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00:00:01
With Stephen McAlpine
84 Plays4 years ago
What happens when presenting the Gospel puts you on the wrong side of 'cancel culture'? In places like our work or university, we can sometimes feel like the 'bad guys' when we try to espouse Christian truths. Today's guest has thought long and hard about how we can adapt to these difficult environments with his book Being the Bad Guys.
Stephen McAlpine is a blogger and ex-journalist who writes on issues of theology, culture and the church. He is a pastor at Providence Church in Perth, Australia, and also works at a national level for City Bible Forum, developing and presenting evangelistic material for a project called Third Space. He is married to Jill, loves running in his spare time, and blogs at stephenmcalpine.com.
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Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Guest
00:00:08
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to another packed episode of Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast. I'm Andy Bannister and I'm joined as ever by my energetic and enthusiastic co-host, Kristy Bear, all the way from the other end of the UK. Kristy, how are you doing today? Energetically fantastic. Thank you very much.
00:00:30
Speaker
I'm literally on the diet coke right now. Yeah, exactly. So you and I at the other end of the country, but boy, we have got a guest for you today, folks, from the other side of the world. Joining us all the way from Australia, where I think he needs some kind of special award for recording this at quarter to midnight, his time down there. Stephen McAlpine, welcome to pep talk.
00:00:51
Speaker
Great to be with you all the way from Perth. Not as bad as Sydney where it's another three hours, but yeah, I'm getting past my best hour. Let's put it that way.
00:01:02
Speaker
That's great. So if the show goes slowly off the rails, you've got an excuse. That's right. So Stephen, you wear a number of hats. You're a speaker, you're a writer, you're a pastor, you're doing all the work with a third space that's part of City Bible Forum down there, you know, reaching out into the workplace, into city workers. And of course the other connection to Solas, one of your colleagues down there is David Robertson, who many years ago founded Solas. So some interesting connections there, right?
Book Discussion: 'Being the Bad Guys'
00:01:28
Speaker
Yes, and it's been great just working with him and he's brought a great insight, peculiar, should I say peculiar Scottish or peculiar David Robertson insight into evangelism in Australia. And wherever he goes, he's memorable, I've decided. And it's been good working with him.
00:01:45
Speaker
That definitely sums David up well. And for folks who perhaps are new to Solas in the last few years, don't know David, do check out David's blog. He blogs online under the name of the Wii, W-E-E, the Wii Flea, and all kinds of things going on there. But one of the main things I want to talk to you, we want to talk to you about today, Steve, many things we could talk to you about, but you've got a new book out called Being the Bad Guys, How to Live for Jesus,
00:02:10
Speaker
in a world that says you shouldn't. And for listeners, we'll put a link to Stephen's book in the show notes so you can kind of chase that down. But as I understand it, kind of the big idea that you get into in that book that is so exciting to hear somebody, you know, digging into and beginning to think about is that we seem to live in a world where the pushback against Christians is increasingly not, oh, we think Christianity isn't true. You know, philosophical doesn't make sense. It's that Christianity is bad. It's harmful. It's damaging.
00:02:39
Speaker
Is that sort of, have I captured that kind of attack right? And if so, where is it coming from? What's caused the shift in our culture to that kind of engagement with what we say as Christians? Well, yeah, that's exactly what I'd be saying.
00:02:53
Speaker
I'm old enough now to remember when Christianity was kind of lame and sort of to the side of things, and it was you're kind of the do-gooders, and it shifted to you being the do-bad-ers. Not everyone, everywhere, but the focal loud noise is that Christianity is damaging to people's mental health,
00:03:12
Speaker
their sexual health, their spiritual health even, because it's got this way of being and doing that denies you who you actually are, your authentic self. So in one sense, what I'm saying in the book is that it's a clash of gospels. There's two different versions of good news going on. And one of them, the Christian gospel, is now seen as a power play that's trying to control and has had its day and isn't actually delivering on this
00:03:40
Speaker
progressive, beautiful future that we're all headed towards. Now, the idea that springs up that is the Contra gospel to the Christian gospel didn't just come out of the ether. It's been a long, slow build over philosophical frameworks through culture, through university settings and changes in understandings about who we are as humans. But at the center of it is this, that you are your deepest, most authentic self when you express yourself
00:04:08
Speaker
as your individual self without restraint. Now, there are some restraints to do with consent in our world and how we operate human to human. But outside of those, you are free to be who you want. And you can craft yourself the way you want to, and no one should tell you otherwise. That, I think, is the modern good news story that the gospel is coming up against. And it's looking at the gospel message of Jesus and finding it wanting that it will not allow us to do that as human beings.
