Hello and thank you so much for downloading episode 430 of the Speak Life podcast. My name is Thomas Thorgood, media producer at Speak Life, and today we have an episode responding to Andrew Thorburn leaving Essenden Football Club. Essenden Football Club is an Aussie rules football club in Australia. And as you look into the situation, this news story, the details surrounding Andrew Thorburn and why he left the football club, you discover that it's actually a very significant event. Joining Glenn Scrivener on the show to press into this issue is Stephen McAlpine, Australian pastor, who's been on the show before, and also Nathan Campbell, who is another Australian pastor, and I believe he's also been on the Speak Life channel at some point. We released this conversation as a video on our YouTube channel. You can check it out. Just search youtube.com forward slash speaklifemedia if you'd like to get the visuals of this conversation as well. But here it is now as a podcast. Well, I hope you find the conversation helpful and I will catch you at the end.
SPEAKER_06Today on Speak Life, we're going to think about Andrew Thorburn and Essendon Football Club. Now, if you're Australian, you will know probably what I'm talking about. If you're not Australian, you need to know. If you're a Christian, you need to know what has happened to Andrew Thorburn in Modern Progressive Australia, because it might well happen to you if you're a Christian anywhere else in the post-Christian West. Andrew Thorburn is a Christian. He uh was the CEO of National Australia Bank in Australia, a very senior position, obviously, and then he went to become the CEO of Essendon Football Club. This is the club that he's always supported as a boy, an Aussie Rules football club, at the heart of Melbourne. Now, Essendon Football Club prides itself on being very inclusive and diverse and safe, especially when it comes to issues of sex and sexuality. Andrew Thorburn goes to a church called City on a Hill. It's an Anglican church in the middle of Melbourne, and they have in the past made statements about sex and sexuality and abortion, which when journalists went through the website, um they were horrified by things that they discovered in 2013. There was a sermon on abortion, uh there w was also a historical article that had been published about uh surviving same-sex attraction, and this was enough for certain journalists to consider Andrew Thorburn to be completely unworthy of this role at a safe, inclusive modern football club. Uh the Premier of Victoria, Victoria is the state where Melbourne is, um, he waded in and he said those views are absolutely uh appalling. I don't support those views. That kind of intolerance, that kind of hatred, bigotry is just wrong. Now, is this a case of religious discrimination? Uh is this a case of uh violation of freedom of speech? Fascinatingly, Andrew Thorburn himself did not make any of these statements. Um it's it's not about the statements that he made. In fact, he joined the church after these, you know, so-called transphobic or uh bigoted statements were made by the church. Nevertheless, simply for going to that particular house of worship, Andrew Thorburn found himself out of a job. Now, do you see why this is a relevant story no matter where you live? Um so, in order to translate the conversation that I'm just about to have with Stephen McAlpine and Nathan Campbell, I need to let you in on a couple of Australianisms. I'm from Australia originally. Nathan and Stephen live in Australia. Uh they're about to talk about Guy Mason, who is the uh the leader of City on a Hill Church. And uh he went on just yesterday as we record this, he went on uh daytime TV, uh, the the breakfast show on Channel 7, a national broadcaster in Australia, uh a show called Sunshine, and he was interviewed by a guy called David Koch.
SPEAKER_00Anyone in your community that has a different um sexual orientation, you say you're gonna go to hell. Shouldn't you be more inclusive? We are. We we're very not you're just saying you're comparing abortion to the Holocaust, you're saying if if you if you go, you're gonna go to hell. That's that's not really the guidance and loving.
SPEAKER_06We will talk about how Guy Mason uh was really eviscerated on national television. Um that will have uh a lesson for us all. So hopefully that that gives you some idea of the terrain of what we're about to uh discuss. And I couldn't think of two better helpers to get us to navigate these waters than Nathan Campbell, who is a church leader in Brisbane, and he's always writing about these kinds of issues. He's always fascinating uh to read. Uh you can uh find his blog St. Eudicus online. But uh we've got him talking to us, and we've also got Stephen McAlpine. Most recently, Stephen McAlpine was on the show in order to discuss his latest book, which is called Being the Bad Guys, How to Live for Jesus in a World That Says You Shouldn't. And uh that book uh really could be th could be seen as a kind of a pr prophecy of everything that's just happened this week. Uh Stephen, do you do you think this has been prophetic of some of the issues? It's it seems like you were trying to prepare us in your book for this kind of illiberal onslaught against Christians in the workplace. It's now eventuated. Is this what you were praying for, Stephen?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that that's a good way of putting it. I mean, it it wouldn't do any harm, you know, being cheeky for for uh my sales if I were to uh say that it's true. Um but I I think in one sense uh it's just an extension, the situation we're feeling of uh with Andrew Thorburn of all of the things I've been saying, but it isn't the end of the line, and it isn't necessarily going to remain that way. I uh one of the things I I'd want to say, and I've said in my book, is you just don't know how history goes. Uh things change, but I do certainly think that Christians have to take a stance that uh they're not going to necessarily get a fair hearing, and because we don't, it's not a home game for Christians anymore uh to keep the footy analogy going. It's an away game. And people are discombobulated when things like this happen, like happened with Andrew Thorburn. But I and I think Christians have mistakenly thought that most of the rest of the communities for us on these matters and they'll want to give us a fair go. And I think that's not true. I think there are some people that do for freedom of speech ideas, but as far as people's understanding of what it means to live your own life the way you wish to, they see Christians as both interfering and dangerous. And the Premier of Victoria insinuated, indeed said, that Andrew Thorburn was disingenuously hiding hatred and bigotry behind his Christianity. That's a big statement from the Leader of the State. I think that's an inflammatory statement and one that does not reflect how Andrew Thorburn has behaved in his previous role as the CEO of a major national bank with 35,000 diverse and inclusive-minded employees. He did not leave the NAB with a massive cross on the roof of its headquarters and a prayer room in the centre of it. He led the uh strategy that had to push diversity and inclusivity out through the bank. So it was a it was a bad way for Dan Andrews, the Victorian Premier, to tar him.
