Introduction

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Is it just me … or has our world gone a little mad of late?  Like the kind of things that have been happening in Western Society over the past 10-15 years just seem to me … insane.  Now I could cite numerous examples … from both sides of the political spectrum.  But for the sake of time … let me just give us one: what is a woman?

For ALL of human history … up until about 2010 … a woman was defined as a biological adult female.  Not so anymore.  If you are born male … and have male chromosomes and male genitalia … but if you suffer from the very REAL … and I can only imagine … very difficult condition known as ‘gender dysphoria’ … and if you chose to LIVE as a woman … identify as a woman … then according to parts of Western Society … you ARE a woman.  For example:

So in 2015 … Caitlyn Jenner … a transgender woman … was named Glamour Magazine’s ‘Woman of the Year’.  And that’s not the only time a biological man has won the ‘Woman of the Year’ award.

In 2023 the THEN First Minister of Scotland … Nicola Sturgeon … was not able to definitively say whether convicted rapist … Isla Bryson … who has male genitalia … is a man or a woman.  This rapist had initially been put in the WOMEN’S prison … because after his arrest … for raping women … he all of a sudden identified as a woman.

Also last year … the leader of the British Labour Party … Sir Kier Starmer … was not able to answer whether women can have male genitalia or not.

In 2022 … the US National Collegiate swimming association allowed Lia Thomas … a recent transgender woman … who was at the time still sleeping with his girlfriend … to compete in the women’s division.  Not only that … he was allowed to use the female change rooms.  Not only that … when the female athletes … teenage girls … complained over having to undress in front of a biological male … AND having to avert their eyes as that biological male undressed in front of them … they were told to seek psychological help for their transphobic views.

And just last month … England’s National Health Service has finally banned people under the age of 16 from undergoing transitioning therapy … such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy or gender reassignment surgery.  We won’t let minors smoke, drink or vote … but we WILL allow them to undergo irreversible, sterilising treatments.

Is it just me … or has our world gone a little mad of late?  Like even 20 years ago … no one would have DREAMED we’d be talking about this type of stuff.  Now this is NOT a sermon on transgenderism.  As I’ve said in the past … people who suffer from gender dysphoria need our love and support.  I’ve simply chosen the current views on GENDER as an example of how our world seems to have gone mad.  What we’re looking at today … in the words of King Theoden … is ‘how did it come to this?’

Now this sermon is part of a series … looking at ‘hot button’ issues of our present cultural moment.  And it doesn’t get more ‘hot button’ than the culture war currently raging in the West between conservativism and progressivism.  And that’s our topic for today; where did our current culture war originate?  But BECAUSE this topic is so big … and so important … I’ve actually set aside 3 weeks to look at it.  So today’s sermon is just the first instalment … looking at how we CAME to this moment.  Yet I will offer some thoughts on how we might pull Western Society BACK from the brink of madness … before I open it up for questions at the end.

And I’ve got 3 points today … as your sermon outline shows.  We’re going to begin by looking at how ALL of this finds its genesis in (i) Idolatry: the need to be presentable … point 1.  We’ll then look at (ii) Ideology: where many look to BECOME presentable … point 2.  We’ll then finish with some application … which I’ve titled (iii) Worship: how to be truly presentable.  So please come with me as we look at how the West is idolising our ideology.

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Idolatry: the need to be presentable

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And if we were to trace our current culture wars all the way back to its source … it stems from the universal need for humans to be presentable.  And we SEE this need when God says there is something ‘not good’ in creation.  So all through Genesis Chapter 1 … whenever God makes something new … we’re told ‘And God saw that it was good’ … ‘and God saw that it was good’.  Yet in Gen 2:18 we’re told:

Genesis 2:18 (NIV) The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.

Now this doesn’t mean God has made a mistake in creation.  It means God isn’t finished yet.  And this raises a really interesting point … that God has created humans in such a way that HE cannot fulfil all our needs.  So God created humans to NEED a relationship with God.  That’s why Hell is so horrifying.  Just like humans are not designed to live in an environment that is void of oxygen … so too are humans not designed to live in an environment that is void of a relationship with God.

BUT God has ALSO created humans to NEED relationships with other humans.  The reason it is ‘not good’ for the man to be alone is because God designed us humans to NEED one another.  That’s why Tom Hank’s character in Cast Away goes a little nutty and starts talking to a volleyball he named Wilson.  We NEED relationships with one another in order to survive.

The problem is … with the introduction of Sin into our world … humans now know deep down that if others ever found out just how dark and twisted our thoughts and feelings are … they would reject us.  What do I mean?  Well I’ve used this illustration before … but:

For the males among us: How would you like it if your mother or sister or wife or daughter could read all your thoughts?

Or for the females: How would you like it if your father or brother or husband or son could listen in to all your thoughts?

Most normal people would be mortified by such a notion.  Why?  Because whether we’re willing to admit it or not … deep down we KNOW we’re sinful and twisted … and that if people ever discovered the depths of our depravity … they would reject us.