00:04:38
Speaker
Thank you so much. I think that's really, really insightful when we think about some of the common cultural tropes at the moment, and particularly thinking about power plays and that self-expression without restraint. What do you think have been some of the wrong responses from the church to this shift, and why do you think they've been made in such a way, if
Church's Response to Cultural Shifts
00:05:01
Speaker
they have?
00:05:01
Speaker
Yeah, look, there have been wrong responses and I mentioned those things too in my book that there's a fear mechanism that we just got to bunker down and it's going to be terrible and we're going to keep our heads down and there's doom and gloom. And I think there's been that aspect of it. But I think there's always been a rising anger that we used to own a seat at the table that was much higher up the table, much closer to power, much more
00:05:26
Speaker
in the ear of politics and law, and now we don't. And there's like an anger. And you see that in extreme ways. And obviously the whole turmoil in the United States in the past few months has been fomented around, we're losing something that we used to own and we should have it back. And I think that is a very unfortunate way to behave and an unfortunate way forward. And I don't think there's a future in it and not for the church.
00:05:54
Speaker
The other response I think too is, okay, you know, let's go with the flow. And so there's a whole revisionist understanding of what the Bible does say about human identity and things like that. And what you get, I think most dispiriting for the average Christian is when they see well-known Christians who used to be orthodox in their understanding of the gospel and of human identity and sexuality suddenly flip.
00:06:16
Speaker
And they get fated and praised in the mainstream media as brave and people who are forging a new path for Christianity. And I think that's really, that's despairing, I think, for Christians when they see that. And that's the challenge. How do we walk forward in these times with joy and confidence in the gospel, even though there's the opportunity for fear or anger or, I guess, caving in?
00:06:44
Speaker
I'm so glad you touched on that power piece, Stephen. I vividly remember actually a few years ago now, a non-Christian friend sort of saying to me that she said, you know, one of my problems with you Christian, she said, you sound like people who used to have power and now you don't have power and you're very, very angry. And that's all it sounds like to me. That seems to be all I'm hearing from, you know, she was referring to
00:07:07
Speaker
particular things going on in this point in the USA. So if that kind of, you know, sort of shrieking at the culture or equally running away from it and just doing nothing on options for Christians, what is the option? How do we try and engage with some of this stuff in a way that's more faithful to the gospel, more faithful to the way of Christ? What would a response, you know, that mirrors those things look like?
00:07:31
Speaker
I think there's a couple of aspects to it, and one is just rediscovering the beauty of the church as a great evangelistic strategy. That getting to know people and bringing them into your networks of churches and networks of Christian relationships is a great way for people to see something different in the way you live in your life. Because I do think that the culture, even though it's presenting
00:07:55
Speaker
as a great way forward that we've got these liberty and this autonomy and this individualism. There's a deep loneliness and fear and insecurity in our culture, especially around the issue of, say, forgiveness, because we are not a very forgiving culture anymore. You fall through the cracks on Twitter or whatever social media platform and you are toast your history. And the average person looks at that and goes, is that really what I want to do? I mean,
00:08:21
Speaker
If I fall through the cracks in this society, I'm done for. And the church can be a place of where, hey, we do forgiveness in a way that the world doesn't. We do kindness in a way that the world's forgotten. And we do love your enemies in a way that the world
00:08:37
Speaker
doesn't want to love its enemies. So I think the church is central to everything. And I don't want to go down the completely individualistic response to this other individualistic gospel, because I think part of the problem we've had is that we have sometimes crafted a gospel that's just as consumer and just as self-focused as the one we say we're
00:08:58
Speaker
against. And somehow, Christians can be just as consumer-driven in how they view the gospel working for their lives rather than seeing it as something that transforms them and changes them. And I think that would be a good strategy. Make sure that we get the church
00:09:14
Speaker
This is an opportunity for the church to reassess its place in the culture and to say, if we were a creative minority on the edge of the culture and we saw our stance there, might that open us up a little bit more to the inquiring mind who's looking on and saying, I need something more than what this secular framework is offering?
