Podcast: Church and Britain’s Changing Culture

In this second episode of the new series of the Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast, hosts Graham Nicholls and Lizzie Harewood sit down with FIEC Director John Stevens about his journey into ministry, his work with the FIEC and the ever-changing relationship between Christianity and British culture.

https://youtu.be/rpXNno3Pm8k

This article is part of the Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast series.

Graham Nicholls (0:16)

Hello, my name is Graham Nicholls.

Lizzie Harewood (0:17)

And I am Lizzie Harewood and this is the Affinity Talks Gospel Podcast and we are joined today by John Stevens who is the National Director for the FIEC, the Federation of Independent Evangelical Churches. Welcome John, great to have you with us.

John Stevens (0:35)

Thank you, thank you Lizzie, Graham, thank you for inviting me, it’s great to be with you.

Lizzie Harewood (0:38)

Tell us a little bit about yourself John.

John Stevens (0:41)

Yeah, well I’ve been National Director of the FIEC for 15 years. Prior to that I was a church pastor and church planter in Birmingham, led a church called City Evangelical Church for 11 years. I’d grown up in Birmingham, it’s my home city. I grew up in a non-Christian family and became a Christian when I was a student at university studying law through the witness of friends in the Christian Union who was there. (1:02) I became a Christian at the beginning of my third year. I felt called into full-time Christian ministry, was in an Anglican church at that stage and then worked for an Anglican church in Oxford for a bit. Very nearly became ordained in the Anglican church but sort of having been accepted for training realised that for a variety of reasons I wasn’t a convictional Anglican so had a career teaching law in universities while also helping to lead and plant independent churches. I’ve been married for 26 years to Ursula and we’ve got four children ranging in age now from 23 down to 18.

Lizzie Harewood (1:40)

What was it that encouraged you, persuaded you to go into Christian ministry? Because you said you, what was the call like if you would call it a call?

John Stevens (1:51)

Well yeah, well when I was at university I could have encountered Christians really from day one and it was a process of getting to know them, see the difference Christ made in their life. I was dragged along to Christian Union events. I think I came to a point in my first year in which I realised that Jesus was calling me to follow him – but it didn’t fit with my life plan. I’d for years wanted to be a barrister. I did very well at university, I came top in my college – so a career was available and that’s what I thought I would do and I kind of, I knew as I was wrestling with whether to follow Christ that it would mean a change of life. And I think in a sense I became a Christian at the beginning of my third year realising, if Jesus is Lord, you have to recognise that and follow him no matter where it takes you. There was then a process of reading the Bible with somebody who was training for ministry, going to a church that encouraged people to go into ministry. I think I felt more and more of a sense that that was the calling of God on my life. So actually in retrospect there was also a danger of transferring the desire to be successful from a life in law to a life in church. And I think it was very easily kind of the case: the message was if you could teach the Bible you could go on and become a kind of a church leader. That was very much the mood of the time. So I think there was to some extent a mix of those motives. There was a real desire to want to serve and live for Jesus but there was also, I think, a more dangerous, having been successful in one field, just to think that that applied over into the kind of Christian life. I think, then, over a period of time I went to a week of experiencing church ministry which helped gave me a bit of a flavour of what that would involve. And I just, I think, I convictionally became more convinced that that’s what I would do. It was very difficult, my parents had invested a lot in my education and success. They were very disappointed that I’d become a Christian – they thought it was a phase I would grow through. When I started talking about Christian ministry they became incredibly angry about what they felt was a waste of life. So whatever my ambitions might have been actually it was quite difficult to take the step to ultimately go into ministry, both with family, I had a potential scholarship to go and train at the bar which I turned down, I turned down two job offers at sort of city firms of solicitors that tried to recruit me, so there was quite a lot of cost involved and I think in retrospect that was really important that it meant that I had had to make decisions to give things up in order to go into ministry. So it was a process of personal conviction, encouragement from outside and having to make some of those difficult choices.

Graham Nicholls (4:29)

So John you now work for the FIEC, can you explain a little bit about your role there?

John Stevens (4:36)

Well the FIEC has been around since 1922 and the vision of the FIEC is really to support and encourage the Ministry of Independent Evangelical Churches. We were founded to overcome the problems of isolation and out of the conviction that we can do more together than we can individually and that the Bible says not only should churches be self-governing but they should be in relationship with each other for the wider cause of the gospel. So we want to see thriving gospel preaching churches in every community and we know we can only do that by working together and supporting one another. So we’re now 662 churches across the UK. Basically my role is I lead a central staff team whose task is to help and serve those churches across a wide variety of different aspects of their ministry. So we probably now have a staff of about 25-26, some working in administration and support, others working directly in ministry, but the key areas in which we would work would be supporting leaders of churches. 

