Softness, gentleness and gospel fuel at the Gospel Coalition conference, post-Thorburn 

At the first-ever face-to-face The Gospel Coalition Australia (TGCA) conference there was lots of energy in the room, fuelled by a lot of young church planters or want-to-be church planters, They were there to be encouraged, and The Other Cheek thinks they were, with a few surprises too. While it was not the focus, significant Christian leaders reflected on the Thorburn saga, prompted by meeting in Melbourne.

At the TGCA conference, best described as a conservative evangelical group, you might have expected hardline exhortations to ring around the room. Especially as the theme book was Titus from which ‘contending’ for the faith and “stand firm’ are key phrases. They were there, but for example, the final exhortation from TGCA council chair Gary Millar was “stay soft!”

Here’s an account of how we got there.

There was a certain amount of “us against the world” talk, almost inevitable in Melbourne post-Thorburn.

“It did not become difficult to preach the gospel in Australia on the day that the football club CEO Andrew Thorburn was sacked,” Kaniska Raffel, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney said, beginning the first talk that took us through the book of Titus. “It was already hard, but that event highlighted a few things that were already true. 

“There is little understanding of the Christian faith in the Australian community and there is little tolerance for it, especially when it appears to conflict with the culture’s affirmation of autonomy, especially in the area of sexuality. 

“Second, loyalty to Christ is increasingly likely to require courage on the part of the disciples, anyone who calls himself a disciple. And no status or wealth or prior achievement will protect you. 

“And lastly, few will come to your defence and at least some Christians will take sideswith the world against you. None of this is new in the history of Christianity or the experience of Christians today around the world, but it feels new in Australia.It didn’t become difficult to approach the gospel when they released the census results. It was already difficult.” 

But that was not a focus of the five talks on Titus, “written to an experienced and trusted fellow worker of the Apostle Paul who had an incredibly difficult task before him in an unpromising cultural context” according to Raffel, drawing the connection to events in Melbourne.

Commenting on one of the more eyebrow-raising verses in the book, Raffel said “Crete was an unpromising place to preach the gospel. “the place where everyone is always a liar and a brute and a glutton: it would be hard to imagine a place less promising for the preaching of the gospel than Crete, unless, of course, it was Melbourne. But even in Crete and even in Melbourne, and even in Sydney, and even in Canberra and Coolangatta and Corangamite and Coober Pedy and Carnarvon and Katherine and Devonport because nowhere in Tasmania starts with C. God has elected some for salvation and we know that because wherever and whenever the gospel is preached, some believe.”

Paul Harrington of Trinity Adelaide leads a team that has planted 13 churches, so he’s qualified to talk about Titus’ main task of appointing elders in churches across Crete

“Two times in this first chapter, we are told that leaders have to be blameless, not blameless. Verse six: an elder must be blameless then in verses seven and over, overseers must be blameless. Now, when you’re a leader in God’s church and you read blameless, it makes you feel just a tad nervous, I think. 

“And what we tend to do is we make some intuitive theological adjustments. You know, because we know can’t mean sinless or perfect, we know that because we are well-trained people [so] we have got that we know no one is without sin. So when it says blameless, what it’s really saying is pretty blameless. Okay? That’s what it must be saying. Oh, largely without blowing it and having a good reputation inside and outside the church or giving it your best shot, you know, like, what does blameless mean?” 

He answers by comparing how Paul uses the same word “blameless” in Colossians 1:21

“‘Blameless’ in Colossians 1 is right standing with God because of what God has done for us in Christ. That’s blameless. And when you come back to Titus chapter one – what are we looking for in Christian leadership? Why are we looking for in blameless people? leaders who know they are right with God because of what God has done for them in Christ.”

Murray Capill who teaches practical theology at Melbourne’s Reformed Theological College took up the baton in this relay race through Titus. “Paul shows us what a beautiful church looks like … it’s worth noting what he doesn’t talk about as he sketches a beautiful church. There’s nothing here about the building, the facilities, the aesthetics. The early church actually didn’t have church buildings, not about the third century. They met in homes. All our attention to buildings and facilities and aesthetics is not fundamental to what a beautiful church is all about. Here, also, surprisingly, there’s nothing about programs. Now, I guess they probably had some programs in the church and treat like they maybe, you know, kids program ‘Crete Critters or something., I imagine they had that kind of stuff, but Paul’s not talking about that. Most surprisingly, there’s nothing about the music.”

It is about the people. When Paul says “teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine,” Capill tells this audience of young (and not so young) church planters he is not saying just get the words right. Capill describes Paul as turning his usual written formula around in here in Titus chapter 2. “He typically moves, moves from doctrine to life, from belief to practice. “But here he maps “the way of life, how to live the gospel. And then he’s gonna go afterwards to the foundation of that.”

