or logical arguments. So, for example, Carl Heneghan and the Oxford University Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine come under fire because it receives money from a close Trump supporter. Karol Sikora, who has been outspoken about the lockdowns, comes under fire not because of science but because he has campaigned for conservative political issues.

    Social media “fact-checkers” have got in on the act. For example, Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson’s piece (they are both from the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine) has been labelled as “false information”. Even though I don’t find any false information in it! And scientists who question the lockdown have received some horrendous abuse online, for example Sunetra Gupta (one of the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration).

    It is as if truth no longer matters – the only thing that matters is agreeing with the establishment.

    Why the truth matters

    A recent editorial in the BMJ (the British Medical Journal – a prestigious medical journal) said: “When good science is suppressed by the medical-political complex, people die”. This is why the truth matters, especially with covid. The stakes are too high – it is literally people’s lives. But not just people who are dying from covid, but all the other factors e.g. the mental health cost of lockdown as well as the people who have died (or will die) due to not receiving the treatment the need. I talked about this in my post about the risk of lockdown.

    The stakes are high for any course of action we take. Which is why it is so important that we base our decisions on the truth. The truth IS out there when it comes to covid. Christians especially have a duty to expose and live by the truth, even when it is swimming against the tide in our society.

    Proclaiming Christ the truth must mean that we are concerned with truth everywhere – not just ‘gospel’ truth or Biblical truth but truth in the world as well. And, if we seek the truth, perhaps people will listen:

    “the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

    John 18:37

    Postscript: Truth issues around covid

    I didn’t want to go into too much detail in my post about issues around the truth and covid. It’s easy to get bogged down. My problem is that there is so little truth in this whole situation. Let me give a few pointers, you could just go on and on about this. I suggest Toby Young’s website Lockdown Sceptics for a starting point.

    Why is so much of the government’s response reliant on PCR tests? We know there are problems with the tests – for example, there is a false positive rate. There are also problems with tests being run by people with very little training. See, for example, the recent Channel 4 Dispatches programme about covid testing. In other words, when a test comes back positive, if the person in question has no symptoms, how do we know it’s a “case”? Dr John Lee wrote about this back in October. Here’s a good video from Dr Clare Craig talking about the problem with testing:

    https://vimeo.com/490158841

    How can we be confident that the number of covid deaths is accurate? A covid death is currently defined as someone dying within 28 days of a positive test. Regardless of whether the cause of death was actually covid or not. I have personally heard of two stories from people I know (clergy) who have done funerals recently: one died of a heart attack, one of a road traffic accident. Both of these were listed as covid deaths – even though covid had nothing to do with the cause of death. From what I hear on social media, this kind of thing is happening enough to get noticed. Why are we not actually looking at people who are actually ill? The ZOE app from Kings College London, for example, tracks people with actual symptoms rather than just test results. That tells a somewhat different story.

    Covid cases according to ZOE app, as of 14/12/2020

    Why are the official statistics unclear? Just this morning I read an interesting thread about excess non-covid deaths. Why are these not being picked up on? And why do the government rarely ever put deaths in context, e.g. comparing the number of actual deaths against the number we usually expect at this time of year?

    Do lockdowns have any positive effect at all? There are lots of scientific studies on lockdowns now, and they show that lockdowns make little (if any) difference to mortality, and they have huge harmful effects. Ivor Cummins has a summary on his website. (Check out the rest of his YouTube channel for lots of analysis of the data).

    You could carry on and on. So much of what most people seem to believe about covid is scientifically disputable, or at least, more complicated than what we are led to believe.

    A final plea…

    Please don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not trying to say the very existence of all these opinions makes them right. However, as I said, the stakes here are too high. Why are these things not being discussed or addressed by the government? Why does the establishment narrative not get questioned with the rigor it deserves? As the BMJ said, when truth is suppressed, when it becomes political, then people die. I want to seek the truth wherever it lies, not whatever is politically convenient.

  • Covid and Biblical Principles: Safety

    Covid and Biblical Principles: Safety

    Over the last few months, I’ve seen a lot of talk about safety. It’s important to keep everybody safe. We especially need to keep those in vulnerable groups safe. But not many people have been thinking about what safety actually is, or putting it in context. I thought it might be helpful to think a little about safety from a Christian perspective, and then look at how that might apply in our churches and communities.

    Biblical principles of safety

    We should take safety seriously

    Ancient houses with flat roofs

    When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.

    Deuteronomy 22:8

    The book of Deuteronomy contains various practical laws, such as this one. Obviously it was written for a people who lived in a hot climate, where flat roofs were the norm! But I think the principle here is a good one. If you are building a house, then you should consider safety. If you don’t, then if something bad happens the guilt will be yours. And that’s no small matter – you would be guilty of bloodshed.

    The point to take away from this it’s not just right but essential to take reasonable precautions. They flow from the second greatest commandment – to love our neighbour. Loving our neighbour means protecting them where possible. Failing in this duty is a serious business.

    We should quarantine the sick

    ‘Anyone with such a defiling disease must wear torn clothes, let their hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of their face and cry out, “Unclean! Unclean!” As long as they have the disease they remain unclean. They must live alone; they must live outside the camp.

    Leviticus 13:45-46
    Stay Home message

    Another law from the Old Testament. There is a whole section in Leviticus about ‘defiling diseases’, diseases which could spread through a community. If someone caught one of these, they were to isolate. (The ancient Israelites were doing self-isolation before self-isolation was cool.) In fact, quarantining those who are sick with an infectious disease is just common sense.

    Now I’m not advocating someone letting their hair be unkempt and shouting out “unclean! unclean!” But the principle of quarantine is sound. If you have symptoms of an infectious disease such as the flu or covid, don’t go out. That’s a sensible precaution, and it’s for the benefit of the community.

