How can we respond to the complex & contradictory opportunities to present Christ to contemporary culture? This workshop outlines emerging worldviews—liberty, morality, religion, and spirituality—and shows how each one misunderstands the gospel in different ways. Kamal Weerakoon explores how they blind people to their need for Christ by proposing alternative ways of salvation. Understanding these belief systems and the ways of life they inculcate will help us minister to the different people we will encounter in this time of change.
Kamal is an assistant minister at Gracepoint Presbyterian church and an adjunct lecturer at Christ College (Sydney) and the Reformed Theological College (Melbourne).
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TRANSCRIPT:
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
G’day, I’m Pete Hughes, and you clicked on the Reach Australia podcast.Contextualization is such an important part of the missional arsenal of tools that we need to make the gospel known today.Kamal Werakun takes us through an important contextualisation tool to help us understand the people that we are speaking to.
0:32
Enjoy.Folks, so we are here to talk about understanding our age and trying what my aim is to try and give you some contextual tools in a midst the confusion.
0:47
OK, we’ve gone beyond need to get beyond the welcome and of course the clicker never operates when I when we needed to.All right, I want to give you some gear shifts to deal with the vibe shift.And what I mean is this, we have probably felt OK, you guys have probably felt at least you’ve seen it online, you’ve probably seen it in your context, how there has been a renewed interest in the supernatural.
1:13
People are more willing post COVID, perhaps even over the last 12 months, to consider the reality, the possibility of the divine.But what exactly do they mean by the divine?What exactly do they mean by God and religion?
1:30
Because you.So just a few days ago, I was just having a cup of tea.I’m Sri Lankan.I always relax with tea.I Rev up with tea.Anyone who wants to make friends with me, just come with a black tea and I’ll be friends with you.No problem.Right.And I was, and I was sitting next to someone and wasn’t paying any attention.
1:47
And then the waiter, as the waiter brought their dish, he said, oh, is that tarot cards?And I’m like tarot cards.So just so like looked at, yeah, they were like doing tarot cards.And I’m like, that’s really interesting.I didn’t have the energy to sort of go, oh, tarot cards.Do you want to talk about Jesus?
2:03
Maybe I should have.I regret that I was preparing this talk.There’s an irony for you, but what on earth?How can we engage with people in today’s really complicated and diverse context?I’m going to give you some.I’m going to give you some.
2:21
OK.I’m going to give you a four fold typology.This is what happens when you’re a lecturer at two colleges.You use all kinds of fancy terminology.Basically, I’m going, I’m going to give you a framework for trying to understand what’s going on today.
2:37
I’m obviously I’m not a prophet, OK?I’m not.This is my prognostication prog, you know, school looking forward.All right, take it or leave it.But I certainly hope it’ll at least give you something that at the back of your mind, please don’t say, oh, you’re a spiritualist.
2:54
Kamal says to do this, let it run at the back of your mind.Like this person’s talking like this, looking like that.That’s interesting.What I want to do is give you these 4 categories.And then first of all, warnings about how that will make people misunderstand the gospel, OK?
3:12
They are like, Jesus is my guru or yeah, Jesus will foretell the future so that I can live well, like the tarot cards or whatever, like that.OK.But then there will be something that we can get our teeth into to say, look, the gospel actually resonates better.
3:27
The gospel understands you and explains what you are seeking better.We can’t guarantee conversion.The Holy Spirit only works through that.But I hope that this will help you to talk with people and understand where they’re coming from.So my categories, they operate on 2 axes, OK, Some people think more supernatural, some people think more natural.
3:50
Does that make sense?OK.And other some people are going to be more communitarian, more collectivist, and other people are going to be more individualistic.By the way, you should have PDFs that you could fill in.You just look, use your name tag, etcetera.
4:05
And you should get a PDF that you can download that has some that has this framework and such and such.All right.And here’s the four categories.All right, Those who are more natural and individualistic, they just think about me.OK, we talk about liberty, liberty, liberty to be.
