Ten ways to backslide without anyone noticing (Warning: contains irony)

1.       On no account stop attending church as this will give the game away immediately.

2.       Always be seen with a well-thumbed, extensively underlined and annotated Bible in church but do not read this during the week – or, if you really must continue to do so, make sure you study it in an academic way only so that you can talk impressively about theology and quote the original Greek. On no account apply what you read to yourself (but feel free to apply it to others).

3.       Be known for your dutiful attendance at all the meetings that your church puts on but do not concern yourself with having any heart desire to meet with God or to see others affected by the Word of God. With your extensive theological knowledge you will be ideally placed to critique the preacher’s sermons or contributions to house-group discussions. You should of course share your observations with fellow members afterwards. They will be impressed at your knowledge and erudition, and go away telling others what a wonderful Christian you are.

4.       Always be among the first to pray at the prayer meeting. Pray eloquently and biblically, which will make everyone around you think what a solid Christian you are, but desist from praying on your own at home or doing any real business with the Lord in the secret place.

5.       Keep up to date with what is going on in the Christian world and make sure you have an opinion on all the latest movements. Make sure you are always ready to give your viewpoint on such matters and show how widely read you are. People are all too ready to confuse knowledgeability with true spiritual life.

6.       Make sure you are first in the queue to speak to visiting ministers; talk with great apparent concern about spiritual issues. Get yourself known by well-known speakers and church leaders, but don’t waste your time talking to those tiresome, needy nobodies in your congregation or engaging with unsaved visitors. All those prominent Christians will be impressed by what they hear and, as they don’t belong to your church, won’t have any suspicion of the truth of the situation. They will spread word of what a super, gifted Christian you are around the churches. Once you have such a reputation it can be difficult to shake off and will give you a really great cover for backsliding unobserved.

7.       If you are one of those fortunate people with one of the more prominent gifts like preaching, leading activities or playing a musical instrument, or are a bit of an intellectual, you will have a head start. People who have been a Christian for many years and/or come from a well-known Christian home also have a big advantage.

8.       Be sure to have an extensive collection of Christian books, most of which you haven’t bothered to read, and put the weightiest ones on display in the most prominent place. You will know what the ‘kosher’ publishers and writers are in your particular tradition; be sure to be particularly well-stocked with those so that people are impressed with your orthodoxy.

9.       Make sure that almost all your friends are Christians; this may sound strange but in order to maintain your reputation, a wide Christian acquaintance is necessary. This also minimises the necessity of sharing your faith with unbelieving friends. You should keep away from those sorts of friends who are liable to ask prying questions about your walk with the Lord, or want to be prayer or Bible study partners, as these might discover the truth of your situation.

10.   You should of course avoid any activities which might expose you to challenge regarding your current state of spiritual health, involve any genuine service of others or might involve you having to share your faith but there are many other activities you could participate in instead such as ‘advising’ the leaders of the spiritual health of others, encouraging ‘discussion’ of controversial topics in the church or generally airing your opinions in a public way, which all fit well with your objective and will quite possibly carry others along with you. 

Postscript: the author has learnt the hard way of the ‘effectiveness’ of these strategies. She hopes this little piece will be a wake-up call to other long-standing and perhaps well-known Christians who are in danger of sliding unobserved away from the Lord.

‘You have a reputation of being alive but are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die. Revelation 3:1-2

Oscar Pistorius - a tragedy on many levels

The unfolding case of the death of Reeva Steenkamp is proving a tragedy on so many levels. As much as I sympathise first and foremost with the family of Reeva Steenkamp who are knowing terrible suffering through no fault of their own, I find I also feel very grieved for the man at the centre of it all, Oscar Pistorius. It's not that I am saying he is innocent, for it seems that at the very least he has led a ungodly and reckless lifestyle whilst at worst it may yet transpire that he did kill his girlfriend in a fit of anger. But it’s just that the case seems to highlight so vividly the devastating, miserable consequences of sin.  