00:09:32
Speaker
What do you think that might look like practically? For those of us listening and thinking, yes, you know, this is exactly what I'd love to do in encouraging my local church or perhaps if there are church leaders, what would this look like to put a little bit more flesh on it?
00:09:48
Speaker
Well, one of the things I think, and I say this often, is that Christians in ministry often think that their job is to get the congregation to do their job and do the church job
Christian Conduct in Workplaces
00:10:01
Speaker
better. But I actually think that it's the role of the ministry teams and churches to equip their people for Babylon on Monday morning.
00:10:07
Speaker
And part of that is if you're going to church to work on Monday morning, you want to go confident that your identity is in Christ, that whatever happens to you in the workplace, Christ is with you. And it's that saying of how do we train our people to be a non-anxious presence in the workplace? That would be a great place to start because the workplace is a very difficult place for many people.
00:10:28
Speaker
is lots of chopping and changing. It's a power place itself and I think equipping Christians for how they can do work well in a world in which work seems to be everything would be a good place to start. But also another thing is to look around your own networks in your own area and say what is lacking in this setting that our church could be able to fill and what might we have to give up that we're already doing
00:10:53
Speaker
that is perhaps using a lot of our time to maybe focus on something that showcases to our community what the good life of Jesus can look like in both word and deed, but show it to people indeed to give you the opportunity to speak it to them in word. And I think churches could take a little bit of a pause and say, look, we're probably running frantic programs and maybe COVID has given us the opportunity to not do that.
00:11:19
Speaker
If we go back to church just the regular way, maybe we've lost something. Maybe we need to look around the culture we're living in and the context we're in and saying, how can we do something here that showcases Christianity as good and true and possibly right?
00:11:36
Speaker
Because I think it has to look like it works. And I think if we can work in our own context and the settings we're living in and saying, here's what the good life can look like under King Jesus, I think that's quite an attractive thing.
00:11:52
Speaker
Yeah, I'm fascinated that in the answer there, you know, you talk about what churches can do, but obviously, you know, through what you're doing, Stephen at Third Space and CityBible Forum, you know, you're focusing a lot on the workplace and Christians in the workplace. I guess another angle on perhaps the same question that you've just covered there. So that's about how churches might respond. But perhaps for individual Christians who are facing Babylon on the Monday morning, I regularly run into Christians like, man, I just keep my head
00:12:20
Speaker
because I'm just terrified. I'm terrified I'll say something and then I'll be summoned before the HR department and sort of hauled over the coals. How can Christians in the workplace who are right there in the heat of it perhaps begin thinking about some ways to address some of these things differently? They don't want to start a war, get fired, they don't want to be silent and hide away. How can they begin sort of perhaps being more salt and light in those workplaces and to do that in a way that's wise and points towards the goodness of God and his kingdom?
00:12:50
Speaker
Well, I think, yeah, exactly what you said. I get a lot of emails, private messages from people saying, don't tell my pastor this, but my workplace is the hardest place to evangelize. And he's telling me I should go and evangelize there. I could lose my job because of the whole, you know, that's bad news sort of thing. But just I think one of the key issues for people in the workplace is to say, how can I in this setting, because workplaces are very political in other ways as well. Everyone's trying to showcase themselves and do other people.
00:13:17
Speaker
When you don't take credit for something that you didn't do, when you point to someone else and saying, this is the person who came up with that plan. Let's honor them for that. When you deflect attention or praise from yourself to someone else, that's countercultural in the workplace. Everyone's looking to leave five minutes after the boss, so they look good. But I think an authentic Christian who lives a life like that in a workplace
00:13:45
Speaker
It's an odd thing. And to be the person who has a calm presence in the workplace that isn't is clearly not the person who's out to angle for advantage all the time becomes a very trusted person in the workplace. They become someone who you can come to and trust with information and trust with problems because they're not trying to angle you. It's a dog eat dog world in the workplace so often. But I think the Christian that can be the
00:14:11
Speaker
very careful what they say, but when they say something, say it with conviction and kindness, but also you're not putting people down. You're not angling for advantage. You're doing the opposite of that, that despite your Christianity, people think you're good. So Daniel, in Daniel 6, it was his excellent spirit
00:14:31
Speaker
that made the king promote him. And his colleagues could not find any fault with him, except around the law of his God. Now, perhaps you will get crucified on that one, but make that the only one. And I think crafting a way to do that is a good thing. And finding groups of people you can pray with who are Christian to help you do that in your church settings or work settings is absolutely critical in these current times.