    There is just one thing to add here: the Bible does not talk about quarantining healthy people. I guess that’s because, if you don’t know who is sick, you would end up quarantining everyone! I think this is a sensible way of looking at things – maybe we can come back to this at a later date.

    Safety must be proportionate to enjoying life

    Recently in our midweek service, I preached through the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is a fascinating book, if you want to get into it I can thoroughly recommend David Gibson’s book Destiny (“Learning to live by preparing to die”). I was really struck by Ecclesiastes 9:1-12 when it comes to safety.

    That passage makes a few points which are relevant:

    • “The race is not to the swift” – in other words, the fastest runner doesn’t always win the race. You could also say, the one who takes the most precautions isn’t always safest. “Time and chance happen to them all”
    • “No one knows when their hour will come” – dark times can meet all of us, and we don’t know when. We can’t always protect against in, in fact very often we can’t. The hour of our own death is not in our hands.
    • So – we should enjoy life: “Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do.” Death is inevitable, it will happen. Rather than trying to put it off at all costs, we should remember that ultimately it is in God’s hands and seek to enjoy life in the here and now as a gift from him.

    The big take away from this passage for me is that it’s pointless to try to prolong our lives at the expense of enjoying our lives. A modern way of putting it would be to say quality of life matters as much or perhaps even more than quantity. Life is there to be enjoyed as a gift from God.

    Safety is only found in God

    In the Bible, safety is not defined as “no bad things happening”. Safety depends on our relationship with God, ultimately. Over the last few months I’ve been working my way through the Psalms in my Thought for the Week series on Understand the Bible. What struck me is how many of the Psalms were written because David (or whichever Psalmist is writing) is going through a hard time. Just this morning, for example, I read Psalm 3. That starts out:

    Lord, how many are my foes!
    How many rise up against me!

    Does that sound safe to you? It doesn’t to me! But then David goes on:

    But you, Lord, are a shield around me,
    my glory, the One who lifts my head high.

    For David, safety wasn’t about stopping bad things from happening. It was about a confidence and trust in God that he would protect him even through those times. There’s a line in Psalm 112 which I often think of: “They will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.” I like it because it assumes that we will get bad news from time to time – but we have no need to fear it. We can trust in the Lord despite everything.

    At the end of the day, safety comes from God. Psalm 4:8, “In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

    So – safety is something which transcends our circumstances. Safety is a secure trust that, whatever we do or wherever we go, God is in control and working for our good. Even if bad things happen, they will turn out for good. Even death itself is in God’s hands – all our days are numbered.

    We shouldn’t worry

    Don't Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin
    Bobby McFerrin: Definitely not Jesus!

    Jesus famously said in Matthew 6:27: “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” We can’t add any time to our lives by worrying. In fact, as Psalm 139 puts it: “all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” God has all our days in hand, virus or no virus. Those who believe and trust in Jesus have no need to worry. God will keep us safe. Alec Motyer once put it this way: “With God, there is no such thing as an untimely death.” This is our confidence – that God is the one who decides the day we die, not us or the safety precautions we’ve taken.

    For Christians, at the end of the day death has no power over us, and we should not fear it. As Hebrews 2:14-15 puts it:

    Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

    We no longer need to fear death or be held in slavery by it.

    Better to fear God than be safe

    ‘I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

    Luke 12:4-5

    Christians should fear God more than we fear death. Over the years, this has caused many Christians to act in very self-sacrificial and heroic ways. Hebrews 11:37-38 says about some of the heroic people of faith:

    They were put to death by stoning; they were sawn in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and ill-treated – the world was not worthy of them.

    These people obeyed God and did not fear death. They were more concerned to do the right thing then to remain safe. Throughout history, Christians have eschewed their own personal safety for acts of love, kindness, and bravery. In times of plague, for example, they might have been the only people who were willing to stay and help the victims. (Richard Turnbull’s lecture for the Christian Institute on plagues and Christian history is worth watching).

    Disobedience to God is not safe

    One thing which is explicitly named as not being safe in the Bible is disobeying God. For example:

    However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you … The Lord will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish.

    Deuteronomy 28:15, 21-22

    So plague is named as one of the things which God could bring upon the Israelites as a result of their disobedience. Several times in the Old Testament God sends a plague upon the people for their sin (e.g. Numbers 16).

    Book of Common Prayer - prayer in any time of common plague or sickness

    Traditionally, plague has been seen by the church as a sign of God’s judgement and displeasure. The Book of Common Prayer, for example, contains this prayer to be said “in the time of any common plague or sickness”:

    O ALMIGHTY God, who in thy wrath didst send a plague upon thine own people in the wilderness, for their obstinate rebellion against Moses and Aaron; and also, in the time of king David, didst slay with the plague of pestilence threescore and ten thousand, and yet remembering thy mercy didst save the rest: Have pity upon us miserable sinners, who now are visited with great sickness and mortality; that like as thou didst then accept of an atonement, and didst command the destroying Angel to cease from punishing, so it may now please thee to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sickness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

    Drawing it all together

    Safety is a Biblical concept. I think it’s right to be concerned about it, as we saw with the laws from the Old Testament. We have a duty of care to each other. It’s also right to take sensible precautions like quarantining the sick. However, the precautions we take should not be so extreme they stop us from living and enjoying life in the way God wants us to.

    Ultimately, safety is something that can only go so far: we may think we are safe and secure, but – like the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12) – our lives may be demanded of us. Our safety is found ultimately in Christ, and in fact however ‘safe’ we may be, it is never safe to be disobedient to God.

    So, what should our response to covid be in society and in the church?

    In society

    We know that it’s important to take precautions. At the same time, we know it’s possible to be over-cautious. Quality of life is important. There is a sensible ‘middle ground’ which isn’t going too far either way.

