Phill Sacre

Category: Christian

Anything I write about the Christian faith.

  • A Christian case for freedom

    A Christian case for freedom

    A case for why Christians should care about freedom and liberty – including free speech.

    This is a blog which has been brewing for some weeks now. I’m involved in various different formal and informal Christian networks. Over the last few months, I’ve seen a lot of information from Christian groups advising us about how to comply with government regulations about the lockdown. For example, John Stevens has been doing good work on advising what the new guidelines mean for churches as things change.

    However, I’ve seen very few Christian leaders pushing back at all on the restrictions. Earlier this week, in a Christian group on Facebook, someone posted a link to this article by Archbishop Cranmer (where he argues that with the ‘rule of six’ we are being deprived of our liberty). Someone responded saying it was a political matter, not a theological one.

    I would beg to differ – I think this actually has a lot of big theological issues. I believe liberty is deeply theological and goes to the heart of what it means to be human beings. What I am going to do here is outline a few theological and practical reasons why I believe Christians should be concerned about freedom. I’ll start with the theological.

    Theological reasons to care about freedom

    1. The dignity of human beings

    The Bible gives human beings a dignity unlike any other created beings. We are described as being made “in God’s image” (Genesis 1:27). Psalm 8 says God made human beings and “crowned them with glory and honour”. We have a special, God-given dignity as human beings. We have been made as beings with responsibilities, God’s vice-regents, who are to look after and rule over creation as his agents. And so, we are made to be free. Freedom is a part of being made in God’s image. It is also, as the apostle Paul tells us, what Christ has accomplished for us in setting us free from sin (Galatians 5:1).

    There’s a lovely prayer in the Book of Common Prayer, based on Augustine’s words, which captures it beautifully:

    O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom…

    So by implication, when you take away people’s liberty, you are taking away their dignity as human beings. In some cases this is right and appropriate, e.g. prison inmates forfeit some of their liberties as a punishment. And we all accept certain limits on our freedom, e.g. in the UK I’m not free to drive on the right hand side of the road. And, in fact, if anyone tried driving on the wrong side of the road, they’d find out pretty soon it was anything but freedom!

    Another aspect of human dignity is responsibility. A responsible person can judge risk for themselves and then make a decision based on that risk. Give someone the facts, then allow them to make up their minds. Some people will err on the side of caution, some will not. That is their choice. Freedom involves having the right to make that choice. As it says in Psalm 32:9:

    Do not be like the horse or the mule,
    which have no understanding
    but must be controlled by bit and bridle
    or they will not come to you.

    Human beings have been given the dignity of making responsible choices under God. Freedom is a Biblical principle, rooted in our dignity as God’s image-bearers.

    2. The command to love God and one another

    Jesus gave a very clear instruction: “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). We don’t have time to go into it all now, but the whole of the way God wants us to live could be summed up by “love”: firstly, love God; secondly, love each other.

    What does this look like? Love for God involves many things – dedicating our lives to serving him, praising him, doing all things to his glory (1 Corinthians 10:31). Similarly, loving each other has many facets. One of the most overlooked commands in the Bible is “greet one another with a holy kiss”. We should not be strangers but literally family (Mark 3:35).

    How do we show that love? It is shown to each other by meeting together, in a thousand different ways. Home groups meet each week to study the Bible and pray for each other. A community cafe opens every Friday to welcome people in. A weekly toddler group is much valued by local parents. And all of these things are aspects of the church’s core mission – to love.

    One of the things I’ve realised during the lockdown is that it’s really hard to love and care for each other at a distance. In fact in many cases it’s impossible. And I’ve realised how the groups that we have are not simply “nice to have” extras to mostly private lives, but fundamental to who we are as people. When we can’t do them, we are – quite literally – unable to be the people who God made us to be.

    And even the things that we can do, for example church services, are not the same. It really struck me when our midweek service restarted how empty it felt without tea & coffee afterwards. The after-service chat is a core part of what we should be about!

    Christians are not isolated individuals who live their own lives and occasionally meet up. God, in Christ, didn’t create a ‘team of individuals’ – he created a whole new society. The church isn’t somewhere you go on a Sunday. For Christians, it should be our new family. We have a duty and an obligation to meet together. These are things which cannot be done fully without freedom.

    Practical reasons to care about freedom

    More briefly, let’s think about a couple of more pragmatic reasons why Christians should care about freedom.

    1. Free speech is under threat

    Free speech is under threat in our society to the point that Toby Young felt it necessary to start the Free Speech Union. Those of us who hold conservative Christian views have been feeling the pinch for a while now – something I wrote a little about a few years ago. I think Christians should be standing up for free speech – not least because Christian views are being targeted. Even if we don’t personally feel the heat, I think we should stand up for freedom.

    2. Free speech aids the gospel

    Think about the number of street preachers who have been arrested over the last few years for ‘hate speech’. There are some in our society who would like nothing better than to silence Christian views being aired. I do appreciate that ultimately God is sovereign over these things, and that ultimately suppression of freedom will work to serve the gospel in the long run. But I still think it’s right to try to defend freedom, even while trusting that God will use whatever situation we find ourselves in for good.

    I think this is behind Paul’s instruction in 1 Timothy 2:

    I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

    1 Timothy 2:1-2

    How should we respond?

    The government have taken away a fair degree of our freedom at the moment – in particular, not being able to meet or socialise beyond six people (including children). There are other things as well e.g. mandatory mask wearing, not being able to sing hymns together, and so on. Our freedoms are curtailed.

    I said at the start that sometimes restricting freedom is the right thing to do. If there was no pandemic, what the government have done would be oppressive. However, the government’s measures have been taken to protect society. Are the government’s measures proportionate and reasonable? Some people believe the government’s reaction has been a massive overreaction, e.g. Professor Karol Sikora or SAGE member Mark Woolhouse. Personally I think I am with them.

    However, I hope that – whatever our position on the lockdown – we can agree that freedoms being curtailed is a bad thing. What I’d like to see now, especially from church leaders, is this:

    1. A greater pushback on the restriction of our freedoms. I don’t mean disobedience, but I do feel most church leaders have been focussed on the ways we should be obeying the government – rather than challenging them. If our freedoms are going to be taken away like this, I think it’s right for us to keep the government accountable by challenging them to provide evidence and reasoning. I don’t really see that happening.
    2. Thinking through if and when it would be appropriate to disobey. In Acts 5:29, Peter and the apostles say: “We must obey God rather than human beings!” This is an important principle – Christians have a higher law than the law of the land. If the state’s restriction of our freedom is restricting our ability to obey God (and I believe it is) – at what stage do we disobey? Again, I’d like to see people – especially Christian leaders – helping people to think through these issues.

    I’m not arguing here that disobedience to the government is the right response, necessarily. We do live in a democracy and there are appropriate channels if we want to see change. (I am hoping to write to my MP shortly!) But it seems to me that we have been slow to engage with the issue of government restriction of freedom, perhaps because in our lifetimes the UK has been a reasonably free place. But if we don’t stand up for freedom now, I worry about what might be coming round the corner.

    If freedom is worth standing up for, it’s worth standing up for now, even and especially at a time such as this.

  • Perhaps Cuties is the wake up call we needed

    Perhaps Cuties is the wake up call we needed

    Is the film ‘Cuties’ a wake up call for our society to recognise that we have a far deeper problem on our hands?

