It’s becoming increasingly common in our popular media and culture to hear people claim that the Christian faith is discriminatory, bigoted, hate and just horrible. In fact ABC Sydney radio presenter Richard Glover was taken aback late last year when he did a seven minute segment talking about the birth of Jesus on his radio show before Christmas and he received an angry backlash from listeners where he was accused of ‘promoting a magic man in the sky’ and platforming ‘ideas that are beyond the pale’. He was told he might as well have used the segment to explain the virtues of paedophilia or anti-Semitism.
The feeling in the media, and indeed of many in our culture, is that Christianity is bad for you and it offers a bad vision for the world.
And only last month, when evangelical Christian Andrew Thorburn was appointed as CEO of Essendon football club, the response from the media and the general public was furious. Many voices in our culture described Christainity is a negative, hate-filled, false perspective, with ‘appalling’, intolerant and bigoted views on sexuality, feminism and abortion.
The feeling in the media, and indeed of many in our culture, is that Christianity is bad for you and it offers a bad vision for the world. It’s bad news. As the late Christopher Hitchens famously penned, Religion poisons everything!
Given the forcefulness and conviction of these attacks on the Christian message, it can be hard for us as believers not to feel that maybe the Christian message, deep down at its core, really is ugly, nasty, repulsive, untrue and awful. Hence we’re fools for turning up each week to church to read and learn from the so-called ‘good book’.
Yet the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:8 are perhaps never more relevant:
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
In these short two verses, the Apostle Paul wraps up and summarises his encouragement to the Philippian Christians to live lives worthy of the Gospel; he provides a summary—indeed a vision of the core of the Christian way of life. Paul asks his readers to think about the way of God.
This beautiful passage describes an all encompassing list of virtues. The repetition here of whatever is, whatever is whatever is, indicates that this list is meant to be taken together as a complete vision of the pure, true and right way of life. No one image completely or fully captures all of the virtues Paul describes.
It’s not bimbo spirituality—beautiful but shallow and a bit ditsy. There is truth, justice, and righteousness, which images of pure natural beauty just don’t capture.
It’s not nerdy spirituality—intellectually satisfying but dry and lacking heart. For there are aesthetic and moral qualities to this vision.
It’s not moralistic spirituality—rules without form or purpose.
A Moral Vision
Deep down, Paul is describing not just an aesthetic vision, or an intellectual vision, but a moral vision. A moral vision which captures the senses, the mind, and deep human longings. A way of ethics and of life which can be described at its heart as true, beautiful and right.
It’s everything combined to form a vision.
The God of the Bible offers us a good life, a moral life, a beautiful life.
Despite the protestations of secularists, atheism cannot generate a moral vision like this. Its only ultimate criteria is pragmatism—whatever works. There’s no patience for purity; no satisfying explanation for beauty. Truth is dubious product of minds shaped by nothing more than reproduction and survival. In the science-only universe, humans are just animals and animals don’t contemplate a moral vision. Lions don’t ponder the truth, consider the noble and excellent way. They’re just looking for food and survival. Dogs don’t work towards the pure or right—they just want you to throw them their squeaky ball!
Yet humans do admire things which are beautiful. We do long for justice and we do seek after truth. We do seek the superior path. We flourish when we have a vision of right and wrong—something elevated and beautiful. There is an innate human longing to aspire to something. There is a human longing for something to transcend our mundane lives.
And this is exactly what the God of the Bible offers us: a good life, a moral life, a beautiful life.
Brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things
Paul encourages us to think about these things and ponder them. And when we ponder them, we realise that Paul’s vision here is not just a vague reference to a spirituality or some disembodied disconnected virtues—it’s a description of the heart and character of God which is ultimately embodied in the person of Jesus.
So despite opposition, persecution, difficulty and division; despite whatever the challenges or anxieties you might be facing or worries you might have; look up! Cast your vision beyond your present challenges. Be inspired by this vision and think about how Jesus is beautiful. Be captivated by Jesus and his breathtaking embodiment of the good—the true—the noble, the right, the pure, the lovely. Remember that the way of God in Jesus is the ultimate vision of what is good and right in the universe.
And may this remind us afresh that rather than being hate-filled bigotry, the way of God, in Jesus, really is beautiful.
