Rory Shiner flips the script on the doom-and-gloom narrative about Christianity’s decline in Australia. Despite all the hand-wringing over cultural hostility and dwindling identification with Christianity, he argues that we are currently in the best evangelistic moment of his lifetime.
Rory Shiner is senior pastor of Providence City Church in Perth, and the Chair of the The Gospel Coalition Australia Council.
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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.
Good day.I’m Pete Hughes, and you’ve clicked on the Reach Australia podcast.We’ve got another great talk from our 2025 national conference.This is Rory Shiner, and here is why this is such a great talk.He reminds us that even though we’re becoming progressively a less Christian environment, it also is a much greater opportunity for evangelism and evangelistic fruit.
0:26
Enjoy.Well, I’ve, I want to talk to you this morning.I want to do a little opening exercise in pattern recognition.I think I spotted a pattern on something.I’m going to see if you can, you can see it as well.So the context is that I was at my, at my desk and looking at some books on my, on my desk shelf and in my Kindle.
0:49
And the books were written in the last 1015 years.That’s the rank.They’re all books about what it’s like to be a Christian and or to be in church and building churches in our era.So let’s say the last 2020 years, that’s what the books were about.
1:07
Thinking about our culture, our time, our situation.And through my, you know, enormous powers of intuition and deduction, I think I spotted a pattern.And I want to see if you think there’s a pattern here too.Let me read them to you.
1:24
The disappearing church that was the church that was losing my religion.How the West really lost God.Benedict, adoption of strategy for Christians and opposed Christian society.How to survive the zombie apocalypse, being the bad guys, the death of Christian Britain.Is it just me or is there a slight undertone of negativity in those titles?
1:50
So I here’s my here’s my thing.I reckon when historians come to write about our time, let’s let’s call that 2011 to 2025, I think based on the evidence of our book titles, our podcasts, our conference themes, I think those historians might conclude that ours was an age in which there was a widespread perception that Christianity was under siege and that sharing the gospel was uniquely difficult.
2:21
That’s my hypothesis, but notice I’m choosing my language very carefully.I’m claiming that future historians will conclude that there was a widespread perception that the churches were in trouble and that sharing the gospel was uniquely difficult.
2:43
But a good critical historian will also ask the subsequent question.That’s how they thought.Was that true?Was their perception actual?And I want to think in our little bit of time together about our cultural and social moment.
3:01
And I want to argue like a little alternative thesis.And the thesis I want to argue is that whatever else you might say about our moment, I think you and I are living through an excellent time, a fruitful time for evangelism.I’m not arguing the one Timothy 42.1, Timothy 4/2.
3:20
Preach the gospel in season and out of season.This isn’t the talk that says doesn’t matter where things are, good or bad, keep going, preach, keep preaching the gospel.That’s true.That’s not this talk.I’m arguing that in that one Timothy 2 category, in season and out of season, in a weird way, we’re in season, that we’re in an opportunity where we should notice that at the evangelistic edge of our ministry, we’re in a season of modest fruit and should be encouraged and should be spurred on by that.
4:00
But I go so far as I say I born in 1975.I’d go so far as I say it’s the best evangelistic environment in my lifetime, that that’s the thesis.Let’s see if I can persuade you of it as a good kind of Tim Keller kind of person.
4:15
I think you’ve got to address the defeated beliefs and so the defeat.What are the defeated beliefs in the room?Why might you not think that that’s true?Why might you think that it’s all really tough, tougher than ever, and that evangelism is like eating broccoli, important but no one’s idea of a good time?
4:32
I think there’s two defeated beliefs or sensitive defeated beliefs, I think might be in the room. 1 is our belief or some of our belief that the moment is uniquely hostile.And the second is more the inside problem that churches are perceived to be dropping the ball evangelistically.