John Stevens (5:36)

We believe that healthy churches require flourishing leaders. There are lots of challenges in church leadership so we want to provide help and support to church leaders, provide them with mentors and models to be able to learn from. Training and raising up the next generation of gospel workers for churches. We had a conference just a couple of weeks ago with 70 people thinking of full-time Christian ministry which was wonderfully encouraging. Wanting to invest in biblical women’s ministry. We’re a complementarian group of churches. We believe that pastors and elders ought to be male but that doesn’t mean that we don’t believe in women’s ministry and so we want to encourage women to be able to use the gifts God has given them in the life of the church. We believe that there’s a place for women teaching other women and developing good skills of biblical interpretation and theology so we want to encourage and promote biblical women’s ministry. We want to provide support and help for smaller churches and revitalizations.

John Stevens (6:31)

We want to encourage church planting. Just this week we had a planters conference which had 60 people who are thinking of planting across the UK so we were really encouraged by that. We also want to provide help in practical aspects of church life. There’s so much regulation that now affects churches as charities so we’ve got a church governance advisor who can help with things like constitutions, charity regulation, health and safety, safeguarding policies, new legislation about the requirement to have sexual harassment policies within churches. So helping to carry some of that practical burden so that churches can get expert advice, can take template policies for use in church life. So it’s all about supporting the churches. Then we have a network of local directors who are basically providing support to churches around the country.

Graham Nicholls (7:30)

So John, it seems like you, I don’t know whether this is a formal thing or an informal thing, but anyone who knows you and anyone who knows you online will know that part of your role, whether informally or formally, has been managing to distil and put into words some of the major cultural shifts, the things that are going on in culture, in society, and providing a kind of an analysis, a critique, perhaps helping some of those people in the networks you’re talking about engage with culture and what’s going on in a post-Christian culture or a re-emerging Christian culture. I don’t know if that’s actually true, but that’s certainly something it seems to be in your kind of skill set. Would you say that’s true?

John Stevens (8:15)

Yeah, I enjoy doing that. I mean, I think one of the privileges of my job is the opportunity to engage with church leaders in a whole variety of different networks, and I think I probably, I enjoy listening to everybody describing what they’re facing and what’s happening and trying to distil from that what are the big messages that are coming from that. I think for lots of individual Christians in churches, they know their immediate context. They maybe see something in the news that influences their perspective, but they have a relatively limited range of connections. They may be listening to some things online that may come from just one perspective, whereas I tend to read across a spectrum of different opinions and views, basically because I want to try to understand what are the big trends that are happening. And in some ways, I guess I’ve been doing that ever since I was a Christian. When I was converted into a Christian Union environment, those were the kinds of questions that were regularly being asked. In the late 1980s, we were dealing with issues like the rise of the New Age movement. Then we were dealing with the rise of postmodernism, then the rise of the environmentalist movement. So over the last 35 years of being a Christian, the context has changed significantly and the issues have changed significantly.

Graham Nicholls (9:28)

Yeah, I was going to say, John, that you were – FIEC, not you personally – were a founding member of BEC, British Evangelical Council, which became Affinity. 1952, the climate was very different to now. And so, yeah, it would be great as you sort of talk about those changes to kind of zero in on what the impact is for, not the impact so much, but the implications for Christians of living in a post-Christian. So we probably haven’t got time to define everything that’s changed, but you may do that along the way. But to kind of focus in on, let’s assume we’re in a post-Christian society. What are the implications for Christians in that, do you think?

John Stevens (10:11)

Well, what do we mean by post-Christian society? That’s quite a complex idea. I mean, at one level, I think it means that Christianity is no longer a dominant philosophical perspective, world view, that most people would look to as shaping what a good life ought to be like. I think even in 1952, even when the majority of Christianity would have been a liberal Christianity rather than an evangelical Christianity, there was still this perception that Christianity underpinned society, its institutions, people’s lives. The majority of people were still baptised in church, married in church, buried in church. Christian teaching would have been central to schools and assemblies. There would have been at least the paying of lip service to Christian values within society as a whole. People would have affirmed the Ten Commandments as being a good framework for life. There was a sense in which society saw itself as distinctively Christian.