    Netflix have been accused recently of encouraging paedophilia because of the film Cuties. Cuties features 11-year-old girls dancing / twerking in a sexualised way. (Some people have defended Netflix on the basis of it being a critical commentary – this article talks about it).

    I haven’t seen the film, but I have seen a lot of people who are upset about it on social media. I don’t want to comment about the rights and wrongs of the film. But I do wonder if it actually has opened up a conversation which needs to be had. In particular, I think we need to say that this problem goes way bigger and way deeper than Netflix.

    A problem bigger than Netflix

    We live in a world which is sexualised almost beyond belief. This is especially true of the internet: just have a read of Pornhub’s 2019 statistics:

    To start off, there were more than 42,000,000,000 site visits to Pornhub in 2019—nearly 6 visits to the site per person on Earth—which is 8.5 billion more visits total than last year. That’s over 23 million more visits per day in 2019 than in 2018, a considerable uptick that’s double from last year. Note that YouPorn–a sister site to Pornhub—received just a humble 5 billion site visits.

    Those statistics are shocking in itself, but it gets worse. It’s no secret that internet pornography often involves underage girls. In fact, just a couple of months ago over a million people signed a petition to take action against Pornhub for trafficking. This included trafficking of children:

    Pornography is a phenomenon which we as a society largely ignore. I think part of the reason it’s ignored is because a lot of people in society use it themselves. I mean, the numbers are just too big to ignore. According to this website, 70% of men aged 18 to 24 visit a porn site at least once per month. Is that the reason people are hard on Cuties but turn a blind eye to the bigger problem of pornography?

    A problem with the way we view sex

    Part of the problem, as I have argued before, is the whole way that our society views sex. The sexual revolution caused us to see sexual freedom as an ultimate good. We wanted to be free to have sex with whoever we want, whenever we want, and damn the consequences. (This is the argument some abortion advocates make: they want women to have the same sexual freedom as men, without pregnancy getting in the way).

    When we live in a society which is almost literally obsessed with sex – it’s on TV, advertising, films, everything – it becomes harder and harder to say that kind of sex is OK, but not that kind. You can’t pick and choose. If consent is our only value, then effectively there are no values.

    What I’m hoping with Cuties is that people will come to see that there are limits. I hope the sexualisation of children will cause people to take a step back and think. Perhaps we too, in our society, are complicit in a culture which sexualises children. Perhaps we need to rethink our own values.

    What can we do?

    The main thing we can do is, avoid pornography. Porn on the internet is often supporting trafficking / child sexual abuse. Not to mention other kinds of abuse. And the effect trickles down: you might think that using porn is an entirely private affair, but it changes you – and with it, the world. You can see an overview of the effects porn has on the (excellent) Fight the New Drug website.

    As they say: “What is it if it isn’t just you seeking ever more explicit pornographic material, but your next door neighbour, your teacher, your doctor? What happens when it’s half your country?”

    Porn is an issue for society. And when it trickles down, it leads to things like Cuties. If you feel strongly about Cuties, then cut out porn, and encourage others to do the same. There are lots of resources, including the Fight the New Drug website I just mentioned.

    Also, I have just recorded a video about breaking free from porn addiction for Understand the Bible, which I will release in the next couple of days. If you subscribe to the YouTube channel, you’ll see that when it goes live. Porn can be beaten.

    Edit: here it is:

  • Physical Beauty and the Bible

    Physical Beauty and the Bible

    Beauty is something you don’t often hear Christians talking about – at least, not the beauty of the human body. We often talk about the beauty of nature in creation, such as beautiful scenery or the beauty of the universe. But we rarely describe someone as beautiful. Why is that? And what does the Bible have to say about physical beauty?

    I think we Christians have, without knowing it, become too influenced by the world around us: have you noticed that our culture rarely describes someone as beautiful these days? In our society – in 21st Century Britain at least – it’s more common to describe someone as ‘attractive’ or the like. Part of the reason for this is, I think, the association between attractiveness and sexuality: the media is saturated with sexualised images. ‘Sex sells’, as they say. (Netflix has just got into hot water for a film about young, pre-pubescent girls twerking!). Perhaps we’ve become suspicious of beauty as the body has become so sexualised – we just try to avoid that kind of talk.

    I can’t speak for other men, but personally I would never call a woman apart from my wife ‘beautiful’! Saying someone is beautiful has become tied up with calling them sexually attractive.

    At the same time, it seems like people have never been more keen to be beautiful (or attractive, at least). The cosmetics industry is huge. Gyms are popular at the moment. Hardly a week goes by without a new diet plan or book being released. People are looking for something physically.

    So what does the Bible say about beauty and the body? Can the Bible shed any light for us?

    Beauty in the Bible

    Let’s go back to basics and look at beauty in the Bible. The Hebrew word for ‘beautiful’ occurs several times in the Old Testament. In fact, one of the most important women in the Old Testament, Esther (who has a whole book named after her!), is notable precisely because of her beauty. She basically won a nationwide beauty contest in order to become the new queen (now there’s a reality TV show idea…)

    Many women are described as beautiful – Sarai (Gen 12:11, 14); Rachel (Gen 29:17), Abigail (1 Sam 25:3). Men, too, are described with the same Hebrew word (ya.pheh), often translated ‘handsome’ e.g. Joseph (Gen 39:6); David (1 Sam 16:12); and Absalom (2 Sam 14:25). The word is used most in Song of Songs (11 times), as the two lovers describe and delight in each other’s beauty.

    The New Testament doesn’t say much about beauty, but it does contain one of the most well-known passages about beauty. Peter here addresses Christian wives:

    Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewellery or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.

    1 Peter 3:3-4

    All this should be of no surprise to anyone who has read Genesis 1, where God creates mankind as the climax of creation and declares it: “very good” (Genesis 1:31 – the only time when “very good” is used instead of simply good). I talked about this in my post about sex. The physical world is good, the human body is good – godliness actually means being more physical (in the right ways).

    So, physical beauty is a good thing. It’s often used within the context of marriage, as you’d expect, but it’s not just that – it is a good thing in its own right. However, in this lifetime it’s not perfect.

    Tainted Love Beauty

    Sin affects everything in creation (e.g. Rom 8:22). In fact, you can see this in the curses God pronounces in Genesis 3 – e.g. the natural world is cursed (3:17), and childbirth becomes painful (3:16). So sin isn’t simply a “spiritual” thing but it has real, physical effects. It affects our bodies as well as our minds.

    Stop for a moment to think about the implications of that: we often think about sin as being on a purely spiritual plane, or at least, something which exists in our minds. Do we ever think about the effects of sin in a physical way? Think about all the negative things that can affect the body. Illnesses, scars, broken limbs, disfigurement – it’s a long list! All of those things, too, are a result of sin.

    They won’t be there in the new creation, the perfect world which is coming. Philippians 3:21 says that God “will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his [Jesus’] glorious body.” One day our bodies will be redeemed. We will be given new bodies, immortal, perfect, free from the ravages of sin.

    Sounds great, doesn’t it? But – here’s the thing. The new creation does, in some sense, start now.

    Sanctifying the body

    ‘Sanctification’ is a long word which basically means, growing into the people God created us to be: loving God more, and loving others more. It’s what the Christian life is fundamentally all about.

    It’s important for Christians to understand that sanctification isn’t something that we accomplish – it is something that the Holy Spirit accomplishes working within us. As we walk with God, as we read the Bible and pray, as we seek him day by day, the Spirit works in us to change us. In a lovely passage in Galatians 5, Paul talks about “the fruit of the Spirit” – the good qualities the Spirit works in us as we “walk in step with the Spirit”.

