It has been widely acknowledged across an array of disciplines and political perspectives that a complex web of cracks has been widening across the fabric of what was once understood as Western liberal culture. It now doesn’t take an academic or a media pundit to observe this. Common sense bumps into this unravelling every day, with special acceleration since covid-time.
What is far more challenging is to know how to address this situation. Pressing existential questions are rife: “What is to be done?” or even, “Can anything be done?”
Greg Sheridan, the Australian commentator, writer and senior foreign editor at The Australian newspaper, argues in his most recent book, How Christians Can Succeed Today: Reclaiming the Genius of the Early Church (Allen & Unwin, 2025), that Christians, despite either the hostility or indifference towards them, have essential contributions to make in this scenario.
He shows in the second half of this book that Christ-followers, humbly and according to their vocations and gifts, are the genuine lights of hope in the disorientating, disenchanting, dehumanising and violent world that confronts us. This, he insists, will only happen if they renew the foundations of their own encounter with the living presence of Christ.
Greg Sheridan is, given his usual attention to international affairs, a surprising bestselling religious author in Australia – with this most recent book classed by Amazon as “No. 1 in Christian Social Issues” category over many weeks.
He is articulate about the purpose of the book, and aware that the obvious interest in his book indicates a timeliness to his message.
It seems to me that it is timely in at least two ways.
In the first place, in his writing, Greg Sheridan shows a preparedness to labour with the historical sources. You can hear a little about his approach to his work in this interview with former deputy prime minister John Anderson.
Greg Sheridan gets down and reads some primary sources, and he distils complex historical, cultural and geographical factors into an incisive picture. He does this using a conversational – almost laconic – Australian style so helpful to many readers today. Some of this is down to Greg’s standing as a very seasoned and respected journalist.
It is one thing to be a compelling journalist; it is quite another thing to be able to elucidate deeply philosophical and spiritual issues while wrestling with the textual sources in ways that are lively and accessible to a wide and interested audience.
His book is timely in a second way. It is becoming apparent that small but significant sectors within Australian and more widely in Western societies are growing restless and dissatisfied with a constant diet of reflexive secular anti-Christian narrative and bias – what Greg calls the “secular post-secular” narrative.
I was invited to conduct a “conversation” with Greg about his inspiration and approach to this most recent book, and his hopes for Christians and society. This “fireside chat” took place as part of the Archdiocese of Melbourne’s book launch hosted by the Archbishop of Melbourne, Peter Comensoli. The writer Sam Rebbechi has written about the launch here.
During the conversation we discussed the trajectory of the trilogy of books on faith and culture penned by Greg. He spoke of the evolution of the series, “the structure of which is more coherent in retrospect than when I began”. We spoke about the way each book builds up a narrative guide for both Christians and wider society.
His first book, God is Good for You (Allen and Unwin, 2018), which was shortlisted as the Australian Christian Book of 2018, was a study of what I suggested to him was his “return to the sources” approach to the scriptural portrait of a personal and transcendent God as a complement to the larger epistemological and metaphysical questions about existence and reason.
Connected to this study is Greg’s second book, Christians: The Urgent Case for Jesus in Our World (Allen & Unwin, 2021), in which he argues and shows how Christians must “return” to the person of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, with fresh eyes and hearts – once again through a straightforward paying attention to the fascinating writing of the New Testament.
I congratulated Greg on the publication of the third in the trilogy and said to him: “Greg, this is a very lively and original contribution on the forgotten and often defamed influence of Christ to the lives and outlook of the early Christians. This book is a portrait of the Holy Spirit at work after the return of Jesus to the Father. In so many ways it’s a narrative and geopolitically aware completion of what as a whole becomes a Trinitarian study.”
We spoke of identifying a genre for the present book as a fruit of an attuned but untechnical reading of the Letters of St Paul and the earliest Christian writings, but it is not, as the author writes, “a history book. It’s a book about contemporary Christianity, because it concerns the ideas and inspirations the Christians from then might offer to Christians today.”
We discussed the importance of Christian and other religiously receptive journalists and online presenters in evangelising a living faith in our present times. He acknowledged that was inspired by many past and present poets, writers and journalists, particularly G.K. Chesterton and others such as James McAuley, C.S. Lewis, Malcolm Muggeridge, Piers Paul Read, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and novelists such as the American Marilynne Robinson, to whom Sheridan in his recent book devoted an entire chapter.
We discussed Greg’s delight in reading the letters of St Paul and the revelation of Paul’s genius and transformative power in a notable chapter: “He was the first sophisticated city intellectual amongst the early Christians, the first, great, Christian cosmopolitan.”
After unpacking the unexpected and transformative power of early Christian witness and living, the book’s second half is devoted to those Greg has called “Contemporary Early Christians” – and this in a sense is the punchline of the book.
This half is devoted to his widely ecumenical interviews with people and families who are simply living demonstrably inspired by Jesus Christ, and from whom the seeds of a new Christian revival are evident. They include Sydney’s Abdallah family, Bishop Robert Barron, Dr Jordan Peterson, Mike Pence, Marilynne Robinson, The Chosen series’ Dallas Jenkins and a handful of less well-known but quietly and effectively “counter-cultural” Christians.
In our conversation I asked: “Can we be distracted in the Church – by formulating new programs, trying to imitate management speak after the secular corporates have bolted, and by looking backwards at old fights?”
He replied: “If you live as a good Christian, you can’t go too far wrong. If you don’t, no institution can save you … Christianity is not a management proposition, it’s a living proposition.”
A great prod to all of us.
Anna Krohn
Executive Director
Thomas More Centre
Event dates for our Dawson friends
We have been delighted to collaborate with two iterations of organisations inspired by the great English/Welsh Catholic historian Christopher Dawson.
1. Melbourne – November 12 – St Peter’s Toorak
The Christopher Dawson Centre for Cultural Studies is hosting a talk by the retired Archbishop of Hobart: “How can we renew Western civilisation given the challenges we face?”
For further information, email director Alex Sidhu at alex.sidhu@bigpond.com
2. Perth – November 18 – The Dawson Society
Speakers Forum with Fr Scot Armstrong on St John Henry Newman, St Vincent of Lerins and the safe harbour of the Church from 6pm to 8.30 pm AWST at The Raffles Hotel – Riverside Room.
Find more information and book here.
Featured image: Author Greg Sheridan AO in conversation with theologian Anna Krohn OAM. Credit: Tiffany of Melbourne Catholic
