Would The World Be Better Off Without Religion - Part 1 // 19 July 2026

Good morning.

It's good to be here with you all this morning.

I'm Scott.

I'm one of the pastors here at OneChurch.

We're gonna do something a little bit different this morning.

So normally we would be preaching from a book of a Bible or a passage of a Bible and trying to talk about how it applies to us today.

And I think that's the best way to go about things, but I do think there's space in the year to do something different occasionally.

So we're trying something for the first time that may be something we do again.

The concept this morning is similar to what Paul does in Acts 17.

So in Acts 17, Paul walks around a town and notices a message that represents society in some way, and then he speaks the good news, the truth, and hope to that message.

In that moment, it was a plaque he found in the society that said, to an unknown God.

He saw that plaque and he spoke to that message, trying to bridge the good news to a message from culture.

And so the idea was that we could try to do that occasionally.

One, to help us as we share the good news with people in our life, we might come across these sort of statements from the world around us that we need to be equipped to speak to.

So we thought we'll try to pick an easy one to start with, and I've I've challenged myself the last three months to try to just keep my ears open, my eyes open, and see a message that stands out that we could speak to.

And we've got a slide of the message we've chosen for us morning.

I've seen this on social media.

I've had this as a response when I shared it.

Have we heard something similar to that as we've tried to share our faith and our belief with others?

So over the next two weeks, we're going to try to speak the good news, hope, and truth to that statement.

That the world would be better off without religion.

Now, the world is a large topic.

So why don't we try to narrow down the world to the world we experience today, which is the Western world.

So the world we are currently placed in, the one that's around us, the society we experience is the Western world.

So we're going to narrow it down to the Western world.

Now, the Western world doesn't have an official beginning or an official start date, but it says the foundations for the things that make the world we are today is ancient Greece.

When it looks at things like democracy and philosophy, people like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, you would remember those names much easier if they named turtles after them, but that started there.

But then we go to Rome, where Rome largely progressed what we know to be the Western world today, because Rome absorbed most of ancient Greece, but then added its own law and governments to the picture.

However, the key ingredient in the pot of what makes the Western world and our belief systems is the introduction of the Christian teaching.

Because the Christian teaching added something that Greece and Rome didn't add, which was the inherent dignity and moral agency of the individual.

It said that the spread of Christianity is the key to preserving and developing the Western world since Rome.

So it's interesting that we're the some the topic seems to sort of propose that the Western world is fantastic and would be better off if we took religion out of it.

But there's kind of a naivety to that statement because we're unable to articulate in truth the effect that Christianity has on shaping this world, we think that we'd be better off without it.

So this week I want to touch on the profound effect that Jesus' teachings have had on forming the Western world as we know it today.

And then next week we're going to look at why the world is better off because of what his church did to progress that over 2,000 years.

But what I want to do this morning is try to get under our skin a little bit and ask us why do we believe what we believe?

Why do we respond in the way that we respond?

So we're going to try to hone in on what has been said is one of the most significant building blocks of Western civilization.

Now, what defines Western civilization is the value that we place on human life and human rights.

What is also unique to our society, to other societies in the world and other societies throughout history is the fundamental belief that childhood is sacred and should be a protected period of innocence.

Now, if we sit there for a minute, we can agree, Christian or not, in the world, the world around us, outside, outside the walls of this church, we would have a shared reaction with others in response to particular kind of abuse of women and children.

We would carry a shared internal reaction.

I think it's important if we're talking to this message to acknowledge that and try to understand and articulate where did that begin?

What was the originating point of that shared discomfort that we would all feel and say is right now?

What form that feeling we have deep down inside of us when we know something is wrong?

What is the originating, the originating point of that feeling that we share with others, faith or not?

So let's go back to ancient Rome for a minute, because that was a time of widespread abuse.

What we have to understand is the value of people in Rome at that point was different to it is now.

And I'm going to try to touch on it delicately this morning.

But basically, a Roman man had the unquestionable right of anyone else's body who was at a lower status to them or a different gender or was a child or was in their household.

So the Roman man had a right to other people's bodies, providing they're at a lower status.

Now, how they were able to then act on that right came down to purely social status.

So the kind of abuse that would horrify us today, that we try to protect with boundaries of age, consent, and gender would not horrify the world back then.

Those boundaries did not exist.

The world was not policed back then by dignity, by consent, or by a value for human life.

What shaped the choices was reputation.

So historians would refer to Rome as a shame-based society where the value of human life is purely around two things: your status and your contribution to society.

We are looking at an empire that was maintained through conquests, subjugation, and imitation.

Most people in this Roman Empire were just trying to survive.

They had no rights, they had no power, they had no wealth, and they had no hope that those circumstances could change.