SPEAKER_06Nathan, um when you see uh an example like this of uh uh Andrew Thorburn lasting uh about 30 hours in that role, do you do you think that is symbolic of the the way Australian culture is right now or or not?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, look, I I agree a lot with uh Stephen's analysis, I think. I my my issue is I think we haven't played the game well leading up to this point. There have been some ball drops, uh which is okay in AFL because you don't have to keep possession like that. Yeah. And some iron goals, which I don't know what happens if you kick the goal uh the ball through your own goals in AFL. From a league state and I play real football with the round ball. But uh I I think we're reaping to some extent what we've sewn while we've had power and influence, especially when it comes to uh those in vulnerable or marginalized communities. And I I take Stephen's point that I'm sure he'll make that uh those in the LGBTQ IA plus umbrella uh aren't exactly in a position of vulnerability when it comes to corporate dollars and um the ideology driving our politics in Australia at the moment. Um but they are still disproportionately misrepresented in various uh mental health outcomes, homelessness uh areas like that. So I I I I think we're seeing the fruit of mismanagement when we were in charge and not recognising and repenting for the ways that we have caused harm to people, and now the boots on the other foot. Um so it struck me that we weren't great at asking or weren't great at giving pluralism uh in say the same-sex marriage debate, um, but now we want pluralism. Once we lost that debate, we want to uh have our wedding cake and eat it too. I'm practicing metaphors because Stephen's quite good at them and he's gonna outmethers. Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Getting him in getting getting them in quickly. But um I mean you you were saying just off air earlier that that actually um what you'd heard about City on a Hill, which is the church where Andrew Thorburn goes, uh that that uh Anglican church in Melbourne, um, that that actually they they had cared for uh people quite well in that congregation, is that right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, look, and I think uh across the board there'll be churches that have done a really fine job of caring for people in their community, and there'll be others that haven't. And there'll be times where we've been trying to be faithful and stick to what the Bible teaches and not recognised uh creative ways that we might structure our communities in order to support people and care for people in ways that we might uh have bought into various forms of idolatry of the nuclear family in ways that have come at a cost to people. Um, but my the word on the street from those in that community who are um in that umbrella of experiences is that they have done a really great job of listening to and caring for them, and so they're feeling this grief and turmoil as their church gets dragged through the ringer publicly and positioned as a bad guy when they've actually done a a quite a good job of caring for uh this particular group of people. And and so it does feel um some of Stephen's writing about how City on a Hill in particular uh has framed itself as this young hip in a city church and it's copying uh both barrels uh does show that the the churches that are less uh careful in this area have a lot more to look out for. Probably a lot less likely to have people in on their board as CEOs of major corporations or sporting teams though as well. So it's uh it's tricky way.
SPEAKER_06That really struck me because I I typed Guy Mason, who is the lead pastor at uh City on a Hill Church, into YouTube, and the very first video that came up had transgender sort of right across the the sort of the the thumbnail of the video, and I I've watched the first half of that sermon, an hour-long sermon where he presses into that issue along alongside a whole bunch of other hot button issues of the day. And it it struck me that you he he spoke of a friend of his who he grew up with called Jason, who transitioned who and and Jason calls himself uh Jennifer, I think now, and and i he kept on saying she and her and he he used those preferred pronouns for this friend of his. And it struck me that um even as he was trying to be as very hospitable as he could um to this transgender friend of his, it's they still came for him. And and Stephen, you've kind of written um a blog post that talks about eight different lessons that we learn from it, and one of the lessons is um you you say something like um being winsome is like a calling, but it's not a it's not a strategy or what how how do you put it?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well, I'm saying uh winsome is a uh a faithful uh stance, but a failed strategy. Because what I'm saying is you can't outwinsome it because they're not asking Guy Mason or City on a Hill or any other church to love on the person but disagree with them. They're saying you must celebrate because this is their um true authenticity, and you know, this is who they truly are, and for you to say otherwise, and this puts it in the context of wider, bigger uh philosophical shifts in the West. It puts it in the realm of intersectionality, uh critical theory, all those sorts of things. And Carl Truman's book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, picks up on those things. But it's saying, unless you're an ally, unless you're affirming, and this is what I'm finding hearing from people in the workplace who are further down the food chain than Andrew Thorburn, unless silence is violence, you must affirm and celebrate. So Christians are finding themselves caught between, I want to love that person and I do love that person, but unless I fully 100% agree with them, they'll come for me. And when I say they, and this is the issue, and I Greg Sheridan will say this, and you know, he's he's written some good books on Christianity in the public square that are more read than any Christian, he's a secular, you know, figure as such. And he would say that the least religious people with the least knowledge about faith are journalists. Yet they're having the top of the food chain conversation. So when I read in the paper about church city on a hill, the first word on some of the articles, even in the very conservative Australian newspaper, are controversial fundamentalist church, and then articles that say they dress like normal people, like hip Melbourne people, but underneath it's like, what way do you think that ordinary Melbourne Christian people dress? Are they supposed to get to church in a buggy, dressed like Amish with this beard