Martyn Iles is touring Australia with news of “Babylon”. It’s a metaphor from the Bible, Genesis tells us of the tower of Babel, built by humankind to rival God, later the site of Babylon, a cruel empire is an image of humankind seeking to replace god as the one who defines reality.
Ille’s message is that the truths of Scripture will prevail. Where humans adopt a different story, God’s reality will break through. He is telling Christians, and his considerable audience is mostly supporters of the Australian Christian Lobby he leads, that they should stand firm on the truths of Scripture and he is right to do that.
“I say Babylon, some would say the city of man. Some would say, Babel, still others would say the kingdoms of this world. They all mean much the same thing. They’re all biblical phrases, and they speak of the nations. They speak of the empires, the governments, the powers that human beings create in their own image and after their own strength. Powers that tend to become hostile in one way or another to the things of God and even to God himself.”
It is a powerful message, one that will resonate with Christians. Humankind has been in the defying God business for millennia, and the result is pain and hurt. Babylon stands for empire and forces that end up with humans dominating other humans.
“Babylon is still with us. And this is why scripture is quite full of the imagery of Babylon, both before and after the actual empire existed in the days of Daniel. But here’s the thing, and this has been on my mind a lot, and this really explains why we’re doing these three events called Babylon. We as Christians are not called to overthrow her by some kind of political revolution force. It was Jesus himself who said, My kingdom is not of this world or else my servants would fight. And so the question comes before us, if it’s not to be overthrown if we’re not a bunch of violent revolutionaries, which we’re not just for the record, I know there’s probably some media outlets out there that would like to, write up our extremism, but it’s not like that.”
That is a very helpful statement by Iles. It is an appropriate warning against conflating some of the “Christian nationalist” rhetoric coming from the US with what Iles and the Australian Christian Lobby is doing. In this article, I will raise some issues with parts of Iles Babylon speech, but it would be unfair for example to use terms like “Trumpism” to describe him or the movement he leads.
Before the speech, there was a presentation by the Human Rights Law Association that defends the free speech and employment rights of Christians. It is worth checking out the case studies at hrla.org.au In the main, they are ordinary Christians expressing traditional/orthodox Christianity views and being taken before tribunals or disciplined by an employer.
In my view, Iles stated support for the traditional/orthodox Christian view on LGBTQIA issues firmly but with the gentleness and respect that 1 Peter calls for. In this speech He calls out heterosexual sin more than homosexual sin, reflecting what happens in the Australian Babylon.
And it is important to acknowledge Iles standing against popular opinion, saying things he knows people in the wider community don’t like. From what I can make out, the tone of the speech is one of conviction. Iles is intelligent, he will be aware that he could be trapped into saying what would be popular with his crowd. This is an issue at some point for all Christian leaders who have followers.
There were four moments where Iles’ speech was problematic, in my view. This is simply my reflection on what was said on the night. I will quote a slab on Iles each time to give context.
Climate Change: “The global conversation is dominated by climate change, disasters, food security, the number of people, because we’ve decided that we’re the greatest. And so we’ve forgotten the promise that God gave alongside his command, which was this, so long as the earth remains, which takes it right up to the present day, right? So long as the earth remains seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. The planet hasn’t descended into destruction because God ain’t finished with it yet. It’s as simple as that. And it’s almost like he looked down the corridors of time and he knew that we would need to hear that. But of course, when we’ve forgotten him and when it’s all up to us when we are the greatest, well then there can be no promise, because we don’t believe that there’s any promise maker and we cannot see God’s instructions working out purely in our own strength. And we’re left dealing with Greta Thunberg levels of stress…
“It’s not to say that all environmental actions [are] irrelevant. I’m not in that category. There are, there’s a certain domain which we can have an influence on, but it’s to make this point, there are certain domains which are God’s. There are certain areas about this big cosmos for which we need to trust him. And we’ve been told that among those things, our temperatures, seasons, the potential for harvest and the continuation of the planet itself, we’ve been told that those are his domain. I mean, it is true, isn’t it? There was an ice age before humans could create one. [There] was a medieval warm period before humans could create one, and yet [despite] the promised hell, there was still enough for the people at that time to live, right? Because we’re not actually in control. We get too big for our boots, and all we’re doing is building a Babel.”