4:22
You do you, I’ll do me.OK, stop oppressing me.Bigger morality is more collectivistic.Now what’s key here is this is the instinctive self identification.It was really interesting.When I did my PhD studies, when I was interviewing this guy who was of a migrant background, I asked him about his experience of church.
4:44
He never used the first person singular.He only ever used the the third person plural.We did this.We did that.After about an hour and a half, he actually reflected on it and said, oh, sorry, I’ve been telling you about the church.I said, bro, just tell me whatever you think because classic collectivism.
5:02
He thought of himself as a member of the church and instinctively could not extricate himself from that.That’s really interesting.OK, It’s all like morality, religion, and spirituality.All right, let me explain each of these categories to you and then after I’ve explained what I mean, then I’ll try and give you some ideas of how we can engage people who come from these types of world views.
5:28
All right, then I need to keep an eye on the time because I want to give you guys 5 minutes to talk in groups about what you have seen and experienced, and then we’ll spend 5 minutes hearing from you so that we can stimulate some ideas that sound like a plan.
5:45
All right, let’s get into it.So the four types, liberty represents the current, let’s call it, you know, if you don’t mind me saying, the current Western tendency to valorize radical autonomy.I’ve already said that.OK, I am who I am.
6:01
I’m going to live my life.It’s my life.It’s now or never.I’m going to live forever.I’m just going to live while I’m alive.And pardon me, I am as child of the 80s.So there you go.Was that?That was Bon Jovi, wasn’t it?Yeah.John Bon Jovi.All right.Charles Taylor, buffered self and all that kind of highfalutin stuff.
6:18
Robert Bella, expressive individualism.I told you I’m a theological lecturer.Now, here’s the thing, right.On my observation, this goes beyond the buffered self, as in we not only ignore the supernatural.On my observation, people who think like this, who are like, really radical, this is the radical liberty.
6:36
OK, Bottom right hand side.People who are radical libertarian buffer themselves from each other and so people are heaps lonely because it’s like I have to build my life my own way.Nobody knows me except myself.That’s the key point.
6:52
Not only is there no God who created me, therefore knows me better than I know myself.My parents don’t know me, they don’t know anything.They just feed me and drive me around.My teachers don’t know me, I know myself.Myself is my internal feelings and dispositions which have no particular order or structure given to me by a creator God, not even given to me by my biology or by my ethnicity or social, my social group, etcetera.
7:20
OK, and so I have to construct myself.No wonder people are coming back to church and seeking some order or pattern.I mean, that sounds really depressing, doesn’t it?But now what I’ve just said, perhaps though, this also underlies the idea that the digital identification that we see particularly among young people these days, OK, Elon Musk and all of the tech Bros and their transhumanist optimism, basically it comes from the same idea of anarchic ontology and a universe which has no intrinsic order because not created by God and even science and so on, is less important than technology.
8:08
What’s the difference between science and technology?Science uses the human okay, we’re still in the natural, the bottom end, okay, The human knowledge and effort in order to discern the good patterns of the universe.Humanistic science doesn’t comment on whether God created it all right, It’s just patterns exist.
8:29
Technology takes all of that knowledge and uses it to manipulate stuff.And so the the digital self, OK, where we play with the phone.I left my phone on the OK, we play with the phone.We construct our preferred self online and then the proximity of that online world is more close to our imagination and our sense of our real self.
8:52
Not this meat bag that’s stinks.Okay, now you I’m I’m exaggerating, but you may now already be thinking of maybe particularly younger people in your congregation for whom that online self is more real and more emotionally important to them then they real embody itself.
9:11
And even if it’s not full transgender blah Dee blah, OK, that that is something that we need to engage it and more of that as we keep going on.OK, what about the bottom left?That there’s the morality in one sense, almost in response, I think against this kind of really crazy radical libertarian individualism, there’s been a pushback led by people like Jordan Peterson and Pom Holland.