    But there’s more to it than simply our inner life. One of the interesting things about the New Testament is that it talks about sanctifying us body and soul. Let’s take a couple of examples:

    Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.

    Romans 6:12-13

    Here, Paul talks about sin in explicitly bodily terms. It’s not just a mental “thought-life” kind of thing but it’s actually how we control ourselves. Our whole selves, our whole bodies, should be offered to God to be used for what is right.

    May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

    1 Thessalonians 5:23

    The implication here is that it’s not just our spiritual or psychological side which needs to be sanctified, but our bodies too.

    The point is that the Christian life is about offering everything to God – body and soul. I think we often focus on the ‘soul’ part, but I think we sometimes neglect the ‘body’ part.

    Get to the point! – what practical difference does it make?

    I think we often thing about our bodies in an entirely ‘earthly’ way – i.e. that there is no spiritual significance to them. We see our bodies as tools: something we need to be in good working order to accomplish more important things. What we don’t do is think about our bodies in a spiritual way. Not all the time, anyway.

    We’re inconsistent: in health, for example, we appreciate that we don’t simply go to the doctor and expect to get better. We pray about it as well: health is not seen simply as a physical thing but a spiritual thing too. God gives good health to our bodies, and if we want good health we need to seek him and not just see a doctor. (I’m not advocating some kind of prayer-only strategy, by the way! – it’s both / and, not either / or).

    But do we apply that logic in other ways?

    Losing weight

    There are literally thousands of books, courses, fitness instructors, and the like who all claim to help you lose weight. These things are incredibly popular at the moment. In fact, just recently the government unveiled a new strategy to help combat obesity to help with covid-19.

    There haven’t been many Christian approaches to losing weight that I’ve seen, apart from the Daniel Fast. But, given what we’ve seen about the body, is obesity and losing weight something we should actually see as a spiritual issue as much as it is physical?

    Should Christians see losing weight as a matter of sanctification, something which they should seek to walk in step with the Spirit about, rather than something on a purely earthly / physical level?

    This might mean, for example, as well as diet and exercise, praying that God would give us a right appetite and desire for a healthy lifestyle. Asking God to transform us to be people who are healthy inside and out.

    Dieting is a lot about our desires, our appetites – in fact I’m often struck by how like legalism it is. (Legalism = thinking we can please God through our obedience to rules). There are many parallels. I think Christians should be doing things differently.

    The perfect body

    Poster: Are you beach body ready?
    “Are you beach body ready?” – a poster from 2015

    A few years ago, there was a poster with the message “Are you beach body ready?” It came in for a lot of criticism at the time! But I think the reason it did was because it tapped into something: there is a huge pressure at the moment for people, especially younger women, to look a certain way.

    There’s a gym almost next to one of our church buildings here in Clacton. When I park to go to our 9am service, it’s usually busy with people going to and from the gym. Many people put an unbelievable amount of effort into their bodies. They are desperate to look a certain way.

    But, here’s the thing: those people are seeking something good. Being strong, fit and healthy is a good thing, right?

    However – Christians have a different angle on it. We Christians should be aware it’s not simply about lifting weights or running on a machine, but rather it is God who gives us health. If being fit and healthy is a good thing, should we not also see that as a spiritual thing? As above with losing weight, should we not also seek the Lord in our efforts to grow in fitness and strength?

    Beauty

    I’ll finish up where we started. Beauty is something else which is pretty huge at the moment. I remember back to when I was a teenager – back then, before the internet became really popular, people were worried about teenage girls seeing airbrushed photos in magazines. Models looked unrealistically perfect. If that was the case then, thing what it’s like now – models have Instagram accounts, the internet is awash with people looking perfect! Beauty is a big industry now – apparently the cosmetics industry worth over $500 billion.

    As we saw at the beginning, in the Bible beauty is a good thing! God made us, and he made us good. Beauty is a good thing to desire. However, we need to seek it in the right ways. If we go back to the quote I mentioned above from 1 Peter:

    Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewellery or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.

    1 Peter 3:3-4

    I don’t think these verses should be read to say that outward beauty is wrong or undesirable to God! But rather, beauty comes not from lots of cosmetic products or expensive clothes and the like, but from God. Beauty is linked with godliness.

    In other words, true beauty (or handsomeness) does not come from the amount of time we spend in the gym, or the amount of time we spend doing make-up. Those things may be of some value – but, ultimately, true beauty comes from God as a gift. He is the one who is the God not just of our souls but our bodies as well. He is the one who made us to be more than what we are right now. And he is the one who can accomplish in us what no gym or cosmetics ever could.

    Conclusion

    We live in a society which is obsessed with the body. People are desperately searching for fulfilment. Social media is full of people who look the way that we might want to look – so we dutifully go to the gym, or buy that new diet book or those new cosmetics, or whatever – to try and look that way.

    I think Christians should have a different outlook: God is the God of our bodies. The Bible has a lot to say about beauty. Our bodies are part of the fallen world which are in need of redemption – and God has the power to redeem us. I think Christians need to show the world what God can accomplish when we seek him – to show that what the world is seeking can ultimately only be found in God.

    Perhaps it’s time to rethink the way that we think about beauty and the body?

  • Do evangelicals still believe in grace?

    Do evangelicals still believe in grace?

    A few years ago, many churches celebrated the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation. The cornerstone of the Reformation was the rediscovery of the truth justification by faith alone, that is, we are made right with God solely through faith, by the grace of God. We are not accounted righteous through our own efforts, but only through God’s grace – and we accept this gift through faith. This is a wonderful truth. However, I have begun to wonder whether it’s a truth which is as universally accepted among today’s evangelicals as it should be. In a nutshell, do evangelicals believe in grace like our reformation forebears did?

    I worry that many evangelicals today are distorting grace in a similar fashion to the way the Catholics distorted grace at the time of the Reformation. To think about it we’ll first need to take a brief look back at the Reformation.

    Grace at the time of the reformation (in brief!)

    The protestant Reformers – men such as Martin Luther and John Calvin – found that the Bible taught something different to the faith as they had been taught by the Catholic church of the day. In particular, they discovered that justification – being made right with God – was something that God accomplished by his grace alone, which we receive by faith alone. In other words, we are not made right with God because we do enough good deeds – we never could. Rather, we are made right with God because we have faith.

    A classic passage on faith is Ephesians 2:1-10, which contains the words: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). So we are saved by grace alone – not by good deeds. As Jonathan Edwards put it, “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary”.

    Unfortunately, the Catholic church of the day could not be persuaded to see this. In the Council of Trent, they decided that human beings co-operate with God in salvation. Although salvation is still (in a sense) ‘by grace’, it’s not how the Reformers understood it.

    The Reformers understood that we human beings are bound in sin. One of Luther’s most famous works is called The Bondage of the Will, where he defends himself against Erasmus’ views of Free Will. His argument (along with the Reformers) was that we are so totally bound in sin that we cannot do anything by ourselves. We need God’s grace in everything. We cannot even do a good deed by ourselves!

    The Catholic view was quite different. This infographic from The Gospel Coalition helps to explain the medieval view of salvation. Essentially, it says that – although everyone is born in a state of sin, through baptism that is washed away. Every time someone sinned they had to confess to a priest, who would give them penance, which (when completed) would lead them back into a state of grace.

    From the Gospel Coalition, with some helpful explanation on that page.

