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The looming Voice referendum continues to generate controversy across the Australian church. I think it’s fair to say most Christians are a bit confused with what it is and how they should respond. This is understandable given the polarising nature of the debate so far. But make no mistake, the Voice is a matter Christians cannot, must not, ignore.
Rev Dr Michael Jensen, rector of St Mark’s in Sydney’s Darling Point, recently wrote a piece for The Gospel Coalition. ‘The Voice: A Christian Consideration’, which offers a favourable summary of the Voice. While every Christian ought to say a hearty ‘amen’ to Jensen’s advice that loving our neighbours as ourselves “requires us to imagine what it is to be like another person”, his case for Christians voting ‘yes’ falls short. The central debate surrounding the Voice is not whether Christians are willing to listen to Indigenous Australians — there’s no disagreement here. Rather, it is whether the Constitution ought to be changed to establish an ‘independent and permanent advisory body’ embedded in Australian governance. Contra Jensen’s claim, the Voice would establish what is, to all intents and purposes, a third chamber of government. As Malcolm Turnbull put it in 2017 (before doing an about-face):
Every single law that goes through the parliament, whether it is tax, whether it is defence, whether it is social security, whether it is health – that all affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people because they’re part of the Australian community. And that would mean that that assembly would have the right, if it chose, to examine every piece of legislation. It would be, in effect, a third chamber. I don’t think it’s a good idea and if it were put up in a referendum, it would go down in flames.
Most poor political decisions are the product of emotion and hysteria rather than rational debate. In the words of former Senator Amanda Stoker, the Voice debate deserves a lot more “head” than “heart.”[1] Given the still unexplained but likely momentous consequences of the referendum, it’s simply not good enough for Christians to be led purely by good intentions. What follows is a list of reasons to vote ‘no’. It should be noted that these aren’t the only reasons a Christian might reject the Voice, nor are they ranked in any particular order.
1/ There can never be any such thing as an ‘Indigenous Voice’
Calling this initiative the ‘Voice’ is both politically loaded and grossly misleading. It insinuates the proposed advisory body will be the voice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, which rather arrogantly presumes indigenous Australians share a unified perspective on all social, political and religious issues. Nothing could be further from the truth.
For instance, key Indigenous leaders such as Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Anthony Dillon, and Warren Mundine have been vocal in their opposition. Their voices have largely been mocked or ignored by the mainstream media, as Channel 10’s recent apology to Senator Price attests. As Warren Mundine argues, “There are many Aboriginal people who oppose Albanese’s Voice because it’s not our voice.” He goes on to note:
The Voice and Makarrata Commission both sound to me like more bureaucracy controlling indigenous lives and bossing us around … Traditional owners should be their own voice for their own nation and country. They don’t need some new national Voice or a Makarrata Commission to speak for them. They need the Government to listen and go talk to them through their own representative bodies.[2]
Thus, in its assumptions and one-size-fits-all appraisal of Aborigines, the Voice is guilty of the very thing it seeks to combat, the blatant racism of stereotyping. The notion that there can be a single ‘voice’ is a direct dismissal on the diversity of perspectives amongst indigenous Australians. This certainly applies to many indigenous Christians, who will disagree with the premise of the Voice entirely.
Far from representing the perspectives of Indigenous people, the Voice is driven by a narrow activist class. As Janet Albrechtsen, who is both a columnist and ambassador for the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation, has written:
The Voice will create constant opportunities for a tiny minority of activists to hold parliament and executive government to ransom by using the immense leverage and opportunities for lawfare carefully woven into the Albanese Amendment. It is no exaggeration to say it will cause the end of parliamentary democracy as we have known it.[3]
The Voice furthers the mission of identity politics and that is wrong in itself. To borrow from Martin Luther King Jr., it would appoint people based on the colour of their skin rather than the content of their character.
