INTRODUCTION:
In an interview in 2022 Hugh Jackman, famous for his iconic role of Wolverine in the X-Men franchise said he’s ‘a “a big fan” of having one gender neutral acting category in which all performers compete.’
Jackman says: “That would be a really positive step. I don’t understand why it’s split into just two genders when we all know it’s a much bigger spectrum’
This is just one example of many that shows what we all feel even if we don’t really know what to call it – we are living in times when Christian norms, ethics and beliefs are no longer believed or accepted. We are living in Post-Christian times, even if the air we breathe is still Christian.[1]
Now I’m not saying that the UK or the West as we call it was ever genuinely Christian in the regenerate sense – but there was a time when Christianity had more cultural capital, more cultural influence, more cultural weight.
This can be seen through all kinds of measurements.
Up until 1791 it was a legal requirement for people in the UK to attend an Anglican service at least twice a year or be fined.[2] Thankfully that’s no longer the case – but it shows a time when the powers that be thought very differently than now.
Or to bring into more recent times – back in 1905 56% of children and young people went to church in the UK. Now just over a century later the figure is closer to 4%.
Or think about how church attendance in general has been dropping steadily since 1851 when half of the population went to church. One survey goes on to say ‘Membership has declined from 10.6 million in 1930 to 5.5 Million in 2010, or as a percentage of the population; from about 30% to 11.2%.[3]
By 2013, this had declined further to 5.4 million (10.3%).
If you take out N. Ireland which has an unusually high church attendance, than as of today church attendance in the UK [or in England] is around 6% of the population. I believe, based on observation, that is even lower in Yorkshire, certainly outside the main cities of Leeds, Sheffield and York.
It’s a fact that we all know – people don’t go to church anymore.
And the 2021 census showed that more people identified as something other than Christian for the first time in the UK – 46% said they were Christian down from 2011 when 59% said they were Christian.[4]
This indicates a cultural shift, doesn’t it? It paints a pretty strong picture: Christianity is no longer the dominant influence when it comes to ethics, culture or belief – we are and have been living for some time in a post-Christian world.
And we don’t need to go down the rabbit hole of the sexual revolution or technology or expressive individualism to know this.
As the Australian evangelist Stephen McAlpine says of the West in general – ‘we’re not in Kansas anymore’ – quoting Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz as she’s transported to this strange new world along the yellow brick road.[5]
The Christian world that we knew or thought we knew has gone, replaced by something that is not easy to describe – but it certainly doesn’t smell, look or feel Christian. It feels weird.[6]
And this reality has left Christians confused, angry, betrayed, worried, anxious and wondering what an earth are we to do? Or as the title to this article asks: How do we live & respond as Christians in a Post-Christian World? What does that look like?
IDENTITY MATTERS – HELP FROM 1 PETER:
Using mainly 1 Peter as our guide I want us to, first of all, be grounded in our identity – offering two identities that Peter states in his first letter.[7]
And by starting with identity, we are walking into one of the most important topics of today. Whether it is identity politics, sexual identity, or how we view ourselves in terms of family and work – identity is so important.
And that is very much the case for Christians and how they identify with and respond to the culture.
There’s loads of different ways the bible describes Christians.
But 1 Peter gives us two helpful and complementary identities that we need to wear that will help us orientate ourselves and know our place and our mission in this Post-Christian world. They are living as exiles and priests.
Peter opens the letter doesn’t he – ‘To God’s elect, exiles, scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia’ (1 Peter 1:1).
We have a similar word appear in 1 Peter 1:17 ‘Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners [exiles] here in reverent fear’.[8]
EXILES:
And the two concepts come together in 1 Peter 2:11 ‘Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.’
Peter is writing in a context where the people of God are not facing state persecution but are seen as suspicious, different, wrong – very much in the minority and living life in the margins. Sound familiar?
And Peter calls them exiles and foreigners or strangers.
The identity that Peter is calling them out to live, is to not see this place, this world as your ultimate home. To not be too attached to the world – to know your place. And your place is exile. Your place is in the margins.
Which means cultural and political power and support is not something we can guarantee. If you want to get into politics fine, but don’t expect politicians to be on your side and get angry when they’re not.
By the way, this identity of exile is the identity of the people of God throughout the Bible. Peter isn’t making something new up here.
Hebrews gives us a fascinating insight into the identity of God’s people in the OT. In chapter 11 and the wonderful people of the faith in v8-10 we read:
‘By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.’
And this isn’t just the attitude of Abraham – a few verses later in v13-16 we read:
‘All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.’
(You can see something similar with David in Psalm 39).
This tells us something about the life of an exile – our identity in the margins – our heart longs for a better country – the city of God rather than the city of man.
Which means, as much as we must live in the world, we are never of the world. We are always longing for a better country with Christ at the centre. ‘We are looking for the city to come’ (Heb 13:14). Until then we live as exiles in the margins.