without the mustache bit? I haven't been to Brisbane for a few weeks, so it could have changed since I've been there. And I haven't been to inner Brisbane for a while. But it feels like, wow, you have we're giving the conversation over to the people with the least understanding of faith, not just Christian faith. Uh I give into an Uber to go to the airport to go and speak in Brisbane, perhaps, and the young Muslim taxi driver asks me what I'm doing, and when I tell him he's all questions, what about this? What about that? How come Australian people aren't religious? How come I feel like no one talks about God here? And I'm going, they don't, because it's an it's a no-no subject for many people. So I feel like the narrative is lost already at one level, and someone just uh texted me to say the West Australian newspaper is going to have a terrible editorial tomorrow about mainstream fundamentalist Christianity in Western Australia. But at the same time, one of the questions has been well, why can't Essendon, the football club, choose its own leader according to its own standards? And that's fair enough, if it were live and let live. But Victoria, the place where Essendon is based, is the same state that is saying to Christian schools, we won't allow you to choose only Christian staff for your for your teaching. You have to sign off on anti-discrimination legislation. If it cut both ways, that would be fine, but it doesn't cut both ways, and I think that's hypocritical.
SPEAKER_06So Nathan, I mean, Stephen's very much um making a case for, I mean, this is discrimination, isn't it? I mean, really, it's it's it's religious discrimination against Christians. Do you do you think that that's a fruitful line to well, first of all, do you do you agree with Stephen's analysis of of what he's just said? And then secondly, do you do you think it's that that's the note that we should be sounding at the moment?
SPEAKER_03Well, I hope you weren't expecting fireworks, Glenn. Um I do agree with that analysis. Um I think this is a travesty. I I think it's it's been fascinating that a lot of this issue for us has been fought out not on the sports field, but around athletes and sporting clubs. Uh this is the third now case where either a high-profile player or or group of players or CEO have been on the firing line for not uh not dealing with an inclusivity culture, but it's always struck me that that inclusivity it's not actually genuine pluralism. And so uh I I think one of the things that we've failed to do as we've run the show historically is well I mean we were the champions of pluralism originally, but at some point we we lost that. I noticed John Dixon had uh a post recently about the early church being champions of pluralism and uh the wheels falling off at some point. Um but if incl if inclusivity doesn't include people who hold diverse views, and if you put religion in there, but religion is only ever something that's skin deep, um which is how the modern secular construction of the idea of of your identity and performance of your identity works, that religion's like a shirt you wear that you won't recognize, which is both probably Truman and to some extent Charles Taylor's kind of sources of self stuff, the the authentic expressive individualism that needs to be um yeah, authentic but also recognised. Look, I I think if inclusivity's only jersey deep, if it's not about the kind of people you can have in the team uh holding different views and and being able to work through those views and being united in the cause of of the team, uh then it's actually not inclusivity. And so this this is a failure to be inclusive. And I think if we are people who are committed to the good of our neighbours, whether they're Christian or not, uh then inclusivity and pluralism are actually how we need to be. I I think short of uh Jesus returning and creating a theocracy, uh this is what we've got even even with sectarian difference. Like I want my Anglican brothers and sisters to be able to exist in Melbourne and in Brisbane, uh, and and my Catholic brothers and sisters and my Baptist brothers and sisters and my independent non-denational church players with better beards than I have, brothers and sisters. And so there's a degree of pluralism built into Protestantism. And and I I think we have seen a failure to be generous and inclusive to Christians at this point. Um it's interesting too that as this story's happening, there's a a woman, a Muslim woman playing in the women's AFL who is going to sit out the pride round for the second year in a row because of her faith, uh, and that hasn't caused the outcry because of intersectionality for a you know, there's a bunch of reasons that she's not operating from a position of historic power and influence where there's a degree of shadenfreud and and perhaps revenge uh kicking in. So I think Stephen Alice is right. I think it's uh it's an intolerant moment, and I I think Dan Andrews has been um particularly intolerant of Christianity for a while. My my issue is in terms of the posture, I I think uh I want to reframe what a failure looks like in terms of strategy. So that winsomeness uh if it's Christ-likeness, it's not just a stance, it is a strategy, and a victory is actually some form of crucifixion, probably. So Stephen's friend and and mine, um Rory Shiner from Perth debated Lawrence Krauss a few years ago, and the review basically got taken to taken apart by Lawrence Krauss, but uh the best review I read on Twitter was that it was like watching a gentle crucifixion. And at that point I thought, what better witness for the gospel than someone who can who can actually take it? And and I thought for all Guy Mason's uh work on sunrise this morning when he stepped up to to speak into the situation, it was like watching a crucifixion. Um he did attempt to present the the love of Jesus in a way to a national audience to try to redeem something from this situation, and and I hope that some people will be paying attention to that. I don't think our job is to to win the argument or win the political game necessarily. I think it's Paul at the Areopagus, we're gonna get laughed at, but one or two people might believe, and that's how embodying the crucifixion and following the crucifi cruciform God actually works, and that is I think our our stance and our strategy. Um so yeah, I I don't know that we're well geared up as a church to be crucified, and it's easy to say that from the comfort I I I enjoy Stephen's provocations for pastoral staff who don't have skin in the game in the workplace Monday to Friday. It's easy for us to talk a good game in terms of crucifixion, it's harder for us to find people that are willing to nail us to planks.