    Here’s the question: what IS being too cautious or too reckless? I’ve been going on too long now so that will have to wait for another time. But I think what we’ve seen here has laid the groundwork for an answer.

    In the church

    Safety is an important principle, but there are more important things. In particular, where safety conflicts with obedience to God then we must obey God. I would suggest the church needs to look carefully at what it means to sing, worship, have fellowship with each other, and so on. How important we see these things will determine how we should relate them to safety.

    The next part of the series is on Truth.

  • Genesis vs Science – Talk recording

    Genesis vs Science – Talk recording

    About 18 months ago, I ran a session at our church called “Genesis vs Science”. A few people had been asking questions about Genesis and the Bible and how it squared up with questions of science e.g. the Big Bang and evolution. The whole thing was recorded and for a while was available on our church website, unfortunately for various reasons it’s not there at the moment.

    So, I’ve decided to upload the sessions here so that there’s a permanent archive of them in case they’re useful.

    The morning was split into two halves – the first session was on the foundations of science, and the second was specifically about Genesis.

    The first session started out with this video, which you may wish to watch first:

    Downloads

    This is the handout, which you can download to refer to during the sessions:

    Genesis vs Science HandoutDownload
    Session 1 – Foundations of Science
    Session 2 – What Genesis does and does not say

  • The CofE: Should I stay or go?

    The CofE: Should I stay or go?

    Should I stay or should I go now?
    Should I stay or should I go now?
    If I go there will be trouble
    And if I stay it will be double

    I’m a member of a Christian group on Facebook where we discuss … Christian stuff. Current events from a Christian perspective, all that sort of stuff. One topic which gets discussed with depressing regularity is whether evangelicals should leave the Church of England. Just this morning, yet another thread was posted because someone has written an article about why sound evangelicals should quit the CofE.

    I am finding these discussions more and more wearisome. It’s not because I strongly agree or disagree with the premise, but because I think so much of the time the discussion misses the point. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer when it comes to leaving the Church of England – it’s complicated. But I think the discussion often seems to focus on a few things (e.g. relating to false teachers) when I think there are other issues which get missed.

    Every time we have the discussion I feel like I don’t have the bravery to say what I think. So I’ve decided to write this blog post to put down what I believe. I think blogging is probably a better medium for hashing out ideas, Facebook is good for quick discussions but it’s really not conducive to thinking things through.

    I am called to preach the gospel

    For when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, since I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!

    1 Corinthians 9:6

    I believe God has called me to be a pastor-teacher – someone who is set apart to proclaim the gospel. Various denominations use different words for this, e.g. the word ‘priest’ (which I wrote about a few years ago). But we all recognise that the calling of a pastor-teacher is to proclaim the gospel.

    So, for example, when I was ordained as a ‘priest’, I had to answer these questions:

    Do you accept the Holy Scriptures as revealing all things necessary for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ?

    Will you be diligent in prayer, in reading Holy Scripture, and in all studies that will deepen your faith and fit you to bear witness to the truth of the gospel?

    Will you lead Christ’s people in proclaiming his glorious gospel, so that the good news of salvation may be heard in every place?

    I could answer ‘with the help of God, I will’ wholeheartedly to each question. I am called and ordained as a minister of the gospel in the church of God. That is my primary calling, it is what I’m here to do.

    And when I say ‘here’, I really do mean, ‘here’. One of the things about being an Anglican is that you are called to a particular place, to a particular parish. You have a particular duty to proclaim the gospel to the people who live within your parish boundary. It’s a duty and an honour to be commissioned to serve the people of a particular parish. I think it’s a real strength of the Anglican church actually, in a disconnected age we stand against it and say: I am here for this people in this place. Not just the rich ones, or the ones who have white-collar jobs, or who’ve been to university.

    So my primary calling is to preach the gospel. Why do I start with this?

    I’m not called to save the Church of England

    I am called to proclaim the gospel, not to save the Church of England. Sometimes I think you could get from the discussion that our primary calling was to save the Church of England. Other times, I think it’s assumed that they are one and the same thing. I do not believe this is the case.

    Saving the Church of England seems to be at the moment to be largely about politics. I appreciate that any organisation, large or small, will have an element of politics about it. It is right for Christians to go into politics – I talked a bit about that here. But I think, by and large, those who are called to preach the gospel should not get caught up in politics.

    In our church, we’re currently working through 2 Timothy on a Sunday morning. Recently we had the passage which included 2 Tim 2:4, “No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer.” The lesson here for me is that we need to keep the main thing as the main thing – we need to focus on preaching the gospel, to please our commanding officer – Christ. It is, after all, his church.

    I’m also struck by the need of the hour: looking round at the state of the nation, what we desperately need as a country is revival. What we need more than anything is for people to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and believe. It was reported recently that CofE churches had a usual Sunday attendance of 854,000 people – that’s about 1.25% of the population. About 5% of the UK population goes to church regularly across all denominations. To put that the other way round, 95% of people don’t go to church regularly.

    We need to reach the unreached as a matter of urgency. The one thing we don’t need is to spend hours of our time debating the church’s view of sexuality in Living in Love and Faith, for example. (As a number of people have put it, we need these discussions like we need a hole in the head!)

    The priority of preaching the gospel

    I’m not saying that all evangelicals should abandon the Church of England, or that everyone should stay! Far from it. I’m saying that there are more important things than leaving or staying in the Church of England. I think the question we should be asking is not whether we should stay or leave, but rather – what does faithfulness to God look like? How and where does he want us to proclaim the gospel?

    Clearly there is much good work going on in the CofE. There are many churches where the gospel is being proclaimed and people are coming to faith and being discipled. That’s fantastic. I’m also very aware that there is a huge mission field in that many Church of England churches don’t hear regular Biblical preaching. I grieve for the many Christians seeking to be faithful but who are not being fed regularly with sound teaching.