John Stevens (11:08)

There were very much smaller other religious minorities in the UK, so a Jewish community, but not a great deal in the way of an Islamic or Hindu community. So empirically, it was a much more homogenous cultural context. And of course, churchgoing was a much greater proportion of the population. And I think much of that has fallen away over the course of the last 80 or 90 years. Certainly, there has been a massive decline in church attendance, which is then also reflected in smaller numbers of people adhering to Christianity in any sense. So in the 2021 census, for the first time, less than 50% of people identified as Christian. That actually hides the fact that real commitment is much, much lower than that. So statistics in 2021 was that church attendance in the UK was only 4.9% of the population. So a very small number of people who are actively involved in church in a meaningful sense. And I think that means to say that Christianity plays much less role in public life. It’s not seen as being an authority in public decision making. We’ve seen that in debates, for example, most recently over assisted dying. Of course, society has radically changed since the sexual revolution of the 1960s. So Christianity is no longer the public ideology that shapes the nation. And Christians, therefore, have been pushed to the margins of society and find themselves in the position of being a small minority, rather than sort of being seen as being the automatic majority culture.

Graham Nicholls (12:56)

So to just play that back to you, what you’re saying is, statistically, numerically, there are less Christians at a very simple level, less people who are born again believers. And then philosophically and culturally, there is much less Christian influence, philosophically, culturally, and state-wise as well. I happened to do an interview this morning to do with another round of saying we shouldn’t have prayers in Parliament, which comes around quite often, actually, it’s a bit of a dull interview to do because it’s always coming up, but it’s another kind of sign. So given that, I don’t know if you want to add to that definition at all, but given that definition, which we have to accept because it’s manifestly true, all those things, what do you think the implications for Christians are? And I suppose connected with that, do you think we grasp them?

John Stevens (13:45)

Well, just to come back on that, I do think if you were listening to Christians in the 1950s, they would have said there are very small numbers of evangelicals. Obviously, the Billy Graham movement, Haringey back in 1954, there were great numbers of people who became Christians, but really, there’d been a decline in evangelicalism and real Christianity from 1858. Actually, a spectacular collapse after the First World War. So I don’t think we should have any illusions that in the 1950s, there was a very significant evangelical population. In fact, evangelicalism was despised, seen as intellectually lacking all credibility. The majority of the churches were either ritualistic or liberal in their theology, but they at least formed part of a wider liberal Christian culture, in which in many ways, what you might call historic Christian ethics were regarded as being good and beneficial, even if there wasn’t that Christian belief in Jesus as the Son of God, the cross, the resurrection. So it was a Christian culture in a folk religion sense, rather than being genuine believers. And in large measure, what has dropped away is that folk belief, folk attachment to Christianity. 

John Stevens (14:59) 

In some ways, there’s a case to be said that evangelicalism is stronger now than it was in the 1950s. So evangelicalism has grown over that period of time. So there are probably more genuine born-again real Christians, as we would understand that, but in an environment in which the cultural framework has totally changed. I think for many Christians, they failed to grasp that. And I think in churches, we failed to grasp that. So we haven’t appreciated why we have so little voice. So I think very often Christians live in their bubble world, and they don’t really realise how much it’s changed outside of that. So in multiple instances, Christians think that they will be able to persuade the rest of society to adopt their moral position and their moral view. And time and time again, they discover that that has not been possible. And I think that’s basically because the wider culture simply doesn’t share their perspectives and their starting point. So for many Christians, the experience has been one of what feel like a sequence of failures. And I think for some Christians, they’ve not understood why that’s happened.

John Stevens (16:08)

 And different generations feel it differently. So the older generation, their experience has been one of consistent loss, the disappearance of a culture that they took for granted. I think my generation and others, well, we were won over by a vision of we can change the nation. And I think for us, we tend to feel a measure of having failed to be able to accomplish that in the way that we hoped. And then I think there’s a younger generation for whom they just take for granted. They’re a small minority in society. They’ve never known anything else. And they more instinctively are able to cope in that world. So your perspective on what’s changed, I think, very much depends on your age and what you were used to. But I think a lot of the church needs to just simply wake up to and recognise the reality of where we are. In a sense, I can –

Lizzie Harewood (16:58)

 Sorry, I just I just want to – it’s not push back. I want to just kind of perhaps add in a slightly different interpretation of where we are. So you were saying that we’ve lost Christianity or sort of cultural Christianity or the kind of 30 years. And obviously, something else has come in to take its place. And perhaps there’s lots of different things that we could argue has taken its place. But I I wonder whether with the likes of people like Tom Holland and Glen Scrivener. Obviously, Glen Scrivener is a Christian and Tom Holland, and even to other to some extent, other people, other sort of cultural commentators like Jordan Peterson. And we’re hearing of a resurgence of discussion about Christianity and in a much more positive way. Tom Holland saying, actually, you know, in some sense, we all inhabit a very Christian worldview in the way that some things are just unspoken, like the way that we care for the vulnerable. Obviously, there are different definitions of what is vulnerable, the way that we kind of look out for the oppressed, the way that we have, you know, schooling and NHS for all. And there’s a lot of Christianity that has embedded into our culture. And then a lot of these commentators are now kind of saying, hold on, this resonates with a good design for life, whether they actually get to grips with the the gospel, and understand that you can’t have the fruit without the root. I don’t know. But would you not say that there is something – there’s a zeitgeist, there’s something in this moment, that could be sort of monopolised on?