9:38
OK, atheists now, what’s they’re seeking order in the chaos, but they still belong below the line.OK, So this is the bottom left morality because when you listen carefully to them, they don’t really believe in God and the supernatural.
9:54
The way that religious people, not just Christians, the way that religious people belief.Because when you listen carefully to them, religious type language is nothing but a cipher, a code for human aspirations, for meaning and purpose in community.
10:10
And This is why church might actually be too good.May we may be too successful in our love and care for people because they find what they want and we become their saviors.Now in one sense, we will always be flawed saviors where just as OK, a sin stained community, bunch of sinners put them together.
10:27
What do you get Corinthians?Oh boy, OK, but but still you understand what I mean.All right, but therefore, let us on the one hand affirm I’m already getting ahead of myself.But we can say to people, yes, you do want meaning in community, but we cannot build this community and this ultimate meaning for for all of you.
10:49
It depends.It comes from the hand of Almighty God.But I’m telling you this so that you don’t get you don’t mistake them.Oh, they’re Christians when all they want is ordered and moral life.They may even come to us spurning and mocking all of the decadent, fractured, unhealthy, greedy life of the libertarians like Jordan Peterson.
11:15
OK, He’s, he consciously puts himself forward as a gentleman of exemplary virtue for other men to follow.That’s a wonderful thing.Follow me as we follow Christ.Yes, but that’s where it stops.And can you see the pride and arrogance and burden that comes with that?
11:33
OK.Now, what’s kind of attractive about that, though?Is that it it?I call it a quasi catholicity, a secularized catholicity because what they’re doing is they’re creating community in time.We are all we’re all in this together, OK.And also through time, we come from a proud ethnicity, a proud civilization, Western civilization, says the migrant.
11:56
But OK, But OK, they rightly recognize that the the social capital that comes from all this religion.But that’s where it stops actually religious people.So let’s now move to the top left, OK, Religious people recognize this more.
12:13
Now I’m talking not about Jordan Peterson and all that, but migrant background or just people who are genuinely like believe in God and believe in the morality and the stability that comes from a sense of the divine.So especially those of us who are in more religious or migrant background, parts of us of Sydney or parts of Australia, parts of NSW.
12:37
OK, I, I hang out with, yes, East Asian background people, that’s my church, but I hang out with a lot of Indians and Sri Lankans, Buddhists, Hindus and so on, You know, folks that their families are healthier than many of our church families.
12:52
Why?Because they bring them up with a strong sense of discipline in the name of their gods.And they have literally millennia in terms of recorded history.Hinduism is probably the oldest religion in the world.And so they have this strong and proud tradition which they mock our Western decadence.
13:11
And you know that I’ve got an advantage, OK, being a migrant, I go along and I say I’m a Christian, I’m a Presbyterian.They say, how do you spell Presby?What?And anyway, and but those of you who are other Anglo background, you probably have that kind of like mockery where it’s like we don’t want your Western sexual decadence because to be Christian means to run around with no clothes and sleep with everything that moves.
13:36
That kind of sense of moral responsibility coming from the divine.In one sense, we actually would agree with that.Yes, we want to live with our God, OK?Every religion has their version of Westminster’s Shorter Catechism 1 glorify God and enjoy him forever.
13:55
They’ve got their own version of that.And precisely because they want to honour and worship their God, and their children want to honour and worship their God or their gods.OK, They are very good kids.And that’s the problem.Because their absolute religiosity stops them, blinds them from the need for a savior.
14:19
But of course, a lot of people don’t come from that kind of organized religious background.Now, again, that sort of collectivist sense.Now, for the sake of my analysis, OK, we need to, I’m, when I talk about people who are more religious, again I talk in terms of a quasi catholicity where there is the sense of Hindus across the world.
14:40
And I’ve already talked about that sense of tradition, OK, there is more of a, pardon me for saying this, but a Western individualistic sense of spirituality, all right, which uses a lot of the resources from religion, but then puts it all together in their own eclectic way, their own sort of self chosen way.