Listen to the words of scholar Richard Bauckham:
‘With the loss of a sense of a physical centre of the Christian movement in Jerusalem, the way is clear for writers like the authors of Hebrews and 1 Peter to represent Christians anywhere as aliens and exiles along the nations, sojourning like the patriarchs in lands not their own, awaiting their homecoming to the heavenly Jerusalem that will come down to earth in the future…The church in the west may have to get used to the idea that its own centre in God, from which it goes out to others in proclamation and compassion, is actually a position of social and cultural exile or marginality. This may improve its witness to the Christ who was himself so often found at the margins’.
Our identity as exiles is following in the footsteps of Christ.
What is more, our identity as exiles – longing for a better country – should never feel entitled to a better country here. Life as the Christian is one of difficulty, struggle and realisation that Christians are not entitled to any better treatment or preferential treatment in England or anywhere.
The idea that England needs to return to historic Christianity – though in one sense is good – in another misses the point – England never has been and never will be ‘Christian’ until Christ returns. They’ll be periods of greater cultural influence – but a Christian nation is not something the NT considers – for the better country is the one we enjoy when Christ returns.
Until then we live in the margins and go and make disciples from the margins.
Because our citizenship is in heaven our relationship to the world should be as exiles longing for a better country.
Q: How can our identity as exiles help manage our expectations and disappointments in our post-Christian context?
PRIESTS:
Alongside our identity as exiles in our post-Christian world, we can be helped to live well when we ground ourselves in our identity as priests mediating God to the world.
Peter calls his readers a ‘holy priesthood’ in 2:5 and a ‘royal priesthood’ in v9 – belonging to God – getting our identity from God as we are allowed access to God through Christ.
You may have heard of the priesthood of all believers. The wonderful Reformation truth that all Christians are priests with access to God. But do we truly claim this as our identity?
And priests can do at least two things.
First, offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God – presenting our bodies as living sacrifices – as worship to God. In all we do we should be worshipping God and draw close to God. That’s what priests do. Daily sacrifice, daily worship.
But we also see in 1 Peter 2:9 the second thing the priest does: ‘But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light’
We as a royal priesthood, a holy nation – as priests – declare or proclaim the praises of God who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light. We as priests promote Christ to a world in darkness.
This is something Paul understood.
In Romans 15:15-16 he writes:
‘Yet I have written to you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.’
The role of the priest is to proclaim his God. To declares the praises of his God to a world in darkness, telling them how we have been drawn out of darkness into his wonderful light. How we have become a royal priesthood.
Now there’s lots more we can say about this so let me summarise with Stefan Pass who talks about our priestliness whilst also connecting it to living at the margins:
‘The image of the church as a priestly community does full justice to the experience of the New Testament writers and many contemporary Christians in the West that the church is a minority, and that this is the rule rather than the exception…Priests are a minority community by definition, who find their calling in seeking the peace of the city. There is nothing odd or imperfect about a minority church; in the contrary, it is its ‘natural’ position’
Our identity is one of exiles and priests of God, living life for God at the margins.
HOW DO WE LIVE THIS OUT?
But how do we live out our identity and respond to our post-Christian context?
How do we respond to a culture that is rapidly departing from any allegiance to Christianity and its values?
Some Christians respond by withdrawing from culture and just not engaging. This is the equivalent of the Essenians in Jesus and Paul’s day, withdrawing from culture.
Others respond by seeking the answer in politics. This the response of the Herodians in Jesus’s day.
Others respond through compromise in order to hold on to some sort of religious power. This is the response of the Sadducees.
Others response through emphasising the law and rules. A typically pharisaical approach.
Others still, might respond by lobbying and insisting on nothing else other than a Christian nation, and will stop at nothing until this is achieved. Something akin, though perhaps not as extreme as, the Zealots in Paul’s day.
Now some of these responses are better than others, but a faithful Christian response is this: out of our identity as exiles and priests we should practice true Christianity and proclaim Christ.
What does that look like? It looks like what Peter commanded his readers to be – let me show you 10 ways true Christianity should be expressed in our post-Christian age by using 1 Peter as our guide.
10 Ways True Christianity Should Be Expressed:
#1 Set Your Hope on Future Grace
Peter says in 1 Peter 1:13 says: ‘Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.’
Our attitude as exiles living in the margins is to set our hope on the future grace of Christ’s return. We long for a better country. We don’t fix our hopes on things in this world. We fix our hopes – set hopes on Christ’s glorious return! Where our true home will be.
#2: Be Holy
1 Peter 1:14-16 says: ‘As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’
Peter is quoting Leviticus, that at various times commands God’s people to be holy (Lev 19:2 or 20:7 or v26 which says: ‘You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.’)
In the next chapter in Leviticus 21:6-8 it commands the priests to be holy because the LORD is holy – holiness is a characteristic of priesthood.
So as priests we must be holy – obedient children not conformed to evil practices of the world – but devoted to God – set apart.
And our motivation to be holy is because God is holy.
In an age where holiness has gone out of fashion Christians needs to be holy – obedient as children reflecting the DNA of our Father.