So what do we do?  We NEED human connections on the one hand.  But our sinfulness poses a threat TO those connections on the other.  Well what we do … is we cover up the things we’re ashamed of … with things we think will make us presentable.  For example … when you’re writing a Resume … you don’t list all the subjects you’ve failed and all the jobs you’ve been fired from and all the girls you’ve been dumped by and all the laws you’ve broken … do you?  You list your achievements.

Yet OUT of our list of achievements … humans will generally choose ONE … to be our primary achievement.  This will generally be something we already OWN … OR we think we can achieve.  And what we do is … we elevate this ONE achievement to be THE most important thing a human being can have.  For some it’s money.  For others it’s having their parents be proud of them.  It could be sporting success … or having thousands of followers on social media.  So what we do is … we take a GOOD thing … that we think we can achieve … and we elevate it to be our ultimate thing.  We think THIS is the thing that is going to give my life meaning and satisfaction and fulfilment … by showing everyone I’m worth it.

The Bible calls this idolatry.  It is worshipping … placing ultimate value … in something other than God.  And the big problem with worshipping something that isn’t God … is that thing will make you do dumb, dangerous and dishonest things … in order to appease it.  So for example:

• I’ve been in prayer meetings with ministry workers … who if they get a text WHILE someone is praying … they’ll check their phone.  Their idol is notifications.  Someone loves me.

• Why do people spend hours and hours in the gym … or thousands of dollars on plastic surgery? Because their idol is beauty.

• Why is there such a thing as white-collar crime?  They’re not stealing a loaf of bread to feed their family.  It’s because they idolise money.

And this is the FOUNDATION behind why Western Culture has gone a little mad of late.  When we idolise something … when we give our worship to a created thing rather than the creator … it demands that we do dumb, dangerous and downright dishonest things … in order to appease it.

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Ideology: where many look to become presentable

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So … that’s the source … the foundation of our current culture wars.  We idolise created things … because we think they will make us presentable.  The next step in this journey is to zoom in … and see WHERE certain people in Western society are looking to … to become presentable?  And for many today … that is our ideology.  Now what do I mean by ideology?  I mean whether you’re conservative or progressive.  Let me explain.

So to be a conservative … generally means you LIKE society the way it is … so you want to conserve it.  And when we think of hard-line conservatives … or what people call ‘The alt-right’ … we tend to think of either Ultra-Nationalists … people who don’t like immigrants … or full-blown white supremacists.  And so the way it works is this:

These white nationalists will see their skin colour … which is neither a good nor bad thing according to the Bible … and elevate it to be their ultimate thing.  They will claim that being a white American … or a white Australian … is the most important thing you can possess.  And because they ARE white … which is not much of an achievement when you think about it … we’re BORN that way.  But because they possess this thing … they feel superior to those who aren’t white … and look down on them … alongside anyone ELSE who doesn’t share their values.  And that’s partly where the January 6 riot in Washington came from.  People who were afraid that Biden was going to change their way of life.

So that where hard-line conservatives seek to be presentable.  Progressives on the other hand generally DON’T like how society is … and wish to CHANGE it … move it forward … or progress as a society.  And those on the far-left have recently been labelled Woke.  Yet Wokeism is a little harder to explain than racism.  So we’re going to need our thinking caps on for this.  But here goes.

Wokeism finds it’s roots in Marxism.  Now you may not know much about Marxism … but Communist Russia and Communist China base their political and economic systems on the philosophy of the German philosopher Karl Marx.  Now at the risk of oversimplifying Marxism … I cannot do it justice in 2 minutes … Marx said all of human history can be described as nothing more than a class war between the powerless and the powerful.  The powerless were identified as the working class … or the Proletariat as he called them … while the powerful were the ruling class … or the Bourgeoise.  And Marx hypothesised that when the gap between the rich and the poor reached a certain point … the working class would rise up … in some form of revolution … and reclaim the means of production from the ruling class.  Now that SOUNDS complicated … so let me simplify it with an example:

So imagine a businessman opens a pencil factory.  He rents a factory space and he hires 100 workers to work in his factory … who are paid a weekly wage to manufacture, package and send out pencils.  Now IF the demand for pencils goes up or down … it’s the factory owner who enjoys the profits or suffers the losses.  The people who MAKE the pencils continue to get their weekly wages.  Now not only did Marx see this as unfair … as it’s ONE MAN … the bourgeoise … who enjoys all the profits … he ALSO said a time would come when the workers … the proletariat … would rise up and overthrow the owner … in a revolution … and take control of the means of production … i.e. the profits … themselves.

NOW … the BIG problem for Marx … is that the 20th century proved pretty much ALL of Marxism to be categorically wrong.  To begin with … Capitalist nations … such as America and Australia … enjoyed the greatest redistribution of wealth ever seen in human history … whereas Marxist countries … such as Russia and China … became some of the most horrible places to LIVE in human history.  Alongside that … even when there WAS a revolution … such as in Russia … either the organisers became the NEW bourgeoise … OR the proletariat ASKED the ruling class to keep running things.  Contrary to Tears for Fears … everybody does NOT want to rule the world.  Some of us just want to do our day’s work, get paid and go home.  So that’s BASIC Marxism.  Thinking caps off.