15:01
Now, what’s interesting about this rising spirituality is that it actually claims older heritage than religions.But to do that, they do the classic Marxist faculty and power manoeuvre.Here’s what they do.All right, So back in the good old days of like even pre dating Greco Roman religion and so on, before you had this organised religion, you early humans were one with the gods and one with the the environment.
15:33
And there were the the priestesses and the priests and the Wizards and the white witches who knew how to manipulate all of the powers of the universe a little bit more.Disney, isn’t it?And so right.And then religion came along and organized it all.
15:49
And of course, the priests, in order to gather power and authority to themselves, create a doctrine and dogma, not just Christian religion, but just religions in general.And so now we need to get back behind all of these religious organized nonsense and OK, this, this, this separation of power from the person.
16:10
And we must, we need to rediscover the God and the divine within ourselves.And however you do it, you do you.You do you.Find your own religious way to worship your Jesus or your Buddha or whatever.And let me tell you, folks, I was involved tangentially with a person evangelizing some people of Hindu background where I listened to those people and they were sort of spiritualists.
16:36
OK, so they had moved from Hindu religion.They no longer called themselves Hindu, but I’ll tell you that what I was hearing was more individualistic spirituality where I’m like, this is really different.They’ve that sort of inculcated through migrating to Australia, not Christianity per SE, but inculcated, if you don’t mind me calling it this Western individualism.
17:01
I hope you’re not offended by me calling it that because it just, there is a factity that in countries that are more influenced by, OK, Europe, North American culture, we tend to think of ourselves more as individuals.The traditional majority world is just more collectivistic.
17:17
That’s just a fact.OK, folks.All right, it’s all well and good, but then how do we, you know, So what do we do about it?How do we respond?Let me now if the clicker, if I can get the clicker working.Yeah.So there’s a summary.Build yourself, be yourself or build yourself.
17:35
Be good, Be moral.Follow me in my excellent moral example, Be Holy, which is a religious, supernatural version of Be Good.Does that make sense?Be divine.Get in touch with your divine self.
17:52
That makes sense.All right.How do we engage this with the Gospel?Here’s some suggestion folks.We are made in God’s image.Of course we’re powerful.Of course we can build stuff.We can do magnificent things, including creating incredible online resources, incredible digital resources.
18:11
It’s not raw technology, science and technology.Praise God for vaccines.I’m not an anti vaxxer.Apologies to anyone who is all right.Praise God for science and so on.OK, I love antibiotics.I caught cold and antibiotics because of an earache.Praise God for but all right.
18:28
But Even so, here’s the thing with all of this hyper technologized sense of the self and the and like not thinking of yourself as actually this meat bag, this body, everything that actually makes us our particular self is essentially part of the limitations that are connected with our body and our the relationships in which we have grown up and where we find ourselves.
19:00
It just is Magin.I’m a Veerakon man, Singhalakanet.My name is Veerakul.I am of the Singhalese.Therefore I could speak Singhalese.All right, I am, I’m not in Sri Lanka.There are two races, Singhalese and Tamils.I’m, I’m not Tamil, I love the Tamils.OK, but that’s particular to me now.
19:18
I can’t just sort of imagine myself and say, well, I am Tamil.That would be very offensive to Tamil people.I can’t say I’m I’m aboriginal and start claiming all of those indigenous background benefits.That would be offensive to indigenous people.You understand my point.
19:34
There is everything that makes us us makes me me and makes you you is actually particular.So just lean into it and enjoy it in the name of Jesus Christ who promises to raise you as you.You realize this is part of the wonder and glory of the resurrection.
19:51
Emily, you will be raised as a woman, not a OK, and you will be he raises A glorified woman to be even more Emily than Emily knows how to Emily Why?Because God, who our creator knows us and so on and so on.OK, so there is something where all of the desires through the digital revolution, even transgender, the desire to transcend the self and get away from all of the limitations and pains and hurts of the self.
20:16
Jesus does it better.He does it by forgiving us for having stupid ideas of how to transcend the good body and self he’s given us and giving us something better.What about being moral?Being good?Look, yes, it’s true.I’ve already said virtue stabilizes the self and virtue stabilizes civilizations.