John Stevens (18:55)

I completely agree with that. And I think that changes are all relatively recent. And I think we do need to recognise that at the moment, it’s relatively small. But yes, there is a sense in which actually, as society in a sense abandoned Christianity, and it adopted a liberal progressive ideology in its place. One of the things that’s happened is that that liberal ideology has not delivered what people wanted and hoped for. And inevitably, people then begin to scrutinise it, it becomes the establishment, which is then interrogated. There’s a lot of dissatisfaction in society with the inability to have delivered people’s aspirations. And at multiple levels, people are asking what has gone wrong, and they’re reconsidering what went before. So I think you’re right, and it’s operating at a number of levels. So at an intellectual level, there are a numbers of people amongst the intellectual elite who are essentially asking the question, why do we hold to the values that we hold to? 

John Stevens (19:55) 

And I think there’s a recognition that many of the things in society that liberals regard as being absolutely true, are rooted ultimately in Christianity. And if you take away the Christian foundations, there is no rational reason for holding those positions. I mean, in the end, Nietzsche is basically right in the absence of revelation and a God to underwrite morality, you basically end up with a nihilism and simply the use of pure power. And you can begin to see that developing. Actually, some of the moves towards populism, towards autocratic leaders, are people basically seeking simply to assert power without a morality. And people like Tom Holland are rightly asking the question, what is the foundation for the things that even our liberal society thinks are kind of crucial and good? And I think they’re highlighting that they’re rooted in Christianity. 

John Stevens (20:48) 

Having said that, for some of those people, they want those liberal outcomes, but they don’t have the personal faith that would underwrite them. It’s an irony hearing people saying, this is dependent on Christianity, but they’re not being Christian believers themselves, which I think is a very unstable position. I think something like Douglas Murray, who is a cultural commentator who recognises all of the weaknesses of liberal progressivism, looks back to the past, but he himself is from the gay community. And again, there’s that challenge of you don’t want real believing Christianity, but you do want some of the things that flow from it in society.

John Stevens (21:31)

Now, there are also amongst the intellectuals, some who are coming to genuine faith. So amongst some of that intellectual group, there are people who have said that they have come to faith in Christ, so gone that step further. Now, whether any of those turn out to be the C.S. Lewis of this generation, I think remains to be seen. But there is something going on at an intellectual level. Actually, that’s part of something that’s been happening for some decades, which is within academic philosophy. The majority, some of the leading academic philosophers are actually from a Christian background, because in a sense, academic philosophy is run into a dead end when you abandon faith and you just conclude that nothing can be trusted and nothing can be known. So some of those tectonic plates have been shifting for quite a period of time. So that there is something happening at an intellectual level amongst a group of people who are thinking quite deeply about society and how it should be ordered and structured. 

John Stevens (22:34) 

There’s also something going on at a popular level, which is more bound up with Jordan Peterson tapping into particularly younger generations, younger men, their sense of dispossession within society. Interestingly, The Times has done a big survey recently of Gen Z and have discovered Gen Z is far more religious, far more open to faith than older generations. So there seems to be something going on there in terms of people reconnecting with finding out about Christianity, because I think that they are aware that contemporary ideologies are not delivering for them and they want something better than that.

Lizzie Harewood (23:18) 

Do you think, sorry, Graham, I’m just going to butt in very quickly. I’m just wondering if on that kind of more popular level, there’s something that perhaps transcends the trends that we’ve had in the evangelical world. So I would say that, you know, the majority of evangelical churches in the UK have been made up of pretty well-educated middle class folks, you know, gone to university, perhaps not brought up in a Christian home, but perhaps not, but, you know, really engage intellectually. And what I’m seeing now, so I live in a city or town, sorry, city in South Yorkshire, Doncaster, and I think we’re seeing more of that kind of grassroots interest, perhaps because there’s a bit of cultural fatigue, perhaps because some of the folks around us are seeing the shortcomings of this kind of, you know, progressive liberalism, and actually they’re tapping into the heritage that they want to almost reclaim. And I’m not necessarily saying there’s always, you know, that kind of positive kind of motivation there, but how can the church engage with those kind of seekers? I just think this is a great opportunity.