    There are also a number of opportunities in Church of England churches which are unique, for example the link with church schools, as well as opportunities for ‘hatch, match and dispatch’ services. I appreciate that the Church of England has a role in civic life which offers many opportunities for proclaiming the gospel.

    However, that is not the whole picture, and this is where I want to talk a little about my own experience.

    The Church of England is hindering the gospel

    I’m not talking about the national picture here. I just want to talk about my experience as an ordinary ‘run of the mill’ member of the clergy in an ordinary church. I obviously don’t want to go into all the ins and outs of my experience. However, I can say that the diocese and particularly bishops have made it very difficult for me individually, and (in my opinion) the church. I / we have had to deal with dishonesty, bad faith, and some behaviour which I would consider manipulative and bullying. Like I said, I cannot go into all the details here.

    Our church is not in a wealthy area. If a diocese decides to cut clergy numbers, as ours has, we can’t simply find the money to fund one ourselves. To an extent, we are at their mercy – and they know that.

    This wouldn’t be such an issue if it hadn’t all become politicised. Conservative evangelical churches are often seen as ‘the problem’. I’ve heard of one church in our diocese, for example, who were told during a vacancy if they appealed to have alternative oversight from Rod Thomas, they’d only be offered a half-time post. This is the kind of political game that gets played all the time.

    The gospel can be preached… but, more and more, it can only be preached if you’re prepared to play the political game. Perhaps this is why several clergy from this diocese have left over the past couple years – I can think of at least five or six off the top of my head. As I said above, I believe my calling is to preach the gospel – not to get enmeshed in church politics.

    Where can I preach the gospel?

    In the end, the fundamental question is – where is God calling me to preach the gospel? For me, I believe that God called me to this town to proclaim the gospel. The bishop did not agree. At the end of the day I felt that I had no choice but to disobey him (but, I believe, obey God) and remain here. That meant that once my curacy finished, I stopped receiving a stipend (i.e. a wage) and we were told we would need to vacate our house.

    Fortunately we were able to come to an arrangement to continue living in our house as paying tenants. God has been very gracious in providing for us in all sorts of ways. And I have been granted Permission to Officiate, which essentially means I am able to continue ministry in our church (with permission of the vicar and PCC).

    But I don’t want to dwell on what happened to me, so much as the principle. God’s call to preach the gospel came first. The Church of England, although in principle ordaining me to preach the gospel, actually stood in the way of it when it came to the crunch.

    And this is really what I want to contribute to the whole staying / leaving the CofE discussion: I don’t think it can simply be reduced to a matter of principle. I’ve held various opinions over the years, but at the end of the day it came down to whether I would be obedient to the call of God to preach the gospel in a particular place.

    Actually, I think sometimes obeying our ordination vows might necessitate leaving the Church of England. I was really struck by Philip de Grey-Water when he left his position as the vicar of Fowey parish church, but started up Anchor Church in Fowey. He was commissioned by the bishop to preach the gospel in a particular place, and he still is (although no longer as part of the Church of England). To my mind that shows a commendable commitment to the place and people.

    It’s not abandoning the flock

    One of the verses which gets brought up in these discussions frequently is John 10:13: “The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.” This is often applied to those who leave the Church of England. I don’t think this is fair.

    In my own case, my own course of action has been determined by care for the sheep. If the Church of England are not going to provide for someone to take care of the sheep, who is? Our average Sunday attendance is about 120, give or take a few. Our parish size is around 25,000 – possibly more. Less than half of one percent of people in our parish come to church. Who’s going to preach the gospel to them? All the diocese are interested in doing is cutting back clergy numbers. There is some funding available, although – as I said – there’s a fair element of church politics involved in that.

    I’m committed to serving the people here, I’m committed to helping people grow in faith. I’m committed to praying for a wonderful act of God to bring many to repentance and faith. I’m preaching the gospel. I’m not leaving.

    A few concluding thoughts

    What gets to me about the stay / leave discussions about the Church of England is that people talk about it like it’s an academic issue. Like it’s as simple as “I’ll stay until they kick me out!”, or “Come out and separate from the false teachers!” Life is rarely that simple, and I hope my story here has helped to illustrate that.

    I hope that, as an evangelical constituency, we can learn to treat each other with gentleness and grace. And I hope and pray that we can commit, wherever we are, whatever situation God places us in, to preach the gospel to his glory.

    Soli deo gloria.

  • Political truth vs Actual truth

    Political truth vs Actual truth

    I had another one of my epiphanies yesterday. As I was chatting to my wife, something became clear to me which I hadn’t really seen clearly before. That is: there are now two kinds of truth in the world – political truth and actual truth. They’re not the same thing at all. To some extent there’s always been political truth, but it’s been getting worse over the last few years and covid has put it into overdrive.

    Let’s start by thinking about what political truth is.

    What is political truth?

    1. Believed by the establishment

    Monty Python
    Monty Python’s vision of the Establishment

    The first mark of political truth is that it is general held by the establishment. I think ‘the establishment’ is quite a hard thing to define, so let me try to give a few examples:

    • the government and MPs in general;
    • most of the mainstream media, especially the BBC;
    • most of the university-educated middle-classes.

    The establishment are the people who are generally the movers and shakers in a society: they’re the people who run the country, manage companies, and so on. The fact that it’s difficult to define precisely doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist!

    2. Has little resemblance to actual truth

    Political truth has got a love/hate relationship with the facts. It loves facts which support it; it tends to gloss over facts which contradict it. In general, political truth only looks at a subset of the facts and evidence available – it cherry picks.

    Political truth is narrative – a story which is constructed from facts and evidence, but is more than that. It’s the ‘bigger picture’. But the problem is that the bigger picture does not necessarily reflect the actual data. The bigger picture in fact has been chosen for political reasons, rather than because it relates to the data.