20:35
That’s OK that it’s not in principle wrong.But I’ve already said this is so arrogant, it’s so proud, and you may have even as you read stuff or hear stuff from Jordan Peterson and all that, because it’s kind of upped himself and it’s a burden.It’s demoralizing for people, men and women, young people who feel themselves a failure.
20:55
Sanctification is so much better.The God who forgives Protestant order salutis, order of salvation.We are justified.Yes, we’re organically connected with sanctification.We all grow in virtue, okay, putting forth the fruit of the Spirit, Okay, loving as Jesus loves us, but forgiving as Christ forgave us.
21:17
The awesome.What have we got to lose?It’s so much better.And that also look that comes from God.The religions are right, but it is not karma.It’s not so Islam where you have to do good, go on the Hajj and so on.It is, it is all you are familiar.
21:36
OK, we’re all Protestants here.You know, the famous do versus done.Only the gospel of grace says everything has been done by Christ.And so lean into the priority of justification.God Forgives, and in the name of the God who forgives you go and live a life of grace.
21:54
The best thing about spirituality is the true individuation of the gospel.There is a wonderful warmth and individuality of the way that the apostle Paul, Galatians 220.He lives by faith in the Son of God who loved me, says Paul, and gave himself for me.
22:14
But that’s not individualism, OK?That’s not just that we must follow the real scriptural Jesus.We can’t just make up our own preferred Jesus.OK.And so personal conversion.Yeah.Look, you want an an individual experience of God.
22:32
So do we.It’s called following Christ.It’s called becoming born again and then discovering the adventure of living for Jesus as Josh, not as Kamal OK, or as yourself.And there’s that’s absolutely true.God creates as many, he writes his script for you, which is different to your parents.
22:53
Yes, it is okay.It’s different to potentially the rest of this church because of your individual circumstances.So there you go.That’s my that’s my 4 categories.And I hope is that as you come across all the different people that you will encounter in today’s complex contradictory world, I hope that I’ve given you some categories that you can think about how you can respond to them now.
23:17
Whoops, what’s happened?All right, I’ll leave it there.Yep.And 1/2.Have we got three?Yeah.How much time do we have for discussion?Do we have any time or 10 minutes?10 minutes, Right.So folks, can I ask you just in your rows, have a chat for five and then I’ll call us back for a bit of feedback for five, answer 123, whichever ones of those you wish.
23:42
OK, now the point here is just to hear from you guys about real life situations where you might have seen some of this in action Particular, I’d be interested to hear your instinctive responses.Yes, I agree, but hang on, Jesus is different.
23:57
Does that make sense?And I hope I showed that to you in my presentation.OK, so who would like to just volunteer something from your group?Please don’t.I’ll be shy over there first.Not.Not quite a group because I’m by myself, but I was chatting with A.
24:16
Friend Liberty Guy.Individually, yeah.That’s right, Unchained from the law and speaking to a friend who was sharing about another, her friend who was like, oh, she’s getting into stoicism, which made me think Jordan Peterson.So I did think about that whole thing and she was asking how would you share the gospel with her?
24:35
And I just thought at one level being a stoic, it helps you cuz you are trying to how do you face the horrors of this world, right?You steal yourself, right?There is something great about being virtuous.But what if you get it wrong?
24:53
How do you know you’ve got it right?And you go like you try your best.When have we actually ever successfully tried our best?And she came back, Yeah, But my friend kinda says like, yeah, but she feels like she’s done her best, so that’s good enough.I thought, yeah, if I was being harsh, like that’s a stupid person.
25:08
Well, yeah.But I’m poking holes in the argument.I don’t wanna shoot down the person like.Well, lean into You always gotta do your best.That’s so exhausting, something like that, isn’t it?There is a law that law Ness the whoops, I gotta go back.
