they can tak' our media but they'll never tak' our freeeedooooom!

There's a growing theme among Australian Christians, that our society is 'being taken from us'.

It manifests in the increasing attitudes of "well, you can't say anything godly at all anymore without someone coming in to cancel you". It manifests in the persisting belief that "Australia is a Christian nation (or at least a nation founded on Christian values) and we should keep it that way." It manifests in the insistence that "well, we've seen how feminism and wokeness and the modern sexuality has destroyed our society, so why don't we take it back to the old (Christian) ways?"

There's a desire for a simplistic narrative - a 'back to the basics' attitude. These are mostly voiced by older people, white guys, and people who haven't studied history, or use the term 'woke' as a pejorative.

There's also an exaggeration happening around Christian thought. Christians are increasingly using dramatic language to describe the response to the mores and morality expressions of our faith. It's also interesting that the Christians using dramatic language are frequently more invested in the morality expressions of our faith that are contradictory to those of the world - setting up worldly perspectives as an antagonist, rather than coming alongside them as a friend.

Possibly ironically, Sam Chan's Evangelism in a Modern World addresses the matter of coming alongside worldly perspectives as a friend to the person - not necessarily agreeing, but pushing our friends to think further and deeper about what they really believe.

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Listening to Majority 54 Podcast the other week - the episode release on the 21st April entitled Political Therapy with a conversation with an author, Monica Guzman whose book I Never Thought Of It That Way. The conversation was around a willingness to listen and understand where people are coming from. Ravi was talking about his older brother and how his older brother seems to have no interest in anything Ravi is doing or Ravi's thoughts on anything, and that he feels that sting quite keenly. Then, recently, he learned that his older brother feels like he already knows everything he needs to about his brother because their mom boasts about Ravi and what he's doing all the time.

One of the points that Monica made was that conservatives feel hemmed in by the media, there's nowhere that promotes a 'Christian perspective' anymore and that gets them on the back foot. They have no interest in the specific stories of individuals - liberals, progressives, non-Christians - because they already feel like they know it all and so they don't need to be told.

From a liberal vs conservative POV, without any faith in the mix, I can see that conservatives would be angry and defensive and just prefer to lump all liberals and progressives in together without seeing them individually: and yes, understanding where the specific person you love is coming from is one thing, thinking you understand where "liberals and progressives" are coming from is entirely another.

From a Christian perspective, though, I feel like Christians should be better listeners; better at tailoring our message and our interactions with the specific individual that we're trying to reach. Not just issuing a "TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN" notice.

I feel like this is what Sam Chan is getting at regarding how to evangelise, although the cynic in me would have called it "How to Evangelise When You Already Think You Know Everything You Need To Know". Hm. I wonder if I could write a book about that...