heaven and hell and all that's in-between

The Sydney Evangelical church appears to be doubling down on the 'turn or burn' style of evangelism. It's not that it isn't a truth that we are called to the kingdom, but I feel like the risk of approaching it as such is alienating in a way that too many Sydney Evangelicals don't quite get, as alien as they are to modern culture and modern mindsets.

To the SydEvang, it's all about "they want to live a sinful lifestyle" and "they're rejecting God's plan for them".

In one of my political groups today, there was a discussion about how young people seem to have no idea about how the political system worked, and that the Governor General Sam Mosteyn wanted kids to learn about civics again. Someone mentioned the failing faith in institutions that our country and other western democracies are experiencing, and I noted in that discussion that it doesn't really matter how much you teach people about civics, if they feel that civic institutions are not benefiting them.

Like, sure, if you have a solid income, or good savings, or generous and willing parents with property, then sure the civic institutions may - on balance - benefit you. But if you're up-and-coming, or struggling to find work, or have accessibility issues, then the political institutions of our country have cut and trimmed and snipped and shaved and belittled and demeaned the people who rely on any kind of civic services - or even just the people who weren't born under a fortunate star.

Why bother engaging with a government who only seems to be working for people who aren't you? If the system appears rigged, the options are to rip the whole thing down, or to opt out, not to play a game where it's obvious you will never win.

I feel like this is also a problem with 'the church' broadly speaking.

Because so far as the average Australian is concerned, 'the church' doesn't care about them. 'The church' advocates for no electoral responsibility. It does not say that Centrelink is insufficient to live on. It does not note that then NDIS is designed to be bureaucratic so that it shoves people off. To the average Australian, 'the church' doesn't give a shit about you if you're gay or poor, if you can't put money in the plate, if you don't already act like a Christian. 'The church' as a body is a useless bit of happy clappy that doesn't improve the collective life of our society in any way.

Every Christian reading this will promptly protest that this is a vile slander, and the church runs charities (they don't, the charities are organisations outside of 'the church'), that it contributes to community life (it might, but it's unlikely to be doing so in any way that meaningfully impacts the community), that Christians do good works in the community...

Ah, and here we come to the crux.

"Christians" do good works in the community, but it is rarely with the full weight of a church behind it.

Christmas carols, yes. Perhaps an Easter service?

When was the last time 'the church' encouraged a protest...oh, the NSW bill about abortion services being available to more women across NSW? Apparently the only thing worth 'the church' getting behind. Somewhat like the donation that the Anglican diocese made to the 'No to Marriage Equality' campaign?

If the church is only self-interested - and yes, anti-abortion and no-marriage-equality are seen as 'self-interested' by outsiders - then how is it different to any other secular or other-religion community out there? If we are only advocating for the (largely theoretical) issues of the church, then what value does 'the church' have to outsiders? And these days, everyone is an outsider to the church, except for the small numbers of people who are regulars within it.

When was the last time 'the church' encouraged a protest about something that was 'moral' biblically, but 'controversial' within the Sky-After-Dark, anti-woke, largely capitalistically-minded congregation? eg. immigrants, poor people, disability, political integrity? (yes, political integrity is controversial within churches where the underlying belief is that "if you are a Christian, you will vote [x]" even if such sentiments are never explicitly voiced)

Biblically moral but congregationally controversial? Oh, that's a "conscience matter". But somehow the question of early abortion (before reasonable viability) or late-term abortion (for life-threatening medical reasons) is not a conscience matter? I have known families who made the choice to keep the child until it died of natural causes, and of families who had to make the choice to terminate the pregnancy early in the hope that a later pregnancy might be viable as the first was not. But everywhere along the timeline of pregnancy, there are Christians who have made choices - good ones, bad ones, morally approvable ones, and morally unconscionable ones. Were they good choices? Maybe not. But nowhere else do we so ferociously refuse to allow people to make bad choices, even when there are lives at stake.

IDK. I think we're stuck in a 19th Century methodology of preaching the gospel, with no idea of how to break out of it. And no, making it only 'the social gospel' isn't the way, but there's got to be a midway point between "you should be afraid of hell" and "it's all about being nice".

thoughts about somebody that I (used to) know

That moment of realisation when you understand that people who are nice to you at church or in Christian contexts actually dislike you.

Oh, they're nice because it's socially required of them, but they have zero interest in pursuing the relationship.

They might not kick you out into the darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth, but they'd be just as happy if you vanished and never darkened their doorway again.

love through relationships

I spent Saturday night in the midst of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, at a church that opened its gates and doors to the people going along, providing refreshments and space, in the name of Jesus and for the love of Him.