25:26
I can’t be bothered.The law versus grace.Okay, the burdensomeness on that left hand side is always there.Thank you.Next.Yeah, I, I haven’t been a Christian my whole life, so I spent a lot of time in the individualistic end and I think that’s really characterised in ever since.
25:48
Yeah, for Colt and other such people in the postmodern era, it’s all hyper individualistic.It’s all about me.And so I’ve seen people across that whole spectrum from right through to sort of the new age spirituality, right down to the power politics and, you know, individual power.
26:04
I want power for myself in a lot of people I would have called friends in the past, but now in a, in my Christian context, I sort of see both ends like so lifelong Christians within the church will be down this collectivistic end because I’ve been raised in the collective of the church and, and so, but the younger ones that are rising up in the church like young, young teenagers and such, like they’re going to be down that end.
26:36
So they they’re wanting to know what I can share with them about what God’s going to do for them or what Jesus has done for them.So, yeah, but I just wanted to pick up on something.It’s a useful schematic and I think, I’m sorry, Andrew was saying it as well.
26:54
It’s an interesting schematic and or a tool for understanding where we can come to people, where they’re at.But we also need to recognise that God is transcendent and wholly beyond the schematic itself, in a sense, and that that’s where we’re headed, you know?
27:12
Absolutely.Yeah, yeah, yeah.All I’m proposing is I hope this is something to give you guys an anchor.It’s ain’t the answer to absolutely everything.And incidentally, I can’t see your name tag.Sorry Dale.Dale, first of all, praise God Dale for that he saved you, but also everyone.It’s really interesting what Dale’s comment has been documented by none less than Mccrindle.
27:33
OK, older people or migrant background people tend to be just, well, the church says or a religious authority says younger people want to be more individually convinced.But recent Mccrindle research called an undercurrent of faith.
27:50
Perhaps you can pick it up for free.OK, just Google it.Undercurrent of faith.They documented that younger people, if they bother to call themselves Christian, are much more likely to actually go to church.OK, then all the people are like, yeah, we’re Christians, but we don’t, we don’t go to church, which makes me worried.
28:08
They’re just moralists.They’re just religious.And they’re going to embarrass us by living a really greedy, selfish, arrogant, angry, you know, racist life calling themselves Christian.Oh, boy.Anyway, thanks, Dale.Other other comments one.
28:24
More.Yeah, just an interesting one in that Liberty box there, chatting with a guy at church.Great guy, very encouraging.
28:40
But he kind of, he captures the, the authentic kind of vibe.So if there’s something that happens at church that, you know, it might not be real great, something happens in the music, which is a bit awkward or whatever, he’ll he’ll want to express how disappointed he was about it because that’s authentic, that’s real.
28:58
That’s what he feels.So there’s the goodness in honesty that it grates against that We’re actually called to to encourage, we’re called to in our language, not to be coarse or crass, but to use holy words.
29:14
And and so it’s just an interesting thing in our in this context of the authentic individual natural expression.But actually we’re called to be individually Christ like as well.And so not always expressing what we feel, but seeking to serve with our words in our individual context.
29:35
So it’s just an interesting thing there.Yep.OK.That’s an interesting question.In terms of pastoral formation, picking up on some of the opportunities and challenges there, where how do we help our people?And this is one of the things as society gets dechristianized, people just don’t know how to behave, people don’t know how to live.
29:56
So how do we help people express with frustration or disappointment in ways that are not ugly and angry?That’s the kind of thing you’re picking up on.Do it and say, OK, and think about it.How can we help the people as they come out of these different backgrounds and if they’re converted, seeking to live for Christ, but coming with all of the baggage inherent in that, which in this particular case is what I think your guitar playing.
30:22
Why don’t you bang it on your head or something?OK, please play cards.That’s what.Thank you.Thank you everyone.Well, that was Kamala Warrakun.I hope that you’re able to take some of what Kamala said and to immediately put it into practice, especially in the conversations that you’re having with people around you, but take some time to pray for them as well.
30:48
I’m Pete Hughes, chat soon.
