What’s the one thing that will never be mentioned in any discussion of Christianity in our mainstream media (such as on last Monday night’s Q&A program on the ABC)?
Only the one truth that makes Christianity what it is rather than something else.
Without this truth, it might be possible to view Christianity as an uptight morality movement, or a mystical dance with the life-force of the universe, or an earnest attempt to earn the favour of the gods, or an invented mythology to keep the masses in line, or a religious expression of humanity’s progressive instincts, or all the other false labels that Christianity has been plastered with over the centuries.
This one truth not only peels off those labels, but explains the world and our culture to itself. It locates and describes what our lives are for and about. It is the answer and the key to everything.
And yet because of the power of secular humanism in Western society, this most important of all words cannot be uttered in the ‘public square’—that is, within the public discourse of our society that is shaped and presented to us in the mainstream media. It is a truth not to be uttered or discussed, let alone evaluated or responded to. It lies definitively outside the boundaries that are set for conversation.
Think of all the occasions in which Christianity does get a look in (such as on Q&A). Among all the many issues that are haggled over, this one crucial, unique, universe-changing truth will never be mentioned, not even by Christians who appear in these forums, and who agree to play by the rules of the game.
The truth is simply this: that we live in a world in which a man has died for sins, risen from the dead, and now sits at God’s right hand as the Lord of all reality.
We cannot and must not stop proclaiming this truth with all its implications.
This coming Wednesday night May 4 2016, Moore College’s Centre for Christian Living will present an evening in which we (once again) seek to do just that.
New Testament lecturer Peter Orr will speak about ‘Jesus Now’—on where the risen Jesus is now, what he is doing now, and how that changes everything about our lives.