Now … how does this relate to the far-left?  Well … even though Marx was WRONG when he said ALL of history is nothing more than a power struggle … we DO still inequalities in our world … do we not?  The HAVEs still wield power over the have nots.  So if we can’t rebalance that power economically … why don’t we try doing it culturally.  And this is where the term ‘Cultural Marxism’ comes from.  Cultural Marxism says we change the power imbalance in our world by advocating for the marginalised … e.g. Palestine … and protesting against the successful … e.g. Israel.

Now … advocating for the marginalised is a good thing.  When God introduces himself in Deuteronomy 10 … he specifically identifies himself with the marginalised:

Deuteronomy 10:17-18 (NIV) For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. 18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing

What this means is … if you and I are not advocating for the poor, the marginalised and the oppressed … then we’re on a different page to God.  Advocating for the marginalised is not just a good thing … it is a necessary thing for Christians.  BUT … it’s not the ultimate thing.  God is.  And when we turn advocating for the marginalised into our ultimate thing … 2 big problems ensue:

First … whenever we look to a created thing to be presentable … whether it be money, looks, success or our political ideology … it means we can NEVER know if we’ve ever done enough.  We can never know if we’re rich enough … pretty enough … successful enough … or woke enough.  So AS people on the far-left have been trying to outdo each other … to be the MOST presentable … WOKEISM has gone truly insane.

Second … if being Woke is your ‘god’ … then everything else must submit TO that God … including the truth.  It is a scientifically provable FACT … that if you are born with XY chromosomes … and male genitalia … you are male.  Now you can have those male genitalia surgically altered … and you can pump a whole bunch of female hormones into your body … but that won’t change the scientifically provable fact that you are male.  Yet those on the far-left ignore such scientific facts … BECAUSE they get in the way of what they think is the best care for those suffering gender dysphoria.  OK … ‘we HAVE to look after this marginalised group … even if it means lying about scientific facts.’

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Worship: how to be truly presentable

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So … that’s the problem Western culture is currently dealing with.  In our desperate attempt to be presentable … many Westerners have idolised our conservative or progressive ideology … that has morphed into alt-right nationalism or far-left wokeism.  So what can we do … to try and pull Western Society back from the brink of this madness?  Well … I want to give us 2 possible ways forward today.  One is a superficial solution … and it is the ONLY solution open to non-Christians.  The other is the REAL solution … which ONLY Christians can do.

And the superficial solution is … if people are looking to Wokeism or Nationalism as a way of being presentable to Western society … we need to change the culture … so that those things are NO LONGER considered presentable to Western society.  What do I mean?  I mean these people are using their extreme views as a way of covering up their shame.  But what if BEING woke … or BEING a proud nationalist … was what Western society considered shameful?  It would mean that if you wanted to be presentable in the West … you’d have to chose something else to idolise in your life.

Now … this DOESN’T help at the individual level.  That’s why it’s a superficial solution.  ALL we’re doing is encouraging people to swap ONE idol for another.  And whatever idol they choose … whether it be sex, money or power … that idol will ALSO demand we do dumb, dangerous and dishonest things to appease it.  That’s why the Bible warns so strongly against idolatry … like our Deuteronomy 7 passage today.  But it WILL help at the societal level.  Why?  Because if less people are looking to their ideology to make themselves presentable … then the temperature of our culture war goes back down.  But more of that in the coming weeks.

The REAL solution … is we need to stop worshipping our ideology … and start worshipping God.  And this is something only Christians can do.  And there are 3 steps to this:

Step 1 is we need to NAME our idol.  We need to identify that thing that we look to … to make us presentable.  What is it that we are idolising?  Is it our abilities at work … the number of followers we have … finding true love … or perhaps being a proud citizen or a strong advocate for the marginalised.  We need to name our idol.

Step 2 is we need to SHAME our idol.  We need to admit that it can never make us presentable.  Truth be told … it does the opposite … because it demands we do dumb, dangerous or dishonest things to appease it … like looking down on immigrants … or lying about scientific fact.

And Step 3 is … we look to Jesus to make us presentable.  Friends Jesus is the only God who doesn’t demand that we do dumb, dangerous or dishonest things for Him.  Instead … he did a dangerous thing for us.  Do you understand that the REASON Jesus went to the cross … is because he wants YOU in heaven with him.  Like can you get any more presentable than the creator of the universe … giving up everything … just so he can hang out with you for eternity?  As Christians … we don’t need to do ANYTHING to make ourselves presentable.  Jesus has already done it all.

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Conclusion

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And if we can keep THAT truth at the forefront of our minds and hearts … then we can play OUR part in bringing the temperature of our culture wars down a bit.  May we as Christians resist idolising our ideology.  For as Deuteronomy 7:6 says:

Deuteronomy 7:6 (NIV) … you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.