2/ Revenge, not reconciliation
At its heart, the Voice is about revenge for historic sins rather than seeking forgiveness and reconciliation. As Rev. Mark Powell has argued, the original Makarratta concept is one of ritualized payback, embedded in both the Uluru Statement from the Heart and the Voice. In The Politics of Suffering (2011), Peter Sutton comments on the situation following the 2008 apology by Kevin Rudd:
It may turn out that these various apologies are as good as Reconciliation gets, especially in the absence of a mass Indigenous Forgiveness Movement. That such a movement is unlikely to materialize has been prophesied by the general absence of any acceptance-of-the-apologies response from Indigenous Australians. Reportedly, many people in the bush were indifferent to or unaware of the 2008 apology.[4]
He continues, quoting an Aurukun woman, “that’s for urban people and whitefellas.’”[5]
There exists a significant gulf between the indigenous Australians who are hurting and elite activists who claim to be pleading their cause. The Voice seeks to solve a problem by institutionalising racial division across Australian society. In the first century, Saint Paul in his epistle to the Galatians addressed the issue of racial division within the early church, admonishing Jewish believers for refusing to eat with Gentile converts (Gal. 2:11-14). God’s solution to this problem was not further division by ethnicity but a declaration of the reconciliation offered by Christ. After explaining that Christ died to redeem both Jews and Gentiles, Paul declared those famous words:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28)
Certainly, this passage addresses the subject in the context of the church, not civil society. Yet the underlying principle applies. In Christ, believers are not primarily ‘white’ or ‘black,’ but all of them the forgiven children of God.
Under the guise of ‘anti-racism,’ Australians will be officially divided by ethnicity once more. This will only undo the efforts of previous generations that sought to bring Australians together. Rather than reconciling us, the Voice seeks to constitutionalise, and thus ossify, the ‘us vs. them’ mentality already far too prevalent. Far from healing, it will perpetuate and intensify division.
3/ The Voice enshrines divisive racialism
There have been significant advances across the Western world in confronting racism over the past century. Indigenous Australians have long had the right to vote, stand for political office, protest, and lobby parliament. These are rights and privileges which many countries are yet to grant their citizens. Again, Janet Albrechtsen sums it up in a few words: “At a philosophical and principled level, the Voice is illiberal, divisive, and inequitable. It creates permanent race-based privilege and turns Australia into a constitutionally endorsed two-tier society.”[6]
Christians are repeatedly warned throughout Scripture not to show partiality towards others (Ex. 23:2-3; Deut. 16:19; Jam. 2:1). God makes clear that humans are at risk not only of favouring the rich and powerful, but also the poor and disadvantaged (Lev. 19:15). The Voice violates this advice by creating a unique political body of which only Aborigines can be a part. This is unbiblical for the same reason it would be improper to establish a separate political body giving ‘voice’ to women in Australia. Need it be said that the professional feminists likely to constitute such a body would not represent the average Australian female, just as the urban indigenous elite now demanding a ‘yes’ vote would not represent remote communities.
Some ‘yes’ advocates might point out that, in fact, women do have their own ‘voice’ to parliament in the Minister for Women. But shouldn’t those same people recognise every parliament in Australia has an existing voice for Indigenous Australians in their ministers for indigenous affairs? Worth noting in this context is that the current federal parliament is the only jurisdiction in Australia with more indigenous members than the proportion of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in the general population.[7]
4/ The Voice rejects forgiveness
There can be no possibility of reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians unless there is forgiveness. This applies to non-indigenous Australians and indigenous Australians alike. It’s important to emphasise this because in public debates indigenous Australians are repeatedly referred to as victims. However, like all peoples everywhere, indigenous Australians are sinners in need of forgiveness. Categorising Australians into the ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ boxes inhibits free, open and sincere discussion, thus generating further racial acrimony. The Apostle Paul was aware of the devastating effects of harbouring resentment. Regarding a case of church discipline, he wrote:
Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes. (2 Cor. 2:10-11)
It’s clear that a refusal to offer forgiveness is a scheme Satan uses to create divisions. Rather than achieving reconciliation, perpetual grievance encourages and entrenches a vengeful mentality. True inside the church, it’s also true in society at large. The Voice offers no possibility of forgiveness or reconciliation. Rather, it seeks to remedy historic wrongs by subverting the Australian political system and would thereby do immense and further harm.
Relentlessly demanding apologies without the prospect of forgiveness is no way to achieve unity amongst Australians.
5/ The Voice distracts from real solutions
Rev Jensen is right to say “this particular referendum concerns the serious matter of the welfare of our Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander neighbours.” However, it will do the exact opposite of what it purports to be capable of achieving. As someone who grew up in rural Australia, I can testify to the devastating conditions in which many Indigenous Australians are raised. Fatherlessness, alcohol and drug abuse, and domestic violence were and remain all too common.
