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Home > January Online Only > The Church in Secular Culture
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As co-director of the Centre for Public Christianity (CPX), John Dickson (author of Humilitas) works to engage Australia's mainstream media and general public with thoughtful content that explores the relevance of the Christian faith for the modern world. Marshall Shelley and Drew Dyck sat down with Dickson to discuss what American church leaders can learn from his experience with CPX.

How would you describe the public's perception of the church in Australia?

In recent years it's become a dominant perspective to say that religion starts all the wars, religion rapes and pillages, and religion is damaging for society. The subtitle of a Christopher Hitchens book—How Religion Poisons Everything—has become a secular mantra.

Recently in Australia a TV talk show was discussing the problem of drugs. One of the hosts said, "Let's put this in perspective. Drugs have not killed anywhere near as many people as religion. Religion is far more damaging to society than our drug problem." And it got applause from the TV audience. What a sad day we've arrived at when you can get away with that and, worse, get applause.

How does the Centre for Public Christianity try to counter this perception of the church?

CPX is trying to communicate that there's another story here. We can concede the bad stuff that the church has done. As an historian, I know the bad stuff, and we will freely admit it. Yet we also want to tell about the positive contributions Christianity has made in Western history. We try to articulate that some of the things we love most about Western secular democracy are actually gifts of Christianity to Western culture.

What advice do you have for church leaders in America about how to engage the broader culture effectively?

I think the very first thing is to do is adopt a stance of mission instead of admonition toward the world. Here's an example. In the Australian context, there are church leaders who remember the glory days when about 20 percent of the nation went to church. They look at how Australia is secularized today, and their stance toward the world is basically admonition, the way you would talk to a backsliding Christian. How dare you slide away? How dare you legislate against Christian morality? I call that the admonition paradigm.

What's wrong with this approach?

I reckon that's how you kill your mission, because if you speak with a sense of entitlement, you won't be flexible, you won't be humble, and you won't take hits and just bear it. You'll want to strike back. And people will think you're arrogant. Quite rightly, probably.

What do you recommend instead?

When you move out of admonition into mission, you realize Australia is no longer Jerusalem; it's Athens. Then you instantly adopt a humbler approach to non-Christians. You don't expect them to live Christian lives if they don't confess Christ. You don't expect Parliament to pass Christian-specific laws. But as a leader, you try to persuade the nation with winsomeness, with gentleness and respect, as Peter says in 1 Peter 3:15.

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Posted: January 1, 2012

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Hector Falcon

May 15, 2012  7:24pm

Dual Commissions Evangelizing and Engaging Culture A potential problem I see with the view described here is the ease with which we can easily forget that we are called to dual commissions - the Great Commission and the Cultural Commission. As Chuck Colson points out: A few years ago, I spoke to a gathering of pastors about engaging the cultural battles of the day. Afterward, the pastors had a lot of questions — but they were also a little confused. One confessed, “I’d never heard of the Cultural Commission, and will it interfere with fulfilling the Great Commission? Isn't that our job — to win people to Christ?" That people still think this way left me momentarily speechless. "Of course we're called to fulfill the Great Commission," I replied. "We're also called to fulfill the Cultural Commission." Christians are agents of God's saving grace — bringing others to Christ. But we are also agents of His common grace: We're to sustain and renew His creation, defend the created institutions of family and society, and critique false worldviews. If Christians do not seize the moment and act on the cultural commission, there soon won’t be any culture left to save. But when we do our duty, we can change the world. Look at Christians like William Wilberforce, who spent most of his life fighting — and winning — the war against slavery in Britain, and bringing about a great cultural renewal in that country. Colson makes an important point. I am sure the people that were in favor of slavery seen the work of Wilberforce against their slavery interests as “admonition.” After all, they probably thought - who is Wilberforce to tell me how I should live and relate to my black property? They no doubt told Wilberforce he should stick solely to sharing the Gospel since he is “never” going to change people’s attitudes through politics. The fact is that if you get involved with politics you will be attacked. Not only by the pagans but also by pietistic Christians that think you are misguided in trying to change the culture through the political arena. But the reality is that we live in a fallen world in which our neighbor’s welfare is directly affected by politics and law. To take the naïve view that imposing a Christian view of law on the culture is unbiblical result in turning the reins of power over to the pagans. They will then use the power of the government to destroy both us and our neighbors. We are compelled to get involved with culture redemption because of love for our neighbors. The pagans will always see our efforts as “admonition.” However, that is the nature of the political arena. Government is the coercive use of force to get other people to obey the just laws that originate only from a biblical worldview.

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Craig

May 09, 2012  1:16am

If i am following Dickinson correctly, he is preferring that the politician did not influence the scripture reading to remain in the schools. The result of this is that people will most assuredly go to hell over it. We have to give it to the politician for at least having enough vision to see this as a result of scripture being removed from schools.

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