Hey Grant, I read your Eugene Peterson quote about the sacred-secular divide. How far do you think the non-separation of the sacred and the secular goes?
Hi! I think I ought to be nominated for a slowest-reply-in-history-award, if there is such a thing. My apologies! I think the quote you're referring to is this one (for the benefit of others):Â
âWe use the same words in talking to one another that we use when we talk to God: same nouns and verbs, same adverbs and adjectives, same conjunctions and interjections, same prepositions and pronouns.
There is no âHoly Ghostâ language used for matters of God and salvation and then a separate secular language for buying cabbages and cars. âGive us this day our daily breadâ and âpass the potatoesâ come out of the same language poolâŠ. God does not compartmentalize our lives into religious and secular. Why do we?â
I like what Peterson says here because I don't think Scripture divides the world into sacred and secular in the way that many do today. As I understand it, this was a product of Greek philosophy. It also has links to Gnosticism - the idea that the physical is bad/undesirable while the ethereal/spiritual/intangible is good/desirable.Â
We have seen the effects of this way of thinking play out in modern history. It's why many Christians don't care for the environment one iota. It's why you hear Christians talk about 'souls' instead of people. It's why many are obsessed with the end times and the idea of a rapture - because they just want to get out of here!Â
I'm not convinced that God sees it this way. The strongest evidence I would put forward is the incarnation: the Word became flesh. God became flesh. Jesus ate, drank, talked, listened, and did all the 'earthy' stuff. Far from shunning the physical, he validated it. And he didn't seem to divide sacred and secular when he was here, either.Â
I now realise that you may have been asking with politics and government in mind. Perhaps wondering about the separation of church and state, religion and politics?Â
My view on this has evolved a fair bit in the last couple of years. Firstly, I think that as humans we make all our decisions based on the way we think the world is and ought to be. That is to say, we all act based on our worldview. If we are to live consistent lives, I don't think we can help it. Some worldviews are shaped by religion, some are not. But we all make decisions based on what we believe about what is, and what should be.
I am fortunate to live in a democratic society where there is a diversity of ideas and worldviews, and I believe that people should be free to put forward ideas and policies founded in their respective worldviews and then let the democratic process decide whether the population thinks it is a good policy. I don't think ideas and policies should be discounted simply because they are founded on a religious worldview, but neither do I believe that people with religious worldviews should expect that everyone else shares their view or agrees that their religion is a good thing. That is the nature of democracy.Â
I hope this answers your question, otherwise I have just written a rather lengthy explanation that no-one is interested in!