Multiple government attempts to solve these problems with billions of dollars of funding through the Close the Gap campaign, ATSIC, and other projects have been abysmal. In most cases, they have left indigenous people worse off — recall, for example, both the corruption and utter failure of ATSIC to achieve its stated goals. It became such a disgrace that both Labor and the Coalition joined in bringing the rorting to an end once and for all. Regardless of how we reached our present state, no amount of money or constitutional recognition can solve problems that are at their heart and origin to do with family dysfunction. Many activists draw a beeline from these behaviours to historical injustices, citing “inter-generational trauma” and other throwaway lines as the root factors explaing why, for example, a Tennant Creek two-year-old is found to have been raped and infected with syphilis.
The great tragedy afflicting many indigenous homes is the lack of fathers. Fathers cannot be provided by the government, nor can the Constitution magically mend families. Indeed, increased dependence on government “sit down money” further destroys any sense of ownership and responsibility. By diverting attention from destructive cultural behaviours — most prominently, fatherlessness — the Voice seeks to misdirect us from acknowledging real problems and implementing real solutions. In the words of Anthony Dillon:
The Voice send[s] the poisonous message to indigenous Australians who suffer needlessly that their salvation lies in [the Voice] and [that] they are powerless to make any positive change in their lives, now or ever, through their own efforts or from receiving the help offered to them.
The Bottom Line
This article has argued that a ‘No’ vote is the best options for Christians to take in 2023. The Voice is not only imperfect but incredibly dangerous. It will not advance a reconciled Australia but, rather, one in which racial animosity will be further entrenched. Mundine is right to say “the Australian Constitution is not racist and does not need race-based privileges. Nor is it racist or to stand ‘on the wrong side of history’ to oppose constitutional amendment.“[8]
At its core, the Voice cuts at the heart of Christianity. While the Voice proposes constitutional change as the answer, we find the true answer in the gospel. It is only through Christ that the dividing wall can be done away with once and for all.
While I don’t doubt the sincerity of believers who are planning to vote ‘yes’, their charitable hearts are sincerely misled. While motivated by a desire for unity, the Voice is — at heart — a divisive, dangerous and unjust distraction from real solutions for the real problems of Indigenous Australians.
Albrechtsen, Janet. “The Voice: Beyond Belief?,” in Beyond Belief: Rethinking The Voice to Parliament, edited by Peter Kurti and Warren Mundine. West End: Connor Court, 2022.
Mundine, Warren. “The Indigenous Voice Does Not Speak For Country,” in Beyond Belief: Rethinking The Voice to Parliament, edited by Peter Kurti and Warren Mundine. West End: Connor Court, 2022.
Richards, Lisa. “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parliamentarians in Australia: a quick guide.” Parliament of Australia, Retrieved from https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp2223/Quick_Guides/IndigenousMPs2022. (Accessed 20 June 2023).
Stoker, Amanda. “Head Over Heart: The Legal, Democratic and Political Problems Raised by the Uluru Statement,” in Beyond Belief: Rethinking The Voice to Parliament, edited by Peter Kurti and Warren Mundine. West End: Connor Court, 2022.
Sutton, Peter. The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the End of the Liberal Consensus. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2011.
[1] Amanda Stoker, “Head Over Heart: The Legal, Democratic and Political Problems Raised by the Uluru Statement,” in Beyond Belief: Rethinking The Voice to Parliament, ed. Peter Kurti and Warren Mundine (West End: Connor Court, 2022)
[2] Warren Mundine, “The Indigenous Voice Does Not Speak For Country,” in Beyond Belief: Rethinking The Voice to Parliament, ed. Peter Kurti and Warren Mundine (West End: Connor Court, 2022), 81
[3] Janet Albrechtsen, “The Voice: Beyond Belief?,” in Beyond Belief: Rethinking The Voice to Parliament, ed. Peter Kurti and Warren Mundine (West End: Connor Court, 2022), 27
[4] Peter Sutton, The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the End of the Liberal Consensus (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2011), 196
[5] Sutton, The Politics of Suffering: Indigenous Australia and the End of the Liberal Consensus, 196
[6] Albrechtsen, “The Voice: Beyond Belief?,” 27.
[7] Lisa Richards, “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parliamentarians in Australia: a quick guide,” Parliament of Australia, https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp2223/Quick_Guides/IndigenousMPs2022. (accessed 20 June 2023).
[8] Mundine, “The Indigenous Voice Does Not Speak For Country,” 87.