    3. Cannot be questioned

    Political truth cannot be questioned. Not seriously, anyway. If you dare to question political truth, you could end up being cancelled or losing your job. At the very least, no-one will really take you seriously if you question it. We’ll look at a few examples of this in the next section.

    The point is that the establishment see it as their job to police conformity to political truth. If a member of the establishment questions political truth, they risk losing their place as part of the establishment.

    This doesn’t just apply in government or the mainstream media – I think it trickles down into society as well. There are certain opinions which are difficult to question on social media – mainly those opinions which question political truth.

    4. Those who do question political truth will be labelled outsiders

    One of the most interesting things I’ve found with political truth is that people who question is will be cast as outsiders. Sometimes they’ll be called “far-right”. Sometimes their academic credentials will be called into question. In general, someone who questions political truth will be labelled as a terrible person, beyond the pale. Their arguments won’t be considered – it will just be a character assassination.

    So – political truth will be defended by labelling anyone who questions it as with an unfair association.

    5. Most ordinary people hold a different view

    The final thing to say about political truth is that it’s a view which is held primarily by the establishment. The working classes generally hold a view which is closer to actual truth.

    1984 – the Ministry of Truth

    1984 by George Orwell

    One of George Orwell’s most famous books is his dystopian novel, 1984. The book is about a future where the government control what truth is, through the Ministry of Truth. This is what Wikipedia has to say about it:

    As well as administering “truth”, the ministry spreads a new language amongst the populace called Newspeak, in which, for example, “truth” is understood to mean statements like 2 + 2 = 5 when the situation warrants. In keeping with the concept of doublethink, the ministry is thus aptly named in that it creates/manufactures “truth” in the Newspeak sense of the word. The book describes the doctoring of historical records to show a government-approved version of events.

    The government manufactures and determines the truth. In Orwell’s novel this was a dystopian future – but it looks a bit like what is happening now!

    Three examples

    I’m going to look at three brief examples. These are all things which I’ve written about on this blog before.

    Transgender

    One thing which the establishment seems to believe at the moment is that men can become women and women can become men. Even to the point of changing your birth certificate. Don’t believe me? The UK Government guidance explains, “you will also be able to obtain a new birth certificate showing your recognised legal gender.”

    So the UK Government believe that it is actually possible to change your sex, to the point where they will issue you a new birth certificate. This has been the case since 2004, when the Gender Recognition Act came into being. Over the last few years it’s become contested as more and more young people are being encouraged to transition. I wrote about this four years ago, and things haven’t changed much since then.

    I believe we can see all five elements of political truth at play when it comes to transgender ideology:

    1. The establishment believe it;
    2. It’s not supported by the science – see, for example, the Transgender Trend website;
    3. Very few people in the establishment question transgender ideology, and if you do…
    4. such as J.K. Rowling, you get called transphobic / cancelled / etc.
    5. Almost everyone I’ve spoken to about this issue (mainly parents) has been concerned about the effect of transgender ideology on children.

    Now, fortunately I think actual truth is beginning to reassert itself. Some high profile people have begun to question the narrative. But there is still a long way to go.

    Brexit

    I don’t want to open a can of worms here! This isn’t about trying to take a side on Brexit. But it is fairly obvious to me that there is an establishment view of Brexit. It goes something like this: “Brexit is a disaster. It was only voted for because low-information idiots saw a misleading slogan on the side of a bus. And it was only voted for by racists. Any right-thinking person should support the EU.”

    I wrote about this also back in 2016. It’s not about the rights and wrongs of leaving the EU – it’s about the narrative which is constructed about Brexiteers.

    And again, I think we can see all five elements of political truth with the establishment’s position on Brexit. Things are changing a little: since the Conservatives won a comprehensive majority a year ago on the promise “let’s get Brexit done”, I think attitudes have changed a little. But, again, there’s still a long way to go.

    Islam

    A few years ago I wrote a piece about Islam. There I lamented the fact that most politicians know virtually nothing about religion. They just think all religions are basically the same.

    This has a massive impact – for example, just a few months ago I wrote about Dr Ella Hill, a grooming gang survivor. She, and many other young women, found the police overlooked rape and other horrible things because they didn’t want to appear racist. The police would prefer to observe political truth rather than deal with actual truth.

    Just a few weeks ago, a French teacher was beheaded by an Islamist extremist. Has there been much of an outcry about this from the establishment? No. It doesn’t fit with political truth, so it’s sidelined and forgotten.

    Coronavirus: political truth on steroids?

    One of the things I’ve found striking about the coronavirus situation is the fact that it does seem to hit all the marks of political truth.

    Believed by the establishment

    Of course! The government and most of the mainstream media (especially the BBC) have portrayed covid-19 in a particular light. There is an established line on the coronavirus, which goes something like this: it’s a disease which is so dangerous that, if we let it run wild, it will overload our health system and cause thousands of deaths.

    Has little resemblance to truth

    There’s a lot of disagreement about the truth when it comes to covid-19. But you wouldn’t know that by listening to most of the establishment voices! They’re so keen to promote a particular view that even the UK Office for Statistics Regulation had to give them a slap on the wrist for the graph presented a few weeks ago.

    Neil Ferguson’s original model (which the government based their decision to lockdown on back in March) has been shown to have many flaws and is “fundamentally unreliable”. Various scientific studies have shown little-to-no benefits of lockdown. There are many scientists who question the lockdown strategy, for example supporters of the Great Barrington Declaration.

    The fact that there are voices contrary to the establishment view doesn’t mean that they are correct. But it does seem to me that upholders of political truth have an agenda which is not to find the actual truth, but rather to punish those who question political truth.

    Cannot be questioned

    How many MPs have spoken out against the lockdown? How many pieces have you read in the mainstream media which bring up the some of the points I mentioned above? On my own personal Facebook page, whenever I post up anything about the lockdown there is always some kind of backlash.

