Keswick, Brephos, and burning bridges: The necessity of offence

The interesting thing about the controversy with Keswick is that it centres around the visual presentation of a living baby in the womb, not one violently mutilated through “abortion”.

This is interesting, and helpful, because it isolates the problem and clarifies the issue.

Because you see no-one can argue that the image itself is objectively inappropriate, for anyone at any age. It doesn’t depict anything evil or violent. It doesn’t even show anything unseemly or unpleasant, as do images of throat cancer on a cigarette packet. Indeed, the image itself is majestic in beauty, and children in particular tend to be gripped by it and respond in wonder and fascination.

I have discussed elsewhere the question of “abortion victim photography”, including whether children should ever see that, but that’s not what we are talking about here.

This image, we say, is objectively good and beautiful and everywhere-appropriate. It can be found in medical textbooks, school classrooms, National Geographic documentaries, public museums. It is true, noble, right, pure, lovely admirable, excellent, praiseworthy – for we are fearfully and wonderfully made! Christians in particular ought to be happy to have their minds turned to these things by such extraordinary visuals, harnessing the powers of the most cutting-edge imaging technology of our day. And what is good for the goose is good for the gander: we should be equally enthusiastic and unabashed about sharing this image with the not-yet-believing world.

Of course, in a broken, fallen, sinful world, even good things can be emotive or “triggering” in a painful way for some. Fireworks, baby booties, a particular song, a certain place… But we would never go so far as to say that these objectively appropriate, beautiful things should be censored from public view just because of the subjective responses of some.

And yet that is exactly what has happened here in Keswick.

Since it is inarguable that the image itself is objectively good and beautiful and appropriate, Keswick Convention’s charge that we have behaved inappropriately in showing it rests solely on the subjective response – offence – of (some of) the locals.

This is significant.

Because it upsets, and in turn brings “reputational damage” on the Convention, it apparently harms gospel witness – even though it’s a beautiful image.

In other words: you’ve done nothing wrong, but you’ve done something wrong – because they feel wrong about something right and true: purely because they are offended.

Offence itself is wrong.

Can this be right?

Now, we certainly are called to avoid offence as much as possible, both within the Church and without. On disputable matters, such as eating and drinking, we should show charity, humility, and consideration, and not allow “being right” to manifest as unlovingly causing a brother to stumble (Romans 14:1-15:13) or becoming quarrelsome and divisive (Titus 3:9-10). The principle appears to be extended into the world: Paul became a Greek to the Greeks, a Jew to the Jews, all things to all men, that he might save some (1 Corinthians 9:19-23). Few, I think, would disagree that a female missionary in a Muslim nation should cover up more than she otherwise would, in order to avoid (unnecessary) offence, and to keep clear channels for the gospel.

But the operative clause is: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you…” (Romans 12:18a). It is emphasised here, in the positive command of Scripture, by this double qualification, that sometimes offence will be inevitable, even when we’re doing it all right.

Indeed, Jesus himself was and is the Rock of Offence (1 Peter 2:8), causing people to stumble, and to grumble (John 6:25-70). Many of his own disciples were offended by his teaching, turned back, no longer followed. Offence was fundamental to his earthly ministry, and above all to his crucifixion. He was crucified at one level because he offended people, and his crucifixion became an offence to the Jews in particular (1 Corinthians 1:23).

His disciples had the same instinctive reaction to offence that we do. “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” they objected (Matthew 15:12).

Jesus’s reply is (obviously) instructive: “Ignore them.”

Of course, offending people was never the ultimate goal for Jesus or the Early Church, but it would probably be underplaying it to call it merely incidental to the plan, an occasional by-product.

Jesus tells us to expect to offend people and indeed to rejoice when we do (Matthew 5:10-12) – since what is persecution except what you get when you offend people? Why would the world hate us as it hated Jesus (John 15:18) if we never offended them?

The tone is set not only in the explicit teaching of the New Testament but also in the recorded example of the Apostles. When they delivered a slave girl in Philippi of her fortune-telling spirit (Acts 16:16ff), thus frustrating the earning prospects of her owners, they offended them. Indeed, they ended up in prison as a result. There is no need to list here all the things that happened to the Apostles because they offended people, but given the context of Keswick shopkeepers claiming that the Convention and its side effects are bad for business, one might also be reminded in particular of the out-of-pocket idol-workers rioting in Ephesus (Acts 19:23-41). They were offended.

There is no suggestion anywhere that any of these instances of offence amounted to an own goal for the gospel. Nowhere is “reputational damage” bemoaned. Never is anyone’s wrist slapped for “burning bridges” for the gospel.

We would do well to remember that a great deal of the New Testament was written from within prison. Many of the Letters might as well bear the editorial heading: “I just offended a LOT of people!”

Yes, some will say, we have to be ready to offend where necessary – but we want the only offence to be the offence of the gospel. We don’t want our politics or our beliefs about sexuality or our pro-life convictions to get in the way of gospel proclamation, important though they may be.

Let the Cross of Jesus be the only offence!

But will that really do?

When John the Baptist offended Herodias by saying it wasn’t lawful for Herod to have his brother’s wife, was it with the gospel that he offended her? Was it not rather with the moral law of God?

When Jesus offended, or at least saddened, the rich young ruler (whom he loved), by telling him to part with his money, was it with the gospel?