Sadly, combined with the Uniting Church of Australia these two major Christrian groups had a huge influence on the plebiscite for same sex marriage.
I fear that they will have the same influence on their congregants this time around.
My concern is the Uniting Church [who have a covenant with aboriginals from 1994 https://uniting.church/covenanting/ ] who was joined by Thomas Mayo(r) in Coffs Harbour last week to kick off the yes campaign on the mid north coast of NSW.
https://tinyurl.com/2p8a2kbx
‘Ahead of the national referendum, author of The Voice to Parliament Handbook and First Nations advocate Thomas Mayo met with representatives from the Uniting Church and members of the local First Nations community.
“Coffs Harbour is similar to elsewhere in the country, when you tell people the truth without the fear and the purposeful confusion, there’s great support and enthusiasm to get out there and vote Yes.
In a recent speech to Parliament, Federal Member for Cowper Pat Conaghan said he had spoken with First Nations people in Darwin and Alice Springs about the Voice, and found many had not made up their minds yet.
According to Thomas Mayo, this scenario illustrates the need for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
“Here we have a politician who has flown into a community and flown back out, quoted Indigenous people and groups not named.
On 27 May 1967, Australians voted to change the Constitution so that, like other Australians, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would be counted as part of the population and the Commonwealth would be able to make laws for them.”
Anyone who does not understand that the use of the term First Nations, for those with aboriginal ancestry, eradicates our democracy and disenfranchises the vast majority of Australians, who become Second Nations – second-rate, inferior as citizens.
I agree 100%
The voice is racist, undemocratic, unconstitutional, divisive, destructive and meanspirited against 97% of Australians who do not have or do not register some Aboriginal ancestry. On any count is is unChristian because it negatively discriminates against most Australians.
It is not even about race because the peoples living here in 1788 were not one race and two centuries of high rates of intermarriage on, means we have thousands of variations on those themes and most of them are more anglo-european than anything else. The voice is predicated on the racist and undemocratic concept that the further back one can trace some ancestry, no matter how trivial, then the more superior they are as citizens.
This identification with a small amount of ancestry, aboriginal, is evil in concept because it says that the smallest bit of any aboriginal ancestry from any of the hundreds of different clans, can eradicate the ‘taint’ if not ‘poison’of anglo-european ancestry, and render someone superior as an Australian.
Supporting the voice makes a mockery of Christianity and its actions are evil in outcome if not intent.
The insanity of it all is that people in aboriginal communities cannot aqree on anything because they are violently torn apart by clan and family divisions, and yet, the claim is, not only will there be total agreement in one community, there will be total agreement in every community, and, even more miraculously, total agreement with every Australian who has aboriginal ancestry even though they have nothing in common with those living in communities, nor, frequently, any understanding of the tribal-imposed misery in which they live.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing in the concept of the voice which could not be done without entrenching it in our Constitution. The only reason it is being pushed on that count is to give the abolites power over Government and a surety that no matter how corrupt they might be, or how incompetent they can never be closed down as ATSIC was.
There is nothing in the voice which is not negative to all Australians and if the churches cannot see that then it doesn’t say much for them or their ethics, let alone their role as Christians.
Christians as a whole are distinctly uncritical and naive or just plain gormless when it comes to the politics of maneuver, which is what we see here with the innocuously portrayed but Constitution destroying ‘Voice’. Radical environmentalism, the climate capers and the Covid circus are similar games of Marxist hoodwinking.
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Many will reflexively, and un-reflectively, vote ‘yes’ because they think it is a Good Thing. It is not, of course.
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The locus of the good is the individual, not the Marxist conception of the group or class. Every one of the middle class capers I mention above submerge the individual into the anonymous group and in complete disregard for both the poor here and abroad. It is also in complete ignorance of the scepticism as to human motives that the prophet Jeremiah expressed (or observed?) in Jeremiah 17:9 regarding the deceit of the human heart!
Too many Christians are in the game for the fuzzy feel-good factor, that nice, warm, gooey sense that they are doing good and are therefore superior to others. That is not Christianity which, at its best has been rough, raw, strong-minded and sometimes ruthless.
Yes Daffy , your first paragraph nails it . These are the Trojan horses of the Apocalypse , designed to bring down the West . and too many see them as separate issues , unrelated , which is exactly what the Marxhitects want . The average citizen is so uncurious , sleepwalking to their /our demise ,and pointing out the connected dots makes one a conspiracy theorist , apparently .
