The history of Ukrainian Christianity is as complex as its political history. Sixty-seven per cent of the population declare themselves to be Orthodox believers, 2.2 per cent Protestant, 9.4 per cent Byzantine Rite Catholic, 2.5 per cent Islam and 0.4 per cent Jewish. Only three per cent of the population profess to be atheist. It is against this background that this week’s events are unfolding, and we are asked to pray.

Ukraine is an amazing country with – in contrast to the revisionist version recently espoused by Vladimir Putin – a long history. It is the second largest country in terms of area in Europe – Russia being the first. At over 600,000 sq km it is 30 times the size of Wales (apparently Wales is now the standard by which we measure any country!).
A nation of 43 million people, it has been declining for some time – losing over 300,000 people per year due to emigration and a low birth rate. In 1995 there were 52 million people. The poverty rate has been increasing rapidly and currently stands at around 45 per cent. The median salary is only $775 a montth,,
Ukraine is generally regarded as being the spiritual mother of Russia, with the Rus coming from Kyiv during the 10th and 11th centuries – hence Putin, the great Russian nationalist, being so interested in it. The mass baptism of Vladimir the Rus and his people at Kyiv in the Dnieper in 988 is regarded as the foundation of the Russian Orthodox Church, and indeed the foundation of Russia.
Kyiv is central to the Orthodox Russians – and therefore to Russian nationalism. Putin seems to be a genuine believer in that. If you don’t grasp the almost religious significance of Ukraine to many Russians (who also make up 18% of the population) then you will not understand why Putin is so desperate to keep Ukraine in the Russian sphere of influence, and away from the West.
Whether the Mongols, Poles, Lithuanians, Ottomans, Germans or Russians, Ukraine’s history is one of invasion and domination by its neighbours. Now this invasion has been added to the list.
Since independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, Ukraine has not found it easy. Widespread political and economic corruption has weakened the country – and arguably made it easier for Russia to invade.
The history of Ukrainian Christianity is as complex as its political history. Sixty-seven per cent of the population declare themselves to be Orthodox believers, 2.2 per cent Protestant, 9.4 per cent Byzantine Rite Catholic, 2.5 per cent Islam and 0.4 per cent Jewish. Only three per cent of the population profess to be atheist.
It is against this background that this week’s events are unfolding, and we are asked to pray.
As always in the age of the internet, it is far too easy for people to suddenly become experts on the subject of the day. Twitter soundbites, TikTok videos and Facebook memes turn many of us into ‘know it alls’. But, as is usually the case, things are much more complex.
I am not an expert in Ukrainian history, and I don’t pretend to understand everything that is going on; but as someone who has preached in the country, my heart sank when I saw the news.
In the midst of all the confusion there are some basic lessons for us:

War is normal for human societies

These past couple of years after almost a century without a major plague in the West, we have reverted to the norm of having plagues. In the same way, after 70 years without a major war in Europe, we have now returned to the ‘norm’ of the past centuries.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is showing up the weakness and instability of the West

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 some in the West assumed it was ‘the end of history’ and that mankind had evolved to the extent that ‘superior’ Western values now reigned supreme. Now we know that is not true. The Russians know that no Western power will send troops to fight for Ukraine. And they will have factored in the economic sanctions and they have built up a reserve of over $600 billion.
After Russia’s defeat in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union was fatally wounded. The embarrassing, hasty retreat of the US from Afghanistan told Putin that the West was weak. There are many things I would disagree with the former President Trump about, but in this area, he was correct – the over reliance of European nations on the US for defence has resulted in a weaker Europe and as a result when the US weakens, the chickens come home to roost.
Only France has any significant military resources. The Chief of Germany’ Army tweeted this week: “The Bundeswehr, and the Army that I have the privilege to lead, is more or less stripped bare. The options that we can offer politicians to support the alliance are extremely limited”
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It seems as though the American church, having taken a disastrous turn into (largely but not exclusively) right wing politics, is now in danger of overcompensating and repenting in a progressive, rather than a biblical, direction. Fault Lines exposes this and thus is largely a book about American cultural wars and American church politics. 

