A Church Confused By Culture
“Essendon (Football Club) doesn’t speak truth to power, it genuflects before power.” (G. Sheridan The Australian 6.10.22) “Which leaders will protect your Christian values?….We won’t soon forget Victorian Premier Dan Andrews saying biblical views on abortion and sexuality are, “appalling, intolerant, hatred, bigotry, and just wrong.” (Australian Christian Lobby email 19.10.22)
Introduction
The above comments by prominent Catholic and Protestant Christians are correct in essence, but wrong in emphasis. Their desperate tone ignores the Fact that no culture can finally compete with the all-surpassing glory of Jesus, a reality to be fully manifest to all at the resurrection (Phil 2:10). The classic Christ and Culture (H.R. Niebuhr 1945) explored 3 options relevant to our times, 1. Christ against culture (opposition), 2. Christ of culture (agreement), 3. Christ above culture (a synthesis of elements of the first two positions). Whereas the Evangelical side of the Church is moving in the direction of 1., the Liberal side is very much in 2., my position is a radical case of 3. Tragically, many Evangelicals and Liberals are spiritually confused. It is a matter of some urgency for the maturing of the Church in post-Christian cultures that a Christ pleasing perspective be reached. This need was recently highlighted when the newly appointed CEO of Essendon, Andrew Thorburn, was effectively forced to resign when it came to light that he was also the chair of the board of an Anglican group whose pastor (from City on a Hill church) once preached vehemently against homosexuality and abortion. Widespread public and political furore have been ignited. Into this heated environment the Spirit is speaking things most of us are unable/unwilling to hear (Rev 2:7 etc.); but which we must obey if we are to live as the “holy and spotless” Bride for which Jesus died (Eph 5:25-27).
Who is Andrew Thorburn?
If famed theologian Karl Barth was right to say, “Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.”, then Australian congregations should be familiar with ‘Andrew Thorburn’ as the past CEO of the National Australia Bank (NAB), singled out by name in the final report of our federal Royal Commission into financial misconduct in the banking sector. This report precipitated Thorburn’s resignation from NAB, but apparently, he was not disciplined by his church (City on a Hill), remaining chair of their board. It appears that the standards of the church are lower than the world (cf. 1 Cor 5:1)! Contrast all this with the expectations of Jesus, ““You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and ogive glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matt 5:14-16). When brother Thorburn remarked to the media, “Today it became clear to me that my own personal Christian faith is not tolerated or permitted in the public space, at least by some and perhaps by many.”, he was speaking truth, but only in part. For we must not equate Christianity, and certainly not Christ, with our own personal value system. Christendom is Not the all-triumphant “power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of God’s Christ” (Rev 12:10). In response to the wave of “wokeness” engulfing our culture most of us are caught in reactions lacking true prophetic rigour.
Unable to Answer
As Jesus faced down his opponents in the power of the Spirit, “no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.” (Matt 22:46), his opponents themselves testified in their bewilderment, ““No one ever spoke like this man!”” (John 7:46). Christ promised us all, “When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. 20 For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” (Matt 10:19-20). The hostile foes of men personally known to me, in Pakistan and China, were rendered speechless by the divinely inspired wisdom of their replies. This is a holy spiritual atmosphere vastly different from our present cultural wars. We are missing divine articulation because we are deeply deceived, we have to use AFL jargon, been “sold the dummy” (a baulk where a player tricks an opposition player into believing they are about to do something they are not going to do).
Sold the Dummy: A Church Seduced
Masses of “seducing spirits” (2 Cor 11:3; 2 Tim 4:1; Rev 16:13) have persuaded Bible-believing Australians (Rev 12:9) into believing that we are the persecuted righteous minority of the last days (Dan 11:32-35); whereas in truth we are the Laodicean Church of Revelation, of whom Jesus says: “you say, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked” (Rev 3:17). Our inner arrogance explains why prayer, fasting, self-humiliation and the disciplines of holy discipleship are so rare in our midst (1 Pet 5:6). Conflict with the dominant woke culture is not the main game today, we need prophetic voices to blow the trumpet and sound the alarm (Hos 5:8; Joel 2:15) so we can see in the Spirit (Rev 1:10) the heavenly reality that Andrew Thorburn, and the Church in which he, and we, are all embedded is under the ever- disciplining yet merciful hand of “the Father of spirits” (Heb 12:8; 4:16). Praise God, Hallelujah, in Christ he has not handed us over to our wicked human foes (cf. 2 Sam 24:14). We must see that in the End all cultures and their rulers must submit to Jesus as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev 19:16 cf. 21:23-24)
Interpretation and Application
When the Twin Towers came down on 9/11, this was a prophetic message for America to turn away from its “love of money” (1 Tim 6:10; Heb 13:5). 2022 should be seen as Australia’s year of falling “towers”. First there was the enforced resignation of the pastor of the largest and most famous church in the nation, Brian Houston, now in the realm of “marketplace Christianity” we have the enforced resignation of Andrew Thorburn. Many can see the disciplining work of the Spirit in the former, but due to cultural confusions are blinded to the latter. Blinded by idolatry (Isa 6:9-10; Ps 115:5; 135:6; Mark 4:12; Acts 28:26–27; Rom 11:8). The idol to which the vast mass of the Church bows, so that we exalt man above God (cf. 2 Thess 2:4), is to elevate ability above character. Andrew Thorburn has become a poster-boy for a certain sort of Christianity, not become of his holy likeness to Christ, as if he could say, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1), but because he holds a stack of Christian values which we, in our ignorance, have equated with Jesus. These high profile brothers, so typical of the whole Church, one being Pentecostal the other Evangelical, have not only sinned personally, been sinned against by the failure of a semi-apostate Christianity to exert the loving discipline of a Holy and Righteous Father (John 17:11, 25) who in his unfailing Love sent his Son “to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:2). Prophetic voices (John Smith etc.) have long labelled Australia as a land of “cosmic orphans”, this seems even more true today when judgment is “beginning with the household of God” (1 Pet 4:17). “Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Lord have mercy.” God have mercy on us all!