4:50
They’re the defeated beliefs.I think look at the first one first, the outside pressures.I think it’s true that it feels like given our book titles, conference titles and so on, feels like we’re facing unique, unprecedented threats to our life and growth as Christians in Australia in 2025.
5:07
Is that true?And I want to say at one sense, yes, since the year 1963 about then, there’s been a fair relentless downward trend in a whole bunch of stuff that would matter to everyone in this room as evangelical Bible believing Christians, things such as Christian identification, Christian influence on politics and society, children attending Sunday school, community, biblical literacy.
5:41
Every single one of those has gone more or less relentlessly S since about 1963.And I think we have the data to prove it.There you go, our religious affiliations.I hope you can make sense of that graph.What you’re looking at between 19 O 1 and 2021 is the green is religious affiliation as Christian.
6:03
There’s not stated or other and you can see that light blue gap opening up.That’s the secular space, the no religion not religious.And you can see that that get to kick start in the early 60s moves to accelerating at our time to the point where in the last year since 2000 and 11, the measurement of people who used to say they’re Christian, now saying they’re not Christian is the fastest ever drop of anything ever measured in the census.
6:42
So at one level, I do want to affirm you defeated belief trying to win you over by affirming what is true in your belief.This is not a drill.This is really happening.Our society really has changed in in a really significant way.
7:00
And I also want to agree with you that the last 10 to 15 years in particular have seen a kind of renegotiation in the social contract between what it means to be Christian in Australia, to quote Steve McAlpine.
7:17
I think it is true that in some sense we have and are catching up with what it means to be the bad guys.As evangelicals, we once occupied a place in our culture where the criticism of evangelical Christians were that they were the goody goodies.
7:37
The Take It Too Seriously brigade, The group who believed what 89% of the rest of the population believed that they were Christian, but took it all a bit too seriously, were too intense about it.We were kind of an intensive form of the culture, but now we’ve gone through this change and it’s a very unusual and discombobulating change where we’re experienced by a fair number of people in the culture, not as an annoying, intensive form of the culture, but as a kind of somewhat malignant alternative to it.
8:11
And that can be a disconcerting experience.So affirming what I can affirm in your otherwise erroneous beliefs.And now we come on to challenge them.But firstly, having having acknowledged that we talk about a decline in church.
8:30
And that’s that’s the thing.But if I could take my pastor hat on and put on a kind of social scientist, social historian hat on, what we’re actually measuring is not so much a decline in church as a decline in mediating institutions over the past 20 or 30 years.
8:50
I think we showed in in this graph what what has actually happened is that there’s been a, a massive change in our trust in institutions and our ability to build and foster those kind of communities which we call mediating institutions, which are those not the state, not private business groups.
9:15
So things are such as, you know, volunteer groups, community charity, Sports Club, volunteer societies, guilds, unions and so on.It’s that that’s fallen off a Cliff.And it’s just worth knowing that it’s that that’s fallen off a Cliff.
9:31
So a sociologist would want to say to us, before you overly panic about church, we’re part of a situation that is kind of bigger than that now.I think it’s really, really bad for societies not to have mediating institutions.Like it’s a really dangerous thing if everything that happens either happens through the state or for profit.
9:53
That’s a bad thing for societies.But, but, but that’s not a specifically Christian thing.That’s a that’s an observation about a, a thing that we’re caught up in in our culture.Secondly, also worth noting, and again trying to be careful in choosing my words, that the the big fastest ever thing that’s ever declined in the history of the census is notice the words identification as Christian.
10:18
That’s the thing that has really changed.Weirdly enough, that sits somewhat Askew to another measurement, which is church attendance.For example, in the years 1945, just after the war to 1963, you saw a steady decline in Christian attendance.
10:40
So in 1963, fewer people said they were Christian than they did in 1945, but a huge increase in church attendance.So at the end of that decade, you have many more people in church, just as you have fewer people who in that instinctive, say, instinctive way when the census come say, oh, what are we, honey?