I was so glad to be out there as part of the body of Christ, offering assistance and space. And yeah, there were conversations had about faith and belief, but mostly just smiles and inquiries, offers of water, chai, pancakes, and sausage sangers.

There are people who will disdain this as "affirmation" and others who will sneer that it's "propaganda".

Is it affirmation to succour the humanity - hunger, thirst, exhaustion, sensory overload - of those we disagree with?

Is it propaganda to put our best foot forward when we have the resources and desire to?

I've wanted conservative churches in Sydney to put their actions where their teachings are for a while, particularly in a space that challenges us more than it comforts us. Not typical "evangelism" stuff but hospitality and kindness, "living lives of such generosity and love that even the pagans will see you are different and rejoice" as Paul once said.

I don't want the word of God to be used as a bludgeon. I want it to be living water, satisfying a thirst most people don't even realise they have. But you can't force it down their throats and expect them to be grateful. That's not how this works.

"How do you show Christian love if you aren't also judging them according to God's standards?"

It's a question that most Christians wrestle with in one form or another. Most of the people in my circles tend to fall on the side of "if you do anything with them without emphasising their sinfulness and their need for God, then you are failing them and failing God, and failing your Christian calling". In the extreme version, it means you don't have gay friends or trans friends. You don't eat with sinners. You don't break bread with the fallen and not-getting-up.

I mean, it's okay if they're socially "civilised": you know, they would fit into the church so long as they never opened their mouth or had to make a statement of faith.

On Saturday night at the 'open grounds' in the midst of the Mardi Gras, a young earnest Evangelical said she didn't want to ask people how they were enjoying the night because if they said 'yes' then she was enabling their sin and making it seem like it was okay for them to be sinning.

Which mostly leads me to the reminder that our version of 'sin' is entirely too small.

Fucking someone outside of wedlock? Sin!

Kissing someone of the same sex because of attraction? Sin!

Enjoying a celebration that's set up around a sinful lifestyle? Sin!

But...

Bitching at a family member before you left the house this morning? Not!Sin!

Ignoring the homeless person with their hand out when you walked past them on the way to work? Not!Sin!

Making snide comments about someone who doesn't have the ability to hit back? Not!Sin!

Our version of 'sin' is limited to the things we do, rather than the way we interact with people, rather than the way we interact with our fellow image-bearers, rather than our attitude to existence. It's a very small version of sin, which makes it easy to decry those things that other people do while ignoring the things that we do. And even those of us who know that sin is an attitude and not merely actions often forget and try to ensmallen sin so it excludes our own sinful acts and thoughts and omissions.

I've talked about this a lot on here before: the very distinct insistence that we have to tell people the gospel... And yes, we do. But picking the time and the moment, backing it up with a relationship, being about more than just the words? I think we have too many words and not enough of the other stuff. We live in a time of words and wordiness, of speeches and comments, of shortform videos and long bursts of information. People don't want our words anymore.

They want our love - our actions, our kindness.

Can we tell the truth kindly? Yes. But also, it requires first a relationship. God does all His best work through relationships.

Marty and the Matildas: a Christian perspective

Hey my brothers, Have you ever laughed with another men about how useless women are? About how silly their pursuits and interests are? How pointless it is to encourage them to stretch their wings, to be whatever they can be, to enjoy life and living?

Congratulations. You've just joined The Lot In Sodom Club!

For those of us not up with the passage, let us take a moment: Genesis 13. Lot lives in the city of Sodom, in an honour-shame culture. Sodom's not a nice town; it's the region where you don't want to live because, well, the people ain't neighbourly. And that's putting it nicely. (God has a whole bargaining sequence with Abraham where he's planning to destroy the city for it's inhospitality, and Abraham bargains God down to 5 good men in the city only to find there isn't even that many.)

A couple of messengers from God turn up at Lot's house, and he invites them in as guests. Then the men of the city gather around outside and want to shame these guests by raping them. (Reminder: rape is about power over, not about desire for. People do not commit rape because they so desperately desire the person, they commit rape because it's one of the most effective and devastating ways to show your power over someone.) Anyway, letting your guests be raped by your neighbours goes against the law of guesthood in this culture and Lot is against that. So instead…he offers his daughters for the locals to rape instead of the guests.

People often mistake the bible for a book of heroes; examples of what to do. Instead, it tends to be examples of people keeping from doing awful things and instead doing EVEN MORE AWFUL things - and the whole point is . And we see this here where Lot does something that is perfectly acceptable by his culture to prevent something that is unacceptable by his culture.