    Fortunately I think there are a number of papers who are questioning the establishment view. Things are beginning to change.

    Those who do question will be labelled outsiders

    If you do question the lockdown, you will be labelled. It might be as a “lockdown denier” or “covid denier”, or maybe “granny killer”. Earlier on today I read an article on UnHerd, The trouble with ‘Covid denialism’. What’s interesting about this piece is that it explicitly sets up Michael Yeadon as a ‘denier’, before going on to set him straight.

    This is how it always works: “No, you’re wrong. Let me give you the proper facts.” I can’t really comment on the actual points made – that would take someone who knows more of the data than I do. I’d like to see them talk it out and debate these points. To my mind the problem is more the whole framing of the debate as “us vs them”: we are the reasonable people, you are the denier. It’s not intending to get to the truth, it’s intending to set someone straight.

    It’s actually a kind of heresy hunting, like the inquisition.

    Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition!

    Most ordinary people hold a different view

    Polls show consistently that people approve of the lockdown measures. I don’t know where the pollsters are finding these people, because the people I talk to often have a different view. (Maybe part of the problem is the questions you ask – as Yes Prime Minister explains!) I think a lot of people, even those who are concerned about covid, just want to get back to some kind of normality. A lot of people want to get back to jobs, families and friends, doing the things we used to do.

    Christians and the truth

    “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.“

    John 18:37

    Christians should have a commitment to the truth. The ninth commandment forbids us from bearing false testimony against our neighbour. Titus 1:2 states that God “cannot lie”. Jesus said that he himself is the truth (John 14:6), and that anyone on the side of truth should listen to him. By contrast, the world “suppresses the truth” (Romans 1:18).

    I believe it is the duty of every Christian to stand up for the truth – the actual truth, not political truth. We should not simply be content to stand by and let political truth go unchecked. I believe we should challenge where necessary.

    This doesn’t mean that we should simply be contrarians – contradicting the establishment view just for the sake of it! But, in a world where truth is not valued as it should be, I believe it is our duty to stand up for it.

    Where the world does not value truth, we should value it. Even if it costs us personally. We should seek it – because when we are seeking the truth, we are seeking God. Our God is a God of truth, and the Spirit of truth lives in us. Let’s pray for God’s wisdom in challenging political truth and telling the actual truth.

  • How do we solve the problem of politics in 2020 and beyond?

    How do we solve the problem of politics in 2020 and beyond?

    I believe politics is in big need of a reboot. I believe much of the Western world (but particularly the US and UK) is suffering. Take, for example, the division in society about issues like Brexit, Covid, Transgender, etc. These have all become highly politicised. You can understand why an issue like Brexit would be political, but why Covid? Why should the country’s response to a pandemic become a political isssue, for example?

    In a nutshell, I believe this is because politics has taken the place that religion used to occupy. Let me explain in a bit more detail.

    Politics has become a religion

    A few months ago I wrote about cancel culture. I included this slide from Speak Life, which talks about what happens when you take away “The Sacred” (i.e. religion) from society. Glen Scrivener argued that this simply bumps everything up a notch: politics takes the place of the Sacred, and sports and entertainment move into the political area. This is why everything is preachy nowadays!

    I think this is a hugely powerful explanation for what is happening in society. Let’s think about a couple of examples.

    Who can solve a problem like Covid?

    One of the things I find fascinating about the government’s response to Covid-19 has been trying to control the virus. It was part of the government’s official message in the early days of the pandemic!

    What I find fascinating about this is the way that the government have simply taken it upon themselves to control this virus. Have any governments in history ever been able to successfully control a virus?

    Not to mention, the opposition have used covid as a political weapon. At the start of October, Keir Starmer said the Prime Minister had lost control of the virus. Labour have called for stricter lockdown measures to be applied, and applied sooner. The message they are trying to convey is: “we would have protected you from this virus”.

    And the things is – and this is more to the point – we’ve let them. Or at least, a lot of us have. We’ve just assumed that the government can and should control the virus. The government say we should wear masks, so everyone dutifully wears masks. The government say we should stop meeting, so we stop meeting. We accept these things because we believe the government are controlling the virus.

    In the past, people might have gone to church to pray for an end to a plague. For example, the Book of Common Prayer includes prayers “in the time of any common plague of sickness”. These days we don’t pray to God for an end to plague – we look to our politicians to sort it out.

    Sorting out the problems of society

    Before the last election I posted up something on my Facebook about Labour and anti-semitism. Maybe that was unwise, as I don’t really like talking about politics on Facebook. Anyway, it led to an interesting discussion about the rights and wrongs of voting and political parties. One of the things which a couple of friends said was that it was morally right to vote for Labour due to economic reasons.

    One person raised the example (from their own experience) of children coming to school who hadn’t been fed properly. Of course, this is a big issue. There are lots of big issues in society. What I found interesting was the assumption that the problem was the government. I see this time and again, especially from younger people on social media: there are deep problems in society (which there are) – and so the government should do something.

    The thing is, if you look properly into a lot of these problems, it’s rarely the case that you can say “it’s the government’s fault”. This is an issue I’ve talked about a few times, e.g. on my post about “the poor”. A lot of the problems like this are actually caused by many factors. Is the biggest problem that they’re not getting enough help from the government? I would argue, that’s not the issue here.

    If we go back to the Book of Common Prayer again, there’s another prayer “In the time of dearth or famine”. In the past, in this country, if there was a problem with people getting enough food – we’d pray to God about it. These days, we’re more likely to look to the government to help.

    Prime Ministers & Presidents

    As I write this, we’ve just had an election in the US. Donald Trump has lost the election to Joe Biden. (Well, that’s what it looks like right now… let’s just say it’s contested).

