Christianity=Secular

We all use the terms “sacred” and “secular.” We talk about music, places and careers in these terms.

[In her book Total Truth, Nancy Pearcey builds on the premise of Francis Schaeffer that the sacred/secular distinction grew out of the Enlightenment. This resulted in a world where “science or empirical knowledge is about facts and religion or theology is about opinion.” This has “made possible the secular-religious dichotomy that defines so much of contemporary politics, law, religion, and science.”]

But these terms are not biblical, nor is the distinction.

Interestingly, this starts with a misunderstanding of the Mosaic Law (the Law God gave the Israelites after the Exodus). “The Moral, Civil, and Ceremonial distinctions are useful in studying the Law,” but this “division is unknown both in the Bible and in early rabbinic literature.” To a person of Moses’ day all of the Law was “moral.”

To Jesus and his followers, all of life is sacred (Matthew 6:33). There is nothing that is beyond reach of the Kingdom. Paul told his readers, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

The sacred/secular distinction collapses in the Kingdom of God. But when we say that all of life is sacred, we often misunderstand what that means. We tend to think of it as dragging everyday life from the “secular” side into the “sacred” side. A better way to think about this is to let the Kingdom invade the “secular” side. In other words, the Kingdom of God is secular.

David Wayne explains it this way:

What we need is not so much training in how to "witness" on the job, although that is a part of it. What we need is for millions of Christians to flood the so called "secular" arena and simply bring the Christian worldview to bear in that arena.

C. S. Lewis explains it a different way:

What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects—with their Christianity latent (God in the Dock).

And here’s one more perspective from Andrew Jones:

Jesus is Lord of all creation, therefore we bring His presence and the values of his Kingdom into every sphere of life, including government, economy, media, education, sports, arts, science, technology and the environment.

Christianity is not about focusing on one area of existence. It is about integrating all of life according to the principles of the Kingdom of God and allowing Jesus Christ to be Lord of all.

Pastor Rod

“Helping you become the person God created you to be”