SPEAKER_04Well, that's right, and I think one of the things I've learned from this, uh over the last few years is when people come to me going, I really don't know what to do at work. I I feel like I need to uh do a digital cleanse because I'm gonna get called out on this, and I don't want to outsource the bravery of the church. Because the other day when I wrote, Maybe we should take our sermons offline, people were saying, You coward. I was saying, Well, don't outsource your bravery to your people. You be brave because you're not thinking what their world is like. And that's perhaps part of what Nathan's meaning as well. We haven't thought clearly about certain things. Now reference to your book, uh Glen, given uh the air we breathe, um you've got a copy of it then I think it's a bit more than a bit more questions here Stephen.
SPEAKER_06Anyway, okay, go on.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well I I just think um pluralism is a feature of a Christian framework in the world, not a bug. And as much as we've done a poor job of it, it's actually been a bug in other worldviews. It hasn't come or sprung out of anything else other than a Christian framework. And even if we've done it badly, if a job's worth doing it's worth doing badly as GK Chesterman said. And so I feel like we're losing when we become post-Christian and we're probably further we will we assume that we'll still be more pluralistic but these are the signs that we won't. Now I wouldn't say that they have to employ someone who goes against their values. It just is interesting that sexual values are the primary values upon which people are judged. And Mark Sayers says you can have an encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture and sign off on all the social justice causes of the day but if you align yourself with these what he calls second culture values according Philip Reefs material the second culture values of Jesus is exclusively Lord and you are not your own your body is not your own you bought with the price you don't you'll be kicked to the curb and I think that's what City in a Hill has found that there's no amount of Uber being in the zone of Melbourne it's a funky city's no amount of looking like the city that won't get you kicked to the curb. Go back and listen to Mike Cosper before he was famous with Rise and Portland Mars Hill to his one-off pilot episode of Devil in the Deep Blue Sea where it happened to a Kentucky church which was blisteringly hip and they got exposed badly to the point that they had to shut down all of their music venues. They're not asking they're going straight to that question with people now and that's the that's the confronting thing.
SPEAKER_03And join me in tweeting Mike Cosper asking where episode two is I do it about once a year.
SPEAKER_06Yeah that's I have done that he's gotten busy with other things.
SPEAKER_03Look I thought it was interesting there was a there was an article in the Guardian um that had this really weird while we're on the air we breathe kind of idea talking about there's a peculiar feature it says I'm quoting from it a peculiar feature of religious faith that it projects outwards determining not just what individuals believe for themselves but what others may and may not physically be and do. LGBTQI plus people are told by religions to which they do not belong, that they do not legitimately exist in the form of their choice. Women are told what they may do with their own bodies. This is problematic in terms not of modern social mores but basic and eternal human dignity and and so there I think was this kind of sense that maybe we have been misunderstood this idea that we are trying to impose our moral frame on others but it's interesting too that the very moral frame he turns to is the moral frame created by Christianity. And so I think that's the kind of the air we breathe argument but also Tom Holland's argument in Dominion even the here's where I've got a bit of sympathy the people campaigning for better treatment of LGBTQI plus people are the people recognising the the toll taken on them. It was fascinating the the day the Essendon story broke Channel 9 in Brisbane had the Tom Daly documentary about how it's illegal to be him in a significant number of countries in the Commonwealth because he's gay and a deep dive investigative journalism program into gay killings in Australia in the 80s and 90s. These are things that have happened within the lifetime of of people who are fighting for these rights. The impulse to fight for those rights is actually also Christian. It is that kind of secularism's a Christian heresy kind of idea the the impulses we have come from Christianity and so it's it's really complicated at that point.
SPEAKER_06Because you want to go yes to that guy there are these moral principles that are eternal but but where do they come from yeah yeah and and diversity inclusion and and and and equity are totally Christian values um in in their truest form. In the name of tolerance we'll say we won't tolerate that. And and so in one sense you know you you could wish that the uh you know I do wish that the Jesus Revolution would go deeper in us all. Um but one of the one of the ways we see it at work is that in the name of diversity um people of a a very uniform monochrome um intellectual outlook and class and race usually uh in enforce one particular vision of diversity which which is just I mean it's it's an irony on top of an irony but um that that's where we are it's uh inclus inclusion, diversity and equity are used as a cudgel um in in a culture war and and in a in a very non-diverse way.
