I had hoped that the Church of England’s obession with the exile in Babylon and the Gospel being “counter-cultural” would have been an obsession that would have been cearly de-bunked by now. Simply put this obsession leads to slip-shod theology and becomes a justification for running away from the mess of the world as we find it in the early 21st century. It also allows Christians to disengage their brains and feel superior to the rest of the human race. And I am sorry, but the Gospel has nothing to do with feeling privalaged or better than anybody else.

The Gospel is the Gospel, end of story….just because something or other is counter-cultural does not make it the Gospel…..just becasue something or other isn’t counter-cultural does not mean it is not the Gospel. Sometimes society will mirror the values of the Gospel far better than the “Church”. Conseqently it will be Christian culture and thinking that has to be re-shaped back into the Gospel and not the other way round. The wisdom is discerning which is which and waht is what….and there lies the difficulty…and that is why we run away into an exiles in Babylon kind of drunken stupor even though any connections between the exile and now are tenuous at best. In fact there are parts of the Old Testament that were clearly influenced by Babylonian thinking, it wasn’t all ignored or condemned out of hand; the experience of exile was far more complex than that!

So when I watched the opening and closing ceremony of the Olympic Games I rejoiced at all the creativity that was being displayed and the prophetic impact of both the suffragettes and the NHS on the rest of the world….and lest we forget the Church of England completely opposed “votes for women” on the grounds that it was against the will of God….women could not possibly be given the right to vote….such a move would symbolise a society losiing its Gospel values!!!!!

So lets debunk Babylon once and for all……