The Australian Church, a church without martyrs

For example, under the ideology of multiculturalism we have bowed to the notion that Christianity is only one form of spirituality among others and that we should not assert its truth. To do so would be disrespectful to other religions. All is relative and who would die for something so conditioned?

In our education system it is commonly thought that students should make up their own minds about religion. However, education presupposes that they do not yet have minds enough to make up. If the gospel is about truth how come students are expected to decide for themselves? We do not undermine other disciplines in this way. What if we told them that they must make up their own minds about chemistry or history?

The upshot is that faith is seen to be idiosyncratic as if one was born with the “religious” gene. It is certainly not something for which one could give one’s life.

We could argue that our society does not need the gospel as much as those in the third world who have to deal with murderous tyrants and persecution. We in the West have made it; we feel that our institutions of government and justice are relatively free from corruption. We are the lucky country and that luck places us in a comfortable position in which the gospel is not needed. We are like the man who built bigger barns.

But sin abounds. Murders and rapes are committed. Marriages fail leaving children damaged. The consumer culture short changes those who buy into it. Many live lives of quiet desperation. Our fascination with science and technology wains and art is increasingly shallow.

Who will save us from endless runs of Big Brother, foot ball fever, celebrity worship, the lotto life, and the race to extend our life spans? Who will save us from the mentality of commercial television quiz shows?

We do not need more church growth gurus or mission statements or strategic plans. What we do need is to remember who we are.

We are the body of Christ through whom all things were made.

We are the salt of the earth without which life is tasteless.

We are the leaven in the lump without which the loaf is inedible.

We are the heralds of the new reality called the kingdom of God in which the lion will lay down with the lamb and the child will play over the hole of the asp.

There is just as much at stake for us as there is for men and women who are murdered for the faith they hold.