Written by Rev. Richard Baird - Church and Culture Consultant at dia-LOGOS
In “The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams, the meaning to the Ultimate Question of Life offered by the computer Deep Thought after seven and a half million years of processing was “42.” The computer then points out that the answer seems meaningless because the beings who wanted the answer didn’t know what the question was.
The word of the Year for 2025 was “67” – pronounced “six-seven” and is favoured by Gen Alpha, if not for its value in perplexing elders who can’t fathom its meaning. If you haven’t already done so, type it into Google and see what happens…
And what does it mean? Well, it seems no-one actually
knows. According to Dictionary.com (the
italics is my emphasis):
Some say it means “so-so,” or “maybe this, maybe that,” especially when paired with its signature hand gesture where both palms face up and move alternately up and down. Some youngsters, sensing an opportunity to reliably frustrate their elders, will use it to stand in for a reply to just about any question. (“Hello, darling child, how was school today?” “67!”) A perfectly timed 67 signals that you’re part of an in-group, and if you’re already using its emerging spinoffs six-sendy and 41, you might be even cooler.
Perhaps the most defining feature of 67 is that it’s impossible to define. It’s meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical. In other words, it has all the hallmarks of brainrot. It’s the logical endpoint of being perpetually online, scrolling endlessly, consuming content fed to users by algorithms trained by other algorithms. And what are we left with in the wake of this relentless sensory overload? 67. Still, it remains meaningful to the people who use it because of the connection it fosters. 67 shows the speed at which a new word can rocket around the world as a rising generation enters the global conversation.[i]
For me, it sums up the bewildering nature of this past year in terms of the culture scene: it was difficult to comprehend the chaotic nature of it. It was a year in which the term ‘culture war’ became an understatement. Consider the murder of Charlie Kirk. That murder revealed far more clearly the deepness of the divide and the intensity of the animosity between the ‘left and right,’ and it seemed there was no neutral ground with respect to perspectives of him. The cultural commentary on this event is endless, with many Christians weighing in. That incident, along with perspectives on other issues in the world (especially the Israel-Gaza/Hamas war) that get posted in the alternate algorithmic universe of Social Media, where everyone has their own silicon curtain[ii] preventing them from seriously contemplating other points of view, leads me to characterize this past year in one word: polarisation (and that’s probably the one thing everyone could agree on). And that’s just within the church.
Polarisation as a summary word is underscored by the fact that online rage has overtaken pornography as the number one activity online (see my colleague Mike’s article on Pornography Dethroned about rage-bait). Ironically, many of the rage-bait items don’t even feature in the country being referenced (for example accounts claiming to be patriotic about America were based in foreign countries ranging from Morocco to Indonesia, according to the new ‘About this account” feature launched by X).[iii] What a waste of emotion.
The Charlie Kirk murder brought to the fore an incredibly important question: how do we as Christians, and the church, engage with our culture? It is so important because now more than ever our witness is very clearly displayed. As it stands, this murder highlighted how Christians are unable to agree on this issue. And the world is watching. The latest “Knives Out” franchise movie (Wake Up Dead Man) has some definite perspectives on church with its murder mystery taking place inside a catholic church, and contrasting through caricature an ‘against the world’ approach over an inclusive progressive ‘all is grace’ approach. Not only is it a ‘whodunnit,’ but through the plot also poses the question of ‘who is a true Christian’ and by implication ‘how should the church be?’ The producer of the movie, Rian Johnson, is an ‘exvangelical.’
In terms of church and culture engagement, I observed two contrasting approaches come to the fore this past year. The first seeks to dominate culture through Christian Nationalism, and the other seeks to ‘rise above the fray’ and refuses to be drawn into binaries and has come to be known as ‘third-wayism.’
Christian Nationalism in essence seeks to wrap the cross in the flag of the nation. It wants to accomplish politically the entrenchment of Christian values. It wants to fuse national identity with Christian identity, and understandable images of “A Handmaid’s Tale” tend to be associated with it. I wrote about it in a previous article[iv] and my definition of it as ‘right wing wokeism’ pretty much still stands. Nationalism of any form has never been known for its compassionate treatment of the ‘other’; it can only thrive by scapegoating. Christian Nationalism in my understanding is rooted in fear, is power-hungry and uses theology, designed to enhance our worship of God, as a weapon of dominance.
