The Danger of the Middle Road A Review of Os Guinness and Krish Kandiah on Unbelievable
In the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination, Premier Unbelievable had a fascinating discussion hosted by Billy Hallowell and featuring Os Guinness and Krish Kandiah. I found it revealing and somewhat depressing. I wasn’t quite sure why, but I had such a disturbance within that I listened to it again – and then it hit me! Listen to it for yourself and you will see that both of the guests made several good points and spoke intelligently and with grace. Os’s cultural analysis is easily the best I have come across in terms of a Christian understanding of the modern world. His critique of Trump and his description of cultural climate change was balanced and stimulating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AQY_08OzVg&t=8s
Krish made several statements which to my mind illustrate the real crisis currently facing both society and church in the UK (and much of the rest of the West)
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The Tribalisation of Media and the Decline of Truth.
Krish told us – “We are going into silos…we lost something with cable news. In the UK our equivalent is GB news. It’s not a neutral news source”. Krish was not wrong to point out that journalists in GB news tend to have a particular bias. But he was entirely wrong to suggest that there are any ‘neutral’ news sources in the UK! The notion that the BBC, LBC or ITV are ‘neutral news sources’ is one that might have had some possibility of truth in the dim and distant past – but it takes a special of rose-tinted glasses to argue that now. Like many people I have long struggled with the mainstream media (MSM), especially since journalists decided that they were advocates for the new progressive religion, rather than people reporting on the news. For example, no journalist on the BBC would dare to report a story which questioned the climate change narrative, nor one that challenged the abortion or LBBT ideology.
I remember being told by a BBC producer that I could not use the phrase ‘Britain’s Christian values’ on Thought for the Day. Another time I was invited on to a BBC Radio 5 phone in discussion programme, where I was asked to be a regular reviewer of newspapers. On my first programme I was ambushed with a story about a ten-year-old transgender boy and asked to comment. The programme actually went reasonably well, with one transgender person phoning in and having a respectful discussion with me. But because the ambush failed, I was never asked to go back. I was cancelled for being too reasonable – whilst disagreeing with The Narrative.
Krish argued that it is “The story that matters not the details. Statistically you are no more likely to be raped by an asylum seeker than anyone else. “He then went on to say that we have to go by evidence. And who could disagree with that? The problem is what evidence? Is there any evidence that this statement is true? Given that there are no official statistics concerning the number of rapes from asylum seekers, that at best seems to be wishful guess work. (That can equally apply to those who claim that asylum seekers are more likely to be involved in rapes – unless they have the evidence). However official statistics from the UK government, such as those from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Ministry of Justice (MoJ), do show that there are significant cultural differences re rape statistics. Adjusting for population (foreign nationals 6 million; British 56 million), foreign nationals have a conviction rate for sexual offences 2-3.5 times higher than British citizens (e.g., 3.01 per 100k vs. 1.61 per 100k age-adjusted in 2024). Furthermore, sexual offence convictions by foreign nationals rose 62% from 2021-2024 (vs. 39% for British), mirroring overall rape reports (71,670 police-recorded in 2024/25, up from 16,000 in 2012/13). There may be several reasons for this – but this cannot just be dismissed with a cry of ‘it’s racist to cite such figures’. As Christians we do have to be concerned for truth.
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The Threat to Freedom of Speech
When Os raised the issue of the decline in free speech in the UK, Krish said that he did not recognise his description of the restriction of freedom of speech in the UK. He blamed Os’s perception on press releases in the US. This was both a little patronising (Os does not get his news just from US media) and disingenuous. It was also ironic that later in the discussion Krish claimed that when the Democrat politician Melissa Horton was murdered by a right-wing extremist – you didn’t see the Democrats say ‘this is the end of all time – lets fight a war’. Oz, as someone who lives in the States, pointed out that that was precisely what had happened – and that threats of violence were on both sides. Although again, we have to be careful with the automatic two sides approach – whilst there is a clear and present danger from violent right-wing extremists, there does seem to be a fundamental difference between the progressive and conservative approaches to violence. When George Floyd was killed there were riots throughout the US that cost several lives and billions of dollars’ worth of damage. When Charlie Kirk was killed there were prayer meetings.
