Part 6 - Further Thoughts

How can this all this become a reality? Well, through people, of course. You and I. If you have been stirred by this message and "see it" in your heart, you will take it and share it with others. The message can easily spread. And, clearly, it doesn't challenge or replace anything else that God is doing in His Church; it merely gives us a new way to identify ourselves as the dynamic community of God that God has called us to be.

What exactly is our culture as Christians? I have not answered that question except to say that we must be a "People of the Book", in dramatic contrast to the world with certain practices of worship and fellowship that set us apart. Everyone has a cultural background of some description; I am merely saying that, as Christians, there are cultural imperatives that must take priority over whatever else our cultural background might have given us. We owe no allegiance to any mythical Australian culture. We owe our full allegiance to Jesus Christ and to the "household of -faith" into which we have been born spiritually.

I suspect that many mainstream church leaders will find this whole thing totally offensive. They will see this message as narrow-minded, divisive and even harmful to the Church's witness in society. That's because they're committed to the concept of showing God's love by becoming like everyone else, identifying themselves with the everyday struggles and injustices of everyday people. While this sort of approach sounds very Christian and loving, I cannot accept that it is biblical. Although it is true that Jesus identified with the sinners rather than the self-righteous religious people of the day, it is not true that He became like them in any way. In fact, He was so thoroughly different from everyone else that people said: "No man ever spoke like this Man!" (JOHN 7:46) and "Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel!" (MATT 9:33)¹² He stood out from the crowd and the poor people, who understood their weakness and sinfulness, flocked to Him. His teaching and His actions were both supernatural. Our answer to the needs of people must be the same.

Who are the self-righteous, arrogant people of our times? Not the faithful believers who submit to the Word of God but the homosexuals, the feminists, the evolutionary scientists, the humanists and the religious "liberals" who compromise the Word of God in their own lives and throw scorn on the "fundamentalists" who still believe it. Barbara Thierling, controversial author and theologian, stated "as a fact" that "As a result of all the books on the historical Jesus which have been written over the past twenty years, the idea of the supernatural Jesus really is finished. It was a crude idea, appropriate to a less advanced society."¹³ Paul Davies, who was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1995, is just as arrogant. "The people who want to turn away from the facts," he says, "hide in crack-pot religions, fringe religions, fundamentalism and so on. Whereas, those who have the guts to face up to the world as revealed through science, investigate these new radical reinterpretations..."¹⁴

Believing that the Bible is true is not as socially acceptable as it used to be. Isn't it amazing, then, that the churches who believe in a supernatural Jesus are growing rapidly while those who try to explain everything away are dying?

In fact, this is one of the reasons why I consider the change in terminology to be necessary. The word "church" is used too broadly these days to be truly meaningful anymore. Even the word "Christian" has been greatly diluted of meaning to the point where many now believe it is "unchristian" to discriminate against anyone on the basis of their sexual orientation. For many, Christianity is about social action rather than radical discipleship to Christ. But the concept of a subculture highlights both the similarities that we share as born-again, Bible-believing Christians and the differences that separate us from the world. It's a more servicable terminology in our present society.

What sort of life are you living? What are the cultural characteristics that dominate your life? Does your life really revolve around sport, despite your confession of Christ? What about materialism? Is your life characterised by material possessions like computers, videos and gadgets? If there was, in fact, a clearly identifiable Christian subculture in Australia, (or wherever you live) would your friends and acquaintances see you as being part of it? The questions challenge me because I know my own lifestyle is not always genuinely Christian. Yet, if a significant number of Christians started to live with a subculture mentality, I believe that many other sincere Christians would instantly join up. With renewed vision and committment, they would gladly make the necessary changes in their lives, discarding the unhelpful and unworthy things for the sake of their clear identification with a dynamic movement of obedience to God.

Both local churches and family units should see themselves as part of this subculture because they are both instituted by God, and with good reason. The Bible is full of instructions (not merely suggestions) about how these institutions must be organized. Men and women, according to the Scriptures, have different but complimentary roles. Therefore, we should not follow the manifest foolishness of the world in obliterating gender roles. In both the local church and the individual family there are authority structures set in place by God Himself. It's time that these authority structures were taken seriously again. Pastors and elders should be obeyed and respected in the church (HEB 13:17) and fathers should be obeyed and respected in their homes. (COL 3:18-20) They, in turn, must deserve that respect by living a godly, sacrificial life. In a society which has savagely turned on its fathers because of the indiscretions of a minority, it would be refreshing to hear of more and more men giving strong, loving leadership to their families in a context of Christian subculture. Our society has blatantly turned its back on the concept of everyone knowing their place in life but the Bible hasn't changed. It still proclaims order in the home and the church. We might be ridiculed as old-fashioned for sticking with this sort of culture as we move into the twenty-first century but we will have security and peace that others will envy. God is our Creator and He still knows what's best for us.

"Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God." (PHIL 1:27,28)

It's over to you. Do you agree with the concept I have presented in this paper? Perhaps God has already been revealing these things to you and this paper has simply been a confirmation. If so, the next step will be to identify the true, non-negotiable elements of our Christian culture and to boldly move to enshrine them into our lifestyle. We need to begin the process of evaluating things according to their effect on the Christian community as a whole rather than on ourselves as individuals. We need to explore the implications together and renew our committment to genuine discipleship in a wishy-washy sinful world.

So, to conclude, the terminology might be unusual but I think the concept is biblical. We are a unique people group. We need to capitalize on the things that unite us and give us our unique identity. We need to see ourselves, not as some vague religious movement but as a subculture that will refuse to bow to the religious and humanistic "establishment". We need to show our sceptical world that our Bible is not as outdated as they think and that it is possible to live a supernatural life in the power and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not the "cult of Jesus" that Barbara Thierling refers to, but true biblical Christianity.

It's quite possible that Australia may never again be a Christian nation. We need to face this fact. Even if all our politicians were born-again overnight, it's hard to see them having the boldness to proclaim Australia a Christian nation as Frederick Chiluba did in Zambia. But the subculture can be as strong as we choose to make it. In this way, all Australian people will have the best possible testimony to the power of God living right with them in their cities and towns. In a style that is demonstrative rather than confrontational, the Christian subculture will stand firm on the Word of God and, by integrity and faithfulness rather than by lobbying and bullying, exert a growing influence on the social and moral attitudes of the nation.

Let me finish, then, by quoting the chorus of a popular Christian song, written by Russell Fragar.

               "All over the world People just like us
               Are calling your name, living in your love
               All over the world People just like us Are following Jesus."¹⁵

NOTES:
12. Revised English Bible, Oxford University Press & Cambridge University Press, 1989
13. Quoted by Samantha Trenoweth, The Future of God, Millennium Books, 1995, p167
14. Ibid, p109
15. Russell Fragar, People Just Like Us, Hillsongs Australia, 1995.