    What’s been interesting during the campaign, and now the result has been announced, is the way that people think “their guy” is The Anointed One. They often treat “their guy” as the one who can sort everything out, while the “other guy” is going to cause all the problems.

    Jeremy Corbyn

    We had the same in the UK with the last election: some people hailed Corbyn as the one who was going to solve every problem (see above), and that Boris Johnson was some kind of fascist. Other people saw Boris Johnson as some kind of saviour, the one who would “Get Brexit Done”, whereas Corbyn was going to plunge the country into debt.

    Whichever side you were on, only our guy was going to solve all the problems in the world. This is far too much responsibility to give to one problem!

    Again – we are looking to political leaders to sort out all our problems. We look to them as Messiahs. When, as we should know from Monty Python:

    He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy
    He’s not the Messiah… he’s a very naughty boy!

    Woke: the new religion

    I’ve already talked about how woke is a new religion. If you’d like to see someone with a bit more authority than me talk about these things, listen to Trevor Phillips instead.

    What’s interesting about the phenomenon of wokeness is the way that many people point to the God-shaped hole which created it.

    The God-shaped hole in society

    One of the things I find most fascinating is that many people see there is a “God-shaped hole” in society. I saw this most recently, for example, in Douglas Murray’s fireside chat with Dennis Prager. A lot of people seem to have noticed this, for example Laurence Fox.

    I think they’re absolutely right. The political problems we face are actually religious.

    This is exactly what the Bible predicts. Romans 1:23 says when we don’t believe in God, we exchange God for other – lesser – gods. G.K. Chesterton put it this way:

    “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”

    This is the problem that we have in society. As Christianity has declined, we haven’t stopped believing. We’ve simply replaced God with other things – e.g. politics and the government. In his book Counterfeit Gods, Tim Keller says:

    When either party wins an election, a certain percentage of the losing side talks openly about leaving the country. They become agitated and fearful for the future. They have put the kind of hope in their political leaders and policies that once was reserved for God and the work of the gospel.

    If that was the case when he was writing a few years ago, how much more true is it now! And this is exactly the problem. We put the kind of faith in our political leaders that we used to reserve for God alone. We expect political leaders to be able to sort out our problems, solve the economy, feed, house and clothe everyone, and achieve a perfect society. Unfortunately – those things can only be done by God himself.

    The only solution to these problems

    Mathematical problems require a mathematical solution. Political problems require a political solution. Religious problems require a religious solution.

    We all want to see a perfect society. We all want to see those who are hungry fed, those who are living in poverty lifted out of it. The problem is that the government is unable to accomplish those goals. Or at least, they can give it a good go – but there are limitations to what a government can do.

    When we trust in politics and governments to do what only God can do, that is what the Bible calls idolatry: we’ve substituted something in place of God. The good news is, there is a solution for that problem. It’s a person – but not a politician, but a Saviour, Jesus.

    Think about these famous words which are often read in Christmas services up and down the land:

    For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
    And he will be called
    Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
    Of the greatness of his government and peace
    there will be no end.
    He will reign on David’s throne
    and over his kingdom,
    establishing and upholding it
    with justice and righteousness
    from that time on and for ever.
    The zeal of the Lord Almighty
    will accomplish this.

    Isaiah 9:6-7

    The government will be on his shoulders. Jesus isn’t some kind of consultant who tells us how we might think about living our lives better. He’s the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace – he’s the only one who has the power to bring about everything we want in society and in our lives.

    And, even better news: he died for our sins so that we might be forgiven and transformed. He died so that we could be forgiven of our idolatry. Isn’t that amazing! God didn’t decide to just cast us aside – as he had every right to. But instead, he sent his Son, a Saviour – one who alone can save us from our sin and idolatry. He alone can set us free from our addiction to political solutions and help us to seek him alone.

    The God who can satisfy

    Trust in the Lord and do good;
    dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
    Take delight in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

    Psalm 37:3-4

    The other day I read this Psalm, and I was really struck by it. When we take delight in the Lord, then he can give us our desires. This is the case for us as individuals, and it’s also the case for us as a society. When we seek the Lord – then, all the problems that we face in society can be dealt with.

    In Britain, as a society we used to seek the Lord. You can see that from the prayers included in the Book of Common Prayer. Even as recently as the second world war, King George VI called for a national day of prayer which ended up in the miracle of Dunkirk – see this video for more information.

    I believe the question facing us as a nation – and across the Western world – is simply this: when we are confronted with all the problems in the world, are we willing to turn aside from our political idols, from our addiction to solutions in government, and seek God instead? Are we willing to seek the Lord, who alone can bring about what we are looking for?

    If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)

  • Another scandal. We desperately need spiritual reformation

    Another scandal. We desperately need spiritual reformation

    What can we learn after yet another prominent Christian leader falls to sexual temptation? Is there a problem in the way we preach the gospel? Here I argue that the church desperately needs another spiritual reformation.

    The preacher and evangelist Ravi Zacharias died recently. It didn’t take long after his death for reports of sexual misconduct to come up. One example is that he sexually harassed some women working at one of the spas he co-owned. According to the article:

    “He would expose himself every time, and he would touch himself every time,” one of the women told CT. “It was where he went to get what he wanted sexually.”

    Zacharias masturbated in front of one of the women more than 50 times, according to her recollection. He told her he was burdened by the demands of the ministry, and he needed this “therapy.” He also asked her to have sex with him twice, she said, and requested explicit photos of her.

    These deeply sad and troubling accusations are happening hard on the heels of revelations about Jonathan Fletcher last year. It seems that we’ve had a string lately of high-profile Christian leaders who have been embroiled in sexual scandals. I think this should trouble us as the church, particularly evangelicals: why is it that so many leaders have fallen this way?

