Senior minister and author Rev Dr William Philip has said the Christian church has failed to do her duty over the past two years, with many church leaders opting to parrot whatever they believe will satisfy civil authorities and the public rather than speak the truth to power.
Speaking with Neil Oliver on GBN, Dr Philip, Senior Minister of The Tron Church, said: “I don’t think we have adequately fulfilled our prophetic role to the nation. I feel rather ashamed about that, because how will that wisdom from heaven be heard on earth unless it’s proclaimed by the church and by the leaders of the church. I think probably the reason for that is it’s hard, isn’t it, to speak truth to power. It’s hard to speak against the majority. Leaders of all kinds, including church leaders, like to think that they’ve got influence, and so, they can easily persuade themselves to just speak what rulers want to hear – maybe what the public want to hear. It’s always been so.”
Dr Philip went on to identify the source of fear that also grips much of our culture, saying it is the inevitable result of dethroning God.
According to Dr Philip, at the heart of every culture is a throne that dictates the behaviour of the people. The modern experiment, he said, has been the dethroning of both literal and human sovereigns along with the representative of the sacred order and replacing it with purely human abstract notions.
“I would say the dethroning of the transcendent, the dethroning of the morality that comes from the Christian faith is what lies behind that.
“When you cut out absolute truth, when you cut out the trust in that which is transcendent, you are left in a fog of confusion. And that doesn’t lead to joy and happiness, it leads to fear.”
Dr Philip went on to say, “When you throw out truth, ultimate truth, because you throw out the ultimate rule of God, it doesn’t lead to liberation as people think it will, it leads to bondage. And, I think, that lies behind a very great deal of the confusion in our society today.”