A side note that people may not realise: female rape may have been normative throughout the history of human society; that does not make it right in the eyes of God. There are plenty of things that have been normative through the history of human society - slavery, torture, slaughter of your enemies - that does not make it right in the eyes of God.

At this point in the narrative of Lot and his well-intentioned-but-spiritually-bereft-binary-decision-making-process, the messengers from God aren't having with this. They grab Lot and drag him inside and say, "right, what's your exit plan?" They get Lot and his family out of the city

What Sheargold said used to be perfectly acceptable in our culture. Make fun of the women, of their pursuits, of their attempts and failures, of their presence in areas that have often excluded them - through money, through laws, through social exclusion. It is normative throughout the history of human society; that does not make it right in the eyes of God.

So you've laughed at the "silly women" or dismissed something as "the ladies, lord help us". Gotten a laugh out of the guys, felt good in the moment. It's the Marty Sheargold moment of glory. Good laughs, good times, people who get it.

Apparently Mister Sheargold has a fifteen year old daughter. Now, maybe she doesn't have an interest in soccer, in the Matildas, in moving outside of whatever her perception of 'proper and appropriate for a woman' is. But in that moment when Marty likened grown women playing professional sport to the games of little girls, and dissed the watching of both? He did a "Lot of Sodom", metaphorically speaking. He shoved his daughter out the door of his house, into the street, at the mercy of anyone who wanted to take a passing swipe at a cunt - a slag at women, their skills, their discipline, their interests.

"Oh, hey, don't you think that comparison's a bit extreme?"

Well, so is tearing out your eyes to keep from lust, and Jesus Christ (of Nazareth, son of God, son of Man, Messiah, holy one, Prince of Peace, Lamb of God, Emmanuel - all those big and fancy names) said that bit. So maybe a bit extreme might be a helpful way to shock us out of what's socially acceptable so we think about what's spiritually acceptable.

When you're selling respect of your daughters/wife out, in order to feel good with the laughs of your fellow penis-haverers (yes, biological determinism in phrasing), isn't that also selling out…God's vision and version of humanity?

God who made all human beings in Their image ("let us make humanity in our image") and then makes a woman out of man (so…the man/humanity had 'woman' inside him from the start of creation before God creates male and female? Bonus question: if we take the literal reading of Genesis, the woman was already within man when 'man' was first created, does that make the initial Adam an androgyne?) whose people are instructed to give a day of rest to EVERYONE (including those whose work is not acknowledged, or is presumed - "you, your wives, your children, your male and female slaves") who provide examples of women being granted land on their own bloodline cognisation, whose first evangelists were female - a portion of society whose words weren't valid in court, that God's vision and version of humanity?

There's a lot of fuss over who's 'higher ranked' in the social order of gender before God. And not a lot of acknowledgement that this is just Sons oF Thunder And The Disciples Scrapping levels of insignificant before the majestic God - who is a they/them by trinitarian definition, just to tie a few knickers over.

Vine Church and the Sydney LGBTQIA+ Mardi Gras 2025

On Saturday night, during the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras I attended an 'open grounds' event in a church in Surry Hills. Every year, the church opens their grounds, offers food and drink, a place to rest and chill, and some easy music for people to take a break from the chaos of the Mardi Gras.

This is my first year volunteering, but I know a kid from my local church who's been going the last two years, and the open grounds itself has apparently been running in some form or another for twenty years. They've got it down to a fine art, including not only setting up teams for the various stations, but also getting volunteers from all over Sydney. The kid from my local church wasn't the only one, and I found myself herding a bunch of kids home at the end and giving one a lift home from the station.

I say 'kids' because they're the age of the children of my peers at church, but they're young adults, really. I think they thought I was maybe a decade or two younger than I am - still older, but not as old as I am.

The goal is not to proselytise, not to argue sexuality or gender politics. It's also not to affirm or deny what people are doing or to make a stand on one side or another of the line. Ultimately, the goal is to provide rest and respite in a space that wouldn't usually be associated with Mardi Gras. To provide a positive interaction with Christians and the church for people who wouldn't usually step into a church ground. And for Christians of Sydney to show love and kindness and compassion to people who we might not otherwise usually have the opportunity to minister to.

I liked that goal. I could get behind it. And when my sister sent me a link about signing up for it because her church (the 'cathedral' church of our denomination) asked for volunteers, I put my name in.

They take your name, ask you to sign a statement of belief, get you to put down a spiritual referee, have you choose two teams to join, and have an 'induction' day that people attend so they can make it clear what they're asking for. Then you turn up on the afternoon of Mardi Gras, there's setup, and prep, and an information session on how the night will go. If you're part of the 'conversations' team, then they'll give you some training on how to hold those conversations in gracious and graceful ways, with love and not confrontation.