Third-wayism is an approach to cultural engagement that was popularised by Timothy Keller. It became an increasingly popular approach within Evangelicalism as people would get tired of the binary label of ‘left vs right’ in the political sphere (which American politics in particular lends itself to) when recognising that issues tend to be more nuanced. The label itself gets misunderstood because the approach is neither compromise nor synthesis. Perhaps “Alternate Way” might be a better descriptor. It in essence attempts to allow the gospel narrative to create or unfold its own category because the gospel is so different (see for example my colleague’s Mike’s blog site www.thethirdway.org). For example, think of how within Scripture and Christianity we see people leaning towards the error of legalism (with a focus on truth and then grace gets left out) or the error of liberalism (with a focus on grace but truth gets left out): the gospel is neither legalism nor liberalism – it’s a different path altogether. Although not without its critics or dangers, third-wayism at best forces one to not just accept the first narrative thrown at you, but to endeavour to contemplate a different response to cultural and political issues (Let me know if you would like an article or seminar on this!)
This cultural chaos that we find ourselves in turns out to be a symptom of what Os Guiness calls a ‘civilisational moment.’ A documentary called “Truth Rising” (available on YouTube – I strongly recommend watching it) examines our cultural moment in western democracy and points out that we are on the brink of a collapse, and there are three broad choices before us: renew the civilisation, replace the civilisation or decline. He is not the only one to speak in these terms regarding where we are at. Historian Tom Holland also speaks of how western civilisation is at a ‘chokepoint’ and in a podcast (speaking primarily in context of UK) also paints potential scenarios of what future we might find ourselves in.
The cultural chaos is in essence a result of losing our Christian moorings: it’s very difficult to continue to hold onto values if you divorce yourself from the source of those values. In a really interesting comment, Holland observed the following:
One of the reasons I think for the decline of institutional Christianity is that Hitler has taken the place of the Devil. A modern liberal, now, rather than ask “What would Jesus do?” as his Victorian forebear would have done, says “What would Hitler do?” and does the opposite. And that’s kind of kept us on our liberal “straight and narrow,” but that is clearly fading as the [lived] experience of fascism in Europe dies out.[v]
And there are signs of people looking again to the Christian
faith. Even secular critics and
podcasters such as Konstantin Krisin and Joe Rogan are exploring church. The UK Bible Society published a report
referencing a ‘quiet revival’ in which there is an observed trend of primarily
GenZ men going to church (we’re not talking massive attendance but significant
enough that its being noticed).[vi] What is noticeable is that God, faith, belief and doubt are getting
airtime and not shunned to the extent it used to be, and I do pray that this
‘God moment’ in popular culture will cause people to ask questions and pursue
God, and that the church will take advantage of the opportunity too.
The cultural chaos did get me thinking in terms of how do we respond as believers and as the church? When I observed how Christians behaved in the online world, it became very clear that we need to examine our ways, because why should the world listen to us at all if we make just as much noise? As Jesus so plainly said, a house divided itself cannot stand (Matt 12:25). It disturbed me that there was a distinct lack of transcendence. And I openly confess the first heart I need to look at is my own.
I remembered that throughout history there have been times of chaos where the church was instrumental in bringing a turnaround (obviously at God’s initiative). This is not the first time the church has found itself embedded in a culture that is hostile to its values. It’s been the norm for most of church history as the persecuted church can testify to and is the norm for most of the body of Christ globally today. Indeed, much of the New Testament only makes sense within the context of persecution. Put differently, civilisational crisis is not exactly a new environment for the gospel; it’s pretty much the reason it exists.
And I’m thinking the church itself is having its own civilisational moment, and we need to get in touch with our roots: our Lord and His calling on our lives. Let me explain:
I’m reminded of two significant transitions in human history where civilisation transitioned for the better. The first is how Christianity began as an obscure sect (from the point of view of Rome) and despite persecution turned an empire upside down as the gospel spread. That was the gospel spreading in a world that Paul described in Romans 1:24-32 in a description that never gets outdated (read it in The Message translation!).
The second transformation I think of as an example is the
Reformation which essentially provided the transition point from Medieval
Europe to modern Europe. Through the
Reformation, society changed dramatically.
