This is part 3 of a series of articles. Here are the links to part 1 and part 2.
In this series of articles, I have sought to generalise about current issues in Western evangelicalism. The focus has been especially on Australian, English-speaking, reformed evangelicalism. My standpoint, as Editorial Director of The Gospel Coalition Australia also shapes my perspective, as does my experience as a white Australian, rather than Asian or Indigenous Australian. The articles are narrow in other ways: I have focussed to a significant extent on evangelism, rather than ethical challenges. I have also not touched on men’s and women’s roles in marriage and ministry nor on potential impacts of climate change. Attempts at generalisation are almost inevitably doomed to be skewed and limited in all sorts of ways. You might not agree with all of my assessment, you might think I have left some obvious issues untouched. These articles are far from the last word.
In this final article, I share some more issues that need to occupy our attention more in the coming years.
Embrace the Importance of Good Governance and Healthy Institutional Life
In a context where cultural demands and legislation require transparency, positive duties of care and holistic risk management, we need to work hard at these. Given the ways in which Christian institutions and leaders have failed in the past, this is especially crucial: both as a matter of godly repentance, as well as restoration of a good standing with outsiders.
The bureaucracy is often cumbersome and some requirements unreasonable; growing layers of compliance are absurdly infuriating and inefficient. Being active in the process of revising, simplifying and improving bureaucratic mechanisms is itself a very important good deed in information societies. Nevertheless, there’s no avoiding them. Although it takes us away from the practical work of making disciples and doing good, we need to commit ourselves to doing our paperwork. It is, of course, one of the ways that we proactively seek to pay out the continuing debt to love others.
What is true of safeguarding, training, accountability and reporting mechanisms is also true of due diligence with governance itself. We need to work hard at being good board members, employers, church members and so on. No short cuts, no fudging, no skipping the reference checks, no evading proper communication, supervision and discipline. If we want the privilege and satisfaction of leadership, we need to accept the responsibilities.
Life, Ministry and Mission as a Minority Subculture
Christians are experiencing a steady shift from being part of the majority culture to being a minority subculture—sometimes a despised one. This shift is not simple and linear. Because of the strong Christian impact on the Western world, Christianity remains simultaneously both privileged and marginalised. There will remain certain contexts where we can lean on Christian cultural capital; on shared history, values and worldview. But we need to be aware that these contexts are becoming fewer, and even within these contexts, the credibility and leverage of biblical Christianity is diminishing.
We will need to learn how to come to terms with the fact that we are becoming a small group with minimal influence in our country. How do we face this reality without abandoning a commitment to zealous evangelism, recruitment to full-time ministry and public Christianity? We cannot be confident that our Christian institutions will continue to enjoy healthy budgets, nor our ministers be guaranteed stable incomes. We will likely have more limitations placed on our public and organisational activities. There will possibly be less and less walk-ins to our churches and events, at least from particular demographics.
On the other hand, minority groups can also enjoy certain freedoms that come with their relative insignificance. Freed from operating in spheres that require official recognition, we may often be able to faithfully carry on with our community life and Christian ministry in peace. It will be important to maintain our communities, our doctrine, our patterns of life and morals. We will need to be very intentional as we pass on the gospel to our children as they come to adulthood. And while maintaining these things, we should always be praying and seeking to always preserve our witness to the world around us.
In other words, we need to learn how to circle the wagons, but in gospel way—remaining evangelistic, avoiding a judgmental ‘us vs them’ stance, being willing to self-critique. It may be that a significant question for us in the coming decades will not be ‘How do we save more and more people?’ or even ‘How do we stop our young people from drifting away’? but simply ‘How do we survive at all’? In the face of such challenges, we would need to stay faithful, prayerful, patient and never lose sight of the longing that the gospel would bear fruit.
Holistic Christian Culture-Making
A healthy subculture expresses itself in culture-making; and this culture-making sustains the subculture. We no longer minister in a kind-of-Christian Australia. We can’t merely draw on the artefacts of centuries gone by. It seems to me that holistic culture-making is part of sustaining healthy Christianity in Australia. Not simple outcome-focussed activism but something broader and with a longer view as well.
This means lots of deliberately Christian thinking, writing and singing. It’s one reason why I am enthusiastic about my role with TGCA. It’s striking to me how prolific Christians of previous ages have been, even in times of turmoil or cultural collapse. As the Western Roman Empire crumbles, Augustine writes On the Holy Trinity and The City of God. We write and talk and sing and think our way through challenging times.
This also means preserving as many of our Christian institutions and buildings as we can manage. I suspect it also means, more widely, encouraging all Christians to be self-consciously and devoutly Christian in their personal lives, secular work, volunteering, artistic and sporting pursuits and so on. An intentional, aware, all-of-life Christian worship does not directly advance the gospel much of the time. But it provides a strong and broad foundation for us, and those who come after us, as we persevere in Christian life, ministry and mission.
Get Really Good at Doing Big Church and Small Church
In those places where the numbers of Christians decline and there are more pressures on Christian leadership, it is likely that there will be church mergers. There is safety and efficiency in larger churches—small, under-resourced leadership teams do not need to try to face substantial organisational, cultural and evangelistic challenges alone. Where churches do grow large, perhaps partly through mergers and transfer growth, we need to steward these resources wisely. We need to get really good at doing big church (and parachurch), not being clumsy or proud or wasteful or reckless or inward-looking.
At the same time, it is possible that in many places churches might become much smaller. The advantage of flying under the radar might make smaller church and ministry an appealing prospect. Or it just might be the unavoidable reality: less people in the area who are churchgoers or open to the gospel. Where this is true, we will need to learn how to do small church (and parachurch) well. This will likely mean we need to have a vision for and a high view of part-time ‘tentmaking’ and ‘lay ministry’.
Perseverance in Prayer
When we face uncertain and difficult times, we should pray. When we don’t know exactly what to pray for, we can be comforted that the Spirit of Christ who is in us knows the mind of God—he can pray for us, even as we groan in perplexity. We can confidently pray for blessing on all the aspirations and projects outlined in these articles.
We can also dare to pray that the future will be brighter for the cause of the gospel than these articles suggest. It is always good to pray for revival, for steady renewal, for secular government that facilitates gospel ministry, for a change from times of trouble to times of fruitfulness.