When the banker’s, the politicians and big business band together, and would all be happy with a yes outcome – the rest of us are going to be screwed mercilessly.
The voice is akin to the other con jobs of globalisation ( de-sovereignisation of our country and the power of our vote) and the global warming scam.
And they say aloud that the voice has no power of veto ( at this point ),however I believe the power’s that be clearly have this in mind and therefore a much much wider agenda – The Republic.
The do- gooders in the church are being played for mugs in supporting this, and they should butt out – begs the question though ;Why on God’s good earth, would the Clergy place store in trust and faith, in what banker’s, politician’s and big business(which is as corrupt as corrupt can get) say and do and have to offer?
Give me a break
$
What Warren Mundine has to say about all of this, is sage; advice that is both humiliating and somewhat humbling for those contemplating from the vantage point of the ivory tower of Yes.
In short, the Voice is just more blustery bureaucratic wind from the big end of town – keep in mind that these people are about as unproductive ,unimpressive and unemployable as scoundrels get.and therefore as untrustworthy as their minion mates from the fake news incorporated agenda (me-dia).
To wrap up, the Voice is just political and corporate virtue signalling.
Vote No- this being a yes for good old fashioned common sense!
With regard to voting ‘NO’ to the Indigenous ‘Voice’ referendum, I wish to add that my ‘NO’ also includes a belated ‘NO’ to the following issues :-
No to my inclusion as an Australian citizen in the ‘National Apology’ – I was never asked.
No to the massive fabrication of the ‘Stolen Generation’ which was presented to the world as an instrument of ‘Genocide’.
No to the many fabrications of Aboriginal History from ‘Wars of Resistance’ to the’ inventors of bread’ being taught to our children in our schools
No to the constant ‘Welcome to Countries’ chanted as ‘War Cries’ before every major event in the nation.
No to the ‘Acknowledgement of Country’ being performed before The Sign of the Cross – in Catholic Churches.
No to the AFL and the Catholic Church and all the other NGO’s and big brother collaborators who have advised Australian citizens to cede their democratic sovereignty to a racist Aboriginal House of Lords.
No to Bruce Pascoe Indigenaety and fake history. No to his professorship.
No to the racial fascism of the heart – ‘the quality of their character not the colour of their skin’ … mate
Amen to all of that-you have earned a very big and bold trustworthy YES from me Patrick.
Afterthought, I wonder if there is a way we can filter out the fake sincerity agenda from our ears-noise cancelling headsets perhaps and maybe an unlit Groucho Marx cigar.
Amen to your summary Patrick. Nailed it!
“Yes” to you, Patrick McCauley, and every single point you make.
I too have to add my “yes” to that. But I ask other commenters to consider two things.
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The first is how group dynamics work. If someone in a group makes an assertion and nobody contradicts it then the group will tend to adopt that assertion as being a reflection of the group’s thought.
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The second thing to remember. If you are part of that group and you do not challenge a false assertion then the rest of the group will tend to believe that you too have acquiesced in accepting what has been said.
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Therefore it is important when confronted with a “welcome to country” you do not agree with that you say aloud “I don’t agree”. Doing that will show the group that you do not acquiesce and will tend to change the group dynamic.
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Falsehoods live on when not contradicted.
@Brian Boru,
Well said. I have pondered this slow creep of abolite fascism and conclude that just as death by a thousand cuts might be slow, even unnoticed for a long time, the end result is still death.
The abolite fascism has crept in from many corners, sneakily, unnoticed, robed in garments of do-goodery and nobel intentions, but evil in its intent and construct.
Too many good-natured Australians have gone along with it because they are good-natured and they wanted to believe the the minority of Australians with aboriginal ancestry who remained struggling, could be helped. They have not been helped and they will not be helped by any racist voice.
Senator Jacinta Price says Australian taxpayers spend at least $100 million a day on direct support for Indigenous Australians every year or $39.5 billion of direct government expenditure every single year. The figures are based on the 2017 Indigenous Expenditure Report produced by the Productivity Commission.
And many Australians are simply sick and tired of the wasted money and the lies and even more sick of having their guilt button pushed when all they have ever tried to do is help and were never instrumental in any past wrongs, real or imagined, which some with aboriginal ancestry experienced.
