Last night a colleague and brother from church checked in on me. It has been a fairly brutal week: there has been illness within the family and adverse events within the unit. And we talked a bit about that and research, and then turned to Church.

I said that at times I thought we were concentrating of doing good. Nothing wrong with that: nothing wrong with having a shelter for the homeless or caring for the stranger. Not at all. But these things can be done by many others. I don’t care if the Kiwanis, or Lions, or the Labour party get credit for such.

But they cannot preach the gospel.

Jesus did a lot of Good in his life, but he did not come to earth to become famous as a rabbi and healer. He achieved that at the beginning of his ministry. The end of his ministry was rising from the grave.

While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

(Matthew 4:18-25 ESV)

The risk is that we will just make gestures. On the way to work yesterday I saw a chalked sign on the pavement #FreeWestPapua . This may make a blogger look at the twitter feed: indeed it did. But it will not change the mind of the rulers of Irian Jaya [1]. It is a means of signalling support: a tale told idiots and of no significance. The trouble is that those of the church can be caught up in this.

We can be so caught up in trying to do good, in trying to signal that we are relevant, that we stop preaching the gospel. That we forget that Christ did more than heal and deliver. That he took the due penalties of our sins, and allowed us to live not by the disciplines and ascetic rules of religions, but in relationship with him.

We forget the cost of our salvation, and become a social agency or political party.

Or worse, a performance.

Let us not play act. Let us not virtue signal. Let us not pretend that righteousness is upon us, or that we are terribly spiritual. Let those who virtue signal claim to be religious. We need to proclaim the gospel: which is not acceptable to the elite, a foolishness to academics, and unacceptable to those wo thing they are made saintly by religion.

The world can virtue signal. We should not.

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1 Irian Jaya is West Papua, as Zimbabwe was Rhodesia.