Multicultural Ministry Matters

"Doubt and belief are ultimately equivalent. Doubt relies on an alternate subterranean set of tacit belief in something else. Those who say otherwise are unaware of the alternative beliefs they hold to live."  - Tim Keller  (as ascribed by his son and fellow Presbyterian Church In America minister Michael Keller )  ***   Everybody carries what (Lutheran-background) sociologist Peter L. Berger calls a " plausibility structure " in their mind - a set of deep assumptions about what is credible and in-credible, believable and unbelievable. It functions the same way as Christian doctrine and discipleship. Everyone believes something - a set of 'doctrines,' foundational first-principle concepts about the nature of reality, including:  The existence or non-existence of the supernatural realm;  The nature of ourselves (pleasure-seeking biological machines? Carbon-based relatively intelligent bipeds? Images of God?) ; The nature of other people, (aliens? Stran...

Contemporary wealth and technological development have normalised secular self-gratification in the "developed" "Western" world. We expect a life of ease, where the only difficulty is choosing which new pleasure to pursue next. As Matt Fraser says over at The Gospel Coalition Canada , this makes it difficult for us to believe what "many other Christians through the ages" took for granted, and what many "around the world" still experience today: "following Jesus is painful." I think this expectation of ease is a socio-cultural, not a uniquely "religious" or "theological," issue. For most of human history, life has been difficult. Most religions invest religious effort with value - doing good makes you worthy to be "saved" (whatever "salvation" means within that religion - nirvana [Hindu and Buddhist], Jannah [Islam], less time in purgatory [Roman Catholic], etc). It's no surprise that we'...

Everything in the public square seems to be increasingly conflicted. We seem to be operating with less and less shared values. It feels like we're less and less sure of what holds us together as a 'society.' A retreat into 'tribes' both drives this social fragmentation and is a result of it.  Post-modern scepticism towards metanarratives, which has now become culturally normal, significantly contributes to this fragmentation. If we no longer believe that objective truth, independent of our individual or tribal perspectives, exists, we will no longer believe we can appeal to that objective reality as common ground for debate. All we will do is exert power to magnify ourselves and punish those who disagree with us.  Because we believe that our cause is right, we will always think of ourselves as the victim of other people's aggression. Therefore, as Stephen McAlpine says, we will always think we're punching "up." We'll valorise ourselves as the ...

Trevin Wax has written a clear, simple, and charitable introduction to a debate about the nature and boundaries of the kinds of Christian activities that validly should be called "mission." In brief:  Should we use a broad definition, where "mission" encompasses all the various purposes which God calls Christians and the church in general to perform, e.g. being ethical at work; general acts of care and charity; standing against systematic oppression and working towards justice instead? If so, "evangelism" is only one part of the church's mission - a central, necessary, and irreplaceable part, but only one part nonetheless. The latter kinds of activities don't save anyone for eternity, but they do genuine good in this world which please God. And that kind of good makes a real difference in many parts of the world which have not benefited from the kind of Christian moral transformation which the West benefited from - the kind of moral transformation...

TGC Australia recently published an analysis by Dr Sarah Quicke of whether we are experiencing a 'quiet revival' of interest in and/or conversion to Christianity  here in Australia. It does it a good job of describing the difficulties involved in both gathering and interpreting data about religious beliefs and behaviours, e.g. the difference between the 44% who (still) call themselves Christian and the 8% of people aged 18-35 who actually "believed and lived out the gospel."  Quicke refers to the very insightful McCrindle report An Undercurrent Of Faith , released in March 2025, which uses an analytical method called cohort analysis to try and work out how a particular group of people tend to behave over time. The purpose of this post is to draw attention to one element of that report which agrees with Quicke's analysis but also adds some detail to it.  Here is what the cohort analysis showed about different age groups' identification with Christianity:  As y...

There has been a lot of discussion about the recent 'vibe shift' away from radical atheism back towards an openness to the supernatural. I don't think this new spirituality is necessarily an openness to the unique claims of Christ. It will more probably replace one set of commonly-accepted misunderstandings about Jesus with another.  Under radical atheism, people dismissed the Biblical claims about Jesus' resurrection because they 'knew' that it was impossible. Jesus hadn't really died. He just passed out (after being beaten and whipped and crucified) and then woke up in the tomb (and rolled away the stone himself and overcame several guards). Or the disciples hallucinated that they saw him (even though Jewish beliefs of the time didn't expect one person to rise possessing eternal life himself; they expected a general resurrection at the end of time - see John 11:24 ). Or something else.  The so-called 'explanations' of Jesus' non-resurrectio...