There are not many books that have such an impact that they have made me change my mind. It turns out that Faultlines is one of them. Initially, I approached the book with a degree of scepticism. After all I had heard on the evangelical grapevine that it was ‘extremist’, ‘unbalanced’, and that Baucham was guilty of ‘plagiarism’. And I am against racism and think it is a major problem in the US and the church. However, I am thankful that instead of just reading about the book, I read it myself. And I can only suggest you do the same.
Baucham’s thesis is that the current culture wars in the US over racism and Critical Race Theory (CRT) are in danger of splitting the evangelical church and causing considerable harm. He believes that the acceptance of some of the language and premises of CRT by evangelical leaders is the acceptance of a Trojan horse. He argues that ‘the United States is on the verge of a race war, if not a complete cultural meltdown’ (p. 7).
Fault Lines is not a fundamentalist diatribe or political rant. It is a well-researched, well-written and well-argued clarion call from someone who has not only studied the issues in some depth but, as a black descendant of slaves, has lived them. Fault Lines is not a detailed academic textbook, although it should be required reading for all evangelical students. It is, as Baucham stated in an interview, “the view from 35,000 feet.” If you are confused about what CRT is (and some evangelicals even deny that it exists), then this book is an excellent primer.
His personal story is powerful. He grew up poor without a father, was bussed to a white school and has battled against racism throughout his life. He has walked the walk. Maybe we should listen to his story rather than the white saviours like Robin DiAngelo who make their living out of telling white people they are racist by virtue of their skin colour? The notion that if you are white, then you are racist is itself racist. For Christians we need to ask what has the priority: our skin colour, our culture or our identity in Christ?
Baucham is controversial—at times breathtakingly so. For example, he points out that he had never heard of a black pastor arguing for racial reconciliation or lamenting that their church was 99% black. He states the incontrovertible truth that Africans sold Africans into slavery—to Arabs and to Europeans. And the not so incontrovertible view that ‘America is one of the least racist countries in the world’ (p. 201).
One highlight is the exposure of the false narratives that play such a part in the impressions that many of us base our opinions upon. Some quotes stunned me: ‘We’re literally hunted EVERYDAY/EVERYTIME we step outside the comfort of our homes’ (NBA star LeBron James, p. 45). Or the oft cited and completely false claim from the National Academy of Sciences that ‘one in every 1,000 black men and boys can expect to be killed by police in this country’ (pp. 47–48). That would mean that 18,000 black men and boys would be killed by police. The facts are that, in 2014, 250 black men were killed, of whom only 19 were unarmed. In 2019, the figure was nine (p. 113). How we interpret facts is also crucial. What do you do with the fact that 96% of those killed by police are male? Is this de facto proof that the police are discriminatory against men?
Baucham’s strongest and most important insight is that in dealing with anti-racism, we are dealing a with a new religion—complete with its own cosmology, law, priesthood and canon.
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Scotland is both an example and a warning to other Western liberal democracies when the governing parties are taken over by the Woke progressives. Social “justice” issues – from their perspective – are their primary concern. Sometimes it seems as though when one “progressive” country goes so far, the next wants to go even further.