SPEAKER_03And I think that's been particularly apparent in some of our sporting events with Polynesian players who have a a faith that's embedded deeply in their lives and their culture where one week the NRL will celebrate a Polynesian league team getting together to sing a hymn before a game and then sing with their opponents after a game and the next week there'll be this massive issue because Polynesian players who take their faith seriously won't wear a a particular jersey there there's a a clashing of the multiculturalism and diversity not just religion at that point. Well that's right. But I I don't think the the culture warrior who's the typically the the white middle to upper class person who's reading the papers and tweeting they're not necessarily living in those communities and seeing the place that religion has and even the role of older people and younger people and and what is being asked of these young sporting professionals in a very complex cultural web being way more difficult than than it might be for you with your soy who am I kidding I drink I drink plenty of latte. Do you think soy latte I I'm I'm not soy it's I mean it's it is the best story ever told.
SPEAKER_01Christianity is I mean whether it's true or not is a different matter but but as a matter of historical record it is the most compelling story.
SPEAKER_02That was historian Tom Holland speaking about mission in the meaning crisis and there's plenty more where that came from. With the help of Christy Mayer we'll be diving into this very topic during the Speak Life vision evening and you yes you are invited. It's happening from 8 to 9.30pm UK time on Thursday the 20th of October to sign up go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash vision along with hearing from Christy Mayer and the Speak Life team you'll get a first sneak peek at our new evangelistic course and you'll be the first to know about our exciting plans for creative evangelism. This really is a unique opportunity and it's completely free. Whether you've been following Speak Life for hours or for years whether you live in England or Djibouti join us over Zoom as we think about the future of Speak Life.
SPEAKER_06That's Thursday the 20th of October 8pm let's tell the greatest story of all time do you resonate with what Nathan was saying Stephen when um Nathan was saying you know think of the Areopagus in Acts 17 there are there are some sneering but some will believe and and like a a line I'm always using is that the the guy with the microphone does not speak for the room. The guy on breakfast television who's absolutely eviscerating an evangelical pastor uh on national television um doesn't actually speak for your neighbor and friend. Um and there will be a significant number of people who if if Dan Andrews plays that role and his his own you know prejudice is showing there are significant numbers of people who will say hang on who's the bad guy here and will actually wake up and and we'll want to hear a different message from what the mainstream media give us. Does that give you any hope?
SPEAKER_04Well uh yeah it does because the gospel comes into dark places right and so uh you'd have to think of the darkest times in England before the the r the um revivals of Wesley and and then Whitfield and the US and things like that. I guess I I don't think people support us as much as we might think they do. I think it's a much more minority issue that I think there'll be people who won't like Dan Andrews because of his politics not necessarily because of his moral framework. So my a friend here who's a Christian pastor and has a reading group with all non-Christians casually talked about it on his WhatsApp group with them and they were you know they're all young lads around his age mid-30s they shredded the church they went to the site they looked at the stuff and they shredded it and these are his friends and I I probably think that most people's default is that you should not get in the way of someone doing what they want if that's not hurting anyone else. And I get that but there's a confusion in the culture as well if I don't know if my daughter put me on to the try guys who I haven't watched on YouTube which uh have millions of followers and they do all these funny stunts and there's four of them and one of them is really the wife guy who loves his wife so much but had an affair committed adultery with someone on the set and the way the other three of them have to do damage control online and the way they have to um kick him to the curb it's church discipline without church and without uh the discipline of grace to bring him back it I went they've got a very strong moral framework for a group of people who are avowedly amoral. And I don't know that where they can park it at one level and I I I'm I don't want a on earth without Jesus returning theocracy. I think that's a bad idea. I I want liberty for people to disagree with me and to do what they feel they should do. However with this caveat I actually think that it's bad for them. I don't think that people living their own way sexually is actually good for them whether this life or the age to come and I think culturally although Carl Truman's book is called The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self the fact that we have so many people in therapy and such high levels of anxiety and such poor self-esteem and such despite billions of dollars being thrown at these things says that the book should really be called The Rise and Failure of the Modern Self because I don't look around and see a glowing report and so I want there to be an evangelistic tone to how we speak but we are a public theology is important. We have a political stance to give it's not our primary stance but we take place in the polis. Now as far as Athens is concerned in the Areopagus at least I still think it's Babylon because at least Paul was given a hearing that was not what happened to Guy today on uh Coshi's show because I don't think you get a hearing. You don't get called in and said tell us about this because I think there's a different experience to a post-Christian world than a pre-Christian world when it comes to hearing the Christian message and Philip Reef would say that third culture the post-Christian culture is actively hostile to second culture beliefs and values and is but is equally evangelistic in trying to evangelize people away from them. That wasn't true of first century pagan Greco-Roman world.
SPEAKER_06I mean again do you do you agree with that assessment that we're we're in this sort of post-Christian world negative world as some people have kind of called it um and if so Nathan like how how do we pastor our people to to deal with the Monday morning reality of you know you you could get cancelled simply for your association with this church?