11:00
Were we Presbyterian or C of E?That drops.But church attendance increases.And in more recent times, we’ve had this experience.The drop from 2011 to 2021 has been very significant. 61% saying they’re Christian to 44% saying they’re Christian.
11:19
Not a drill that really happened, but look at what’s happened to church attendance from 15 to 18 to 21%.That those two things can coexist and they do coexist in our moment.I think the experience that we’re having now, this is the way I would kind of conceptualize it, is that between the years 19 and 1 and 2011, to be Christian was an intensive form of the host culture.
11:43
Whereas now we find ourselves as an alternative to the host culture.But once you’ve come to terms with that alternative and you’ve got the eyes to see it, there’s, there’s actually fruit, not, not overwhelming, unstoppable.
12:00
My goodness, this is it fruit, but not nothing.And one of the things that God tells us to be is thankful, and we should be thankful.It’s true biblically that significant headwinds and biblical and evangelistic fruit can coexist.
12:20
One Peter Philippians would literally make no sense if those two things couldn’t be true at the same time.And I think they are actually true in our context.You talk to the guy, the AFES guys, not everywhere, not all over the place, but in lots of places they are telling us that 18 to 23 year olds who are coming to O Days and evangelistic events, that they’re experiencing one of the best evangelistic environments they’ve had in decades.
12:46
Also hear that story in churches as young people and weirdly enough, young men born in 1975 massively used to the idea of churches skewing female.Young men have kind of bumped their way in by Jordan Peterson and whoever else to churches and want to hear and understand the gospel.
13:06
Biblical literacy has made the gospel.Lack of biblical literacy has made the gospel fresh and new.Like the comic actor Rowan Williams spy character Rowan Atkinson’s spy character Johnny English.They know nothing, which means they’ve got far less prejudice against the gospel than we sometimes anticipate.
13:28
I think they have, if they have an impression of Christians at all, it’s so outrageously and comically negative that all you have to do is offer them a cup of tea and not punch them and you look like Mother Teresa.A number of times in our courses we’ve had inquiries say, oh, that was really interesting and good, and it’s so great that you guys aren’t fundamentalist.
13:50
And I don’t have the heart to tell them.We kind of, but I think because we were happy to make eye contact with them and didn’t shout, they loved it.And that’s a pretty easy bar to to jump.But see, two things can be true at once.
14:07
So the AVS groups could easily get kicked off their campuses, right?That’s that’s way more possible than 20 years ago.People in this room could end up in before a judge or in a jail or teaching what the Bible teaches about some moral topics.
14:27
And there’s evangelistic 3.Two things can be true at the same time.The other problem is the inside problem.I call this the Chapo effect.One of the things I hear, or I think I used to at least hear, you can tell me if it’s still out there, is that we’ve dropped the ball evangelistically, that we’re not as good as we used to be.
14:44
That I, I called this the Chapo effect.There was a famous evangelist called John Chapman in the kind of 80s and 90s in, in, in Sydney.And he was full time employed to go around preaching the gospel.And one of the questions is where’s the next chapo?Like where is that person?
15:01
And my answer is he’s, he’s nowhere.That that person does not exist.They’re not around.But I just want to acknowledge that’s a pretty specific person.Like when you say where’s the next chapter, you’re asking where is the next full time evangelist who uses the expository message method of Bible preaching to give compelling evangelistic talks at events to biblically semi literate non Christians and call them to convert on the spot.
15:31
That’s quite specific, right?I haven’t seen that guy.But what I have seen, and here’s where we hit the home stretch.Here’s my little 3 encouragements at the end.I see a lot of really great course based evangelism guys so far.
15:49
As I say, it’s kind of a golden era of these incredible off the shelf tools.Introducing God Christianity explored simply Christianity.Tyson see the God who speaks life and stuff written for local churches run in local churches so that you could go to almost any city in Australia and on almost any weeknight there will be a home or a hall where non Christians are being patiently taken through the gospel intelligently, coherently in the context of warm Christian hospitality.