I put my name down for 'conversations' and 'pancakes' teams. I have no idea why I put down conversations, and no memory of signing up for conversations, but when the email came in, that was where I was. And, to be honest, I guess God wanted me to both challenge and be challenged by the conversations I had that night.

Two shifts through the night, you're supposed to take at least one break and switch around in the middle. I was on 'conversations' to start with, then 'pancakes' later. They set me up outside in the entryway with some beads to make friendship bracelets.

I got into a conversation with a woman who had been raised at one of the Anglican-run private schools, so she'd learned all the typical stuff, but had ended up in a very Eastern Religions background - yoga, lots of "many roads lead to the right place', etc. She helped me out with the bracelet beading as we chatted, sorting beads into groups and laying out the letters so I could spell out 'L-O-V-E-D' on the bracelets.

My recommendations for the beading would be to have a bunch already made and ready for people to take. Try to work in phrases that don't use the letters L-O-V-E-D, because those are best for the ones that we make up on the spot. Also a needle or two for easier picking up of beads, and another set of scissors.

Have some 'stable tables' that the people beading outside could put on their thighs, and a sign to advertise what's going on and that people can get a friendship bracelet as they go in. (Conversations team can then link the bracelet with our purpose in opening the church to people.)

Some people will want to sit down and choose their own colours (there were not the right colours for a pride flag, although you could maybe do a trans flag if you were thoughtful about the choices) but I mostly directed people to just move up and down the colour ranges that were available in the box.

The second most meaningful conversation of the night was a guy who came from Ireland. His experience of the church and religion was 'Catholic guilt' so I talked to him about the joy of knowing Jesus, of being known, of being loved. He didn't sit, but crouched by me while his friends went inside. We talked for about ten minutes and I made a bracelet for him. I don't remember his name, but as I tied the bracelet around his wrist, I told him that when he woke up tomorrow, I wanted him to remember that he's loved by Jesus, that it's not guilt and shame, but love and freedom.

There are probably Christians who would feel this isn't enough. You have to TELL HIM THE GOSPEL right there and then, while he's listening. HAMMER IT HOME. That sort of thing.

Sometimes, I think the problem is that we're too busy hammering it home to realise we're bruising bent reeds. It takes an average of seven times for a woman to finally, fully walk out of an abusive relationship. And what is sin if not the epitome of abusive relationship?

There were a group of women in string-and-fabric dresses who paused for a few seconds, and exclaimed over the bracelets but weren't willing to stop and make ones themselves. (Need more of a table space for this, I think.)

Note to self: I think I might make a 'string and fabric' dress for next year, but in black as per the 'uniform' request, and designed to show off my tattoo. Also, longer hemlines and with a high cowlneck, maybe a more A-line skirt. The idea is to have something in the style, but less 'flesh on display'. Also, I'm not skinny anymore, so it's not much of a thing.

And there was a couple, she was South Korean, he was Thai, they made bracelets, but their English wasn't good enough to do more than hit the high points, and even then they were a bit vague. He did ask "Church? Why?" And I tried to convey, "Because Jesus love." Don't know if I did.

Every small interaction.

Anyway, I did the beading so long as there was light, but by the time the second shift hit, it was too dark for people to see what I was doing, and most people were led towards the light inside the church foyer, so they didn't need to be drawn further in. So I tidied up my beading stuff and went inside for a break. Got some water, took a breather and chatted with a few people on the team, then went out to see if the Pancakes team needed help.

Pancakes was pretty busy; they were outside, had a gas BBQ plate that was supposed to have two lines of gas heating, but really only had one that worked with any decent heat. Then there was the issue of the pancake mixes which needed to be made up but often tended to be lumpy or too liquid or too thick. I ended up helping flip pancakes, and chatting with the people in the line. A couple of light conversations (it's difficult to talk about life-changing things in the dark when you're trying not to let the stuff you're cooking burn), and one guy from Italy "Catholic" but doesn't really believe in anything - he didn't think there was anything in any religion, but he was impressed by the fact that the church was opening up its doors and space during Mardi Gras.

Then disaster struck: the BBQ plate we were using stopped working. We had to shut the pancake station down and turn people away (directing them inside for chai and a sausage sanger), and I went back inside and took another break, chatting with a few more team members.

I came out, wandered through the church 'proper' which had been set up as a 'quiet space' - a sensory null - so people could sit out of the chaos and let their energy wind down. There was beading happening there, but they didn't need me, so I went out to get a pancake and half bumped into a guy who stopped in the lobby and stared at the ping pong table. He looked kind of shocked, so I checked in with him (he was just taking a moment to recalibrate because the guys doing ping pong were SRS BSNS) and then I asked him about the night.