John Stevens (24:35)

I think you’re absolutely right. I think this is a moment of opportunity. Across FIEC churches, we are hearing from church after church more church growth than has been seen in the last couple of decades in terms of people coming into church, people turning up at church, even if they haven’t been sought out by the church. I think there is an issue in society that people lack hope. Mental health issues are massive. The burden of having to create your own identity is very heavy on people. So people are looking for meaning and for hope, particularly in that younger generation, in a way that I think is different. And it does provide an opportunity for us to connect with people and share the good news of the gospel with them. 

John Stevens (25:22) 

I think churches in the past, we’ve tended to be apologetic about what we believe. We’ve maybe tended to think we have to change what we believe to fit with the culture, rather than realising that it is a counter-cultural message that is exactly what people need to be hearing. So I think confidence in the gospel and actually confidence in the power of the church community, I think it is something about the community life of the church that is really attractive. That what ultimately draws people in to know Jesus is they come into the community of the church and they find people who are clear in understanding who they are and what they believe. But they also see loving relationships within that community that are basically unlike what they have experienced in the wider world. They see functioning marriages, functioning families. They see multi-generational friendships and relationships. They see the crossing of ethnic divides within the life of the church. And that is really compelling to people. So it’s both the gospel message, but it’s the compelling nature of the church community that is drawing people in. And I think we do need to maximise the opportunity that’s available to us. 

John Stevens (26:36) 

I think it’s worth recognising it is very complex because different communities and different groups are in different places. So what is taken to reach boomers is very different from what’s taken to reach Gen Z. All the statistics are that women generally are in a different place to the position that men are in. So there isn’t a kind of a universal way of approaching people. I think we’ve got to be bringing the gospel to bear at all of those different sub-communities in the way that both connects with them and particularly challenges them. So I don’t think it’s simplistic at all. We’re dealing with a sort of a multi-culture of people at quite different places. And it’s going to require considerable skill to bring the gospel effectively to all of those different sub-cultures. Or what will happen is you’ll have churches that are reaching one sub-culture, but not another. But it’s not the case that everybody is thinking in the same way at the same time.

Graham Nicholls (27:39)

Yeah, I mean, it probably never was, but I think that is particularly so. I have a colleague who you know, who works in Passion for Life. And he’s not saying this is the absolute answer, but he has observed more people coming into church meetings and then going on to evangelistic courses rather than the other way around, going to evangelistic courses and then coming to church meetings and becoming Christians that way. But which I think is true. But then if you say, well, that’s the answer for everybody. We just need to get them into church gatherings. Then you probably do miss out a whole demographic. But trying to generalise and accepting generalising isn’t helpful. Just it would be helpful to maybe speak into the, my general observation is the traditional apologetics about creation and sort of philosophical reasons for God are less of interest and more of the practical relational ones seem to work better.(28:36) I’m not saying that’s necessarily a good thing because we do need to talk about objective truth, but that’s just my observation. And it may be an age thing, but is that true in general, but not in every case?

John Stevens (28:47) 

I think that would be my view. I think an awful lot of apologetics in the end is of most benefit to Christians and giving them reassurance in their faith against the intellectual challenges that they face from wider society. So I think apologetics is a hugely important area. But I think historically it was much more about defending the faith against its attackers. And actually, there’s a strange phenomenon that people who’ve been Christian for a time, actually, they get assaulted by all of these different ideas and perspectives. And actually, they need to have constant reassurance that the gospel is trustworthy and that they can believe. So I think there’s that vital purpose. 

John Stevens (29:26)

Again, one of the privileges of my job is to talk to lots of people in church. And I love asking people when they’re in church and we’re chatting over coffee or afterwards, how did you become a Christian? What brought you in? How did you come into church? I would say in almost 95% of cases, the answer is almost the same. It’s I knew a person who was a Christian. They shared something of their life with me. I saw something about them that was different. They spoke about Jesus to me. I found that compelling. They invited me along to church. I went. I discovered church wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I’d never seen anything like it. It was totally different. And I found myself going back. And then over a period of time, I heard this message. And I ultimately came to realise that I believed it. And I think that encounter with real Christians, seeing the difference in their life, the example of their life, plus their words, plus the community is in the end what compels people. I haven’t really ever met anybody who has said I was intellectually convinced to become a Christian. But there was there was a load of rational arguments that just cleared my doubts away. And I made an intellectual decision to believe it’s much more encountering people in the community. I’m through that coming to know Christ. And often people become Christians, despite a whole load of doubts that they then sort out afterwards.