    The key thing from that page is this point: “this system was believed by Catholics to be grace-bound, in that it starts with grace. The role of the Christian, again, is to maintain the grace bestowed at baptism through a cycle of confession and penance.” So although the Catholics believed in grace, they believed in it differently to the Reformers. You could summarise by saying we attained salvation by grace, but we maintained it by works: a very different understanding to the Reformers.

    Ultimately the Reformers were either kicked out or left the Catholic church, and so new churches and denominations were born – founded on justification by faith alone. It was that important. However, I think the spiritual descendants of those Reformers may be in danger of making a similar mistake with grace today.

    In a nutshell, I think the gospel that we preach is often closer to the medieval view of salvation than we would care to admit.

    My experience

    What evidence do I have that evangelical churches distort grace in this way? I can’t speak for anyone else, but I can talk about my own experience. I grew up in evangelical churches, and I was taught the Bible and the gospel from a young age. The gospel I was taught, which I imagine is a pretty common experience, was something like this: we are all sinners. We all do wrong things. When we sin, we need to say sorry to God, and he will forgive us, and we can be friends again.

    As I grew, I came to understand more and was able to nuance this understanding, but this was my basic understanding of the gospel. Where God’s grace came in was that I knew nothing I did earned his love – and that he forgave me despite the fact that I didn’t deserve it. I knew that I couldn’t do enough good deeds. What I don’t think I realised at the time was how incapable I was of actually doing good deeds to start with.

    Let’s just pause there for a moment: how different was my view of salvation to the medieval view of salvation? There are, of course, some differences – I didn’t include confession or penance. But I think the basic cycle was there:

    Start from neutral → sin → repentance → forgiveness → back to neutral

    What I really didn’t understand (until I studied justification at theological college!) was that sin is not simply a matter of starting from neutral and then doing wrong things: sin includes not doing the right things. God wants us to love others – not simply to avoid doing wrong things but proactively to do good. Once I’d grasped that simple truth, all of a sudden I realised that we all sin far more in the ways we don’t love God and love others than in the things we actually do wrong.

    All of a sudden, how sinful I was suddenly opened up! I wasn’t someone who was neutral but often sinned (that was bad enough!) – but I was someone who could never even do a good deed. Everything I did was tainted by sin – I could never love perfectly enough, however good the things I did were.

    All of a sudden, the Book of Common Prayer confession made sense:

    ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father, We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, We have offended against thy holy laws, We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, And we have done those things which we ought not to have done, And there is no health in us

    These words suddenly had a new meaning to me. and I realised just why Cranmer had written those words and why the Reformers had made such a big thing about ‘faith alone’. Truly I had no health in me, absolutely nothing which God could look at and count as a worthy of salvation. Although in one sense I knew that before, I think the scope of it became much bigger.

    Is this a common evangelical problem?

    That was my own experience – but is it fair to tar all evangelicals with that particular brush? Well I wouldn’t like to tar everyone! But I think the problem is common enough. I wrote about this a little in my previous post about conservative evangelical subculture, where I said:

    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. You could probably live your whole Christian life with this view, and in fact I think many people do.

    Think about it: how often in sermons do you hear sin presented as something that we do which we need to repent of? And how often do you hear it presented as something which we fail to do which we should? How often do you hear the call to love, rather than the call to avoid doing what is sinful? Thinking about it, I think very often in my life sermons have focussed on the call to avoid sin rather than the call to love. Of course we need to hear the call to avoid sin, but we also need the corresponding call to love!

    I think this is one reason why many evangelicals are much happier now to work with Catholics than they used to be. Alpha – one of the best-known courses among evangelical churches – has a whole section on its website devoted to using the course in a Catholic context. Now I don’t wish to ‘be mean to the Catholics’ – things are not the same as they were 500 years ago! However, the Council of Trent is still affirmed by Vatican II and their Catechism. Dialogue between Anglicans and Catholics has not come to an agreement. (For more on this, see Mike Reeves and Tim Chester, Why the Reformation Still Matters). Is the fact that many evangelicals are so willing and ready to work with Catholics indicative of the fact that they share a common understanding of grace?

    Why grace is so important

    Let’s close with why this is an issue of fundamental importance. The Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 1:8-9:

    But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!

    Paul was talking about the gospel of works / good deeds as against the gospel of grace. Judaizers had come among the church in Galatia, saying that they should not only believe in Jesus but also obey the Law of Moses – including being circumcised. Paul is emphatic: no – it’s either Jesus or nothing. It’s either grace or nothing. He even calls down God’s curse on those who preach this different gospel (which is where the word ‘anathema’ comes from).

    Why is grace so important? Over the last few weeks I preached through the book of Titus in our Wednesday service. Titus is a wonderful book which focusses on God’s grace. In the final sermon on Titus 3, I compared religion with grace. (You can watch the sermon on YouTube).

    The essential point is that grace leads to a very different kind of life than religion. Grace leads to us loving others, whereas religion leads to selfishness. Two Christians who have different understandings of grace might look superficially similar, but ultimately they will lead to very different destinations. Grace is not simply a technicality, it is the engine room of the Christian life. Grace “teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” (Titus 2:12).

    If we have a shallow view of sin and grace, then our lives as Christians will be shallow. On the other hand, a deeper understanding of grace will mean a deeper understanding of ourselves, our sin, God’s mercy, and we will have deeper hearts of love in response. We cannot afford to lose the insights that our Reformation forebears brought to light.

    So my question for the evangelical church is: do we really understand grace? Have we grasped it in its fullness? And will we teach it in its fullness?

    Carl Trueman’s book on Grace Alone was written as part of a 500 year Reformation anniversary series. It really is a fantastic book about grace and I can recommend reading it if you’d like to study more about what the reformers taught about grace.

  • Why is social media so toxic at the moment?

    Why is social media so toxic at the moment?

    A lot of people are talking about how social media seems to have become toxic lately. Rachel Riley posted up on Twitter a poll earlier today:

    I had an interesting discussion the other day on Facebook about how social media has changed the world. It was sparked off by this article by the former Prime Minister of Iceland, where he says:

    Leaving aside the reasons for the collapse of that particular government, it has become clear that things that previously might have been considered minor or defused in a matter of days in the media (or over several years in an enquiry) now have the potential to start a ‘nuclear chain reaction’. This is the new political reality. The speed and unpredictability of modern communications means that an infinite number of issues, big or small, have the capacity to take on a life of their own. They have the potential to start social trends, provoke riots, and bring down governments or even start wars.

    Those are big words – can social media bring down governments or start wars? It’s certainly caused a lot of upset, e.g. people who’ve had to resign over “twitterstorms”. I’ve blogged before about the dark side of social media and whether Twitter makes us dumb and angry. It wasn’t always like this; it seems like things have changed a lot in the past ten years or so. When I first joined Twitter back in 2009 it had a much more positive vibe about it.

    What’s happened?

    Let’s explore some of the reasons why I think social media has become toxic of late. I don’t claim this is an exhaustive list, but I think these are all contributing factors. I’m sure there are more – let me know in the comments what you would add.

    1. Big things going on politically

    The first thing is, over the last ten years we’ve had a lot of polarising decisions as a country. It was kicked off by the financial crash of 2008, and then the austerity programme. A lot of people were very unhappy about austerity, and took to social media to express it.

    Then we had Brexit, and now the coronavirus – all things which split opinion. Particularly Brexit – which is the nature of an in/out referendum.