SPEAKER_03These are these are the million dollar questions. Do I agree that we're in a negative post-Christian world? Absolutely um I think we've been in Rome all along I think that's the point of of Babylon all along I think that's the point of the book of Revelation and Steve and I had a little back and forth on that front um look I I I think the the picture and revelation of the two faithful witnesses the lampstands the churches being dragged into the public square where their Lord was killed and being killed and the world looking on with scorn that is the public relations strategy I think it is to be crucified. I think Titalion was right and and I don't want to be kind of all bulgy about you know we should go out and get smashed for get martyred for no reason. I think there's a we should seek to be obedient to Jesus and represent him well by embodying the way of the cross. Paul boasted in his scars and his foolishness and his weakness and that was where he thought the power of the gospel was going to be displayed. And so part of preparing our people is is doing that and creating communities that do that but also creating communities of resurrection and new life. I'll come back to that in a second because I think the Philip Reeve stuff's interesting C.S. Lewis in his uh Description Tempiorum I I don't think I've got the Latin right but his first lecture in the chair um talked about the movement from pre-Christian culture to kind of Christendom to the the age of the machine you you can't jump back to here. I think one of our problems too is that we are so embedded in the technology and technique and and the world that we live in now thinking that it's neutral and trying to find the right silver bullet and the right levers to pull to get us out of this moment thinking that all we need to do is get the right formula and we'll just shift it back to the the Christian days. So I think the idea that the third culture the Sayers and Reef and and Lewis idea we are in a post-Christian world and that's going to be different. And it is going to be similar in some ways to the pre-Christian world but it's going to be living in a world where the air we breathe is shaped by Christianity for for good and for ill uh where we've been bullies and saints to kind of use John Dixon's terminology where um dominion has been good and bad and we have to grapple with that. And so in terms of how we pastor our people well I think the challenge is I'm not sure I can look my gay neighbour in the eye and I I can tell them that the gospel is true but I can't necessarily tell them their life will be better if they join a church because I don't know that we do a great job of doing what Ed Shaw called building the plausibility structure that they need. I think we've got a plausibility problem in our communities when it comes to how how we do actually care for um gay and gender dysphoric Christians.
SPEAKER_06Is that a separate issue to like if you look if you went to your Muslim neighbour and you said to your Muslim neighbour come to Christ knowing that he would lose all of his family structures, you know all of his support networks that would that would be a really tough call too there's a fa I've there's a guy in our congregation who ministers to uh Muslims who says that's changing a bit depending on the the cultural background that people are coming from for migrants into Australia you're not necessarily going to lose your entire community if you convert you may in fact bring your family with you but there's this fascinating thing where everything we think works for ministry to a Westerner doesn't work for ministry to a Muslim background person.
SPEAKER_03So we like to say I'm a horrible sinner and this friend of mine says basically that that shuts doors. People want to see the goodness of the life lived following a a moral framework.
SPEAKER_04Can I can I find a let's not tar Westerners with the same brush either because in a middle class middle uh you know of Melbourne church uh it's a different message to the outer blocks and the Bundoks of Perth where my friend runs a food program at their church which gives away four tonne of food every Thursday and it was just named the group of the year in the the Shire and people aren't coming there feeling superior to the church we're better than you they're coming feeling worse than the church. We're worse than you we're not worthy so in the same city you will have elite people who say we're better than you're unworthy of us and you're going to have people who have nothing saying we're not worthy of you we're too ashamed to come here and so I think the one marginalized group that the that is invisible among well healed secular people are the downtrodden uneducated poor. They are despised and the church isn't doing a good job of reaching them either. In fact maybe if we just put a low-hanging fruit we'd be a bit better off and just reach them but they don't give a lot of money to establish big churches with good sound systems and uh ready to go leaders and structures. They're hard and they demand much more time and energy.
SPEAKER_03That's why I think there's also probably some fascinating overlaps between the homeless and poor and from what I understand the statistics of people finding themselves in homelessness who have either gender dysphoria or some sexual attraction issues that have led to their homelessness depending on their families of origin there's there's probably low-hanging fruit in both communities if we're seeking to really care for the vulnerable. That's probably been my experience ministering to that community as well.
SPEAKER_06And isn't that interesting that we're we're kind of talking about at this point like ministering to the margins genuinely looks quite different to ensuring that you use all the correct pronouns or or sort of jump through the the diversity inclusion equity kind of hoops is that a kind of um compassion that we are to show to the world well yes but to to do um to do actual compassion is to actually turn to your neighbour um who who might need a time for that so the virtue signal is is quicker.
SPEAKER_03I wonder if the best ministry for people in the margins is to actually lose a bit of our power and wealth ourselves and be not in a position where we're looking down but looking across and ministering with people. I like that's a trite cliche at times too but the the organisations I've had the most there's just this there's a beautiful group in Brisbane called Microprojects who've come out of a a progressive Catholic church that actually got booted out of the Catholic diocese for being progressive on a bunch of fronts but they've set up this entrepreneurial housing first model for homelessness people and they do these annual dinners that are actually the most inclusive thing I've ever seen because they get their corporate donors to share tables with their their base of supported people who they dress up they they provide clothes and they bring them all into one room and you are you are at the table with one another. It's a picture of what church could be just post-Christian like the progressive post-Christianity that has left the substance that's meant to bind people together at the table behind. We could maybe do both but it would require a change in the table we want to sit at when it comes to public life. I think we're we're seeing ourselves losing the executive table but I'm also we're rushing to the the table at the food truck on the street.