    Christian Leaders do not belong on a pedestal

    One lesson that it’s very important to learn is that leaders are people, just like everyone else. Everyone has the same temptations – leaders are not immune from them. Christians should not put anyone on a pedestal, except for Jesus. Only he is sinless!

    One of the problems with our society today is that we are very ‘celebrity’ obsessed. I think the modern media, especially social media, exacerbates this problem. We tend to flock around people who we like to listen to. The Christian world is far from immune. I can recognise it in myself: when I go on Christian conferences or teaching days, I like to recognise the names of the people who’ll be speaking. In itself I don’t think this is necessarily a problem – but the problem comes when we expect people gifted to teach and lead to be perfect. The Messiah complex!

    So, let’s remember that Christian leaders are Christians. They can fall, and they need our prayers. As a Christian leader myself, albeit in a much smaller capacity than Ravi Zacharias – I hugely value people praying for me.

    So, all Christians are liable to fall to temptation, and it’s good to remember that. But I think there is a deeper issue here. Does the fact that so many Christian leaders have fallen in this way suggest that there is a problem with the gospel being preached?

    Is there a gospel issue?

    I wonder if part of the problem is that many evangelical churches have come to reduce the definition of the gospel. I wrote about this before, and again recently when I wrote about grace. This is what I wrote back in July of last year:

    One of the ways I think evangelical churches (including, and perhaps especially, conservative evangelical churches) subtly distort the gospel is by portraying the Christian life like this: it’s all about avoiding sin.

    It’s a bit like one of those car-racing video games – every time you see a pothole or an obstacle coming, you have to move so you don’t hit it. I think we often unconsciously visualise the Christian life in this way: we live our lives day-to-day, trying our hardest to avoid sinning, and asking God for forgiveness when we fail and the help not to sin again. I call this view ‘almost the gospel’ – it’s so close, and yet not quite there.

    This applies to sex and sexuality. Our culture says that our happiness will be found when we are most sexually fulfilled. But God says we will be most happy when we submit our sexuality to him. Only he can fill our deepest longings. This is something which I think a lot of churches don’t really focus on. Or at least, they may talk about it intellectually but it hasn’t really hit home emotionally.

    I wonder if this is the problem when it comes to Christian leaders falling sexually. I mean, the things they’re accused of doing are not little slips. It’s not like accidentally switching on an adult channel in a hotel late at night. It’s directly abusive of others. It reminds me of 1 Corinthians 5v1: “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate”. The kinds of things RZ and JF have done, or been accused of doing, would not be tolerated in our secular society.

    We need spiritual reformation

    Christian leaders are sinners, but they should be mature Christians. They should have a knowledge that God’s ways are best, that God alone can satisfy. I just can’t conceive of someone doing the kinds of things that Ravi Zacharias or Jonathan Fletcher are accused of doing without understanding that it’s deeply wrong and sinful. Someone who slips up and sins out of weakness is one thing. Someone who has an established pattern of sin over the course of several months or years – that’s another level.

    I honestly think the real need of the church at the moment is for spiritual reformation. We need to learn deeply the truth of these words:

    Taste and see that the Lord is good;
    blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
    Fear the Lord, you his holy people,
    for those who fear him lack nothing.
    The lions may grow weak and hungry,
    but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

    Psalm 34:8-10

    Over the last few months and years, I’ve begun to realise the truth of this Psalm in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever been taught before. God is not some kind of arbitrary rule giver, who gives us rules to stop us being happy. One of the reasons we are so tempted by sexual temptation is because it promises us happiness beyond what we think God would give. But the truth is the exact opposite: only God’s ways can give us true happiness, in every area.

    Is the reason that we keep on falling this way is because much of the church simply does not recognise the goodness of God?

    This is vital for the health of the church

    A few days ago I read a helpful article by Jay Stringer about Ravi Zacharias. In that post he said:

    When a man will not engage his sexual brokenness, the inevitable outcome is a system that heavily polices cross gender relationships.  We don’t honor women by refusing to extend relationship or leadership to them. We honor women by doing everything possible to locate the sexual brokenness and manipulation that exists within. Being like Jesus means that we learn how to have close relationships with female friends in a way that is marked with humility, honor, and delight. The image of God is both male and female (Genesis 1:27). If you want to know who God is, but you want to “protect” yourself from women, you’re excluding a whole lot of God.

    I think this is spot on. We live in a society which is going made about sex and sexuality. I just think so many people, especially young people, don’t know which was is up any more. What the world doesn’t need right now is the church failing in exactly the same area! In fact, we as the church should be like a city on a hill – showing the world the light and life that comes from knowing Christ.

    We should be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:1). We should start treating each other like family, as that is in fact what we are. And we should be walking in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:16), rather than trying to use our own personal version of the Billy Graham rule to stay pure. This means men and women treating each other like brothers and sisters, like true friends. God has the power to overcome the idols of our society and remake us in his image.

    Can men and women be friends after all?

    A couple of years ago, Aimee Byrd wrote a book called “Why can’t we be friends?” Subtitled – “avoidance is not purity”. This sums it up for me: I think many churches teach a kind of ‘avoidance’ strategy when it comes to purity. This isn’t going to work, and I think this is why too many Christian leaders have fallen.

    If you think of the Christian life primarily as being about avoiding sin, then your greatest enemy is temptation. It’s only a matter of time before you fall – even more so for Christian leaders. This is a particular problem when our society seems to be so sex-obsessed. One effect means that we will only see members of the opposite sex in terms of temptation.

    If, on the other hand, we see the Christian life as being about seeking after the Lord, his goodness and his ways, then it will be a different story. We can start to see others as people made in God’s image, given his beauty. We can start relating to them with the love given by the Spirit, beyond merely human love.

    I believe we in the Western church right now need to seek after the Lord like we haven’t done in a long time. It’s time to stop talking about doctrine and instead to start believing it.

    Lord, please send a spiritual reformation upon your people.