Morality was status driven, and your identity was your family, your social class, and how the community viewed you.

So honor and shame, who you are and how you're viewed, contributed to the choices you could make.

Shame was the social weapon that was used to enforce behavior.

Basically, it decided what is right and wrong.

Whereas we would decide right and wrong today by some form of morality, it was decided in Rome by reputation.

And so when the surrounding culture is corrupt, relying on reputation as a moral compass becomes deeply distorted.

Now, Rome was a male-dominated society.

Their view of masculinity was control.

The man held all the rights and he could dictate the lives and the death of everyone in his household.

The best way to expose that imbalance and how wrong it was is to look at how the Romans viewed marriage.

Now, the Roman view on marriage is if you were a woman, marriage meant modesty.

That modesty was interpreted as you had to stay faithful to your husband.

And modesty was used as a weapon to control.

But if you were a man, marriage meant something different.

Marriage meant moderation.

Because when it came to men in Rome, their sexual appetites were modesty was considered appropriate to use other people to quench those appetites.

It was considered noble to take a trip to the brothel or to utilize a slave or a prostitute.

Because men had to move in moderation, because modesty was considered a very, very warped sense of self-control, but women were considered to stay modest and controlled.

So in marriage, the women was expected to be faithful, the men would stay faithful by exercising their appetites outside of the marriage.

The very thing today that strikes us as wrong, abusive, and objectifying back then was encouraged business as usual.

Because the society was built around masculinity and dominance.

I'm trying to paint a picture as delicately as possible.

I'm not trying to harp on, I'm not trying to go too much into this because I think we need to understand the harsh reality of our early Western civilization and how polarizingly different it is to now, so we can actually start to ask the question well, what made the difference?

How do we go from that to where we are now?

Something had to happen to tip that, to shift that.

Because I think that there's a discomfort in the room in the things I say because we know they're not okay, they're not right.

A society built around masculinity and dominance is not a healthy society.

It forms a response in us, but what's formed that response?

What changed things?

Frankly, it was a revolution.

A revolution led by the teachings of Jesus because this harsh society we describe is the society that Jesus was born into, walked around, and taught to.

And so think of some of his basic teachings in this moment.

When Jesus taught that we were created in the image of God, he's teaching that to a society where your value is based on your status and your contribution.

He's saying actually there is an inherent inherit dignity to all of you because you're created in the image of the creator.

He's teaching value and dignity where there wasn't value and dignity.

When he teaches on sin, he erodes a society that's based on shame and reputation.

Because he says you're not accountable to a reputation, you're accountable to something higher.

You're accountable to God, you're accountable to his laws, his morality, his righteousness.

You have a higher standard to be accountable to.

And so when Jesus taught on God's judgment, he said, You're not judged by man, you're not judged by reputation, your power, your status.

It doesn't matter.

What matters is the motive of your heart.

Jesus' teachings are radical in a distorted world.

But what I want to try to hone in on right now with the little time we have left is I want to hone in on what is said to be the building block of Western civilization, which is Jesus' teachings on marriage.

Now it makes sense to hone in on marriage because we just said that marriage in Rome was an example of the imbalance.

So let's see what Jesus says to that imbalance.

Because a historian has says that marriage being the building block of Western civilization has informed our understanding of sex, love, freedom of choice, the body, the family, gender, and equality.

Now, if we find ourselves in Matthew 19, Jesus is challenged on marriage.

And this is what he teaches.

Haven't you read, Jesus replied, that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said, For this reason, man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and two will become one flesh.

So they are no longer two but one flesh.

Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate.

So Jesus in teaching on marriage does a couple of things really important straight away.

He says in the beginning, he's reminding all those who are listening that at the beginning there was a God who created everything.

So everything is created by a creator, including us.

And if we are created by a creator, we are created with intent, we are created with purpose, and we are created with structure instructions on how to flourish.

So he reminds them all of that by saying in the beginning, but then he says this phrase, one flesh.

Now this is a this is a powerful phrase to say to a world that is distorted.

Because he's describing two things when he says one flesh.

He's describing the union of the bodies, which we would call sex, and he's describing the union of lives, which we would call marriage.

And Jesus is teaching a world that's built around the urges and desires of men, that the act of sex belongs in the union of marriage.

I mean, that is a powerful thing to say to that world.

Furthermore, he's saying your sexual partner should be your life partner.

And any use of that outside of marriage, he is framing as abuse.

I mean, this is like stabbing at a society that has no moral compass, no boundaries.

But the bigger thing he says is what God has joined together.

So he's not just saying to be appropriate, you've got to keep this thing in marriage.

He's saying because this thing has a bigger meaning than how you're using it.