And going back to the fortune-telling slave girl – was it gospel proclamation that actually enraged her owners, or was it rather that the girl was delivered of a demon and they lost some money?

The truth is that whilst we can draw a distinction between the law of God and the gospel, there can be no separation. That is to say, there are precursors to the gospel (creation, the fall, God’s law…), and implications of the gospel (the life of the Spirit, based on the law of God, touching also on public life), that are inescapably connected to the gospel. And, it is important to say, it is more often these precursors and implications that will cause offence, than the gospel itself per se. The only place where you’re going to get serious opposition for the Five Solas is in certain wings of the professing Church. Out there in the world, it’s your anthropology and your ethics that will get you into trouble.

We are simply not at liberty to say that we’ll cause offence and take flak for Romans 3:9-8:39, but not for Romans 1:18-32, or Genesis 1 and 2, or Psalm 139.

We are blessed when we experience persecution because of “righteousness”, not just because of “by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone”: that white-hot counter-cultural God-fearing holiness and zeal for justice that is a painful affront to an unbelieving world.

To lop off these inseparable portions of the whole counsel of God is to end up with a truncated – and in the end, a false – gospel.

There is a valid distinction between evangelism and “good deeds” (Matthew 5:16) – and we can even say that there is a primacy to evangelism. But we are also commanded to do good deeds, to care for the orphan and widow in their distress (James 1:27), to be a voice for the voiceless (Proverbs 31:8), offence or none.

Importantly, there is no contradiction between these two commands, because there is no contradiction in the God who gave them. We do not have to choose between being evangelists and being people who care for God’s justice and righteousness. We don’t have to hide or mute our pro-life convictions in order to maintain bridges for the gospel.

(In fact, notice how often in the New Testament controversy actually creates a platform for evangelism, rather than precluding it – something we find to be true in our public education displays, including in Keswick, where we find that we get opportunities to share the gospel and pray with people, offence notwithstanding.)

As Gregg Cunningham memorably put it: we are not required to adopt an evangelistic methodology that requires children to be sacrificed for souls to be saved.

Just as we must preach the Cross of Jesus, offence or none, we must also clearly bear witness to the whole counsel of God, including (perhaps especially) where it most grates against the culture.

It is possible to mark out at least two areas where we should be particularly ready to offend.

The first is where, as mentioned above, the culture in question most violently clashes with the claims of the gospel. Ephesian idol-worship would be an example. Where the darkness is greatest the light of the gospel needs to shine brightest and most explicitly.

The second is where innocent human beings are being oppressed in a widespread and systemic – a socially acceptable – way. Because we hold that all human beings are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), and because the shedding of innocent blood is an abomination (Proverbs 6:17), and because we have love for our neighbours, in particular the fatherless, the widow, the weak, the marginalised, it should be obvious that as well as proclaiming the gospel we Christians should interpose ourselves on behalf of victims of oppression to see justice done.

(It is worth noting that “abortion” in fact occupies both of these areas: bodily autonomy and self-definition are an anti-Christ ideology and idol of our day, and the baby genocide easily outweighs in numerical terms any other justice issue not just of our day but of all of human history.)

Concern for justice is uncontroversial when it happens to align with the sensibilities of the day – such as in the case of racism or building regulations. But if you are going to taken on the accepted injustice of the day, you will inevitably offend.

It is easy and painless today to claim Wilberforce and Clarkson as part of our evangelical canon, but at the time they were deeply offensive both to those within the Church and to those without. Clarkson had to have a bodyguard. He was very nearly assassinated on a pier in Liverpool. Clearly, the slave traders were offended.

They are not alone in our tradition. Amy Carmichael helped little girls escape hideous enslavement in Hindu temples, leaving a trail of offended owners. William Carey denounced widow-burning in the same nation, and child sacrifice. “Why should babies be cast into the river year after year?” he asked.

Why indeed.

Against this great crowd of witnesses, biblical and thereafter, here we stand, at the beginning of the 21^st century, presiding over a genocide of 10 million babies since 1967, still justifying our (relative if not total) silence and inaction with, “We don’t want to offend people.”

What right have we?

The question is not, “Will this offend?” but, “Is this right?”

Or to put it another way, it is not, “Will I offend the locals by doing this?” but “Will I offend God by not doing this? Or by trying, even, to discourage or stop others from doing it, or by withholding my support from them in the cause?”

If we agree that offending the locals is in and of itself a red light, a line that cannot be crossed, we grant them a heckler’s veto – whatever they don’t like has to go. We write them a blank cheque. We crown them, in fact, lord of the Church: they tell us what we can and can’t do in public.

And perhaps, one day, in private too.

But Christ is either Lord of all – everywhere – or he is not Lord at all – anywhere.

In my last communication (a few weeks ago) with the leadership of Keswick Convention I asked them what they would have done if we had come with a banner showing some black people or some Jewish people, with the caption that they were human beings too, and if a few local racist youths had been offended and kicked off.

Would they have sided with the racists, or with us?

Would they have told the papers they were “saddened” by our display, or would they have been “saddened” by the racist reaction, and by racism itself?

I am still awaiting a response.

Dave Brennan is director of Brephos, an organisation that exists to help churches respond to abortion.