Reclaiming Secularism

I have been thinking lately about the language that Christians use without thinking of the meanings and repercussions. I've been through prayer and tradition, but I'm going to talk on a touchy subject: secularism. I'm speaking as a sort of thought experiment, so if you disagree, I would be interested in hearing a rational response, as this subject can often send Christians off into a conniption fit.

Christians often misuse the verse "to be in the world but not of the world". Often we think it means to abstain from popular culture and become hermits; To create a Christian sub culture; to disdain non-Christian things and ideas; to think of ourselves as better than the world. These are all misguided conclusions. I'm going to suggest that the verse means that we view ourselves as God intended: Sojourners in this life, yet still caretakers and earthkeepers of the world God created us to have dominion over. How can we fulfill our obligations as earthkeepers if we bury our heads in the sand and refuse to interact with the world that God created?

The world secularism has become emotionally loaded in recent decades, with atheists championing the humanist and scientific cause, and Christians lambasting the degeneracy of "secular" culture. Originally, the word "secular" only meant separate from religion. Our government is a secular government, meaning that it is not controlled by a single religion. Secular society, then should include those things that are not-church: work, school, traffic, television, books, food, etc. However, God created the world and everything in it. How then, could any aspect of that world be inherently "not-church"? If we come from a Christian viewpoint, then "secular" should be the same as "God-breathed". Doesn't Paul say that any authority on earth is there because of God in Romans 13? How then can we separate any sphere of life into "church" and "not-church"? I assert that it is impossible; that all the breadth, and depth, and width, and wonder, and terribleness of life moves in and through and about God.

Maybe Christians should stop cursing secularism, and reclaim it. Language changes, and just like the term "feminism" has been reclaimed, and other once derogatory names are now banners to be proudly displayed, why can't Christians be secularists? Or even humanists, in the most basic sense, where we are concerned about the state of humanity? Refuse to be baited or incited.

Instead of secularism, Christians should be concerned with the profane things in life. Profane is very different than secular. While secular simply denotes what something is not, profane is something that is irreverent or has contempt for God. It's something unholy. Now that is something that Christians should be concerned about, not whether or not culture should have any place in the church. Culture simply is; it's organic, malleable, fluid, and variegated. Profanity (in the broad sense, not only language) is unchanging in it's direct opposition to God. In the spirit of interfaith dialogue, here is a parable from a Sufi about what it means to him to be in the world but not of the world. I thought it was very apt and easly translates to Christianity.

So, let's band together and reclaim secularism. Reclaim the wonder of God's universe and delight in astronomy, and physics, and botany, and zoology, and geology, and literature. Delight in the nuances and variations in culture and identities. And while we're living in this secular, God-breathed world, we can still oppose evil and the profane, and promote Jesus to the unsaved. That is the central message anyway.

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As a side note, we're moving tomorrow and we'll be busy doing Aquire the Fire with our youth group on Saturday, so I probably won't be back with a post until I detox on sunday, monday at the very latest. Let's pray that saturday goes smoothly. A full day trip with my teenagers. . . Oy. I'll let you know how ATF goes.