EVANGELICALS have lost the battle over the nation’s morals. They should now influence “our post-Christian society” from the inside, the General Director of Evangelical Alliance UK, the Revd Joel Edwards, concludes in An Agenda for Change, due to be published later this month.
Mr Edwards warns that the challenge must be tackled “as though our nations had never been Christianised”.
Christians should make their case, he says, but stop shouting their opposition to such things as homosexuality. “We must rapidly widen our political discourse beyond a moral agenda to wider ethical debates. As far as morality is concerned, we have lost all the battles and we are losing the war.”
In the US, the Christian coalition had failed to maintain morality. Married couples were now in a minority, and the same was happening in Europe.
Mr Edwards compared his approach to England’s medieval cathedrals, which took more than a lifetime to construct. “Like the cathedral architects, more of us have to be prepared to lay down foundations without ever seeing the walls go up. We have to think of our children’s children,” he writes.
“Churches must adopt much more robust citizenship mindsets. If we are concerned about the rise of militant Islam in liberal democracies, agitation and aggressive prayers against Muslim people will do little for our case. In many ways, Muslims are far better strategic thinkers.”
Christians should have their own strategies to make an impact on education, business, the media, arts, politics, sport, and technology. Churches could have people for whom they have prayed placed in every local council, housing association, and youth service, and in the criminal justice system.
Christians in work should make well-being “fashionable”, and the Church should support them. “In all these influential places Christians exist, often without any support from their local churches. They show up to work in order to exist as a worker rather than to operate as agents of change. If Christians in these places are ill-equipped to be transformers, where else will our culture be changed?” he asks.
Christian foundations and philanthropists were willing to look only for short-term gains. “They would have been unlikely to back Noah’s ark, or Wilberforce’s campaign,” he writes.
An Agenda for Change: A global call for spiritual and social transformation (Zondervan, £7.99; 978-0-310-28371-3).
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