00:14:58
Speaker
One quick follow-up question, if I may, then I know Christy has another question. As you were talking there, Stephen, it occurred to me actually that, funnily enough, we may have some secular fellow travelers here. It's not just Christians, so I think you've noticed some of the toxicity of culture. And one of my kind of favorite writers here in the UK who's spoken into some of these things is Douglas Murray, you know, he's a journalist, atheist, so, you know, not a Christian, but his book, The Madness of Crowds, addresses some of this. And there's something Douglas once said, and I wonder if there's something in here
00:15:27
Speaker
for the gospel. He talked about that there's a need in the workplace when some of these issues come up for people to stick together. If your colleague is unfairly hauled before HR or in trouble because of something he or she has said that's unfair, everyone else runs away and hides. But what about if we stood together and came alongside people? And I wonder what that would look like for Christians actually to be known as people, to pick bad battles wisely.
00:15:50
Speaker
But if some of our colleagues were not necessarily share our faith, run into difficulties that were known as people who will, as you say, we will forgive, we will give the benefit of the doubt, we will be people who listen. And I wonder actually whether there's a ministry there actually, because I think to me the workplace seems to be full of people who've actually had their fingers burnt and there's no one listening to them. And I wonder whether there's a ministry there for Christians actually.
00:16:13
Speaker
Oh, look, I think that the workplace opens people up conversationally quite well. And the HR department is not the average person in the workplace and is stalking the floors, seeing what everyone's saying. But if you were able to say, I value that person,
00:16:31
Speaker
more than my own safety and position and I will back them if they've been unfairly treated, even if it costs me. People sit up and take notice and they may go, gee, I don't really like what they think about this issue or the exclusivity of Jesus or sexuality or whatever. But gee, they'd be in my corner if something was done against me that was wrong.
00:16:50
Speaker
And I think there's that bravery and that freedom that you have in knowing who Jesus is and that He's got you to be able to do that. And perhaps that's what we need to be doing is making those risky decisions. Now, you've got to do that in...
00:17:05
Speaker
groups and teams that you can encourage each other to do it together because it's hard. But Douglas Murray does say that interesting thing, doesn't he, that we no longer know who we can go to for reconciliation or forgiveness. It's not there anymore. And I think if you're the person in the workplace that can forgive quickly and reconcile people quickly and be a mediator between difficult situations, that says something that even if people say, I disagree with what they believe,
00:17:32
Speaker
But gee, if they left this workplace, it would be a worse place. And I think crafting that together, and if you can get churches to help people think those things through, that'd be, you know, compared to what's going on in the workplace and the dog-eat-dog environment it is, that would be fantastic.
00:17:49
Speaker
This is just so, so helpful, Stephen.
Challenges for Christian Students
00:17:52
Speaker
And particularly, I'm just thinking about my own context in university. And I'm sure there'll be others who are undergraduates or post-graduates. And I'm just wondering, what do you think it looks like to build this kind of trust institutionally, when it's not just the people that you're meeting every day who trust you, but because we live in this kind of cancel culture,
00:18:15
Speaker
and the fear of saying something or being seen to have said something or the perception of having said something that is perceived as anti-tolerant or goes against some of the values of the university, even though it's meant to be university and university, unity and diversity and freedom of speech.
00:18:37
Speaker
How do you think university students can navigate some of these difficulties when speaking on campus is seen as a hate crime?
00:18:49
Speaker
Look, I do think it's difficult and I think that, you know, the university is the real place where it's really affecting people. So I'm not quite, I'm trying to think through that one institutionally. I think on campus together with other students, I think that most students who are secular students have no idea of knowing what framework they actually have in the first place. They go to a university setting and it's full of ideologues teaching them.
00:19:16
Speaker
who get this receptacle minds to fill. And many people coming into university have not thought about why they think the way they do. And once again, I think it's if you can be that person who's a non-anxious presence in that setting. And when you say something and when you're told you can't say that, you say, well, hang on, you know, why can't I say that? And am I saying it in such a way that sounds hateful to you at all? Now, the university may come down on top of you anyway.
