The Australian Church, a church without martyrs

This saw the state take over all of the areas of life for which the church had previously been responsible. It used to be that the parish was responsible for the poor and the destitute. It used to be that the church was at the centre of education. It used to be that archbishops dealt with kings and often paid for it with their lives.

The message that religion was dangerous in the public sphere was produced by the state in order to relegate it to the private sphere and to then take over the traditional role of the church. The conversation that we overhear in the Old Testament between the prophet and the king has been silenced, it is now only the king who speaks.

This is why in Australia there are very few faculties of theology at our universities and only minimal and badly resourced Christian education in our schools. This is why when the church says something political there is always a politician who will spout off about the separation between church and state.

The state is quite happy to have us along, as long as we do not rock the boat. Indeed much of the church’s work in education and health and social services is funded by the government. By and large, the church has accepted this situation. Religion is private, it is between the individual and God and should not be exported into the public sphere for that will only cause trouble.

If you trace the ministry of Jesus in the gospels it is obvious that it was a public ministry that had the potential to undermine the authorities both religious and civil. His ministry was political, that is why they murdered him. Of course it all begins with the individual who is convicted of the truth of the gospel but then it has repercussions on how that individual participates in society.

In the gospel we hear Jesus predicting the turmoil that will come in his wake, turmoil even between father and son, mother and daughter. This is what happens when the truth of God confronts the lies of men. There is conflict and division. Men and women are led to see a new reality and they cannot then coexist with the old.

For the community of Jesus is an alternative community to that of the world, and its members exist as resident aliens in that world. When the church becomes so embroiled in the secular, so that the gospel is compromised, it loses it reason for being.

We are a church established in peace and at peace. But I wonder if the price of that peace is the neutering of the gospel. Is it rather the peace of assimilation to the order of the state in which the gospel loses its character of crisis?

Australia does not have its own martyrs but what it does have, in every capital city and every country town, are memorials to those who were killed at war. These memorials contain lists of the names of young men killed in wars overseas. If you like, these are the martyrs of the state: they died not for their faith but for the nation.

We in Australia are familiar with sacrificial death and we have deep respect for it. In our minds it is a noble thing to die for one’s country but we are not sure what to think about someone who dies for the faith.

For why should such a thing happen? Since religion has been relegated to the private we see no prospect of it ever happening. There is no reason for us to come into conflict with anyone and no reason to think that we would even have enemies.

Meanwhile the church in Australia continues to founder. The response of many denominations has been to import the latest church growth guru to teach us how to rescue the church. But the reason that God is killing our churches has nothing to do with management: it has all to do with the deals we have made in the past with the state and with ways of thinking that neuter the gospel. We have simply painted ourselves into a corner.