The secular vision of equality is fighting against the reality of God’s world. It will be forced to try and smash the family, because that’s the source of inequality and difference. So, as Christians, we have to take the family seriously, now more than ever…Jesus Christ is rebuilding a family, an organic, inter-connected, inter-dependent humanity, where all are welcome, all have a place, and where great glory and honour is to be found, not by merit, but by grace. This is a great opportunity for the church to showcase and invite people into a very different vision of humanity.

In 1516, the Dutch scholar Erasmus wrote a book called The Education of a Christian Prince. He wrote it for the Spanish Prince Charles, advising him about how to rule. It contains this line:
“it is not equality for everyone to have the same rewards, the same rights, the same status; indeed this often results in extreme inequality” p.72, Education of a Christian Prince. 
Erasmus’ vision of equality is very different to the vision offered us by secularism today, where statistics of inequality in education, income, and health automatically represent injustice. I think Erasmus’ vision is much closer to the Bible’s.
biblical equality
The Bible’s vision of “equality” is glorious. The doctrine of man taught in Genesis chapter 1 dignifies every human being (Gen 1:27). Many in the Ancient Near East believed that only kings and princes were the “image of God”. But God’s word democratises the concept – from the drunk in the gutter, the embryo in the womb, the enemy in combat, through to the rich and powerful (James 3:9). Jesus’ famous parable of the Good Samaritan taps into this same truth, as he instructs us that even my enemy is included in the list of neighbours I am to love (Luke 10:29ff).
Clearly, the true religion of Israel and the coming of Jesus Christ has unleashed powerful equalising forces into this world. Paul uses the concept of “fairness” to argue for redistributing goods within the Christian church (2 Cor 8:13-14). He argued masters are to treat their slaves “justly” and “fairly” (Col 4:1), profound concepts that still underlie ideas of a minimum wage and workers’ rights today. Jesus causes goods to flow between people in a very different way to both feudal and capitalist economies (Acts 4:32, 34).
secular equality
There’s no doubt that the secular vision of “equality” draws deeply from these Christian roots. After all, it’s not obvious that being committed to Darwinism and the “survival of the fittest” gives any real grounds for a vision of “equality”. You won’t find equality touted in ancient paganism. But secularism is offering us a distorted, somewhat grotesque, vision of the Bible’s equality. It’s an atomised, statistical version of humanity, as opposed to a corporate and organic vision.
unequal families
A key thing missing in this vision is family. Between individuals and society there is this mysterious thing called “family”. No two families are equal. Families have histories and exist through time. No two mothers or fathers are the same. They have different grandparents and different great grandparents. Their geography is different – growing up in the countryside is not an equal experience to growing up in a big city.  No two children born to those parents are the same. They have different physiology, and DNA, with the specific opportunities and disadvantages those particular bodies create. Childhood experiences differ between families – attitudes towards cooking and diet, health and hygiene are different. No amount of social engineering can erase that family history.
What’s more, families accumulate things over time, and they pass these things on to the next generation. This is called “inheritance”. It’s no surprise, therefore, to see a celebrity like Daniel Craig say “inheritance is distasteful”. In an interview, he’s stated that he doesn’t intend for his children to get his Bond millions. If we’re all inherently independent individuals, then why should one child stand to gain from what an adult has done? Families introduce inequality!
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Written by R.C. Sproul |
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
To be a Christian means that we follow Christ, and to be a Christian leader means that we lead in the name of Christ. We are not free as Christian leaders to teach our own gospel. We are not free to throw away the teachings of Jesus and replace them with our wisdom. The world has plenty of human wisdom—too much of it—and it doesn’t need ours. The world is dying of confusion from human opinion. We must not add to the chaos of our society. The world desperately needs the message of Christ.

As Christians, we have access to the very wisdom of God. We have the mind of Christ. Christians must be on guard to have their thinking and decision-making shaped not by the secular world but by the mind of Christ. This is often a weak point even for godly, devout, zealous, and committed Christians, earnest in their desire to be authentic servants of Christ. Every one of us, no matter how thoroughly trained we are in biblical Christianity or theology, is infected by thought patterns that come to us from the secular world. We are born and raised in a secular culture. We are exposed to secular values day in and day out. It’s difficult for us to grow in maturity to have the wisdom of God. But that’s precisely what’s at our disposal as Christians—to be able to make value judgments and decisions not in light of secular values but in light of the gospel of Christ.
This means that if we’re going to be responsible Christian leaders, we must be conversant with the Scriptures because the Scriptures are radically different in their perspective concerning the meaning and significance of mankind. The directives, admonitions, and teachings of the New Testament are practical. Not only do we gain knowledge about God, which is suitable for our devotion and our salvation, but the Bible gives us the finest, most accurate, most incredible insight into human behavior that we can find anywhere.
No psychologist, sociologist, or anthropologist will ever improve on the Bible because there we find the wisdom of God Himself—the One who has made us and who understands our frame inside and out. He knows what is good for us; He knows what is bad for us. When God tells us to do something, He doesn’t do it just for abstract theological reasons. He’s practical. He loves us. As Christian leaders, we are called to communicate that wisdom of God.
The most solemn responsibility for those in a position of Christian leadership is to accurately speak the truth of God. That means leaders must know the Scriptures. They must read so that their minds are transformed. As we begin to embrace the value structures that come to us through Christ, our lives will change, albeit gradually.
I can remember working at College Hill Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati and experiencing the frustrations of evangelism. And my frustration in evangelism was this: How could I get these people to understand the radical difference between Jesus’ value system and approach to mankind and his environment and that which they receive in the secular community? How could I do that in one sermon? How could I make them understand who Christ is? I was thinking primarily of evangelism inside the church, not outside the church—speaking to those who joined the congregation but had no real inner commitment to Christ. They’d never really understood the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but they were there out of habit or convention.
So, I started a Bible study for women. About eighty women met every Monday. I was absolutely amazed at what happened to those women after a year in this study. At the end of the year, somebody asked me, “Is there any way to heaven besides through Jesus?” In other words, is Jesus the only way to heaven? Does a person have to believe in Jesus to get to heaven? My answer to that question is the New Testament answer.
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I am minded to believe that if we really want authenticity, it means certain churches will be authentically extremely messy. They will be very honest, but there will be serious mess. I am equally minded to believe that other churches will appear relatively together because they are. The sins they struggle with will seem like small beer to some or be centred more in their thought life. We also have to accept that authenticity will also be authentically in line with the culture from which we emanate. 

One of the moves in the modern evangelical church is towards an increasing sense of authenticity. It is hard to argue with the desire for authenticity. After all, if one isn’t authentic, then one is fake. And who wants to go to church with a bunch of fakers? Isn’t that the very hypocrisy and Pharisaism the church has historically been accused of and from which it desperately wants to unhitch?
The issue is that the authenticity-hunters are often not enamoured with authenticity when it is actually on display. Churches in hard places may seem full of people being authentic, but people often recoil from the authenticity on display because it is, well, too authentic. The sins on display, that with the church’s help may be repented of, are too much for some to wear. How can professing believers do that? There’s not denying we shouldn’t sin, but let’s not pretend that we don’t, and some of us spectacularly so. We only have to look at some of the things professing believers got up to in scripture to see it is so. But for many, that is a level of authenticity too far.
Some, who find these things too much, prefer churches with more middle-class sensibilities. But the problem rears its head in such churches too. Whilst I have no doubt there are inauthentic fakers in middle-class churches, I am prepared to believe that most of them are not that. They are just what they appear. Broadly together people who happen to have relatively comfortable lives whose problems are broadly managed thanks to their financial setup and social status.
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