    I wanted to start with this because I do wonder whether things would have been half as bad if we hadn’t had so much to contend with as a country. It’s the same with anything – when everything’s fine, it’s easier to be generous with those you disagree with. When you’re under pressure, it’s much harder.

    As a country we have been divided before – the civil war was pretty divisive! – so division is something which occurs with or without social media. As such I don’t think that social media causes division – but I do think it can exacerbate it. Let’s look at a few reasons why that is.

    2. Social media merges the personal and political

    Let me describe an experience I’ve had many times: You meet someone in real life and get on well. You’re quite happy to talk about all sorts of things – kids, partners, life, jobs, etc. Eventually you become friends on Facebook… and you find that their Facebook is full of political messages which you don’t agree with. Over time this colours your view of them as a person.

    Does that experience ring any bells? I’d be willing to bet it’s something which has happened to a lot of people.

    Before I was on social media, I hardly ever had a conversation about politics outside of my own group of friends. I’ve had far more conversations about politics (and various other contentious issues) with people I barely know on social media than I’ve had in real life.

    This simply isn’t the way it’s meant to be: on the internet, it’s so easy to see a screen and reply without considering the person behind. You can say things online which you’d never be bold enough to say in person – and that’s not a good thing!

    3. Social media amplifies the minority

    One of the things which social media does is amplify the opinions of people who shout the loudest. If a handful of people are vocal about a particular opinion, then – even if that only represents (say) 1% of your friends list – it will feel like ‘everyone’ shares that opinion.

    I think it can work like that with disagreements online as well. A week or two ago I had a discussion about face masks on Facebook. A few people joined in, probably not more than about ten people in total. A few of them were quite vocal about disagreeing with me. Now, there are over 200 people on my Facebook friends list – so the number of people who engaged with what I wrote was less than 5% of the number of contacts I have.

    But it didn’t feel like that. It felt like more of a battle than it should have done. One or two more aggressive comments carry much more weight than they should. I’m sure there’s something psychological there!

    I’ve heard it said of the current ‘culture wars’ – “both sides think they’re losing”. This is the problem with social media: it can amplify the voices which oppose you and, outside the context of a relationship, make it seem much worse than it is. It’s very difficult to be objective about it.

    4. Social media makes it harder to stand out

    We human beings are social animals. We find it hard to stand out from a crowd. There’s a famous psychology experiment called the Asch Conformity Experiment. In these experiments, subjects would conform their understanding to a group, even though they knew it was wrong.

    Now, those trials were done back in the mid-20th century, before social media had even be conceived. Peer pressure is something that existed back then – but imagine how powerful it is now that we’re always connected to each other!

    If it was hard to stand out back in the 1950s, think about what it’s like now. Think about what it’s like when, for example, you are scrolling through Facebook and see lots of your friends have changed their profile picture to support a particular cause. Do you want to be the one who stands out?

    Coupled with the previous point, I think this makes social media very dangerous: it’s easy to think that ‘everybody’ thinks in the way that vocal activists think. But this is far from the truth. It’s just that the people who think differently are staying quiet…

    5. Social media encourages superficial point-scoring

    While I was writing this blog post, I opened up Facebook and saw this meme posted by a friend of mine.

    Blame it on the Tories.

    This, to me, is typical of the political memes I see on Facebook. There’s no real political argument. There’s no looking into the nuances of an issues, the shades of grey… it’s just “blame whoever-you-don’t-like”.

    “Our side” gets portrayed as the distillation of everything pure and good, while “their side” gets portrayed as the distillation of everything evil.

    I am very aware in writing this post that only a handful of people will read it. But a meme like that could be seen by hundreds or thousands of people. It’s pithy, it makes a point, people will click the “retweet” or “share” button – even though it doesn’t actually further the discussion in any meaningful way. All it says is “my group good; that group bad”.

    And that leads into the final point.

    6. Social media encourages tribalism

    One of the things which emerged a few years ago is that social media companies were intentionally feeding people news and links which they thought that person would like. Facebook admitted, for example, trying to determine someone’s political preferences and then trying to show them things which matched their preferences.

    This lead to what became known as an ‘echo chamber’ – where you only ever really saw and engaged with views you already agreed with.

    Now I think this is complicated: I see plenty of views which are different to my own political preferences. But, as we saw in the previous point, a lot of political memes aren’t about trying to actually persuade with logic and reason – they’re about trying to shame or bully the ‘other side’ into agreeing.

    New Labour, New Danger poster
    New Labour, New Danger poster from 1997

    This kind of thing has been happening for a long time (e.g. I remember the Tories election poster back in 1997 “New Labour New Danger”). I can well imagine if social media had been around then, that would have been shared all over!

    But, back then, that kind of thing was restricted to billboards and bus shelters and the like. You could leave it behind when you got home. These days, you can’t escape from it.

    Summing up

    The problems that I have highlighted here all existed prior to the advent of social media. All that social media does is take an existing problem and amplify it. This is what’s happened with technological innovation all through history: there are good sides and there are bad sides. The steam engine and the industrial revolution had many positive effects, but there were negative ones too. It’s the same with everything: there’s good and bad.

    We human beings are tribal by nature, we like to have an “us” and “them”. Social media simply takes that instinct and puts it on steroids. We human beings find it easier to point the finger at “them” rather than listen to their arguments. And on it goes. Social media simply takes the human problem and puts it on a larger scale.

    What can we do about it?

    There’s a quote which I often go back to: “the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.” Social media, or any technological innovation, isn’t good or bad in and of itself – the problem lies in the hearts of those who use it.

    G. K. Chesterton was once asked to contribute to a newspaper piece “what is wrong with the world today”. He simply wrote, “Dear Sir, I am.”

    The problem isn’t with social media – it’s with you and me. The Bible diagnoses this problem as sin – a failure to love God and our neighbour. We don’t treat people with kindness, we don’t listen to them, we want to put ourselves and our own interests first.

    No technology can solve that problem. But – mercifully – there is a solution. This is what God says in the Bible:

    I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

    Ezekiel 36:26

    Although our hearts may be ‘stony’ – although we don’t love as we should – God, the expert at hearts, can give us new hearts, hearts which love as we should and treat God and others as we should.

    The problem with social media isn’t one which can be defeated by better technology or algorithms: the only way it can be overcome is through the new hearts that only God can offer us.

    The Church: What it should be like…

    I am very struck by how the church is called to be very different to the way social media often is:

    There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

    Galatians 3:28

    The church is called not to be petty, not to be tribal, to value everyone as those made in the image of God. Of course, no church is ever perfect. But I think in the church I belong to, however much we get it wrong, God is still at work in helping us to love each other.

    So – my final thought: if you want to be part of a community to join which isn’t tribal, petty, divisive, and so on – find a good local church to join.

  • Justice must be justice for all

    Justice must be justice for all

    The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.

    Proverbs 29:7

    I’ve just watched this Triggernometry interview with Dr Ella Hill. She is a medical doctor and a grooming gang survivor. I think it’s a hugely important interview and I wish everyone would watch it, or at least the first part of it.

    A few weeks ago I wrote about Black Lives Matter and consistency, and in that post I mentioned the victims of these grooming gangs. In the video here they make the very same point: why is it that most of the ‘woke’ social media crowd are up in arms about systemic racism in society, pulling down statues etc, and yet are doing precious little about the 500,000 victims of grooming gangs in the UK?