The Nones Project is an ongoing study into the belief systems of people who call themselves non-religious. A few weeks ago one of the project leaders,  Ryan Burge  of Washington University,  posted some really interesting preliminary results  on his Substack.  1. We've probably heard of people who are spiritual but not religious (SBNRs). SBNRs were "the largest group of nones" in the sample. They believe in the supernatural realm but not necessarily in "a God." They are "deeply skeptical of religion but highly interested in spirituality," therefore individualistic and anti-institutional.  2. But this study differentiated SBNRs from people they called Nones In Name Only, NiNos. They different to SBNRs by being religious about their spiritual. They believe not just in the supernatural but in "God." And they tend to engage in traditional communal religious practices while SBNRs practice individualised eclectic bespoke spiritual practices. The s...

What is education for? A recent post at the Ethics Center gives the following options:  Instrumentality : education is a means, an instrument, to self-improvement. The logic is that:  Education enhances your employability,  Which in improves your potential to generate wealth,  And that wealth maximises your independence and autonomy Which serves the ultimate goal of maximising your ability to choose your preferred lifestyle, to create your private heaven on earth. Democracy : education forms good citizens who are able to engage in the kind of reasoned debate which forms wholesome societies. The logic here is:  Societies are formed by individual people, and by sub-communities like families, ethnic groups, religious groups, and social clubs,  Where those individuals and sub-communities have their own perspectives and values,  Which usually conflict to some degree but are not entirely irreconcilable,  But who need to take the time and energy require...

My ministry colleague Ying Yee of Chinese Christian Church Milson's Point recently posted some thoughts on bicultural, bilingual ministry . Below is my response.  Our 'ethnic' heritage is an aspect of our identity which God gives us for our good and with which we're supposed to honour him. If the new Jerusalem is full of people from every tribe and nation, the Chinese will be there. And English-speaking Chinese-background Australians will be there. And people of mixed race will be there. And we'll all be delighting in God's goodness to us, as he has expressed it to us in our particular circumstances. Part of those circumstances will be the formation of our particular churches. Not the buildings - the communities.  If my understanding of Australian church history is correct, Chinese churches in Australia came about in one of two ways. Australian people evangelised Chinese migrants, especially during the 1800s gold rush. I think denominational churches like Chine...

I spoke last weekend at a church camp on "the opportunities and challenges of reaching post-Christian Australia." The main theme of my talks was the need to have a sufficiently basic, therefore flexible, understanding of the gospel and the Christian faith in general – an adequately simple yet rich ‘theology’ – to engage with the diverse, often contradictory, alternate systems of belief and behaviour which people believe in, and therefore live by, today.  I analysed three broad forms of belief and their associated ways of life: atheism, non-religious ‘spirituality,’ and organised ‘religion.’ The overarching message of the three talks was that ‘religion’ is the only stable option of the three, and that we therefore need to prepare to engage with the coming religious resurgence.  Because God really exists, atheism is radically wrong – it is wrong about the fundamental, foundational realities of the universe, therefore wrong about everything else – and is therefore unsurprisingly...

We live in a globalised world. The internet and social media has made it possible to communicate with people across the whole world at the speed of light. Relatively cheap air transport has made international travel more accessible more than ever before. Contemporary globalisation is the result of this international accessibility. People and ideas from across the world – especially from areas which used to be far away, therefore 'foreign' and different, 'exotic' – are now nearby and accessible. The 'other' has become our 'neighbour' – physically, electronically, or both. We may even speak of the situation of 'globality' – the mindset and expectation, brought on by the processes of globalisation, of having access to the apparently limitless options offered by the whole world.  This barrage of information can be exciting, exhausting, or frightening. It can be exciting because we can learn from different sources, and get different perspectives on ev...

Assurance was one of the war-cries of the Protestant Reformation.  Because we are justified by faith alone, by Christ alone, then assurance is the birth right of every Christian. But, we need to be careful about how we understand assurance, within the broader matrix of who God is, and what it means to have faith in him.  Otherwise, sadly and ironically, the doctrine or assurance could cause us to fall away. Our assumption re the nature of assurance is based on our assumptions concerning the nature of the bible, and what it means to trust Jesus – to have “faith”.  God is a person, not a thing.  Jesus is a person, not a thing.  The Holy Spirit is a person, not a thing - nor an impersonal power.  We – humans, Christians – are people, not things. The relationship between things is static, because things are static.  You put two rocks down side by side, and measure the distance between them.  That’s it.  We know for certain the distance bet...