He speaks of the "Acid test" that the Western church fails. It rues those things very obviously worth being sorry for in the eyes of the world, but goes no further. It is very reluctant indeed to propose an unpopular, unfashionable repentance for those things that upset God but are approved by the world. Where God's measure is not the measure of the world and the church does not find its teaching echoed by that of the world, repentance does not abound.
He speaks of that increasing secularism which I explored in the post below, ,in terms of the new Brownie/Guide promise. For Mike it is a poorly defined secularism, which is not actually pure or neutral at all but derived essentially from a Christian world view, for as Mike puts it:
Western culture is a product in large part of Christian cultural contributions. That is so whether you are talking about the worldview that enables the scientific revolution. That is so whether you are talking about the worldview that enables a strong account of the need to respect the human individual.
There is something strange going on - the creation of a god in our own image. Where God's thinking seeme to conform with our own, we are content but where God doesn't seem to do this, there is much confusion. The new Brownie/Guide promise leaves people in the impossible situation that Ovey describes here, when he says:
This explains why certain kinds of dissent are deeply problematic now in Western culture. If you challenge entitlement, the perception is that you have attacked rights...it’s no surprise when you read Western media how frequently the comments about religious conservatives are comments of rage. The summary phrase is ‘How dare you say that!’
For more from GAFCON, read Ovey's transcript here.
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