    As Ella Hill pointed out in the video, the crimes committed against her were racially and religiously motivated. Her abusers constantly made reference to her whiteness. Grooming gangs function because they see white women as easy prey and justify what they do because these women do not have moral standards (‘if they are not covered head-to-toe they are asking to be raped’).

    Why is it that people will ‘take the knee’ publicly in support of BLM, even the Archbishop of Canterbury (plus many other bishops and clergy) will talk about the need for deep repentance when it comes to racism (or rather, a particular kind of racism), but when it comes to these girls who have been raped – nothing?

    Justice should be justice for all

    This seems to me a matter of basic justice. It shouldn’t be a matter of identity politics. Where are the people in power standing up for those who have been abused? Where are the cries for justice for them?

    In a similar vein, when a Islamist man killed three people at a park in Reading last month, where was the public outcry? Why is it that it’s only certain kinds of terror attacks that get the Twitter crowd going – when it’s the ‘right’ kind of perpetrator?

    This, at the heart, is my problem with ‘woke’-ness and this kind of identity politics. They may claim to be “social justice warriors” but they don’t really care about justice – or at least, they don’t care about it enough. Justice, if it is to be proper justice, is to be justice for all. Justice for some is not justice. It reminds me of the famous quote from George Orwell’s Animal Farm: “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” Equality, fairness, and justice must mean treating all people equally.

    Of course, we can’t fight every battle, and I wouldn’t expect everyone to. But our society at the moment – even the church – will consistently fight particular battles but not others. Our bishops will queue up to criticise Dominic Cummings for breaking Lockdown rules (for example), but will make absolutely no noise when an amendment is tabled to the domestic abuse bill to relax controls on abortion.

    Stephen Cottrell, my former diocesan bishop (recently made Archbishop of York), recently said Jesus was black. He talks about racial inequality – and I’m sure certain sections of the media will applaud him for saying it – but he doesn’t talk about this particular inequality.

    Christianity and Justice

    It seems clear to me: we should stand up for truth and justice wherever they need to be stood for. even if it’s not ‘politically correct’ or convenient. The book of Proverbs has a lot to say about righteousness and justice, I quoted it at the start: “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.” (Proverbs 29:7).

    If we only care about justice for people who it’s fashionable to care about (e.g. BLM), then we don’t really care about justice. There’s a slogan which is popular among certain crowds at the moment: “Silence is violence”. I think there is a grain of truth in it. If we don’t speak up for those who can’t speak up for themselves, who will? As the Bible says:

    The Lord works righteousness
    and justice for all the oppressed.

    Psalm 103:6

    ALL the oppressed. Not just the ones it’s fashionable to show your support for.

    Overcoming evil with good

    What impressed me about the interview was Ella’s Christian faith. She quoted Jesus “Love your enemies” (strangely enough, also quoted by Laurence Fox in his Triggernometry Interview) and said she loved those who had abused her.

    Earlier on today I happened across this verse from Romans 12: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” And this is the solution, the only solution, to the problem.

    The government seems to think that telling the truth will lead to an outbreak in anti-Muslim hate crimes. I think that’s why this is being hushed up, apparently a report is due which was supposed to be published but wasn’t. It seems to me that the reality is that hushing the truth up only feeds the far-right. There are those whose response will be hate – but hushing things up will not help, and in fact the ones who want to hate already do.

    By contrast, what we need to do is expose the truth. Justice, as we have seen already, must be done! But, at the end of the day, as Christians we have weapons which work at a far deeper level than the ‘woke’, who can only point, accuse, and ‘cancel’. We must never overcome evil with evil; rather, we must overcome evil with love.

    That’s the only thing which will actually work. More and more I come back to this when I see the terrible injustices happening in our society. The only thing which ultimately will make a difference and heal us – both as individuals but as a society as well – is the grace of God in Christ Jesus.

    At the cross, we see justice done: Christ died on the cross for our sins. The wrath of God was satisfied, the price was paid. And yet, we also see mercy: Christ dying in place of sinners. Stuart Townend’s song “How Deep the Father’s Love” puts it like this:

    It was my sin that held Him there
    Until it was accomplished;
    His dying breath has brought me life –
    I know that it is finished.

    Why should I gain from His reward?
    I cannot give an answer;
    But this I know with all my heart –
    His wounds have paid my ransom.

    There is a hope for our society, there is a hope for justice, and it ultimately it is found on an ancient hill outside Jerusalem.

  • Cancel culture: where did it come from and what can we do about it?

    Cancel culture: where did it come from and what can we do about it?

    One of the things everyone’s been talking about (well, everyone on Twitter, which is not everyone, but still) over the last month or so is “Cancel culture” and what we can do about it. This has been rumbling on for a few years now, but the thing which seemed to cause it to erupt was J.K. Rowling writing an article defending her views on sex and gender (and transgender).

    This seemed to cause the internet to go into meltdown, with even people such as Daniel Radcliffe coming out to distance himself from her. This follows hard on the heels of the whole Black Lives Matter movement which I blogged about recently.

    I think many people have been simply bemused as to what on earth is going on. How have we got to this point, and what can we do about it? The Christian faith offers some insights into what is going on. I don’t claim to know all the answers, but I think it helps to explain a lot of what we are seeing.

    The new religion: Woke.

    I’m not sure whether “Woke” is the right word to use, but I’ll use it because it’s nice and short. It basically means, a set of liberal-progressive beliefs which you need to hold in order to be considered ‘not a bigot’: at the moment, one of the biggest woke battlegrounds is the area of transgender – you absolutely have to believe that transmen are men, and that transwomen are women, and to question that will get you cancelled.

    But it’s not limited to trans issues – you could include gay marriage and sexuality, black lives matter – even face masks are becoming something of a political battleground. (Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write!)

    What’s interesting to me is the way that ‘wokeness’ seems to have such a religious quality to it. The ‘woke’ seem to behave in ways that people accuse fundamentalist Christians of.

    For example, looking at a list of the 10 characteristics of religious fundamentalists, let’s see how many of them would apply to the ‘woke’:

    They (fundamentalists) are “generally assertive, clamorous, and often violent”.

    Well I think this fits the “woke” fairly well, judging by (for example) the reaction to J.K. Rowling on Twitter. She received some horrible abuse for what she said. That is just one tiny example.

    They are “the Chosen”, “the Elect”, “the Saved”.

    I don’t think that the “Woke” believe that they were chosen per se, but I think they do see themselves as the morally pure ones.

    Public marks of distinction are needed to maintain their sense of superiority and distinctive identity.

    Judging by how many of J.K. Rowling’s associates (such as Daniel Radcliffe) felt the need to come out and distance themselves from her and her opinions, I think we can mark this one up as well.

    There is only one true religion and one correct way of life; and these must be defended against inroads from other religions and secularism.

    I think this is also a “yes”: the “woke” do not seem willing to engage in a logical defense of their position on e.g. transgender. Most people I think would appreciate that there are nuances and that we want to care for and show love to folks with gender dysphoria. But many people have questions about the appropriateness of what’s happening with children and so on. But no – to ask questions is to be cast out.

    In fact, this is what ‘cancel culture’ is all about: if you have the wrong “bigoted” views, you get cancelled. The right views must be believed at all times, by everybody – or you get cancelled. It’s like the Spanish Inquisition (and nobody expected that!)

    As an aside, watch that video and try to imagine Owen Jones being one of the man who comes in and shouts “NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION”. It absolutely made my day.

