Francis Macnab and the New Faith Campaign

If there is a clear sign that the church is radically departing from its allegiance Christ Jesus, it would be her adulterous relationships with the idols of the world - humanism, secularism, pragmatism, postmodernism. And a most shocking example today is found in Melbourne when a church minister publicly declares that Jesus Christ was merely a Jewish bloke who was anything but God.

Melbourne's local newspaper The Age on September 16, 2008 ran a story of Francis Macnab, the minister of St Michael's Uniting Church, who launched a $120,000 "new faith for the 21st century" campaign. The Age quoted him saying "Abraham is probably a concoction, Moses was a mass murderer and Jesus Christ just a Jewish peasant who certainly was not God. In fact, there is no God, in the usual sense of an interventionist deity - what we strive for is a presence both within and beyond us."

Chosen as the campaign motto is the statement "The Ten Commandments, one of the most negative documents ever written" which is posted in huge billboards strategically placed in several prime spots in Melbourne CBD, along with newspapers, radio, and internet ads.

A psychotherapist and member of the Jesus' Seminar, Macnab is pushing boundaries to advance his agenda: Re-invigorate an old faith that he thought is no longer relevant. In his own words: "The old faith is in large sections unbelievable. We want to make the new faith more believable, realistic and helpful in terms of the way people live."

The following is Macnab's talk (I won't call it sermon as it merely used the Bible as a convenient peg to hang his heretic thoughts) in which he uttered the comment "The Ten Commandments is one of the most negative documents ever written." You will find it at approximately 3:30.



The Uniting Church Synod has released a statement in response to Macnab's campaign with 3-item resolution:

1. To request the Moderator and the General Secretary convey to the church council of St Michael’s the deep concern of the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania at the offence caused to many Christians, Jews and Muslims by the signs and other media referring to the Ten Commandments, and the potential damage to ecumenical and interfaith relationships and to the Uniting Church’s commitment to respectful relationships and communications.

2. To request St Michael’s church to remove the signs and other media forthwith and to issue an apology for any offence caused.

3. To communicate the substance of this resolution to the Victorian and Tasmanian Councils of Churches and the equivalent statewide bodies of the Jewish and Islamic faiths.

I doubt however that these 3 items will be reinforced since Macnab by his own admission in the above talk has taught this 'new faith' for 30 years and have been doing it under the the Uniting Church Synod. The Age reported that "the church response to Dr Macnab has been tied by protocols that require an official complaint from a member before it can act, and none has yet been made."

Personally I felt a mixture of anger and sadness when I first learned about this parody. It hits home not only because Macnab's church is directly opposite to the Scots' Church where I am serving but also the fact that he can still call himself a Christian minister while entirely rejects the presupposition that Jesus Christ is God Incarnate.

I think the comments he made in the newspaper and his talk above reveal three things about him and his beliefs.

1. His flawed attempt to improve the Gospel in order make it more relevant to and appealing for his postmodern audience.
The Gospel is an offensive news as it reveals the hell-deserving sinful nature of every person who stands at the mercy of the holy God. I think it was Mark Dever who said that the attempt to contextualize the Gospel is meant to make this message clearer and not to make it more acceptable to the sinner. This is precisely the reason why Paul said, "but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles" (1 Corinthians 1:23).

2. His flawed preoccupation with pragmatism.
If the Christian faith is taught on the basis of "if it works, it must be true", people will treat it merely as a helpful product. We stick to it just like we faithfully hang on to band-aids, hand sanitizer, and so on which make our lives more manageable. There is no conversion of the heart and renewing of the mind in this pragmatic, self-serving commitment. The whole point in becoming a Christian then is to use God to fulfill one's agenda, not surrendering to God's agenda and his lordship of our lives. We don't accept or reject God's commands based on whether or not it works. The acid test is how we respond to Jesus' claim "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Our response to who he is determines our attitudes about his commandments and many other things that have origin and meaning in him.

3. His flawed understanding of the Bible, albeit his exegesis on the issue of law and grace.
In the above talk, Macnab said that

"The ten commandments in the Old Testament are negative. And you know something, Jesus thought so too. That's why he said I give you three more. Three better ones. Love your God. Love your neighbour. And love yourself. That's what he said. Leave the old ones. Follow these. And he went on further and said "You believe in an eye for eye and a tooth for a tooth". And by the way many people still believe that. But he said back then two thousand years ago, I will give you something that will transform the world. Love your enemies. Do good to them that hate you." (4:27 onward)

The following three simple points show Macnab's illiteracy of the biblical teaching of Jesus:

First, Jesus never ditched the ten commandments, or any part of the laws in the Old Testament for that matter. On the contrary, he said bluntly “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished." The operative word in that statement is "fulfill" (Greek = pleroo) which means to carry into effect or bring to completion as it has been predicted. When God gave the ten commandments to the Israelites, "Thou shall not kill", for example, the law was then brought into its intended consummation in Christ where the kingdom community, the church will be characterized not only by the absence of murder but more importantly the absence of hatred among each other. Similarly the command "Thou shall not commit adultery" was fulfilled by Jesus when the redeemed people In Christ Jesus live with sexual purity. Through these characteristics Christians prove that they truly arei n Christ, loving God with their heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and loving their neigbour as themselves.

Second, Jesus never altered, improvized, replaced, or added anything to God's laws. Loving God and our neighbour as ourselves have been deeply embedded in the Israelites' way of life. The Shema, as they call it, was to be taught and talked about every single day that no children would grow up without: ""Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might."

Third, the saying "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" was quoted by Jesus from the Old Testament (Lev 24:20; Ex 21:23-25; Deut 19:21) to disabuse the understanding of the scribes and Pharisee. The law was given by God as a law of retribution which is both prescriptive and restrictive. Prescriptively, it was meant to be used so that the punishment given by the court officers are proportional to the crime. Restrictively, it was meant to avoid blood feud which often occurred when someone took law in their own hands and escalated the conflict above and beyond the first offense. The scribes and Pharisees however took it as a justification for personal revenge, which was a misapplication of the law. Jesus then taught that for personal relationships, his redeemed people should not only refrain themselves from taking revenge, but must engage in personal self-sacrifice for the sake of the kingdom.

Jesus came to fulfill God's law also meant that he himself obeyed God's law in perfect obedience. It was his perfect righteousness that was imputed to us as none of us in our sinful nature can satisfy God's perfect standard. CS Lewis said it best when he wrote in Mere Christianity "No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good."

There is nothing negative about the ten commandments, each and every one of them. The ten commandments free us from our misconception that we can save ourselves with our morality and that we can live a meaningful life apart from God. Our inability to satisfy God's perfect law points us to our need of Christ and brings us to his cross, where the wrath of God upon our sins is met with God's love for sinners.