He's saying that the act of sex is designed by me, the by God, the Creator, to be deeply spiritual and how it bonds two people together, how it takes two people and makes them one flesh.

And so, like people then and throughout history will either consider this to be extremely high or extremely narrow.

But his teaching is simple.

Sex should not exist, should not exist outside of marriage, it should exist within marriage as a spiritual way of maintaining your vows and becoming one.

A powerful statement in a world that has weaponized sex as control and dominance.

And so the question we have to ask when we hear teaching like that, because Jesus forms it around the fact that God is the creator and this is how he created us, is we got to ask a question, do we trust God's design?

Which is a bigger question of do we trust God?

Because to trust God is to trust his design, which is to recognize that God created each and every one of us with an intention and a purpose, with a clear way to flourish.

And so he's not just asking us to blindly follow rules because we're told to, he's asking us to trust a creator who's given us a way to flourish according to how he designed us.

And if you continue to read Matthew 19, Jesus starts to speak to those people in the crowd who are listening and going, but marriage doesn't mean that kind of faithfulness.

And they're like, What if we can't live up to that kind of faithfulness in marriage?

And Jesus just looks at them and we're assuming he's looking at the men who are struggling with the idea of what?

Now there's restrictions on me, like there is restrictions on my spouse.

And Jesus is saying, if you can't live up to that, live like a eunuch.

I mean, that's pretty strong.

If you can't accomplish that, live like a eunuch.

I mean, this is revolutionary in the formation of the Western world that we know today, because what Jesus is doing in an inherent male, selfish society is he is in tying men to their wives and their children, and he's establishing consequences to their sexual choices.

In a world which is about control, he is saying instead, control yourself and your urges and put them to a better use.

Love your wife, love your children, honor them, empower them, encourage them, serve them.

Jesus, though, also teaches that not everyone will get married.

See, Jesus doesn't put marriage on a pedestal.

He doesn't say that our goal for everyone who ever walked the earth is to find a partner, to get married, and to have children.

Jesus and New Testament writers also teach that singleness and a call to singleness can be just as empowering because you can then, without distraction, serve the kingdom of God.

Jesus says both of these are positive, both of these are fulfilling.

The world today romanticizes and market it markets marriage.

But Jesus doesn't do that.

Instead, Jesus frames the depth of the sacrifice and commitment that you make when you get married.

Jesus' teachings alone were not enough to shape the Western world.

It required people taking them up, which is what we'll look at next week.

Because in a world that had no hope, no value, no future, Jesus' teaching brought hope, value, and future.

And it was the powerless that were the first to run with them.

In a violent male-dominated world, Jesus replaced, so he put sex back as an act within the boundaries of marriage, how it was originally designed to exist, which to that wet that world meant subversion to male privilege and dominance.

It held us accountable to God's higher moral law and righteousness.

It created consequences for acts of horrific abuse.

It reinforced dignity as well as reminding us that we are created in the image of God.

A Western world without religion would have been a progression of the worst parts of the Roman Empire.

It's hard to see how we could have arrived where we are today without the teachings of Jesus and the people who ran with them.

He paints such a beautiful picture of marriage in such an ugly world.

And that picture is so beautiful because the truth is that when we do our best in our frailty and our brokenness to try to achieve that in our marriages, we glorify Jesus and show that beauty to the world.

I just want to finish with a quote by a historian.

This is a quote by a historian that explains why marriage is the building block of Western civilization.

Jesus' teaching on marriage fundamentally shaped Western civilization by elevating it from a social contract to a lifelong sacred covenant of equals.

By strictly prohibiting divorce and elevating the status of women through mutual obligations of fidelity, these principles established a nuclear family as the absolute moral building block of Western society.

In short, marriage has always demanded that both men and women sacrifice a considerable measure of individual freedom to act in the interest of each other and the family.

When that fails, the rest of society struggles to clean up the damage of family breakdown and the damage that it can create.

I'm gonna invite Katie up in a moment to take the mic.

We're not gonna go straight into worship just yet because what I've tried to do this morning is just speak powerfully to the core of what's created Western society and those key teachings on marriage that came in a horrific time in history.

But I understand that this topic is not easy and this topic is difficult, and that might-thopic may open up some rooms, some wounds or difficulties, or may be uncomfortable for you.

I'm not trying to stand up here and speak from a place of judgment in any way.

I'm just trying to show how Jesus' teachings dramatically shifted society to become the world it is today.

And and isn't that what we're meant to do when we open the Bible and look at it?

It's meant to challenge us, it's meant to convict us, it's meant to stir something inside of us.

So I'm gonna hand the mic over to Katie because she's service leading.

I'm gonna trust her to lead us in the next moment.