Transgender ideology is apparently an issue of some importance for the Scottish government. A government elected for the purpose of obtaining Scottish independence has double the number of civil servants working on its proposed Gender Recognition Act, than it does working on the proposed independence referendum, which it hopes to have done by the summer.
Part of this is because of the pushback against promises made by Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP about allowing people to self-identify. Feminist activists and others are rightly concerned about where this is all going to lead. There has been significant opposition within the governing party itself – with the finance minister, Kate Forbes, herself a committed Christian, warning that many people are being silenced and intimidated from speaking.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) warned that the proposed GRA should be paused because not enough account has been taken of women’s rights.
Nicola Sturgeon denies, despite all the evidence, that there is any conflict between transgender rights and sex-based rights. Anyone who dares to question that is automatically labelled ‘transphobic’ – but when even the Guardian is warning the Scottish government that they are going too far, you would think that this might give pause for thought.
The Census where facts don’t matter.
Not that this has stopped the Scottish government from acting as though its policy were already law. In the upcoming census the government are allowing people to put down whatever sex they want (as far as I am aware this does not apply to whatever age you want, wherever you want to live or whatever ethnicity you want to be).
Given that government policy is based upon the census this is a serious issue. The Fair Play for Women organisation is taking the Scottish Government to court, arguing that sex is legally defined in law and cannot just be arbitrarily overridden by a government committed to this strange ideology. The government argues that we ‘need to evolve with the times’.
It is somewhat puzzling as to why this issue is seen as so important. But Scotland is both an example and a warning to other Western liberal democracies when the governing parties are taken over by the Woke progressives. Social ‘justice’ issues – from their perspective – are their primary concern.
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The Gospel is not that God “accepts people as they are.” The Gospel involves radical repentance and change. The “progressive” Gospel involves no change, no curing of our sinful hearts, and no suppression of evil within us. Instead, we become as God.

One of the most influential books in the 20th Century Church was J Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism. Machen was prophetic in his analysis of the crisis facing the Church in the US in the first half of the century—some would argue that it was because of his (and others’) stance that the US Church did not go down the path of decline that Churches in most other Western countries did.
In his prophetic book he warned: “A terrible crisis unquestionably has arisen in the Church. In the ministry of evangelical churches are to be found hosts of those who reject the gospel of Christ. By the equivocal use of traditional phrases, by the representation of differences of opinion as though they were only differences about the interpretation of the Bible, entrance into the Church was secured for those who are hostile to the very foundations of the faith.”
These words came to mind as I listened to the latest debate on conversion therapy on Premier’s Unbelievable, between Jayne Ozanne, the chair of Ban Conversion Therapy, and Peter Lynas of the Evangelical Alliance. Ozanne is, like Steve Chalke, a former evangelical who has a significant voice in the Anglican church and beyond.
As I listened to the somewhat (one-sided) heated discussion, I realised that this was not just a disagreement between two different versions of Christianity, but a disagreement between two different Christianities—which is why there was no possibility of agreement.
Francis Schaeffer, another prophetic writer who saw what was coming down the road, argued in The God Who Is There, that a new theology conditioned by modernistic and post modernistic would infiltrate the Church and create chaos.
He said that this new theology would have certain advantages because “the undefined connotation words that the new theology uses are deeply rooted in our Western culture. This is much easier and more powerful than using new and untraditional words.”
Ozanne used Christian words, but within progressive ideology they have radically different meanings:
1. Love
Ozanne told us, “God is love, anything that harms a child or adult goes against that.” But she never defines what love is. It’s so easy to say ‘love is love’, but without definition, that statement is completely vacuous.
The Bible on the other hand makes it explicitly clear. 1 John 4:10 says, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
Furthermore, our love is also clearly defined: “This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:2-3).
When people reject the commands of God, they are being the opposite of loving.
2. Harm
Ozanne kept accusing Peter and the EA of causing harm. Helen Joyce in her book Trans lays out how accusations of harm are used by trans activists to emotionally bully people into accepting their agenda. It always ends up with accusing those who disagree with them of causing suicide. Yet there is no evidence that the teaching of Jesus is the cause of suicide.
But Ozanne went further: “There is no evidence of Jesus teaching something that is going to cause people harm.”
I would have thought that most modern people would regard telling people to pluck out their eye if it is going to cause them to sin; to let the dead bury their dead; to hate their own father and mother; and to cast people into Hell as somewhat harmful! Perhaps Ozanne should heed his warning in Matthew 18:6 about those who cause people to stumble?
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Don’t Look Up is a good old fashioned, modernist film—with a clear moralistic message. The trouble is that it is the wrong message.

