In the final part of his six-part series on grace and truth,
General Director Joel Edwards draws the strands together...
Over the past year you have explained your vision for evangelical engagement with modern culture. How would you summarise this journey?
My argument has basically been that we are
living in a post-Christian culture, and we can no longer assume and depend upon positions of power and privilege. Some evangelicals feel threatened by this and adopt a culture-war approach, which leads to our faith becoming defensive and even aggressive. The Jerry Springer: The Opera protests were a good example. For some of us it is painful to accept that old, modernist ways are dying, that people are increasingly uninterested in propositional arguments about “truth”. This may seem like bad news, but in actual fact it is not, because Christianity is not based on ideas about truth. It is based on the Truth, Jesus Christ. It is about relationships and narratives, the very things at the heart of the post-modern condition. So this is actually a time of huge opportunity.
Our model in this new age has to be one in which grace and truth are inseparable from one another. We looked at Jesus in John 8 as our template. This calls us to take our time, to be confident to ask questions, to accept the communal nature of our sinfulness and therefore not to judge.
Can you give some practical examples of grace and truth in action?
Let’s start with the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs). A piece of legislation is proposed with potential consequences for religious liberty. Under an old, modernist mindset, here’s how we could have reacted: “Homosexual practice is a sin, period. As a Christian nation how can we legitimise it by protecting it in law? We need to use our power in government, get our voice heard in the media and show them we are not going down without a fight.”
But if we had done that we need to ask ourselves whether MPs and the watching world would know Jesus better. I am not sure they would. They would only see a minority interest group frantically trying to shore up its position using the same methods and tone as any other minority interest group.
So what is a grace and truth approach?
As in John 8: timely, conversational, relational, non-judgmental. Brilliant work was done behind the scenes by our Head of Public Affairs, Don Horrocks, to ask the questions. We met with Christians across our membership in the alltogether spirit to get their views. We took a lead from our Northern Ireland team, who had dealt with SORs earlier than us and had taken a middle path. Because of our dialogue approach, we were invited in by Ruth Kelly’s office to discuss our position. While clear about our convictions, we also recognised the reality of a post-Christian context and the need to balance different rights. Sadly, in some of our conversations with Kelly’s civil servants, I was told that malicious letters had been sent in from people who called themselves Christians, containing a level of venom no different from that in letters from aggressive sections of the gay lobby.
The SORs result may not have gone our way, and leaves us with some long-term challenges - our consciences may well be tested in the courts. But I feel we managed to communicate in a way that showed the Truth that is Christ and the Love that is Christ. Venomous letters, on the other hand, did neither.
Can you offer another example
A few years ago I was asked on to Question Time, largely to get a good kicking over homosexuality (which I did). Towards the end of the debate, an audience member put the boot in from the other direction, telling me I was not being tough enough when “Scripture was so clear”. At this point, the panel defended me, saying I was being clear, but just putting my point more nicely than he was.
After the programme I got into a lengthy debate with Clare Short, who was on the panel, about issues of faith and public policy. She may not have agreed with my position, but she was keen to discuss things further. As a result, I have met with her several times and she has said she is available for any advice on my work with Micah Challenge (Clare is a former Development Secretary).
Once again relationships were built up, not knocked down. I may not have won the argument (which would be the modernist ambition), but I did begin a conversation.
What are your parting comments?
Simply that Christians have all kinds of doctrinal differences, but we do agree on the basics. And the most basic truth is that God is love. We have a nation that needs to see that truth above all other things. This is not to neglect other basic truths. This is not wishy-washy liberalism. But unless we put love above all else we have failed to truly understand the Truth. If on the other hand we, as the Evangelical Alliance, can fully embrace a spirit of grace and truth, then we can be confident that the message of the credible Christ can truly be known as Good News for our nation.
