The Christian and the Secular World

Language change is unceasing, whether it involves the creation of new words to accommodate (e.g.) technological advances or using old words in new ways. An important and often problematic change is where words take on new meanings. In the world of theology and scripture this can cause misunderstandings especially when new meanings for old words are assumed to pply to the original use of a word.

Take the word Laity for example. For a long time it has held the meaning of ‘those who are not experts.’ To be a layperson implies being subject to or dependent on the expert or professional. In the Church the laity was long taken to be the Christian masses who were subject to the priestly hierarchy. The early Church had no such rigid distinctions; the LAOS were the people of God – all were equal before God and as brothers and sisters in the faith. A healthy development in the Anglican Church is the ‘rediscovery’ of the true role of the laity in the life and worship of the Church and in its leadership.

Another much misapplied word is SECULAR and a very unhealthy tate of affairs exists in Church thinking regarding the way this word is understood. It is commonly used to define all that falls outside the realm of the spiritual and sacred. It is seen as that which is non-religious or indeed often as that which is anti-religious. Consequently Christians are often encouraged to see the secular as the enemy and to resist and fight against secular values. It is almost as though we Christians see being ‘in the world’ as just an unfortunate necessity, a requirement of our mortality, but to be borne courageously. At least, we may piously observe, we may be ‘in the world’ but not ‘of the world.’

If this is true there is more than a hint of dualism in it. Furthermore it would seem to go against the Biblical concept of a God who created all and is involved in all and everything; and who calls us to be actively involved in every aspect of his created world (to the good, of course.)

Three observations:

1) The original meaning of the word ‘secular’ had nothing to do with ‘non-religious.’ It simply meant that which is subject to time – the opposite therefore of eternity. In other words it is a reference to our mortal state – that to which we in this life are all subject. One can argue that to be anti-secular is to deny our mortal existence (a throw-back to the Gnostics of very early Church times).

2) Even in today’s world, in the political arena especially one can observe an interesting gloss on the way the word ‘secular’ can be better understood. A number of countries such as India and Turkey have so-called ‘secular’ constitutions but they are not constitutions which ban religion (far from it). They are secular because they do not favour any one religion or denomination. Instead, they give freedom to all religious expressions. Toleration and inclusiveness are the key – ‘secular’ values that some Christians could learn from.

3) The Bible and Jesus, particularly, have much to teach us. In Genesis God declared all that he made was very good. Jesus in his life did not withdraw from the world but immersed himself in it. By being both in and of the world he identified himself with the world thus making his greatest impact, even at the risk of being condemned as a drunkard, glutton, and sinner (today’s gospel).

To rid the world of its evils we must fully engage in it and be part of it, recognising also that it and its values will have much to offer us. The Church does not have a monopoly of goodness (it has a lot to be ashamed of historically and at the present time.) Christians have a responsibility to respond to the grace and love they know they have received. They can best reflect this by embracing the secular, not by confronting it.