This time however it wasn’t a pagan empire turned upside down through
the gospel (the Medieval world was Christian in its worldview in terms of
believing in God and respecting authority and the spiritual nature of the
world); this time it was the church being addressed from within! When the Roman Catholic church had gone
awfully awry with corruption, most notably through the promotion of indulgences
as fundraising for a building project (amongst many other errors), an essential
doctrine was re-covered, or re-discovered, that led to a significant
civilisational impact: the doctrine of justification by faith. Metaxas puts it beautifully in speaking about
Luther:
He had found the hermeneutical lever with which the whole world could be raised to the height of heaven[vii]
As McGrath points out:
There never was, and there never can be, any true Christian church without the doctrine of justification, for the community of faith cannot exist without proclaiming, in word and sacrament, the truth of what God has done for man in Christ. It is this truth which called the church into being, and it is this truth which must be expressed in her life and doctrine. In the Christian doctrine of justification, we are concerned with the turning of the godless man against his godlessness; with his transformation from man without God to man with God, for God and before God; with his transition from homo peccator to homo iustus. [viii]
We cannot underestimate the power of doctrinal truth to speak into the societal issues we face. The rise of the woke movement over previous years saw Christian cultural thinkers highlighting the need for emphasising the doctrine of the Imago Dei. This doctrine spoke into the lie-based transgender ideology, as we recognise that male and female together represent the image of God. It also spoke into identity politics, and for the child of God there is the further benefit of not having to be tethered to earthly identity markers because to be in Christ is the ultimate identity privilege. It is granted as a gift that can set any person free, no matter how many intersectional identities they find themselves in, which victimises rather than sets free. It even speaks into AI as we ask the question of what does it mean to be human and to what extent are we deforming our humanity at the expense of trusting AI in so many spheres. I’m grateful for the Christian thought-leaders of today across the board who are seeking to apply the same vision of the reformers in today’s context, namely that of combining, as Colin Hansen puts it, an authentic inner spirituality with an applied public theology[ix]
And I believe my recent trip to Egypt helped give me an
answer. To remember who we are: We are sacred spaces.
The gospel teaches us that when we enter God’s Kingdom, we are a holy and set apart people. We are called both individually and corporately a place of God’s dwelling. We are given the Holy Spirit, we are told that we are a temple within which God dwells (See 1 Corinthians 3:16–17, 6:19, 2 Corinthians 6:16, Ephesians 2:14–22, and 1 Peter 2:4–10). This concept of us being a sacred space goes back to the beginning as well as looks forward to the end. Reading the Genesis creation narrative theologically (not as a science text), it is remarkably close to what would be involved in building a temple, a sacred space. You create a space, fill it with various emblems and symbols, and then place a statue representing the image of the god you’re worshipping. In Genesis we find ourselves being the image of God and God dwells with us in the garden. At the end of human history when God re-creates, we find Him declaring “Now the dwelling of God is with men (Rev 21:3)”
There’s one image etched in my mind from Egypt. It was a Coptic priest in his full gear (including head covering) driving his very old rectangular faded light blue car (might have been a Fiat from the seventies at least! His head nearly touching the ceiling of the car) onto the ferry. He was distinct in his identity and was in the world and not of it. He was a mobile sacred space. Our hosts who took us around Egypt also brought this home to me: they love Jesus wholeheartedly and they love people wholeheartedly, and their approach to life was distinctive. I remember him sharing how important was to live by the principle of having a clear conscience and a humble heart, because God resists the proud.
I cannot help but think that if we want to have any effect in this world, we need to remember that we are sacred spaces. This is surely what the process of sanctification is all about? Have we lulled ourselves into a place where it’s easier to ask forgiveness than fight sin? We need to remember what Jesus did in order for us to have this privilege. We know that Jesus is passionate about the correct use of sacred space (Matthew 21:12-13), and that it is His presence that will make a meal with ‘sinners’ sacred. We are holy ground: let’s not forget that.
As we look into this coming year, which only God knows what
it will hold, may this recognition that we are ‘sacred spaces’ govern all that
we say and do. Only then can the world
see that Jesus is beautiful, that there is a distinction of beauty between the
world and those who love the Lord (aka the Church), and that redemption is available
to all who will respond to the One who was born in a stable, full of grace and
truth.
[i] https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-year-2025/
[ii] https://thethirdway.org/questioning-answers-how-information-diets-shape-our-silicon-curtains/
[iii] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/11/x-about-this-account/685042/
[iv] https://dialogos.co.za/blog/post-37/
[v] https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/third-way-politics-mythology/
[vi] https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/research/quiet-revival
[vii] Metaxas,
Eric Martin Luther (Viking: New York, 2017) 4
[viii]
McGrath, Alister E Justitia Dei: A
History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification – Second Edition (1998 –
Cambridge University Press) Those Latin phrases mean “sinful man” and
“justified man” respectively
[ix]
Colin Hansen “3 Threats to Secularism” – Gospelbound Podcast