Revisiting "Just" preach the gospel

Coming full circle in my thinking

Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash

There’s a school of thought which says that churches should just preach the gospel. That is, the church isn’t there to tell you who to vote for and get involved in contentious political or social issues; the church is simply there to tell people to put their faith in Jesus Christ. Up until a few years ago, I would probably have gone along with this school of thought. It has all the appearance of godly wisdom, doesn’t it: Christians should avoid divisive and contentious issues like the culture wars, and focus instead on Jesus Christ.

As Paul says in 2 Timothy:

No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer.

2 Timothy 2:4

Paul couldn’t be clearer: our job is to please God, our “commanding officer”. That means we shouldn’t get tangled up in the divisive issues of this world. Simple!

Or… perhaps not: my thinking on this was deeply shaken when, in 2020, the church simply rolled over and complied with every mandate that the government imposed upon it. “Stop meeting? We’ll do it. Wear masks? We’re all for it.” Not only that, but it became impossible to even question the restrictions in church circles. If you questioned the wisdom of lockdowns and masks, as I did, you were seen as a bit dangerous — maybe even a ‘covidiot’!

How could people think that the gospel had nothing to say about the issues of mask mandates, vaccine mandates, closed churches and the like? How could people think that to question THOSE things was tantamount to dividing the church?

Over time, I came to realise the fundamental problem with the church was that it had lost sight of the gospel. The gospel which was being preached in churches was not the gospel given to us by God in the Scriptures. It looked similar on the outside — it used the right words — but there was something important missing. Although I was aware of problems in the church before covid, it took covid for me to understand just how bad things were.

A year ago, I did a podcast about “Just” preaching the gospel where I explained my problem with the church:

"Just" preach the gospel...?

Since 2020, I’ve been on something of a journey. I started Sacred Musings because I wanted to explore what had gone wrong in the church. In particular I wanted to diagnose what had gone wrong in society from a Christian perspective, e.g. why the government could ever think it was appropriate to lock society down (and why the church would agree). Along my way, I began to look into a number of other so-called conspiracy theories and started to realise that many of the things I thought of as outlandish conspiracies were actually horribly real.

I wrote a little about my journey in conspiracies in my post here about 7/7:

20 years after 7/7: why are people still in denial?

However, after spending the last five years going down the conspiracy rabbit hole (an finding plenty down there which is truly real and evil), I feel like it’s time for me to return to “just preach the gospel” — but not like it was before. What I’d like to do is explain, briefly, what I’ve learned in the last five years and why I’ve come back to “just” preach the gospel.

Lessons learned from the last few years

#1: It’s so much worse than you think

One of my biggest realisations over the last few years is that the conspiracy rabbit hole is truly vast. When you start investigating what’s really going on, you realise that there are wheels within wheels. I’ve recommended Derrick Broze’s series The Pyramid of Power a few times recently, and I think it’s a great introduction to a lot of the issues. What you begin to realise is that many of the things which filter through to the mainstream media (e.g. Jeffrey Epstein) are only the tip of the iceberg.

In my experience, however bad you think it is, it’s worse. There are some incredibly dark things going on, the kind of thing which makes you realise that the ancient civilisations who sacrificed their own children haven’t really gone away.

This leads me on to the next thing.

#2: Christians don’t really believe their Bibles

One of the most difficult things for me to accept was that there were things in the Bible which many Christians simply didn’t believe. For example, John says: “We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). Paul says:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. Ephesians 2:1-2

Similarly, Peter writes: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

All the apostles warned us about Satan and his methods (deception and trickery, the usage of worldly powers, and so on). Many times in the Bible there are examples of godly men and women who have had to stand up against ungodly rulers (e.g. Daniel and his friends).

So, why is it that many Christians today have a kind of childlike naivety about Satan and earthly authorities? Why do Christians seem to believe that everybody is basically nice? Is it because churches simply don’t recognise evil any more?

We can't overcome evil if we don't recognise evil

The problem with the church is not that it doesn’t believe in conspiracies and the like because it hasn’t had enough time to investigate them. The problem with the church is that it thinks conspiracies can’t be true because people aren’t that bad. They have a view of human nature and evil which is utterly naïve. If you don’t believe that Satan is a very real threat, active in the world, and active in our political elites and governments, then it’s not the Bible you are believing but their spin and PR.

#3: Only the light can drive out the darkness

Paul says:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Ephesians 6:10-13

Paul says that the ultimate battle we are facing is a spiritual one. The issues that we see when it comes to conspiracies are a manifestation of that spiritual battle. You could say that there is a spiritual dimension to every conspiracy: every immoral action is a rejection of God, and the more evil the action the greater the rejection.

And because the battle is a spiritual one, this means that we can only fight with spiritual weapons. The battle won’t be won any other way. We may only use the means that God has appointed. As Paul says elsewhere, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4).

Note: I spoke about what it means to fight in a spiritual way here:

We can't vote our way out of this...

It’s no good being aware of all the darkness in the world if you don’t have the light. Someone who knows every single conspiracy there is will be ineffective in the fight — not even really engaged in the battle. But someone who fights with the weapons that God has given will be mighty and effective, even if they don’t know the detail of every single conspiracy.

Note: I spoke about how it’s possible to avoid being manipulated even without being aware of the truth about every single conspiracy in this piece:

How can we avoid being manipulated?

The point I’m making here is that the light alone can drive away the darkness: only Jesus Christ can overcome the darkness that lies all around us. One of the key implications of this for Christians is that we need to recognise and confess the darkness within our own hearts and how much we need God to forgive us and help us. We can’t overcome the darkness in our own strength, we need to pray for the help of the Holy Spirit to live in the light. This is why it’s so important to understand what evil is, to recognise it in ourselves, and to turn to the light in our own lives.

To put it another way, the road to victory starts with repenting of our own sins, confessing the evil in our own hearts, and asking the Lord to guide us and help us every day to do what is right. Winning the victory over evil in the world starts with winning the victory over it in our own hearts. If we can’t prevail in our own individual struggle, what chance do we have against evil in the world?

#4: The gospel is sufficient

The gospel alone is able to overcome evil. Christ’s death and resurrection — death and new life — are alone able to heal us and give us new life. Whatever evil there is out in the world, it can only be overcome through Christ.

At this point, I have to stress that the problem with the church is that large parts of it have really got the gospel wrong, or at least simplified / diluted it to such an extent as to distort it. I wrote my book, Confused by Grace, to explain how I believe the church has got it wrong today.

As I said in my podcast last year, “Just preach the gospel” is correct; the problem was with churches back in 2020 that they weren’t preaching the gospel.

This is why I’ve decided to reboot Sacred Musings and call it “The Bible Uncancelled”: we are in a spiritual war, and we need the light of the gospel to overcome. Everything that’s happening to us in this world is ultimately not political in nature, but spiritual — and we need the light of Christ to overcome it. We need to listen to what God has to say to us first and foremost.