*Spoiler alert: This article contains details of the plot and ending to the movie “Don’t Look Up.”
There was a time when comedians got lots of laughs mocking the religious eccentrics who stood at street corners with sandwich boards proclaiming ‘the end of the world is nigh’. Not anymore.
Now such catastrophism has gone mainstream – or at least Hollywood. It’s not just the end of the world disaster movies – but the fact that we are supposed to take them seriously. Hollywood is preaching to us – with all the subtilty of a flying mallet.
Netflix’s latest ‘blockbuster’ movie is a prime example. Don’t Look Up, despite being a flop in cinemas, is one of the most viewed films on Netflix and has been garnering a lot of column inches in the press.
Sadly reviews, like so much else in our society, have been politicised. If you agree with the point being made in the film/sermon, then you will love it. If you disagree then you will hate it. But Don’t Look Up is also fascinating from a Christian perspective.
Let’s start with the good.
This is a well-made movie, with some decent performances from Leonardo DiCaprio as the scientist who can save the world, and Meryl Streep as the Trumpesque President who dooms it. It is meant to be humorous and sometimes it is.
There are also interesting if exaggerated perspectives on the role of celebrity media, big tech and the human propensity in the face of disaster to ignore reality and turn to false idols instead.
From a Christian perspective there is one scene in which, without a hint of satire, the doomed humans turn to prayer. The troubled teen who was ‘raised evangelical, but found his own way’ volunteers to pray as the world is about to end. It is far too beautiful a prayer for such a satirical and dumbed down movie.
Because despite the good, this is one of the dumbest and most inane films I have seen in a long time. Don’t Look Up reminds me of the worst kind of Christian movie, where the actors seem to be deliberately ham acting the most cliched Christian characters they can find, and the plot reads as though it came from a Jehovah’s Witness children’s magazine!
The Plot
It would be difficult for me to spoil the plot, because if you haven’t gathered what the whole film sermon is about after five minutes, I despair. But if you want to put yourself through the two hours and 25 minutes of torment, don’t read the next few paragraphs.
The simple plot is that Earth is threatened by an approaching comet which two scientists try to warn the US president about. The president is more concerned about her poll ratings and seeks to deflect away from the approaching reality.
Evil money grabbing capitalists (including a big tech zillionaire) see the comet as an opportunity to do some mining for precious minerals; ordinary people are more interested in celebrity gossip on their mobile phones; TV hosts are dumbed down, inane and self-obsessed; the FBI are clowns; and we even have a racist, homophobic space pilot.
Of course, the earth is destroyed – but at least 2,000 people escape and take a 27,000-year flight to another planet, where, as the elect emerge from their cryogenic sleep, naked into their new paradise, the president is eaten by a dinosaur.
The Sermon
The purpose of the sermon is clear. Adam McKay, the writer, director and producer leaves us in no doubt: “This movie came from my burgeoning terror about the climate crisis and the fact that we live in a society that tends to place it as the fourth or fifth news story, or in some cases even deny that it’s happening, and how horrifying that is, but at the same time preposterously funny.”
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Most heresies are not outright negations of the truth – they tend to be subtle distortions of it.  The Bible does teach us that we are to be stewards of the planet and that we are to care for it.  It does tell us that we are to care for the poor and that we are to seek justice.  The Bible is not anti-science; indeed modern Western science was largely founded upon a biblical worldview.    Therefore, when we are told that ‘The Science’ is settled – that the world is doomed; it’s only ‘one minute to midnight’; Cop26 was the most important meeting in human history; it is the poor who suffer most from climate change; and God commands us to save the planet. Who would not want to get involved?  Surely the Christian response is obvious.  Indeed, it is because some Christians believe this so fundamentally that I received demands that the heretic should be silenced.  To question any of this is deemed to be blasphemy.  