00:19:43
Speaker
But let them do that despite the way you come across, not because of it. But I think university is the central place that's very hard for it to happen. But I still think there's a place for debating ideas in university settings. And many students are coming to universities, and we're finding this in Australia.
00:20:03
Speaker
that have no Christian background at all. And when they come to a Christian Union setting on a university, they're intrigued. I've never heard this stuff before, but you people seem different in a way that these other people aren't. And I think Christians who have banded together in university settings
00:20:20
Speaker
can be good influencers just culturally in micro ways maybe not in in the big ways but in micro ways of shaping students to sort of go hang on why should they be you know dismissed as bigots they haven't behaved that way towards me and that's a good place to start I think.
00:20:40
Speaker
If I didn't say that, Stephen, because I remember last year doing a university mission on a major Scottish university campus and the CU had rented the corner, booked the corner of a coffee shop. But basically, the group that came along to listen to this, we had a panel discussion kind of grew out and we ended up taking over half the coffee shop, which meant our crowd and the
00:20:57
Speaker
general crowd kind of blended in and the CU began getting quite nervous because during the Q&A there were lots of questions around sexuality you know homosexuality transgender all kinds of things it was myself and three others on the panel and so we did our best to be gracious but we also did our best to be honest
00:21:13
Speaker
I remember afterwards, you know, the CEO leaders getting quite nervous. But then afterwards, there were some fascinating conversations around the edges and basically some students who hadn't come to the event, they just come to the coffee shop, actually came up to us and said, that was just an amazing conversation. It's so good to see and hear people talk about these big issues. And we don't talk about this on campus. All these things are shied away.
00:21:35
Speaker
And you know, one of my colleagues say, Well, I hope it was okay. We didn't didn't offend anybody. And the student who as far as I know, had no Christian faith. So no, not not at all. I thought you went out of your way to be gracious. But it was just interesting to get a different perspective. We need other perspectives than just the mainstream one. Like that was really a bit of a wake up call to me because I confess I just sort of assumed, Oh, gosh, we're gonna get shut down here. So maybe there's more openness out there than we realize.
00:21:59
Speaker
Yeah, and we're being told there's not, so it proves it probably is, because I think part of what the cancel culture is, it's
Cancel Culture and Christian Response
00:22:06
Speaker
quite a facade. It's got to be very shouty, because if it looks behind it, not everyone on the campus is going, yeah, let's crucify them. It's not happening that way at all. In certain campuses, in certain places it is, but the average student coming to university is not going there as an ideologue. They're going as someone who has not thought much about how life is put together.
00:22:26
Speaker
And they're getting to university going, I've arrived at the age of 19 or 20, and I haven't really thought about life. Is this just going in a certain direction? And, you know, am I just being swept along? And Christians on campus, from my experience,
00:22:42
Speaker
because they've come into the setting that they're in at the moment where Christianity is not the flavor of the month, are having to think of winsome ways to bring across their argument. And when a student who's dispassionate about these issues hears an ideologue, perhaps a staff member rant, and they hear a Christian speak with a much more gentle tone, they may think, oh, I'm not supposed to believe the Christian thing, but gee, it sounds a lot more of a safe place to be
00:23:11
Speaker
than getting on the wrong side of that other person. Well, Steven, this has been an absolutely fascinating conversation. I just love the fact there's just so much practical wisdom as well as all the thinking that you've put into this. So the book, Being the Bad Guys, is it out now or is it about to come out?
Conclusion and Book Release Details
00:23:28
Speaker
Yeah, February 1st, so lots of people have been already getting it. So I think hopefully it's got a bit of a lead time into it. And yeah, it's out now.
00:23:37
Speaker
Fantastic, so as we said at the top of the show, our listeners can check the show notes, check the text in the Facebook post or whatever accompanying this, we'll put a link through to the book. Steven, once again, thank you so much for taking the time, especially to the late hour it is for you down there in Perth in Australia. So once again, thanks for being with us today. Oh, it's great, I really enjoyed it. Thanks, heaps.
00:23:58
Speaker
And Christy and I will be back in two weeks time with different guests and a whole new conversation. So we hope you can join us again then on pep talk. Thanks for listening.