Sacred and Secular

Sacred and Secular

The Christian faith has penetrated to the core of human culture in the West through the revelation of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  In the deliberate, gradual movement of the Gospel, God unveils the sacred violent lie of culture, exposing each culture to the light of the Gospel.  As Jesus teaches, this revelation has Apocalyptic consequences for every culture exposed to it.  The West is religious because culture cannot exist without it.  By religion, I do not mean the traditional belief in God, judgment and immortality, but the myths, rituals, and prohibitions which unite a people, provide a unique identity, and a offer a heroic means of transcending death.

Our culture may be called "secular" because we we struggle to maintain our Western myths, rituals, and values in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, global world which is being exposed to the light of the Gospel.  Evangelicals decry the loss of faith and write books to convince others of the truth.  I rarely meet an atheist, but I meet vast numbers of practical atheists, who can tell the whole story of their lives without God.  What I mostly meet is people who have their own unique private spirituality.  This is a consequence of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

After listening to a recent interview from a prominent American pastor on the current state of the American church, I wondered, if Jesus came to America today would he be opposed, tried, and executed?  It makes one wonder whether we have been so accommodating to culture that he would be simply ignored.  I recommend reading the Dostoevsky's story, "The Grand Inquisitor on the Nature of Man" within the book, The Brothers Karamazov.

It is difficult for us to see because it is the air we breath as Americans.  Let's look at it from the perspective of Islamic terrorism.  When the US was attacked on 9/11, it was calculated by those who planned this as a deliberate attack on the "Crusader" religion of the West which promotes freedom, independence, material well-being, sexual freedom, and exploits the countries of the world, especially Islam's oil.

Americans saw this attack as an attack on our freedom, lifestyle, & way of life.  America believed in her innocence and quickly drew together in our common values which were attacked.  We saw flags raised, pledges recited, people overcame their differences (especially in government) to rally against a common enemy, we began singing the patriotic songs, initiating "God Bless America" as a part of our baseball games.  Imagine what the level of outrage would have been if athletes refused to stand in honor of the country following this event.

We enlisted hundreds of thousand of young men and women to become the sacrificial bearers of culture by giving their lives in the fight against this national affront. As a result, we sacrificed the lives of thousands of Americans and many western allies.  And, what is often forgotten, we killed hundreds of thousands in retribution through war and disease.  Now we are faced with an endless war in the Middle East that has drawn in Russia and Iran and Africa, with no resolution in sight.

We erected a temple to the dead at Ground Zero which is a constant reminder that our way of life must be preserved in memory of the dead.  It is place of solemn assembly where Americans go to remember that day and remember the sacred obligation it imposes on us.

One might disagree that this constitutes religion.  Yes, this is precisely what the Gospel does, it exposes the myths of culture and the idea that God is on our side.  It is because of the Gospel that we can see right through Islamic terrorism.  Because of Jesus, we can no longer start the engine of religion again and our attempts have apocalyptic consequences for the world.