A beautiful church is about striving for beautiful lives.

“It’s possible to have a church that’s all about biblical faithfulness and sound doctrine, but there’s little evidence of the godliness that aligns with that. They love the gospel and they fight with people. They have a head for the truth, but little heart for others, they believe the doctrines of grace and they don’t really show the grace of the doctrine.”

The habit in some churches of having sermons full of doctrine with application tacked on at the end won’t do.

“There’s this risk amongst us, Gospel Coalition types that our hearts can’t keep up with our heads, but a beautiful church is one that works hard to close that gap. A beautiful church is one where people’s lives are more and more aligned to the vibrancy of the gospel itself.”

Post-Covid, students back on Campus want real relationships says Richard Chin, National Director of the AFES (Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students. “One of the exciting things that are happening on campus at the moment is that the good old fashioned walkup evangelism is actually bearing more fruit these days than it was pre-pandemic because people actually want to make friends.”

Picking up the much-quoted but still worth-quoting description of Christians by journalist Ben Sixsmith in the Spectator (US edition)

“I am not religious, so it is not my place to dictate to Christians what they should and should not believe. Still, if someone has a faith worth following, I feel that their beliefs should make me feel uncomfortable for not doing so. If they share 90 per cent of my lifestyle and values, then there is nothing especially inspiring about them. Instead of making me want to become more like them, it looks very much as if they want to become more like me.”

Chin took this critique of celebrity pastors and applied it to his non-celebrity audience.

And the emerging theme of this conference, of reforming ourselves rather than only critiquing the world outside was made plain. “We see, here’s the threat from within these last days. We keep on thinking about the threat outside, but what about the threat inside? Are we teaching the grace of God in such a way that it just seems to share 90% of the values of this world? Because if it does, and perhaps we don’t really understand the grace of God, it’s not cheap grace as Bonhoeffer said, it’s costly.”

And the final lap, on Titus 3, came from Gary Millar the chair of TGCA. It might be a statement of the obvious, for which he offered no apology but “there isn’t any other kind of gospel fuelled life but a holy life.”

And here we come to the softness that Millar says should mark Gospel people. 

“One of the really challenging things about the environment we find ourselves in just now is that in the eyes of our society at least, we have been completely outdone in doing good. Completely. We’ve got to take seriously the fact that … whatever has been the truth in the past right now we are not known as those who will go to the least and the lost wherever they are. We are not seen as those who will care for the despised, who will fight for the marginalised and abused. Instead, we are universally tainted as those who exclude as defenders of ourselves and excluders and abusers of others. Whether that’s fair or not isn’t really the point. The prime challenge is that the, that the gospel-fueled holiness, that God demands of us, must drive us out to be people who are constantly poised to do whatever is good without thought to ourselves for the glory of our God and king… 

“Over and over again, Paul tells Timothy and Titus to be gentle. Now I know that’s harder for some of us than others. Some of us are not particularly gentle by nature. We are hard-edged or mischievous or stubborn or anxious or avoidant or flippant or outspoken. Not really gentle. But here, Paul insists that God through the gospel, through the work of his Spirit in us produces the lightness of Christ as he softens us. And this gentleness becomes a reality. The way in which we treat all kinds of people is mellowed and sweetened. We start to show a gloriously consistent tenderness.”

Millar had this key warning, updating Paul’s warning about controversies. 

“But there’ve been lots of other issues that have caused havoc among us, by secondary issues that aren’t actually the gospel. For some of us, politics can easily become the thing that displaces the gospel from its central position. A  threat, I think we all felt at some level during the pandemic. For others, it will be the immensely complex and sensitive debate raging around issues of gender. For others still, at times, it can be the model of ministry that we are convinced will be the silver bullet to enable us to reach the world or the kind of apologetic or evangelistic approach that we think is desperately needed. 

“It’s really easy to be distracted, even divided by good things. Let’s do everything in our power to make sure this doesn’t happen.”

Millar sent us out reminding us of the wonder of the Gospel. “Jonathan  Edwards once said this, holiness is the most beautiful and lovely thing. We drink in strange notions of holiness from our childhood as if it were a melancholy, morose, an unpleasant thing. But there is nothing in holiness, but what is sweet and ravishingly, lovely.” Brothers and sisters, this is the prospect that God has held out to us over these couple of days. May he grant us the wisdom and the strength and grace to display this gospel-fueled holiness. Whether we’re locked up, locked down, or roaming free.” 

Image: Murray Capill speaks at Gospel Coalition Conference Credit: TGCA facebook