Lizzie Harewood (30:55) 

Yeah. And I think that just shows, doesn’t it, that God is primarily relational. You know, he doesn’t seek us to refine our kind of our academic understanding of issues before he has a relationship with us. And yeah, that’s been the experience at our church, I’d say, you know, we’ve although we have had a lot of those cold contacts. I don’t know if it’s the same for you, Graham, but we’ve had a lot of cold contacts, particularly during and after Covid. We had a lot of people. But as you say, it’s then kind of getting embedded in the church family and, you know, kind of adopting them into our small groups and building those relationships that I think has then paved the way to true relationship with Jesus.

Graham Nicholls (31:39)

Yeah, this is probably why I say we have a bit of everything in that we’ve got quite a few from other nations who’ve come to our church who are not always sorted out Christians in quite the same way that we might think they should be. So there is a bit of re-churching that’s happening with them. Quite a lot of young people in our church being converted, but we have had walk-ins as well. There’s a young man recently and his relief was that we had a biblical sexual ethic. And this is an 18-year-old young man who doesn’t have any university education because of his age, but also he’s not particularly academic, but had almost become a Christian by watching some Presbyterian stuff from the States online. So it had sort of spiritual interest, watched some stuff online and then sort of turned up to us. And that’s not unusual over the years, getting some walk-ins, not hundreds, but some. So there was no relationship, zero relationship. He just walked in and said, I want a church that teaches the Bible. And he’s going to be baptised actually in a few weeks, which is great. 

Graham Nicholls (32:41) 

So I suppose a bit of everything, a bit like John said really, it depends on the age. There was an older lady who, very, very difficult background. We’ve got a lot of people with troubled backgrounds. I think this is not unusual because the whole fallout of the family breakdown means there’s lots of people who’ve got lots of troubled backgrounds. And so there’s a couple of those, but one in particular who met another lady at a coffee shop who happened to be a Christian in our church and who invited her along. But there was no real relationship. There was just an invitation to a Christmas service. And it’s probably one of the very few that came to Christmas service and then got converted because normally Christmas services are a bit disappointing, aren’t they? You get another hundred people turn up, but then none of them turn up the following week. So I suppose a bit of everything. 

Graham Nicholls (33:26)

John, are there any sort of big headline lessons where you think churches, particularly in our kind of constituency, are not quite getting it? You know, you’ve said lots of encouraging things about people becoming Christians and relationships and so on. Is there areas where we’re not quite getting it and perhaps could reflect a bit further?

John Stevens (33:45) 

Yeah, I mean, I think how do we relate to society more widely is a big challenge. So I think just recognising the reality of where we are, I think there’s a danger of becoming overly political in terms of seeking to fight and win a culture war and seeing that as the essence of Christianity. That will attract some people. It will kind of cause other people to be turned away. So I think there is a danger that we can lose sight of that great task of seeking to bring people to come to Jesus as the heart of what the church is about. And we might rightly be concerned about all sorts of things in society that we think are damaging to people that are sort of failing to reflect God’s character and his moral law. But at one level, I think our primary task remains, how do we win people who are sinners to salvation in the Lord Jesus? 

John Stevens (34:38)

And I think sometimes as churches we can get onto a whole load of hobby horses that we think are important and lose sight of the really big thing that we are meant to be uniquely doing. I think becoming culturally sensitive to different groups is really important. I think that we can so easily think that our culture and our way of doing things is the one biblical way that things should be done. We don’t realise how alienating and limiting that is to others coming from other cultures. And we are, as I said, I think much more multicultural in terms of ethnicity, in background, but also these kind of different generational and class differences within the UK. I think if we’re not appreciating that and we’re not structuring the way that we do church to take account of that, then we will inevitably become limiting. So in some ways that is simply Paul saying you’ve got to become all things to all men in order to win some. And I think for some of us, we find it easier to do that than others. For some of us, we think that is compromise. For others, that involves too much cost of giving up things the way that we want them to be. But if we want to really re-evangelise the nation and reach people, we’ve got to be willing to make those kinds of changes.

Lizzie Harewood (35:56)

Can I just ask a question on that? So I think what my, so in theory, I think that’s a great idea. And the mandate, obviously, the biblical mandate to be all things to all people is obviously legitimate. How do you try to absorb the myriad of different cultural kind of manifestations so that you can win, you know, some? Because I just think of, you know, the different cultures we have in our church and in the community surrounding us. In order to make some feel comfortable, we have to make others feel very uncomfortable. So therefore, we try to take a pretty, probably a pretty kind of, you know, staid kind of middle route that is fairly formulaic and fairly kind of traditional, but not traditional in the kind of, you know, in the sort of Anglican sense of tradition. I mean, just a very kind of basic kind of format, formulaic, etc. So what do you mean? Because I’m just really interested. We are such a multicultural society, a multi-ethnic society. I don’t know if we would know how to adapt. And I suppose, how would we set a church culture that is appropriate for all of those different individuals and groups?