16:18
How was that?And there’s this added unintended consequence, which wasn’t true a lot of the time in the 80s and 90s that the church that evangelizes you is also the church that disciples you, the people that first taught you the gospel, the people he take you through the process.
16:37
Secondly, the growth of specialized evangelists on church staff teams.That just wasn’t a thing.Occasionally someone would have a crack and find the kind of the, you know, this person.And sorry if you are this person, welcome.The kind of slightly awkward, goofy evangelists, they’re just like, was really good at sharing the gospel with their friends, but like couldn’t organize a drinking festival and a brewery.
17:00
And you think, let’s bring them on to the staff and evangelize their friends and all their friends become Christian in the first six weeks and then they’re just sitting around getting increasingly frustrated.We live in a moment now where where most of our churches has significant FTE given over to people who wake up and think my job is, is to make evangelism happen here.
17:22
It’s amazing.And I think we’re seeing fruit for that work finally.And I’ve really struggled with how to communicate this.I think it’s worth saying that in our moment, we face a relatively weak opponent.
17:42
What I mean is this, you can ask the question, One of the questions you asked about breaching the gospel is who is our main opponent?What’s the main rival to our message?Question makes answer.So you think in the first 3 centuries, 1st century it’s kind of establishment Judaism, then it’s Pagan Roman paganism and to an extent Greek philosophy. 700 it’s Islam in the Middle East and North Africa.
18:05
That’s where that’s what the gospel gospel was running ahead with 15th century, 1500.Ironically, the established medieval church. 1700, it’s the in challenge of the Enlightenment.They’re formidable enemies, right?
18:21
Whatever else you want to say about Islam or, or, or the Enlightenment or, or Greek philosophy, they are not lightweights.Like that’s a whole other coherent world view that is able to form civilizations and create worldviews and art and culture and form institutions and so on.
18:44
They are kind of, if I can say this, like worthy opponents.What are we up against?Well, we’re up against something that you could kind of broadly call secularism, but it’s not secularism in the sense of like a well thought out, well reasoned, well argued basis, but a kind of bland, live without God or any transcendent realities and see what happens.
19:12
And my question is, like, how’s that working out for you?There’s a book by Tim Winton called That Eye of the Sky.And the kid goes to school and his dad in a difficult situation.He gets teased at school for his dad, and his dad’s not like the other dads.
19:27
And the kid kind of bursts out to his friends.He says, well, it’s better than everyone else’s stupid dad.And sometimes when I’m kind of struggling, being a Christian, I think better than your stupid thing.Now that’s not a winning line in evangelism, but it is a good line for a bit of self therapy because when I’m struggling with being a Christian, I just have to think like compared to what, compared to that you, you look at not only that our sins are forgiven.
20:00
We get to be with God forever, but the all the side hustles, right?The communities that benefit from that, the sense of meaning and purpose, the ability to kind of make sense of.Reality and, and, and life in the world to come.The ability to ameliorate suffering and feel the consolations of God in the midst of confusion compared to the kind of self that’s created by our modern listless secular situation.
20:29
That’s so listless and unstable and so highly anxious in itself compared to that, which is why I think I don’t want to overclaim anything.But you see that uptick.I think people are coming at least in part because they’ve found something very thin and want something thicker.
20:53
They found something really disappointing and want something better.And I think we should be thankful and enthusiastic about the moment that God’s given us for revengeance.That’s it.Thanks.That was Rory Shiner, and I hope that’s actually inspired you to want to actually take the gospel out and to be more fervent in your evangelistic efforts.
21:17
In the notes, we have a review of different evangelistic courses.Rory mentioned this is a golden age for core space evangelism and we wanted to make sure that you have lots of options there.We’re going to leave you with some final thoughts from Rory on Spearmint tasty milk.
21:34
I’m Pete Hughes, chat soon.