SPEAKER_04Yeah look there is a point too that part of our job in pastoral ministry is just to the people that are there help them make sense of the world they have to go to because I am concerned about the marginalized but I'm also concerned about the bulk of people who have to get up tomorrow and live in the world and use the technology and go to church or go to work and know that they're being discipled by a discipleship program that's thicker and more plausible than the one they're going to get Monday to Saturday. And I, you know, they have to make hard decisions about whether their kids play soccer on Sunday. That is a hard decision to make not because it's an it's because it's not an independent decision. It's wrapped up in the whole era that the secular culture breathes. This is how life looks this is where your kids end up this is how they get to university. And there are so many decisions for so many of our people in our churches That they're going, I'm lost in the headlights of how to be discipled well. And part of that will be taking incremental steps to think beyond themselves. So I'm very cautious about ninja Christianity of just sort it all out, sell everything now, and join. I just go, just discipleship in the Christian church in this day and age is just tweaking everything a little bit all the time to be more like Jesus and respond more like him in every situation. And that will over time raise the standard of how you deal with those who are marginalized at every front. It will help you be someone who at work is a more godly, compassionate listener who's a non-anxious presence, as Mark Sayers would say in his book. And it will help you be someone who makes decisions incrementally that are life-affirming of not just your family but other people. But that takes a lifetime to do because the bills have to be paid and the mortgages are there and kids are sick and we've got a little shut shut down, lockdown for another six months or whatever. And life does that. But there's a beautiful tapestry to that as well, if you look back over the course of a church's life. Most churches in Australia are not occupied by people who are angry about sexuality. They're just. We didn't want to be outed. And so anyone who didn't want to be outed for something that was a weak point, they kept their heads down. And that just continued, I guess, for many gay people after they finished school. School seemed to end the tyranny for many of the other groups, it probably didn't for them.
SPEAKER_03I was just going to say, um I I think one of the things that Guy Mason tried to say on Sunrise today that I think is true and gets lost, is there's there's no more diverse community in the world than the church. And I think it would be fantastic if that was true in our local communities too. And it it often is. And so I think one of the ways to prepare people for life in the world is to have them live in community with people for a diverse spectrum. I I think there's a I think again my source is John Dixon for this, but the early Roman church, a freed slave, was the bishop and his former master was a member of the church. There's there's an inversion of status quo stuff that happens around the table at church. Um one of the best pictures is we've got this retired so best pictures in my community, we've got this retired surgeon who comes with me into juvenile justice centres and plays cards with the kids there as if he knows nothing and asks them to teach him how to play cards. If I could bottle that and get every person in my community seeing that kind of inversion of of power and um yeah, that there's something beautiful and cross-like about that. But I think that's also how we prepare people to to live in the world and to uh to deal with difference is to be so used to dealing with difference that it's just second nature to love the person in front of you. Well actually not second nature, probably first nature.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. No, I love I love that. Um I'm gonna need to let you guys get on because it's uh getting close to midnight for you, Nathan. But um I I was just up in uh London at all Souls Langer Place, and one of the guys there said, you know, the big thing that all um the guys in central London are talking about is when the HR department at work requires you to put your pronouns in your email signature, what do you do as a Christian? Uh have you guys come across you know that as a pressing issue for for people in your congregations? What what do you say to people?
SPEAKER_04Uh uh I uh there's a conscience issue. Uh I don't want to tell people they should or shouldn't. Um because in one sense, if I'm gonna put he, his, I'm making the exact correlation to my body that I believe the gospel and the Bible says about me as a human, and so I've no problem. But what they're saying is um I'm actually aligning myself with uh a wider agenda, but you are anyway, in everything you do, we're we're we're all sullied at some level. Um, to be forced to do it, I think, is a conscience issue, and that's going to be problematic. Um, but all healthcare professionals I know who are Christian generally use pronouns of uh that are preferred pronouns because they recognize in a health setting, a clinical psych setting, for example, that there's a there's a space in there that that other person is using that's a trust place for them. And so not everyone's gonna agree with me with this, I don't think, but I say, yeah, that's a that's a whole pass issue for me. Just use the pronouns that the person asked you to use. The bigger issues for me are how we identify ourselves wider. So um are we compelled to do something? And I I think there are many things we're compelled to do that we don't necessarily like, and that might be one of them in the future. I I just I just see that. But I I if you want to lose your job over it, perhaps, but you may not lose your job over it. You just might, you know, have a mark against your name in the HR department as not a team player.
SPEAKER_03This this is one of those areas where we probably do disagree, I think. Um look, I think it's a similar question to do you wear purple on wear it purple day? Do you send your kids who are in a public school to school wearing purple on wear it purple day? Do you wear a rainbow jersey if you play for the mighty manly women's.
SPEAKER_06Do you uh explain wear it purple day uh for those outside Australia?