John Stevens (37:24)

I don’t fully know the answer to that. We’ve set up an intercultural team within FIEC to help our churches think that through, because more and more churches are facing that challenge. Even churches in what are predominantly white communities are suddenly seeing people coming in from all around the world, Hong Kong, Chinese, Nigerian, West African. It’s very much on the agenda. How do you create a church in which everybody can feel welcomed and participate? And I don’t think it’s a short-term thing. And actually, the New Testament would tell us that is the issue the church is constantly wrestling with. It’s not something that’s done and accomplished. So if the New Testament covers a period of about 40 years in the New Testament letters, the issue of how to integrate Jews, Gentiles, Greeks, Romans and others was obviously a massive issue that was being attended to all the time. So I don’t think there’s an easy answer to it. But it starts by recognising that the gospel does speak to all people and it does dethrone our own culture. And it creates a new culture, I think.

John Stevens (38:29) 

So it seems to me Paul in Philippians talks about how he counts as rubbish his former identity in Judaism, advancing in Judaism, his culture, his nationality. And he finds a new identity in Christ, which transcends that. And I think we need to allow the gospel to dethrone our sense of our own culture and create a new culture in Christ, which is capable of embracing a wider diversity of people. And in some sense church should make all of us uncomfortable. So you talk about making people uncomfortable. Church will only be reaching all different groups of people if every group is made culturally uncomfortable by church. And I think sometimes churches think the majority culture has a right to remain comfortable and everybody else has got to fit in with that. And instead what we need to do is take the gospel and apply it even to the majority culture. There will be aspects of every culture that reflect something of the gospel and that challenge aspects of the gospel. And I think that is a constant work in progress. 

John Stevens (39:36) 

It means we’ve got to listen to the voices of others that enable us to see ourselves. We don’t see clearly because we’re so in our cultural bubble. But we need to listen to those coming from other backgrounds, their experiences, what they say. And leaders need to do that particularly. And then it needs to flow into their preaching, their teaching, the way that they illustrate, the way they structure church life. So just very simple things, things I’ve come across, timing in church is a key issue. So some communities want to start bang on time. For others it’s a movable feast and people kind of come sort of over a period of time. Those that are very punctual can be quite judgemental of others. But very often those people who are very punctual are the ones who want to get out of the building as soon as the church is finished and they don’t engage with other people. And others who’ve got a more community model are basically saying, well, why are you not sticking around, chatting, talking, sharing your lives? Those are the things I think we need to be just very aware of in church. 

John Stevens (40:44)

That’s just one example of an area in which we have to think carefully about why do we do what we do and how is it perceived by different groups of people. And it’s just going to require massive amounts of give, massive amounts of love, massive amounts of self-sacrifice to be able to build those communities that draw people from a variety of different backgrounds. And I think we, I mean, some of this is the debate about multiculturalism. In the gospel, we are not about making everybody like me. It’s not about creating a new homogenous culture. It’s about finding a way that within the gospel, the multiplicities of our cultures can be expressed and honoured in a way that keeps the body united, but also reflects its continuing difference.

Graham Nicholls (41:34)

Yeah, I mean, yeah, it’s a helpful illustration about timing. I mean, it’s a complex one as well because of people’s, I suppose, perception that it’s quite selfish of those who are late and so on. So I think it’s a thing to talk about, not a thing to simply say, well, one group is right and one group is wrong. You know, to say the late ones are wrong or the ones judging the late ones are wrong. I mean, they’re wrong to judge, but maybe not wrong to think in particular. And that is, in a way, that’s one of the simplest examples. It gets more complex with others. And when you live in this particular country, how much you would accommodate. 

Graham Nicholls (42:12) 

We have a number of Indian families in our church, for example. I’ve spoken to them about, do they want some Indian hymns sung from time to time? And they’re saying, why would we want to do that when we’re not living in India? But it’s more that you’re having the conversation, I think, rather than saying, OK, I’ve got to do this sort of thing. I’ve got to include everybody in every meeting in this way. So not being formulaic, but being relational and discussional. I think it’s really helpful, by the way, that you mentioned about class and age, cultural overlap as well or lack of overlap, because that’s probably as significant as the as the international one, national one.

