By: Stephen McAlpine
The Ducks Have All Lined Up
All of the conservative ducks have lined up in a row. Did you notice? The cultural and political vibe has shifted? Have you felt it?
The vibe has turned against the progressive framework that sought to shut down voices it did not like, including orthodox Christian voices who wanted to speak about ethics. Yes the ducks have lined up, the vibe has shifted and we’re not gonna take it, we’re not gonna take it, we’re not gonna take it anymoooore!
Heady days for many people. It seems we are in for a long period of relative sanity in some areas of life that were previously either insane or being run by those who were. Or we are in for Armageddon, who can tell?
But let’s be positive. Clearly, as many a commentator has pointed out, the vibe has indeed shifted, and with strokes of the pen left, right and centre, the US President is not only changing the vibe in the USA, but across the Western world. Craven tech bros journey up to the new Jerusalem to pay homage.
What was once orthodox, or at least was declared to be orthodox to all and sundry, yet believed by far less than all and sundry, is being banished to the side-lines.
Praise God For Those Ducks
And many Christians are breathing a sigh of relief. if the vibe has shifted politically and culturally, it seems that the vibe has shifted for Christianity too.
We’re being assured that the tide of faith is coming back onto our shores. Heady times! People are less hostile to Christianity once more. Curious young folk are turning up at Christian events. Liturgy is back. Flags and familiar chorus with crowbarred lyrics about Pride Week are out.
The Christian vibe is back. The Christian ducks are lining up. At least that is what many of the podcasters are saying. And even though we don’t need to say it again, we will: Wes Huff and Joe Rogan everybody! I loved that episode.
There is certainly a case to be made for the vibe shifting for Christianity in the West under the air cover being provided by politics and culture. Perhaps this is time to make hay while the sun shines?
But the questions of course are, What hay? and What sun? Because that’s not really a metaphor that the Bible would use to describe how things actually would shift in a gospel direction.
After all, as I said in a previous blog post, we might end up with Christendom without Christ. And that would be a disaster. In fact we could end up with worse, as this chilling article by Jonathan Cioran, Gay Space Fascism, pointed out just the other day on Mere Orthodoxy. Great title, even better opinion piece.
Because here’s the rub: There are a whole load of vibe-shifters and conservatives who really have no interest in the gospel. If Christians help them meet their own agendas for power, as opposed to the agendas of the for-now defunct progressives, then they will use them.
Ducks Won’t Save You (Nor Will Vibes)
Let’s be clear: The vibe will not save anyone. All the ducks can line up in a row and hearts will stay hard to the gospel. The vibe shift will not make anyone Christian. It will not keep them from hell. If the vibe could do any of those things, then the vibe of a Christian household that does Bible and prayer every night, and seeks to honour God in finances, sex, worship, work and generosity would ensure that every child in those households stays faithful to God.
But they don’t. Not that the conditions don’t help. We will certainly have more air cover to proclaim the gospel. But air cover alone is not enough.
I have lost count of the friends who ache for their children. For their one, two, three, four children who grew up with a great vibe, but who do not love Jesus. Or the family where some do and some don’t and who knows why?!
What did St Paul say to Timothy about the vibe?
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season… (2 Tim 4:1-2)
The vibe, the season, they are interchangeable terms. Whenever the vibe is out, when the ducks are out of kilter, the primary problem with humans is never that they are too progressive. Or that they hold too tightly to radical gender theory, and distorted visions of human flourishing. The problem is that they are spiritually dead, and only the gospel can save them.
And when the vibe is in, and all the ducks are lining up in a row, the solution for humans is not to be more conservative or to be aligned fully with a natural law understanding of what a human body is; the solution is to be born again.
Hell will be populated by conservatives and progressives, each gnashing their teeth at God for his refusal to align with their vibe.
No amount of “wowing” at Wes Huff will save Joe Rogan. He has to repent and believe the gospel. It would be terrible if what we experienced in the era before the negative world kicked in, were to repeat itself.
Say what you like about how hard and bracing it is to be an orthodox Christian in the 2020s, but in the 1980s the problem was not hostile interest, it was sheer disinterest.
And this is not to put a dampener on things. I like it that ideas and practices that were hostile to the human body, that called good evil and evil good, that shut down debate about the lives of children, is itself being put under the spotlight. And we should make the most of that vibe, of those ducks lining up.
Christendom Without Christ
But that’s not the same as the new breed loving God and his vision for human flourishing. Not at all. As Jonathan Cioran says in his article about such types:
Firstly, there seems to be a general consensus regarding sexuality, which expresses itself in a general opposition to both woke liberal shibboleths as well as traditional Christian ones. Though all these figures would likely agree on the social utility of religion and its sexual teaching for controlling the worst instincts of the masses, they all oppose any attempt to impose such morality on the creative and vibrant elite strata.
It reminds me of the warning from Ross Douthat at The New York Times, who cautioned that if we don’t like the New Religious Right, then wait until we see the New Non-Religious Right. That’s the Christendom without Christ thing I was talking about. If we head in that direction it will be brutal in another way altogether.
What does St Paul go on to say to Timothy?
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry.
Imagine the vibe of having St Paul as your travelling evangelist/bishop, and Timothy his protégé as your pastor. Talk about ducks lining up! But no! St Paul sees the problem all too clearly.
Vibes come, vibes go, but human sinfulness remains stubbornly the same. Our duty in this vibe shift will be to present the gospel in as compelling, and counter cultural ways, as we did when we were proclaiming it pre-vibe shift.
Why? Because there are plenty of conservative myths to wander off towards (Gay Space Fascism anyone?). The task of the gospel worker – indeed of the church – is to assess the season, the ducks, the vibes, and get on with proclaiming the gospel, whatever the passions of the day are.
Article supplied with thanks to Stephen McAlpine
About the Author: Stephen has been reading, writing and reflecting ever since he can remember. He is the lead pastor of Providence Church Midland, and in his writing dabbles in a number of fields, notably theology and culture. Stephen and his family live in Perth’s eastern suburbs, where his wife Jill runs a clinical psychology practice.
Feature image: Photo by Andrea Cipriani on Unsplash