Many thought it could never happen. But it has!

From being mainly directed towards the Christian Gospel, Australians are now seriously into many other kinds of faith and spiritual experience. Australia is a landscape of religious pluralism.

For example :

* We have at least 250,000 Muslims (more than twice as many Assemblies of God members and adherents)

* New Age philosophies and practices (roots in Hinduism) are spreading
phenomenally

* Studies in mysticism, the occult, and magic are included in tertiary college curriculums

* The fairy cult is becoming serious (and profitable) business

* Governments recognise the teaching of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc., as valid alternatives to the Christian faith

* In some cases astrologers and gurus receive government funding

* The ideologies of “success” in sport, economics, business management, science, and academics are presented in religious formats. These have become shrines, “ashteroths” and idols

Leave to one side the question of how and why all this has come about, let’s ask the other important question : How can the Christian handle this? What can we do?

Here’s a mix of options :

1. Get more involved with church activity. So involved, you won’t be aware of these issues

2. Become so “fundamentalist” that you perceive people of other faiths as enemies, deceived, opponents, under God’s judgement, and beyond our responsibility to love, reach, and reclaim. Work out strategies to oppose them

3. Expect newcomers, migrants, and all Aussies to conform to traditional Western Christianity (or traditional Pentecostalism) in order to be authentic Christians

4. Persist in thinking that there is a “foreign field” and that it’s offshore. That mission is done “over there.”

5. Assume that God being Sovereign will sort it all out if we remain “faithful”

6. Assume that if we “celebrate””, worship, fine-tune our services and organisational techniques, promote home fellowships of clinically clean saints, people will increasingly come to us and get converted

Or … dare we propose that …

1. We rediscover that all people of all cultures are of “one blood.” (Acts 17:26). God has no favourites (Acts 10-11) They are all God’s creations. Therefore, his “property.”

2. We recognise that God’s up to something big and significant in bringing such a diversity of the world’s peoples into Australia. “The mission field has come home”

3. We understand that there is one field – the world. Both here and overseas. Equally important:

4. We accept that the whole church is called to mission and discipling

5. We seek honesty, discernment, and wisdom to evaluate our ministries in the local scene in order to redefine evangelism and mission in our urban worlds

6. We explore other cultures to develop friendships with people of other kinds, then restructure our churches so that these new friends are more effectively brought into the lifestreams of Christian faith

7. We regard our multi-ethnic situation as an opportunity and not a problem

8. We see in each Hindu, Muslim, or New Ager a person created by God for His glory and one for whom Jesus died. That each one is God’s not-yet-saved person

9. We engage in spiritual warfare to bind and cast down high religious spirit powers which, since the 1960s, have been given access into this land

10. We renounce and destroy cultural and social idols that have been allowed entrance and influence in our lives and in the life of the church. (eg. Hezekiah)

11. We have a long, careful look at our church activities. (This is for leaders) Then be brave enough to ask : How much of this is principally directed towards loving and helping and rescuing the lost people in our neighbourhoods. (God never told the world to go to “church.” He told the church to go into the world)

The purpose of the Spirit’s baptism was that the church would be empowered to witness and turn the world to Christ. For the Christian it is the primary impartation and motivation.

Paul E.GRANT
13/1/1995