Graham Nicholls (42:53) 

I just want to not even push back, but just, I suppose, talk a little bit about cultural warriors. I think it’s a hard thing to find a balance between trying to be an influence for good and standing up for free speech, which Christians will benefit from and the gospel will benefit from. I mean, Lizzie was involved in a case this week about a teacher who thankfully was unfairly dismissed. I think that was a good thing. Affinity don’t campaign, generally speaking, but we’ve been a little bit more involved with the conversion therapy and with assisted dying more than with anything else ever, because I think they’re fundamental issues, which are not just, well, we’d like society to be like this, but actually we think this will be terrible for the rest of society. But I think it’s a matter of priority, I think, rather than saying we should or we shouldn’t be involved. I think our priority is making disciples and teaching them how to follow Christ. That will have a cash out sometimes into trying to be good in society. But that shouldn’t be our top priority. Yeah, go on, Lizzie.

Lizzie Harewood (44:04) 

My take on it, Graham, is that in the whole kind of, I hate this phrase, but in the whole ecosystem, you need those people who are going to be passionate about particular subjects that have a gospel mandate, for example, abortion or free speech. And I’m not particularly a campaigner, but I felt that this was something that in my role with the Association of Christian Teachers, I just felt that it was the right thing to do to support Christy in that particular case. I think that, you know, when we talk about the church, I think we need to be careful by what we mean, because there will be people who perhaps have a calling to do much more advocacy, because God says in his word that it’s wrong to take life or that, you know, you should be defending the vulnerable and that, you know, we see the vulnerable as the unborn or the elderly or the unwell or whoever it may be. And I think that is right. 

Lizzie Harewood (45:08) 

And I think sometimes those people should be, you know, I wouldn’t say blunt, but they should be courageous and they should have, you know, they should have the support of the church. But I think when that becomes divisive and when that when the vitriol is transmitted through words that can so easily be written on a computer screen, that’s when I think sometimes Christians let themselves down. I don’t think that doesn’t mean that we can’t have some debate and robust discussion. I think that’s a good thing to do and to show the world that we can have that discussion and yet remain, you know, brothers and sisters and remain loving one another. That’s my take on it. I don’t know what you think, John.

John Stevens (45:53) 

Yeah, I mean, I think Christians engage in a multifaceted way in the world in which Christ has put us. And I think you do see that in the New Testament, there is the place for Paul defending civic rights. So I’m completely for defending freedom of speech, for freedom of religion. Those are things that need to be fought for and defended. Paul wanted to defend the right for the church within the Roman Empire to enjoy protection. He asserted his rights as a citizen. He argued against injustices and misuses of the legal system. So that was clearly part of what he did to enable the gospel to flourish and to enable the gospel to grow. 

John Stevens (46:27) 

The church is called to be a prophetic voice. You can’t read the prophets of the Old Testament without hearing how the church declares to the world and to the authorities God’s demand and what God sort of asks of people. I think that that is an inevitable part that the New Testament stresses that Christians are to do good in society. You know, 1 Peter is filled with do good in a pagan society. And that is both a witness, a commendation of the gospel and a good thing in and of itself. And again, we were talking about some of those intellectuals recovering a Christian perspective. Well, as they’ve looked back to the Roman Empire, what they’ve seen is the tremendous impact that Christians had by doing good in the church. And that had a big impact on society around them. So I think that is all part and parcel of what the church can engage in doing. 

John Stevens (47:16) 

I think my caveat is to want to say that needs to be in the context of the bigger mission of the church, which is to make disciples and bring people to know sort of Jesus. It is not the mission in itself. And I think we mustn’t fall into thinking that bringing about some kind of moral reformation to some degree within society is itself the achievement of Christian mission. It’s part of what we do because we are Christians. But it’s not in itself actually the mission that Christ has primarily given us. And I think the danger is not to lose perspective on what is the unique thing that the church ought to be doing as we call people to salvation and as we build a community which is anticipating the new creation to come. So it’s both and, but in a right priority, it would seem to me. And you’re right, different people will have different hearts for different things. The job of church leaders is to try to hold all of that together with right priorities and perspectives. And I think that is a massive challenge when you increasingly have people who always want you to support their thing as the most important thing. And you might think it’s important, but it’s part of a bigger picture that you’re trying to hold together.

Graham Nicholls (48:34) 

Yeah. And I think definitely in all of this, there’s a challenge in respecting people may take a different view than me on quite what their priority is in a given week. And as well as not wanting people to be intemperate in their language, I need to not be intemperate in my language about their language.And so I think there’s discipline for us all. We have run out of time. It’s one of those things that you could pull on any of those threads for quite a long time, but it’s been really helpful, John, talking to you. We really appreciate your time.

John Stevens (49:06) 

Thank you, Graham.

Graham Nicholls (49:07) 

And thank you very much. 

John Stevens (49:08)

Thanks, Lizzie. 

Graham Nicholls (49:09) 

Yeah. Thank you very much, all of you. 

Lizzie Harewood (49:11)

Great to have you.