The Unfashionable Gospel

Preston’s Harris Gallery recently ran an exhibition on our living spaces and created a late sixties/early seventies lounge area. For some older readers, it will bring back fond memories of happier times; for the rest of us, that nauseating wallpaper induces severe headaches and vomiting. Our houses are as much subject to fashion and tastes as our clothes and attitudes. This particular living room I find rather revolting, though the kind of folk who lived in such a place might have thought themselves rather chic and ‘with it’. In a decade’s time, others will say the same of my own home.

The gospel is looking particularly unfashionable in 21^st-century Britain. It asserts that some behaviours are wrong, when the prevailing culture demands we accept them. It declares only one path to God- Christ Jesus- and therefore the falsehood of all other religious claims. In an increasingly pluralist world, this smacks of arrogance and intolerance, a threat to social cohesion and good neighbourliness. Furthermore, the gospel sees past the veneer of technological advancement and educational progress. It reveals each human heart to be a cesspit of arrogance, selfishness and moral filth. By denying our goodness and benevolence, it throws stones at the glasshouses of our pride.

The path to heaven is steep, narrow and above all, unfashionable. The road to destruction is smooth, gentle, wide and well-regarded by friends, colleagues and family. 

And everyone that has forsaken houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.

Matthew 19:29