Enough is enough and the only good thing about the voice campaign is that it is allowing and encouraging dissemination of information which for the first time, enables a perception of reality to be at work in regard to this issue.
Patrick, your litany reminds me of the priceless Les Tanner cartoon on the 1967 referendum – failed, of course – to allow the number of federal MHRs to exceed the constitutional barrier of ‘twice the number of senators’. The sainted Les pictured a little old lady poking a suited MP in his ample tummy with her brolly, asking, approximately, ‘I want to know where I can vote for fewer of you fellows’. Where is the proposal to authorise a general removal, or at least the de-public funding, of Patrick’s items, Mr Dutton?
I see the Catholic Church now puts pagan animism before its old fashioned trinitarian theism. Novel.
I think most Australians with a modicum of common sense would say YES to all of your No’s.
A resounding YES to your post , Patrick . my sentiments exactly !
Thank you James for this essay. The views which you have expressed have been very much matters that I have held in my heart and had thoughts about.
As a minister of Uniting Church (UCA), I am saddened how parts of the UCA are pushing the ‘yes’ vote, yet the code of ethics for ministers clearly state that ministers must NOT use the pulpit as a political platform. I have kept to myself how I may vote as is the right of every Australian Citizen, (otherwise why have booths in which we may cast our votes all elections). I also seek to adhere to the minsters code of conduct and understand that influence/power which I may have by virtue of my office of presbyter. I have a heart for the Gospel, I have visited many remote places in Australia. I have seen first-hand the sadness, brokenness and exploitation in those communities. I have also seen how our various churches and other faith based NGOs against incredible odds, are seeking to improve the estate of those people suffering. I do not believe that ‘activism’ is needed, what is needed is ‘action’ – compassion, consultation, and cooperation with local communities to assist them to build their communities well, with safety, and opportunity which in the end is the hope of every Australian Citizen.
I fear that even religious leaders are unwilling to speak clearly in terms of their faith, opting for the political positions they identify as social justice. The fact is many Aboriginal people are Christian and their lives have been greatly improved by adopting a Christian outlook, morality and family practices, not to mention education in Christian schools. They are the ones who thrive.
Yes: “the Voice rejects forgiveness”. Normally people only need to say sorry at most once. But Australians are expected to say “Sorry” repeatedly every year – every National Sorry Day, because the “sorry” is never accepted.
“We also to pay respects to the elders of the Communist Party, who I think, without a doubt, have played a very important role in our activism”.
Thomas Mayo
Says it all for me.
The Gospel Coalition, founded by Timothy Keller and Don Carson, preaches a socialized gospel. I suggest that this is probably the main reason why Michael Jensen chose The Gospel Coalition to publish his article, “The Voice: A Christian Consideration”. The socialized gospel is a favourite tool of ‘wolves in sheeps clothing’ (as per Matthew 7:15) preachers who preach concern about social inequalities via a false gospel subtly permeated by radical Marxist social justice philosophy.The true gospel, on the other hand, while not ignoring physical circumstances, is foremostly concerned about the state of people’s souls and their eternal destiny. For an insight into Timothy Keller and the Marxist foundations of The Gospel Coalition: https://trinityfoundation.org/PDF/The%20Trinity%20Review%20Review%20317%20Workers%20of%20the%20Church%20Unite%20KauffmanonKeller.pdf
Yes, St John. It appears that the current euphemism in theological circles for the socialised gospel is “contextualisation” – one must not preach and teach the gospel as Timeless Truth, but in terms Relevant to the Times. Methinks, therefore that “contextualisation” is actually just good old-fashioned syncretism, that ever-present threat to the Church across all Ages. As Thomas More quipped with such timeless relevance 500 years ago, “We’ll never get human behaviour in line with Christian ethics, so let’s adapt Christian ethics to human behaviour. Then at least there’ll be a connexion between them”. (Utopia, 1516).
Spot on Jackson. One of the real standout syncratists in this regard was Emperor Constantine (The Great). He successfully seamed together Christianity and the State. This enbled professing ‘Christians’ to (at last) comfortably have one foot in Heaven and the other foot in the World. These are the lukewarm Christians travelling the broad highway to salvation who get thwarted and pipped at the post by the narrow gate as signified by Luke 13:23-24. On being a lukewarm Christian, Revelation 3:15–16 says: “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.”
It’s quite surprising how many points there are against it that sentimentalist “yes” voters will never get to read or hear.