    So – what has caused this new religion to rise up? I think in large part it’s been caused by…

    The decline of religion & Christianity

    Over the last 50 years, religion in the UK (and across the whole Western world) has declined. One of the minor headline news stories last year was that in the Church of England, usual Sunday attendance dipped below one million for the first time.

    We, as a society, have completely abandoned the notion of being a Christian country in any meaningful sense. Christianity is still there, in the background (as Tom Holland argued in his excellent book Dominion), but most people have very little idea about what Christianity teaches or how it’s relevant.

    The problem with this is that we human beings are religious creatures. We are built to worship. I believe it was G.K. Chesterton who said, when you stop worshipping God, you don’t worship nothing – you worship anything. And I think this is what has happened: ‘woke’ beliefs have started to take the place of Christian beliefs.

    Yesterday I watched a helpful video by Speak Life: Moving Beyond Cancel Culture. The whole video was helpful, but I think this analysis by Glen was the best bit:

    A few years ago, “The Sacred” used to be God, “The Political” used to be politics, and “The Secular” used to be sports and entertainment. But, now God has been taken out of the picture – everything has been moved up a notch. Politics is the only sacred thing left.

    It’s not very pleasant when things such as politics take the place of God, is it?

    This is simply what we should expect. This is what the Bible has to say about us human beings:

    18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. …

    21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

    Romans 1:18-19, 21-23

    The Bible diagnoses the human condition pretty bleakly: we are constantly trying to substitute God for gods of our own creation. That may come in all shapes and forms, but as a society at the moment I think the new god is politics and ‘wokeness’. That’s why “woke” is a kind of religion, why it seems to have such a religious character.

    Only, it’s not really religious – it’s a distortion – and that’s why it’s so loud, harsh and unforgiving.

    So – here’s the million dollar question…

    What can we do about cancel culture?

    I’m going to suggest something simple and yet radical. If you want to do something about what’s going on in society, there’s a very simple solution. The problem, as I’ve shown, is largely a religious one: one religion (“woke”) is being substituted for another one (Christianity).

    Therefore, if you want to take a stand against cancel culture and wokeness, you need to take a stand for Christianity: Go to church. Read the Bible. Pray. That’s … well, that’s it.

    I’m being 100% serious here: in order to undo some of the nasty changes which have been happening in our society lately, we need to rediscover our Christian roots. A religious problem needs a religious solution – and we need to seek the One who can help.

    This verse from the Bible has been one I’ve gone back to a lot recently, and I think it’s appropriate to end with it here:

    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

    If you’d like some help learning about Christianity, check out my site Understand the Bible. It’s for people who want to learn the Christian faith through online video sessions. It’s all free and you don’t have to commit to anything…

  • New City vs Heidelberg Catechism

    New City vs Heidelberg Catechism

    I’ve just completed filming videos for each session (Lord’s Day) of the Heidelberg Catechism – all available on the Understand the Bible website.

    If you’re curious as to how it compares to the New City Catechism, I’ve just written up my thoughts on how they differ. Here’s the beginning:

    I have just uploaded the final part of the Heidelberg Catechism series. That means that all three parts – one, two and three – are now available! 52 sessions all done and dusted. (OK, you got me, there are actually 51 because I skipped one session about oaths which I thought was less relevant to the 21st century, but still). Over the last few months, as I’ve been recording this, I’ve found it a real joy to go through the catechism. I thought, seeing as I’ve already worked my way through the New City Catechism (you can see the course here), it might be worth doing a head to head comparison – the Heidelberg vs New City Catechism.

    In summary, over the past few months I’ve enjoyed doing the Heidelberg videos more than I did the New City Catechism ones. Here are a few points where I prefer the Heidelberg to the New City Catechism.

    If you want to see ways I preferred the Heidelberg, hop on over to read the rest of the article.

  • How do we heal society?

    How do we heal society?

    Earlier today I watched a fascinating interview with Laurence Fox on Triggernometry. It was an interesting interview, talking about many of the problems going on at the moment in society. I don’t want to get into all the politics and rights and wrongs of what’s happening in society at the moment, but I think many people feel that there is a real sickness and it’s getting worse.

    Konstantin Kisin, one of the interviewers in Triggernometry, said the other day:

    A couple of years ago, I recorded a Christmas message called “Do you fell the shadows deepen?” If that was the case back at the end of 2018, it’s even more the case in mid-2020!

    The most fascinating part of the interview I watched was the part starting at 38 minutes in.

    If you don’t want to watch, here’s a transcript (typed quickly by myself – so might have a few mistakes..)

    Konstantin: I don’t know, man, I want to have an answer. I want to go this is what we do, then this is what we do, then this is what we do. But all I can see now as we look into the future is, how do you stop the violence in the short term? OK, you prevent the protesters from both sides getting together, that’s what you do, right? What do you do after that? What’s the next step?

    Laurence: (Pointing upwards) It’s that one up there I’m afraid, it’s the only answer, whether you believe in it or not, it’s the only answer. Because, what are we gonna come out of this with? We’re certainly not going to come out of the situation we’ve just been through with a great faith in scientists (laughter) … scientists are the new estate agents. People need meaning, right?

    We’ve spent a long time looking to science, we have to turn around and look to the values, the real values society was built on, and those are Judeo-Christian values, and that’s – you’ve gotta look up there, and look at what was said by him and by the people that followed him. That’s what I reckon.

    And that’s not coming from a person who’s profoundly religious. I’m just going, there is a manual, they wrote a book about this before, you know, and try and bring some of those values back. There are very complex things in the Bible which are really tricky to get your head around, and they can educate.

    After that the conversation moved onto other things (although Laurence did briefly return to it later on by talking about Jesus’ words “love your enemies”.

    I find it intriguing that Laurence recognises that what we need is a return to Judeo-Christian values. This is what I think a number of people have begun to realise, including people like Douglas Murray and John Anderson (former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia) – to name but two examples.

    What I want to say is: can you have the fruit of Judeo-Christian values, without the roots of Christianity? Can you have all the good stuff – loving your enemies, for example – without the roots of actually believing in Jesus?

    One of Jesus’ most famous teachings is “love your neighbour as yourself”. A lot of people have heard of that one. What most people don’t know is that this is only the second most important commandment. Let me quote the whole section of the Bible:

    Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’

    Jesus replied: ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’

    Matthew 22:34-40

    So the first greatest commandment is to love God with everything we have. Now, the question is: can you have the second commandment without the first? Can we really love our neighbour without loving God?

    I think Jesus would say, no, you can’t. That’s because we need his help, we need the kind of love that only he can give. In John 15:5, Jesus says: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” I’ve been reflecting on those words a lot lately: “apart from me you can do nothing”. Jesus says that we cannot do anything apart from him. The ‘fruit’ that he talks about is the fruit of obedience to God – love.

    Love is not something which we can simply work up in ourselves; it’s something which is given to us by God. If we seek him, he will give it to us.

    Is it really surprising that in a society which ignores and rejects God (like ours), that it doesn’t really love? Is it really surprising that there is so little forgiveness? Is it really surprising that woke heresy hunters are cancelling anyone who doesn’t agree with them? These are the fruits of a society which has turned its back on God.

    So the choice that we face as a society for the road ahead is not between Judeo-Christian values and other values. It’s deeper than that: it’s between seeking God or not seeking him. It’s not what we will choose, but who. Will we choose the Lord who made us?