Even as I pressed the send button I knew it was a risky moment.  And so it proved to be.  As soon as the article was published on a Christian website, there were cries of ‘heretic’, ‘he should lose his job’, ‘how unloving and unChristlike’, ‘cancel him’!?  What was the crime?    What heresy was I expounding?    I had dared to suggest that perhaps the Climate Change debate was not over, and there were lots of questions that still had to be answered, and that we should approach the subject with a great deal more humility.
Now please don’t get me wrong.  I am not a ‘denier’ and as far as I can see there has been a degree of warming throughout the world and some of that is due to human activity.  My concern was just simply to ask three questions: How much?  What can realistically be done about it?  And why has this been turned into a new doctrine that Christians must accept or be excommunicated from polite Christian society?    The purpose of this article is not to put the pros and cons of the scientific, political and social debates.  But rather to suggest that the Green movement is in danger of being a Trojan horse to bring in anti-Christian teachings in to the Christian church.
The response to my article confirmed to me something that I have feared for some time – that there is a new doomsday cult in town – the Climate Change cult.  I wrote about this a year ago – https://www.christiantoday.com/article/is.there.a.climate.change.cult/134046.htm
But over the past year it has become clear to me that this is not just a cult on the fringes inhabited by a few eccentrics and a host of frightened, indoctrinated young people.  This cult has morphed into a fully-fledged religion – complete with its own high priests, child prophets, demands of sacrifice, unquestionable doctrines, and its apocalyptic end times predictions.    What is worse is how this particular false religion is capturing, not just the liberal Church (whose normal methodology is just to baptise whatever progressive/regressive ideology is in fashion), but also a great section of the evangelical church.   People are writing about their ‘conversion’ to the cause of climate change.  There are few evangelical organisations and publishing houses who would dare to question, at least publicly, the current accepted narrative.
You can see why.  Most heresies are not outright negations of the truth – they tend to be subtle distortions of it.  The Bible does teach us that we are to be stewards of the planet and that we are to care for it.  It does tell us that we are to care for the poor and that we are to seek justice.  The Bible is not anti-science; indeed modern Western science was largely founded upon a biblical worldview.    Therefore, when we are told that ‘The Science’ is settled – that the world is doomed; it’s only ‘one minute to midnight’; Cop26 was the most important meeting in human history; it is the poor who suffer most from climate change; and God commands us to save the planet. Who would not want to get involved?  Surely the Christian response is obvious.  Indeed, it is because some Christians believe this so fundamentally that I received demands that the heretic should be silenced.   To question any of this is deemed to be blasphemy.
There are so many examples as to how much this new religion has become part of the liturgy and doctrine of the church. For example, the Archbishop of Canterbury was forced to apologise last week for suggesting that those who failed to act to limit climate change at Cop26 could be worse than the leaders who ignored the threat of the Nazis in the 1930’s.  Hymns are being rewritten to accommodate the new religion.  This example by Rev. Carolyn Winfrey Gilette from the PCUSA is one of the worst.
ST. DENIO 11.11.11.11 (“Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise”)
The climate is changing! Creation cries out!
Your people face flooding and fire and drought.
We see the great heat waves and storms at their worst.
We pray for the poor, Lord — for they suffer first.
We thank you, for leaders, courageous and brave,
who know that the Earth is worth fighting to save,
who care about justice and what they should do,
who listen to science and work hard for you.
Dave Brennan wrote a perceptive and disturbing article about the ‘Gaia’ exhibition currently touring the UK.  https://www.christiantoday.com/article/what.is.a.pagan.goddess.doing.in.a.place.of.christian.worship/137680.htm
As he points out this is pagan, godless worship, and it is being imported into churches, all in the name of climate change. There was a time when evangelicals viewed the culture through the eyes of Scripture, now there is an increasing tendency to do the opposite.
But rather than look at things in general let me offer you some examples as a warning from the old Jerusalem of Presbyterianism – my native Scotland.
The Church of Scotland is in freefall – in fact along with the Methodists it is the fastest declining church in the UK.
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