As a Christian, I have no issue with the Babel theme and Iles’ statement that ultimately God is in control. But he goes beyond the text of the Bible. The Bible does say that the Earth’s seasons will continue in the promises God makes in the Noah account. Yet God does not promise that temperatures will remain the same or that they are in his “domain” in the sense it does not matter what humankind does.
In fact in Revelation one of the Trumpets – signs of God’s judgment – has fire hurled from heaven burning up “a third of the grass.” However you might interpret Revelation, God does not guarantee the Earth will be unaffected by heat.
It seems that Iles is using the Bible to deny serious climate change.
Men and Women: “ And you know, he did say from creation, and I’ve done videos on this, he said, Man, a worker, a helper, sorry, a worker, a keeper, a father, a husband, a spiritual head. And he did say, woman, a helper, a mother, a wife, the glory of man. We said 1950s old hat, you do, you make your own identity, didn’t we? And we said that in the 1960s. It’s not a recent innovation.” Here it seems Iles adopts more than a conservative Christian view, for example that some church roles are reserved for men, but says that men are workers, not women. Can I suggest he read Proverbs 31?
Communists: “The spirit of Babylon is with us today. You know, most of you will know just to show you how deep the philosophy runs. It’s not just in the fruit, but it’s in the roots of all of this. Most of you will know about. And um, some people will think this is all conspiratorial, but it’s not. You’ll know about the World Economic Forum. And you know about the meeting they held called the Great Reset, which has been the subject of a, great deal of concern and commentary. Um, it’s all right. I can tell you what the issue is. They’re all communists. Um, and that’s pretty much, It’s pretty much where this is going, right? Or, you know, I say communist, I probably mean statist for the academics out there that’ll come up to me and say actually, uh, as they, they often do. I know what I mean.”
Perhaps that was a little piece of red meat for his audience. This is the point at which Iles does adoopt the labels of the US populist right. If he truly believes that the World Economic Forum is Marxist, well he is entitled to his point of view. But if he is merely agreeing with a few remaining Marxists actually that there is a global elite with too much power, why not just say that?
Race: “We defined race when God had already defined it. He said, one man from whom all races emerged. There’s one race. We learned that only from the biblical account. The Christian belief science never told us that. Science told us the opposite. There are different races, and we are told now by the critical race theorists into that fertile ground, we are told that these races are an insurmountable barrier to our shared humanity and we’re oppressing one another and we can’t escape. That’s not true.”
Iles has taken a stand against the Voice, and acknowledgement of country and at the same time it should be noted supports practical help for indigenous communities. His commentary on what the Bible says about Race will have an impact.
The Bible does indeed say “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,” (Acts 17:6). Iles reasonably concludes one blood, one race. Yet Genesis 11 which includes the tower of Babel story describes the result being God scattering humankind into separate peoples, what is often called races.
The concept of race is complex, but the effects of colonialism are plain with invaders oppressing those whose lands were taken away. Christians, like all Australians, have unfinished business.
But let’s finish with something that Iles has exactly right. Pray, and keep doing church.
“Pray always, you know, pray without ceasing, right? That doesn’t mean you’re always on your knees every 30 meters in the street. It just means that you’ve got a prayerful attitude to everything that you’re doing. Go to church and I got a lot of people say, ‘Oh, I’m so disappointed with my church.’ Well, keep going. It’s better than being somewhere else.
“And I’ll give you a hot tip on that. You’ll be a lot less disappointed if you do something there, if you get involved, that’s a great, great lesson. Get involved. Have a constructive participation. You won’t be so disappointed. You’ll realize how hard it is to do things right. <laugh>, You know, it’s very, very simple devotion. Keep it up. Don’t stop.
“You know, it’s not good enough to have an hour on a Sunday. There’s a lot of babble on out there to fill your brain and to get in front of your vision. Uh, you need to put other things in your vision as a matter of discipline and regularity. And a couple of things will happen. The first thing that’s gonna happen is that you’re gonna start rejoicing. You know, you’re going to, as it says of Jesus, he saw the joy that was set before him. That’s what he looked at. Um, and supreme among those joys and rewards for all that we do here is Jesus himself, the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.”
This article was informative and useful to me. Thank you. Thomas