SPEAKER_03Is that not is that only an Australian thing? Uh so wear it purple is a a day of solidarity with a day of solidarity with those in the LGBTIQA plus umbrella of experiences to to demonstrate that you are an ally or a safe person. The trick is the the same-sex attracted gay, queer Christians I talk to say that that actually does damage. The the corporate agenda, the kind of work capitalism that makes everybody look like an ally when you're actually not, doesn't actually help you know who a safe person is. But um in the in the jersey debacle around the sea eagles, who I care a heap more about than I care about AFL, they're my team. Um I I think there was a fascinating thing. I had this uh exchange with a friend who's basically saying to to not wear the jersey signifies that you hate the person, to wear the jersey signifies that you absolutely affirm everything about the rainbow agenda. And so you're actually forced then to choose between two evils. And I hate that kind of I hate the idea that you have to choose. I always look for a third way. But my thing at that point is I would rather choose the thing that says I love you and have confusion about what I'm affirming than the thing that says I hate you and then have to explain that I actually love you. But that's I I think it's a strong and a weak issue, it's a food sacrifice to idols issue because it's how do I connect the gospel with this person? I well, I want to go and eat with them. I want to share a table with them and bring them to God's table where they might meet Jesus. It's it's very much I think what Paul does with idol food in one Corinthians, but there will be a conscience thing going on. And the trick then is not mandating your conscience in a way that's exclusive to people who disagree, and that's one of the real challenges I think we have within Christian communities that we we keep wanting to split over these conscience issues rather than hold things together and pursue unity and and recognise that even in that in 1 Corinthians Paul's clearly picking aside because he doesn't say it's all it's all wrong. So there's a an attempt to educate the conscience without destroying it. It's a tricky line.
SPEAKER_04It's culture war is not our biggest issue in the church, a civil war is, right? That we're gonna get torn apart on these things if we're not careful, and um how we navigate that, because I'd hold a different view to Nathan on that. I see his argument, but uh I think the way the messaging has come out of the LGBTQI uh framework is ally or else. It feels that way for some Christians. Having said that, the T is coming apart from the LGB at the moment. And so I there's nothing the the proof that that's not a marginalized community anymore, and it might have won the war at one level, at an elite level at least, never mind what individuals are going through, is that it's starting to tear itself apart at the top. Uh, you don't do that when you're still fighting in the trenches to win the the crown. When you've won the crown, you divide the spoils, and that's what's happening at the moment. So I I'd I'd sort of say, let's hold our fire and see where this this all ends up. It's going to be an interesting time. There'll be body counts left, right, and centre with wherever the culture goes on this.
SPEAKER_03A lot of bodies that might need to be picked up and put back together, which I think is where you're going, Glenn.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, totally. Um, yeah, to practice that true inclusion and uh and be a place of refuge for for refugees from the sexual revolution. Uh uh I see it happening um all around, and and yeah, it might not be happening at the elite level, but there are plenty of people who are seeing the guy with the microphone and uh yeah, not particularly trusting the agenda that uh the elites might have. And uh and we trust that they'll find their way into a true and inclusive community that's called the church. Um but uh Nathan and Stephen, thank you so much for uh for joining us on this. Uh Stephen, uh, how can people catch up with you? You've got an exciting new project that people can learn about. What's it what what what have you got on uh on the pod podcasting apps?
SPEAKER_04Yes, podcasting apps on the Undeceptions uh stable. I've got a podcast uh called DeLorean Philosophy, and uh that's the car from Back to the Future in case uh you didn't know that. Um Yes, it is. I used to live in Belfast. I used to live in Belfast where the Delorean factory was. There are 500 of them. And uh so they're not so special. But really, where I'm looking at at one issue a week, and it'll has to be a contemporary issue, I mean a current affair issue, and saying, what's going on there and how would you extrapolate that out into the future? What would that look like if we kept along that trajectory? So it's uh it's futuristic, it's not necessarily prophetic, it's just saying, what if this kept going this way? What would be the alternatives? And I think that's what we all want to do. We want to be ready for the future. We can't read it, but we have to put in the bank some of the money now that we have to draw down on whatever happens in the future. I think that's what Christian we've got to teach Christians to be able to do that, I think.
SPEAKER_06So like, share, and subscribe. The DeLorean uh philosophy podcast, get it on your on your favorite podcatcher, and tell a friend, and give it a five-star rating review. All of that stuff. Um Steve Stephen hates that kind of promo stuff, so I've I've got to I've got to be an enthusiast for him at that point.
SPEAKER_03And Nathan, how can how can people catch up? Being the bad guys.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I looked, I don't blog very much anymore at St.Udicus.com. That's S T-Udicus. They can mostly just find me chipping Stephen on his Facebook post. Uh or or come to my church in Brisbane and we'll feed you a meal and give you a good coffee.
SPEAKER_06Sounds awesome. Sounds awesome. Well, Nathan, we'll let you get to bed. We've talked you into the next day. Um, thank you so much for that in Brisbane, and thank you, Stephen, in Perth. Uh, you've been with Speak Life as we've talked about being the inclusive church of Christ that he calls us to be. Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_02Well, there we go. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you found that helpful in processing this news story and what it might mean for you if you're living as a Christian in any workplace, really. Uh some things that we probably need to bear in mind, uh things that might become more common as we go forward into the future. And it's good to uh be prepared for what could happen. Well, thanks so much for listening. My name's Thomas Thorogood, media producer at Speak Life, and we'll be back soon with more content. Goodbye.