    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

    Postscript

    As Laurence said: “There are very complex things in the Bible which are really tricky to get your head around”. If you’re struggling to make sense of the Bible, do have a look at my website Understand the Bible. It’s dedicated to helping people understand the Bible and the Christian faith from scratch (no prior experience or knowledge required). The course content is all free, there’s even a mobile app you can download to make it easier.

  • Social Media, #BlackLivesMatter and being consistent

    Social Media, #BlackLivesMatter and being consistent

    Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
    for the rights of all who are destitute.
    Speak up and judge fairly;
    defend the rights of the poor and needy.

    Proverbs 31:8-9

    One of the things I am fascinated by – as I mentioned again recently – is social media and the way it has changed the world in ways we have only just begun to understand. I think the recent killing of George Floyd and the subsequent #BlackLivesMatter response is a good case in point.

    The facts are fairly well known: George Floyd, a black man, was held by a police officer until he was asphyxiated. This has provoked a backlash of responses against police brutality and racism – even in the UK (e.g. the BBC reported that thousands turned out for anti-racist protests in the UK).

    There has been a Christian response too, and I’ve seen a range of videos and blogs about it from a Christian perspective – e.g. this video from Speak Life, which I thought was very helpful. Many of my friends on social media a couple of days ago posted up black images with the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag. I’ve even seen today (Sunday) that a number of clergy in groups I belong to have been preaching about racism.

    I’m not going to talk here about Black Lives Matter, or about the responses to it – I think racism is wrong and it’s right to speak up against it publicly. But I really want to focus on one thing which has intrigued me, and that is consistency.

    To my mind, this issue has brought out issues of consistency like no other in recent times. What I mean by that is, speaking up on this particular issue and not speaking up on other issues. You see, the Christians who have been joining in with #BlackLivesMatter have been communicating a message – that racism is wrong. I get that. And, although I disagree with aspects of the protests (rioting, of course, as well as breaking of social distancing rules during a pandemic) – I think it is right to communicate the message that racism is wrong.

    I just want to flag up at the outside, lest anyone should be mistaken, that I am in now way agreeing with racism or trying to silence the protests!

    However. What intrigues me is why people – and especially Christians – are joining in loudly with the protests now, and preaching against racism etc – when other things seem to pass without comment. Let me give a few examples.

    #1: Grooming Gangs

    At the end of last year the Independent published an article which said: “More than 18,700 suspected victims of child sexual exploitation were identified by local authorities in 2018-19, up from 3,300 five years before.” And it’s the same old, same old – apparently “lessons have been learned” but nothing seems to change.

    Where are the hashtags #WhiteWorkingClassGirlsMatter? Where are the protests against the police and the government, who have largely brushed the issue under the carpet? Where is the Archbishop of Canterbury to stand in support of those who have been abused?

    I can’t think of a church leader who made a public statement about this – possibly because there wasn’t a big outcry at the time. It all seemed to fly below the radar. How something like this can happen without being a national scandal, I don’t know – especially when the media can spend a full week venting fury at Dominic Cummings for possibly breaking lockdown rules.

    #2: French police and Gilets Jaunes

    Have you heard anything about the police brutality that’s been happening in France? Here’s an excerpt from an article on Spiked:

    The scale of police violence was astonishing and stomach-churning. Between November 2018 and June 2019, according to figures compiled by Médiapart, 860 protesters were injured by the police – 315 suffered head injuries; 24 lost the use of an eye; and five had hands torn off. In December 2018, an elderly woman who had no involvement in the protests was killed when police threw a grenade into her flat.

    Among these victims are not only protesters but also journalists and medics. Police have been filmed beating elderly and disabled people, as well as using tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets against peaceful protesters. The main source of injuries was ‘Flashball’ rubber bullets – a non-lethal weapon that has been banned in every EU country except France. More than 13,000 of these bullets were fired in the first three months of the protests. Another extreme weapon used by police was the GLI-F4 – a teargas grenade which contains explosives that maimed numerous protesters. The grenade was eventually banned by the French government in early 2020.

    Things got so bad that the UN called for a ‘full investigation’ into the police’s ‘excessive use of force’. Similarly, the Council of Europe’s human-rights commissioner called for an end to the use of Flashballs against protesters. Amnesty International denounced the ‘extremely heavy-handed’ policing deployed against peaceful protesters. Eventually, even the French government acknowledged it had a problem with police violence.

    Where are the #FrenchLivesMatter hashtags? Where are the instagram pictures in solidarity? Where are the church leaders standing up for those oppressed by the police in France?

    #3: Working Class Discrimination

    The church in the UK has a problem with class, as I talked about before. The other day I was watching a video by Duncan Forbes, “Are lower classes welcome at churches?” In that video he starts by telling a few stories about how he has been made to feel like an outsider and discriminated against because of being working class.

    Now I do feel like the church is slowly beginning to wake up to class problems in the church – but it’s something that not many Christian leaders have actually spoken up about.

    In fact, I think one of the most ironic things is that many of the people at the Black Lives Matter protests will are from the more affluent middle classes who have just spent the last four years telling Brexiteers how ignorant and racist they are. Black lives matter – the white working class can safely be sidelined and ignored.

    Being consistent

    All in all, what we choose not to stand up and protest about speaks as much as what we do protest. If we protest, loudly, one particular thing – and yet fail to speak out on another issue – what message are we sending about what, or who, we value?

    I started this post by quoting Proverbs 31, which I will quote again because I think it’s so helpful:

    Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
    for the rights of all who are destitute.
    Speak up and judge fairly;
    defend the rights of the poor and needy.

    Who, in our current culture, cannot speak for themselves, who are destitute? I’d suggest the working class, especially the white working class, have as good a case as any. The police have been hopeless when it comes to actually stopping some of these grooming gangs from abusing working class young women. Many have spoken about how the school system seems to be failing working class boys. The church is dominated by middle-class culture.

    If we speak when it’s easy to speak out – it’s not exactly controversial to join the Black Lives Matter protests at the moment – and yet fail to speak out on issues which society does not speak out on, aren’t we failing the Proverbs 31 test? If we only speak out on issues that are approved by the Guardian, or by social media, we’re going to say a lot about a small number of things but miss a lot of things which Christians really should speak up about.

    Let me finish by, again, clarifying what I am and am not saying – just because this is an issue which it’s so difficult to speak about.

    I am not saying it’s wrong to protest. However, I am saying we should be careful about what we protest and what we don’t protest. Especially in a world of social media where perspective can be be so distorted (what’s important on social media is not what’s important to the country, let alone to God!)

    I am not saying racism is unimportant. However, I am saying that society is saying a lot about racism at the moment but very little about the other issues I’ve mentioned. I think Christians have a duty to speak out on issues where society is not speaking (the issue of abortion comes to mind, but there are many other examples).

    I am not saying we have to stop talking about racism, or pretend the church has a flawless record in this area. We should be realistic about everything. But I do feel we could have a more level-headed approach which is less directed by the social media mob.

    I’m going to finish with some words from Psalm 12, which really jumped out at me recently as I read it:

    “Because the poor are plundered and the needy groan,
    I will now arise,” says the Lord.
    “I will protect them from those who malign them.”
    And the words of the Lord are flawless,
    like silver purified in a crucible,
    like gold refined seven times.

    You, Lord, will keep the needy safe
    and will protect us forever from the wicked,
    who freely strut about
    when what is vile is honored by the human race.

    Psalm 12:5-8

    The Lord shows no partiality – he is fair, and he is just, and ultimately he is the one who will ensure those who are needy will be protected and kept safe. I pray that we will learn to be like him.