Andrew Thorburn, Guy Mason, and Christian Cultural Engagement
The cultural worm has finally turned all the way over. The Andrew Thorburn saga, which included a football club, a (former) Chief Executive Officer, a reformed evangelical church, and a pastor who tried his guts out on national television, is the proof we needed. The church needs to close this chapter in our cultural engagement.
Which chapter am I referring to? The way I frame this will undoubtedly ruffle feathers, and possibly offend those who have invested their whole approach to Christian ministry in a philosophy of “Christ and culture” that is founded upon outdated assumptions. To brace ourselves for the next phase of post-Christian Australia, we need to face the facts.
On Tuesday, Andrew Thorburn resigned from his role as the CEO of the Essendon Football Club. He was appointed on Monday. In a remarkable 24 hours, Thorburn’s association with City on a Hill was outed by a nameless pressure group, and the Essendon President came out and announced that Thorburn’s church association was not compatible with his role at Windy Hill.
The legal and political ramifications of this series of events are being hashed out elsewhere. My own analysis in The Australian focused on the issue of freedom of association. Thorburn might have been in a leadership and governance role at City on a Hill, but in a sane world that should never have precluded him from being the CEO of a football club.
We are no longer in a sane world. And that is my point. Ministers of the Gospel, pastors, “men of the cloth” (as my father-in-law likes to call them), all need to face a stark reality. The culture of niceness, of winsomeness, of cultural relevance, even of “gospel-centeredness,” needs to be cast away.
This should be clear, if it wasn’t already, from the interview that David Koch conducted with City on a Hill minister, Guy Mason. Let me preface everything I say below by making some qualifications. I think Mason tried his guts out in a very difficult situation. He tried his best to foreground the loving community that City on a Hill aims to be, and was valiant in his attempt to put Jesus Christ front and centre. No criticism of any of that is made here.
Nevertheless, here is what I saw play out. Mason went into the Channel 7 studios, a space he is familiar with, to face a line of questioning about the traditional, even conservative, theological and moral views that he and his church hold to. The tactical approach that Mason took was to divert that line of questioning towards the positive vision of “life” and “love” and, importantly, the good news of Jesus.
But Kochie was having none of it. Why? He had a bully pulpit, which he gleefully used. But he also had some straightforward questions about City on a Hill and their relationship to the dominant progressive political and moral narrative. Mason failed to answer those questions. Instead, he tried to be winsome. He tried to communicate a positive message about Christianity. He tried to maintain credibility in front of a national audience.
Presumably, Mason did this because he thought it would be better to do that than address head-on the difficult reality that our Australian cultural elites, and a large part of our society, think he and his church are bigots. That’s hard to face for a minister who has built a ministry strategy (as many have) around maintaining cultural relevance and avoiding being abrasive where possible.
Here is the fact the culturally sensitive, missional, gospel-centred church in Australia now needs to face. And that descriptor makes up a good chunk of the conservative churches in Australia, be they Anglican, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Uniting, or whatever. The fact is: No. One. Cares.
No one cares how nice you are. No one cares how clever you are. No one cares how many recent Hollywood films you reference in your sermon. No one cares how many cultural connections you make in your blog posts. And I’m afraid that no one will have given two hoots about Mason’s positive vision for Christianity from his Channel 7 interview.
Why is that? Because Mason is a bigot. I am a bigot. And you, dear brothers and sisters, are bigots. We are, as Carl Trueman pointed out years ago, the equivalent of white supremacists in the eyes of our enlightened, post-Christian society. No matter how gentle, meek, and winsome you are on national television, no matter how nice you come across, and no matter how well you avoid the hard issue thrown at you in public, you will be cast as a bigot.
So how do we approach this? What should our ministry and cultural strategy be? I suggest starting with Aaron Renn’s framework of “positive world,” “neutral world,” and “negative world.” Renn argues that we winsome, culturally-sensitive types are operating quite naively in neutral world. The trouble is, we’re not Tim Keller in New York in 1998. The world, and the culture we’re trying to relate to, have moved on. In our culture, Christianity is a net negative.
Given that, our approach to everything we do should be coloured by the reality that our efforts to be winsome, pleasant, gentle and meek won’t increase our persuasiveness. Our presentation of, and communication of, the gospel message is not enhanced by pretending we live in neutral world. Do you know what our culture wants to know? It wants to know what Kochie wanted Mason to tell him — Why are we bigots?
What drives us to be bigots? Why would we hold to purportedly outdated, disgraceful, out-of-favour views about moral issues like abortion, gender, and marriage? Mason, unfortunately, never got to give an answer, maybe because he did not have one ready for his interview on Channel 7. This is unfortunate, and I feel for him. My suspicion is he wasn’t expecting the line of questioning he received.
But what else should he expect? Ministers should no longer expect the culture to play nice. Media engagement is a minefield, a battle zone. It is not a tennis match with cucumber sandwiches and soda water afterwards. So, too, parishioners and congregation members are actually in a battle zone when they live in the world. Equipping them with winsomeness, niceties, and polite apologetics strategies is very 2002.
In 2022, Mason needed to come ready to face up, in public, to the hard truth that his message is unpopular and unattractive. This message will be deemed to be unloving, regardless of how hip the carrier’s jeans are, and regardless of the tone of delivery. Rather than pretend otherwise, Christians, especially ministers, need to be prepared to teach a message of life and love, yes, but one that the world won’t understand and won’t respect.
So, too, Mason and others need to be ready to go in to bat for their team. Andrew Thorburn got some compliments in Mason’s interview, but what about all of the other Christians whose employment might be called into question because of their views? Mason offered no defence of them. Indeed, if anything, he provided more reasons for people to question why bigots should keep their jobs.
Mason is in my crosshairs, but not because I think I would have done any better. My point is actually that Mason was the unfortunate deer left staring into the cultural headlights who acted as a harbinger, a warning for us all. He was avant-garde in all the wrong ways, and not because he didn’t try to do the right thing. He did try, and I admire him for that.
However, let’s not let this interview be forgotten (as much we might like to). Let’s use this as a reality check. We’re not in neutral world anymore. We are in Renn’s negative world, and that means that our approach to ministry, outreach, discipleship, and cultural engagement, needs to change.
I’m not the expert equipped to answer the “how?” question. I’m a historian who watches the culture closely. And I’m ready to pronounce the sad passing of the age of winsome cultural engagement. May it rest in peace.
May we Christians in Australia pray for a revival that changes our culture. But most presciently we should pray for ministers like Mason, who face an even tougher gig than they already had. They might have had a sneaking suspicion that the tide was turning this way. As of this week, there is no denying that the tide is in, and we’re in it up to our necks.