There is a real problem with freedom of speech within the UK. The trouble is that if you are someone who gets to say what you want and never face restrictions you tend not to see the problem. Currently there are 1,000 arrests per month in the UK for social media posts. Our arrest rate for this ‘crime’ is 180 per million people. For comparison in the US, it is 0.15 per million, in Australia 1-2 per million and in Germany 42 per million. In the UK you can be arrested for tweeting something that might cause ‘anxiety and distress’.
Krish gave as an example the somewhat extreme case of Lucy Connolly, who was sentenced to 31 months in prison for posting a tweet saying she didn’t care if migrant hotels were burnt down. If you are someone who thinks that a mother should be sent to jail for posting a hateful tweet then, at the very least, you should demand that there is consistency in the law. The problem is that the UK seems to be operating under a two tier (or is that a several tier) justice system. For example, the Left-wing TikToker, Charlotte Hayes posted in defence of political violence, after the death of Charlie Kirk “kill them all”. https://x.com/RobertJenrick/status/1969390688706892249 There are numerous similar cases.
Oz was right to insist that Christians should stand courageously for free speech. Krish’s head in the sand approach is not helpful.
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The Danger of not recognising the cultural sinking sands
Whilst Krish argued for seeking the middle common ground, Os made the observation that there is no common ground, just a common humanity. He stated that the views of the Left have changed so radically that we cannot have common ground. You cannot say ‘peace, peace’ when there is no peace. You cannot be half slave and half free. He noticed that the fight in the US was between the American revolution of 1786 and the French revolution of 1789. When Os suggested this was a choice between Baal and the Lord, Krish was horrified. Is this painting one side of the political divide as bad and the other as good? Doesn’t this mean that we are aligning the gospel with one political side? Isn’t this what Charlie Kirk did, equating his political position with the Christian position (the irony for me here was that this appears to be precisely what Krish is doing)?
But Os stuck to his guns. He was not arguing for equating one political position with the Gospel, but he was arguing that there is a fundamental difference between the religions of wokeism and Islamism; and Christianity. If the left are championing the first two, as seems to be the case, rather than the latter, then there is a real problem. If the right only argues for a nominal Christianity, then there is another kind of problem.
Krish suggested that market consumer capitalism is as corrosive as Marxism and that there was an imbalance in criticising communism but not capitalism. But whilst that sounds fair, we need to ask if it is true? Communism is at its core anti- Christ. It is a doctrine of demons which has been responsible for the death of over 100 million people. It is oppressive to the church and opposed to the Gospel. The modern Western version of cultural Marxism will in the long run be just as corrosive and corrupting. Indeed, we are already reaping the fruits of its cancer in our cultures.
As Adam Smith pointed out in his Wealth of Nations, capitalism without the principles of Christianity would be, and is, horrific. The unfettered greed, dog eat dog, materialistic approach is also a doctrine of demons. However, capitalism can go along with Christianity – In fact it often has – and has brought great good and prosperity to the world. The choice is not between capitalism and Marxism. The choice is really what kind of capitalism? There is Chinese state capitalism or the capitalism of the large corporations backed up by the state – both governed by humanistic atheistic principles, or there is a capitalism governed by the principles of Christ. The notion that capitalism and communism are just two sides of the same coin is a dated and dangerous belief.
What I learned from this exchange is just how deep into evangelical culture, the secular culture has penetrated. There is a shallowness and a lack of perceptiveness in realising just how corrupt and dangerous our society has become. We have sown the wind, and we are now weeping the whirlwind. We are standing in the middle of the road as the runaway truck comes bearing down on us. Instead of being prophets, we are communication managers, meme producers, virtue signallers and image creators. The church needs to do better.
Os suggested that the real cultural choice was between a human friendly future or authoritarianism. In a world where we can apparently have millionaire communists it matters little whether that authoritarianism carries a right wing, or a left-wing label. What matters is that we have to be clear about what we believe and the consequences of our beliefs – love, truth, freedom and civility. Now is not the time for the trumpet to give an uncertain sound.
David Robertson
Responding to the Charlie Kirk Assassination: A Christian Perspective
Ozzie Observations – Week 10 – Os Guinness and the Future of Humanity
The Wedding, the Sermon and the Reaction – Article on Christian Today