Turns out, he was the 'responsible adult' of his group this year. Someone else was the responsible adult last year, so they were responsibly adulting by taking turns being the responsible adult! He had some cool beads across his cheekbones which I asked where he'd gotten them from. His experience of the church and faith was typical English standard, which is to say 'Christmas and maybe Easter' but his stepmother was devout. However, he'd listened to Tom Holland's Dominion on audiobook just last week while driving down from Brisbane, and was in a very different place of spiritual questioning than he had been just a week ago.

We talked about sticking to your moral guns, about religiosity, about what to do when organisations didn't move as fast on matters as you thought they should. About moral authority and spiritual guidance. I probably could have asked more piercing questions than I did, but it was one of those conversations where you're not sure if they're going to keep talking or if they're going to spook. He kept talking, though, and it was good. I did mention that there was an Alpha course happening at the church in the coming weeks, and if he ever wanted to walk into the church on another Sunday and ask questions, there would almost certainly be someone who'd be willing to talk to him.

We closed up around 10pm, cleaned and tidied everything up, ate the last of the pancakes and then debriefed.

At least one person (maybe) came to an understanding of the gospel that night and gave his life to Christ, albeit in another language. But many others spoke of getting people to codify what they believed - asking them to 'get meta' about their thoughts around their worldview. There were a number of comments that indicated that people appreciated this kind of Christian love in the community, which, no, shouldn't be the endgame, but is a good and beneficial filip along the way.

And then we went home, with me shepherding a group of around six young people (well, we all shepherded each other) back to Central station from whence we went home. Encountering one of the other young people from our church - not one who'd been working with the Open Church - on the way!

It's the kind of thing I've been wanting to see 'the church' do more. Action without affirmation or approval. Kindness and love without condemnation.

Is it a fraught space, a delicate negotiation between "affirming" what people are doing that night and just providing hospitality? Yes. Doubtless there are people who think that even opening the church gates to the sinful without thundering condemnation of their lifestyle is approving what they're doing. But we are in a world that no longer accepts Christianity as the baseline of its moral code, and when it does promote Christian values, those values are more often used as a bludgeon to beat others into line than they are used to value and cherish and promote the thriving of humanity. We've left human rights to the rational humanists, and too many Christian movements are now trying to legislate morality instead - as though the kingdom can be brought with civil words and good behaviour.

At this point in time, with so many words and lies and liars and con-men out there making money out of mouthing piety and practising hypocrisy, we are better off shutting our mouths for the most part, only answering when people ask, "but why are you doing this when you're supposed to hate us?" with "because Jesus asked us to love you, and this is an expression of that love".

The 'conversations' training before we opened the gates was interesting: they gave us some hints and tips, a post-it note to write down what it is about Jesus that brings us joy, about why it is that it's good to know the Lord. They asked us to think of conversation openers and how to invite people into discussions. What stuck with me was one young woman who said she wasn't comfortable with asking how they were enjoying the evening, because they would probably say it was great and fun, and she wasn't okay with them enjoying what was sinful and/or affirming that enjoyment.

I'm trying to remember myself in my twenties, with that perspective and that view: if I had that view. And how I grew out of it in the end. Probably through contact with a lot of people from all walks of life, slowly changing over the course of twenty years. I still believe the core of what I believed then, but I'd phrase it very differently. In knowing God, in trusting Him, we become who we are meant to be. We are kites with an anchor, we are creatures basking in the glory of our Creator, children trusting in the love of a father who is both loving but also who sets and recognises boundaries.

In the end, the young woman was the one who spoke to the guy with the language barrier, and called a friend who spoke his language to bring him to Christ on the phone. So there's a lesson and teaching in there for me, too. :)

In all honesty, I resonate more with the "the goal is to get them to Jesus and let Him convict them of their lifestyle". Not to mention 'lifestyle' can be anything from sexuality, gender, to monetary practices, to treatment of women as co-heirs in Christ, to having a compassionate and active heart for the vulnerable in our society, or creating opportunity for those who otherwise have little to no hope of thriving. But I move among people who 'know of the gospel' but don't believe it means anything more than a good way to live. Like the yoga lady I first talked to, it's about what you do and the kindness you show and us all doing good for each other. That's a hard shell to break through, and at this point in time and history and society, we're only going to get little cracks at doing it. So take the little cracks where you can.

To me, it's about knowing who you are in Christ, being known through and through in that relationship, and being loved all the same, even as you grow and change and become who you're meant to be: a child of God, the apex of creation, made in His image, to give glory to Him.