#3 Love One Another Deeply
1 Peter 1:22: ‘Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart’
1 Peter 2:17: ‘love the family of believers’
1 Peter 3:8: ‘Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble’
1 Peter 4:8-9: ‘Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.’
The root for the Greek word ‘offer’ or ‘show hospitality’ is ‘philo’ – brotherly love – which gives us an idea of what love looks like.
And finally, 1 Peter 5:14: ‘Greet one another with a kiss of love’
Every chapter mentions love for one another – our love for one another needs to be constant and deep. Let’s be a loving church – a loving community.
#4 Crave the Word
1 Peter 2:2-3: ‘Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good’.
The context of these verses before this is Peter talking about the Word – the living and enduring word of God. The word that is preached. And so what we crave – what the spiritual milk is, is the Word of God. Desire it.
If we’re going to be priests of God, we need to know the word of God so that we can grow up in our salvation.
The world will offer lots of desires, lots of things to crave – but we must be in the word, craving the word, being fed by the word – tasting that the Lord is good.
#5: Live Good Lives
1 Peter 2:12: ‘Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us’.
Our exile doesn’t mean retreat from society – we should be living in society in such a way that non-Christians see our good deeds and glorify God because they see our lives and our relationships as attractive.
This is worked out in 1 Peter in our relationship to the authorities. Our relationship to work, especially if we are not treated well. In our marriage, especially if we become a Christian after we’ve got married, and when we’re persecuted.
As exiles and foreigners don’t retreat, don’t get angry, don’t bemoan some better life – live such good lives among the pagans – conduct yourselves honourable – so God may get the glory from those who may otherwise accuse you of doing wrong.
#6 Be Prepared To Give An Answer
1 Peter 3:15: ‘But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect’
Are we prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope we have in Christ? Exile doesn’t equal lack of preparation or a lack of willingness to engage in questions.
Nor should our answers assume people know their bibles – we live in a biblically illiterate age where people have never heard of Moses or Peter and have no concept of sin.
We want people to ask. And we want to give an answer for the hope we have.
#7: Be Alert
At various times Peter tells his readers to be alert and sober minded but in 1 Peter 4:7 he writes: ‘The end of all things is near. Therefore, be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray’
As exiles and priests we should be alert to the reality that the end is near – we live in the end times – and so we need to be alert and of sober mind so we can what? Pray.
Alertness to the future, and a clear head should lead to prayer. If we do anything in our response to this post-Christian world then as priests with access to God we must pray to God! And do it regularly.
#8: Don’t Be Surprised
1 Peter 4:12: ‘Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.’
It is surprising when Christians are surprised when they are mistreated, misrepresented, maligned or persecuted. That’s just the Christian life and there’s enough verses in the NT that should really help us understand reality at the margins and not become entitled to some Christian way of life before Christ returns. At times life will be hard and people will be against you – so don’t be surprised.
#9 Humble Yourselves
1 Peter 5:5-6: ‘All of you, clothe yourselves with humility towards one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.’
In an age where pride is a virtue and worn as a badge of honour, we need to show humility – clothing ourselves with humility – so that we don’t become arrogant or proud, or judgemental. So we don’t disagree with people in a way that is hostile and horrible – instead clothe yourselves with humility.
#10 Stand Firm In The True Grace
Peter gives us his reason for writing his letter at the end, in chapter 5:12: ‘With the help of Silas, whom I regard as a faithful brother, I have written to you briefly, encouraging you and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it.’
Peter has told us about the true grace, about the gospel of God. In our post-Christian times, as exiles and priests ministering at the margins – we need to be unmoved by the winds of false teaching and stand firm in the true grace of God – no matter what we experience – no matter how hard life gets – stand firm in the true grace of God.
[1] Glen Scrivener, The Air We Breathe: How We All Came To Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress and Equality. The argument is that categories precious to our culture like, freedom, equality, justice etc. are all Christian categorises and are influenced by Christianity’s legacy whether people realise it or not.
[2] “Attendance at an Anglican church service at least twice a year was a legal requirement for all people until 1791 and some parishioners endured the minimum church attendance requirement in order to avoid a fine.” Day, Cathy (26 September 2014). Wiltshire Marriage Patterns 1754-1914: Geographical Mobility, Cousin Marriage and Illegitimacy. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 198.
[3] https://faithsurvey.co.uk/uk-christianity.html
[4] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion
[5] See the book Not in Kansas Anymore: Christian Faith in a Post-Modern World edited by Michael Frost, Darrell Jackson and David Starling.
[6] The idea that the Western world is WEIRD has been used as acronym coined by Harvard professor Joseph Henrich – Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. Andrew Wilson in his book Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West, adds to the acronym by calling it WEIRDER – Ex-Christian and Romantic. See an article and video of explaining this here.
[7] Using 1 Peter as our guide to help us today is not uncommon. See for example Elliot Clark’s, Evangelism as Exiles: Life on Mission as Strangers in Our Own Land.
[8] The word foreigner in 1 Peter 1:17 is used one other time in the NT to describe the people of God’s stay in Egypt in Acts 13:17.
