WHEN I was quite young, I came across the word “ecclesiastical”, meaning “to do with the church” – as in, for example, ecclesiastical architecture. I later learned that the word came from ancient Greek, and had nothing to do with buildings. The “ekklesia” was a gathering of citizens who were “called out” to form a kind of parliament that debated and legislated on how their city community should function. It was in essence a political body.

Knowing that, I was intrigued that Jesus referred to building his own “ekklesia” or church (Matthew 16, v. 18), with the word also appearing frequently in the Book of Acts and St Paul’s letters. To at least some people at the time, it must have had political overtones. However, judging by the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, or St Paul’s instructions to early Christians, it is clear that, far from being part of the political establishment, the church was to be countercultural. In a society where oppression, suspicion, violence and corruption were the norm, Jesus declared: “By this shall everyone know that you’re my disciples, if you have love for one another”.

In this context, Stewart Lee’s Radio 4 series “What Happened to Counterculture?” has been very interesting. He discusses the ways in which counterculture evolved in the 20th Century, often characterised by community, collaboration and hope for a better future, and seeing much creativity. Protest songs of the time, from artists such as Bob Dylan, were asking some of the great questions of life, such as “How far should you go to change society?”, and “What does freedom really look like?” And there was the Woodstock music festival, with the embracing of “Peace, Love and Freedom” in the 1960s and ‘70s. (With something of a spiritual awakening taking place at the time and New Age philosophies drawing many people in, it’s perhaps not surprising that others discovered Jesus for themselves.)

Stewart Lee notes how society today seems to be fracturing into more and more competing subcultural groupings, consisting of people bonded through social media with others sharing the same (sometimes unwholesome) thoughts and attitudes. He ends by suggesting that perhaps we need a new counterculture to offer hope. Has he not heard of the Christian church?

Simon Ratsey, Life Central Church