The most obviously tragedy, clearly, is for Reeva Steenkamp and her parents. Death is always unnatural but a child dying before their parents is particularly evil - and violent death especially so. Then there is also the tragedy that is South Africa  - a society awash with firearms, where everyone lives in fear of violent crime. For that reason, it is difficult for people in the relative safety of Britain to judge the actions of Oscar Pistorius when we have no experience of living in that climate of fear.

And what about the evils of the cult of celebrity and a society that is so quick to set people up on pedestals, only to gloat over their downfall? Oscar Pistorius was rightly celebrated and applauded for his extraordinary achievements. Who did not rejoice with him when he finally ran for his nation in the main Olympics in London 2012?  It is just a tragedy that our society ‘rewards’ people with things that do them harm, whether by ruining people with more money than they can cope with, moving in celebrity circles where certain forms of temptation are rife, giving people a sense of being immune to the usual expectations of society or exposing them to the temptations of materialism. The world has a vicious way of repaying its heroes, and is subsequently unwilling to acknowledge the part they have played in someone’s downfall, placing all blame squarely on the individual.

And then there is Oscar Pistorius himself. However Reeva Steenkamp’s death came about, no-one observing Pistorius during the bail hearing or the trial itself could doubt that he is a man absolutely distraught at what happened. Whether his distress represents regret at a terrible mistake or the bitter agony of having harmed someone he loved in a fit of mindless anger remains to be seen, but he seems to be a man almost undone by remorse. I think it is that devastating sense of regret, of being unable to turn the clock back, of having ruined your own life as well as that of others and known it was your actions which were responsible – a momentary decision - that makes the pictures of Oscar Pistorius in the dock so distressing to observe.

But that is what sin does. It ruins and spoils and destroys, and causes harm to all in its path, both innocent and guilty alike. That is why, without detracting from the suffering of the family of Reeva Steenkamp’s family, it is possible to feel real grief for Oscar Pistorius even if he is guilty as charged. We are grieving at the fact that sinful acts not only harm their victims but destroy the perpetrator themselves. If it eventually does transpire that he did kill his girlfriend in a fit of anger, many of us may find we can identify with those feelings more than we perhaps care to admit, for Oscar Pistorius would certainly not be the only person in the world whose temper could flare out of control or who had done destructive things in anger that were painfully regretted afterwards. Perhaps we may even feel that it is only through the grace of God and not having the temptations around us that Pistorius had that our anger has not had such terrible consequences.

The chief perspective of the press, of course, has been on the ending of a career of such remarkable achievements and which hitherto hadbrought about so much good. Pistorius’s demise, though, would be more complex than that of people like Lance Armstrong whose past achievements have been rendered completely fake. What Oscar Pistorius did before Valentine's Day 2013, he did well – a fact which, if he did prove guilty, would only make his demise more tragic.

By far my greatest sadness, however, is not that Oscar Pistorius was someone who achieved so much in the face of such huge disadvantages but in fact that he was born with great advantages and appears to have thrown them away. For Oscar Pistorius was apparently born into a Christian, Bible-believing home. He is known as being ‘deeply religious’, praying before races, and has 1 Corinthians 9:26 ‘I do not run like a man running aimlessly’ tattooed on his back. But for all his portrayal as a religious man by the press, and for all his family background, Pistorius’ lifestyle suggests that he himself does not possess a serious biblical faith, with reports describing unbiblical relationships with women and a high octane, ambitious and materialistic lifestyle. Even the verse he has tattooed on his back has been misquoted in support of his personal ambition. For this reason above any other, the Pistorius case saddens me because it reminds me of the great spiritual peril of those who choose the ways of darkness when God has graciously blessed them with so much spiritual light.

So, things look bleak for Oscar Pistorius from a human perspective. But whether he is guilty of murder or only of neglecting the God of his youth, there is always hope of forgiveness and new life in Christ Jesus through repentance and faith. God has ways other than Olympic glory of making a life count, even on the inside of prison walls.