NEXT PUBTALK: The Real Problem of a Sacred / Secular Divide
Join us Friday night, July 8th from 7:30-9:00pm as we spend an evening with Author Robert Benson considering the promblematic separation of the sacred and secular. This will be a fascinating evening. Don’t miss it. Held at the Regas Building Gathering Place Cafe, Downtown (318 North Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37917)
Bishop Robert Barron writes, “[Theologian]...Paul Tillich observed that the surest sign of the perdurance of original sin is the fact that the house of worship exists alongside of the bank and the theater and the statehouse as a separate entity representing a separate realm of being. In a properly configured world, the entire ‘secular’ realm would be ‘sacred,’ since all things would be seen as grounded in the holiness of God’s reality. But [in humanity’s perspective] there is a sharp distinction between the holy and the profane, between super-nature and nature, since God has been sequestered as a dangerous rival. The awkward tumble out of dreaming innocence into egotism has indeed resulted in a loss of holiness or ‘wholeness’ of vision. We now live in a universe marked by profanizations and secularization, conditioned by a ‘divided’ consiousness.” (And Now I See: A Theology of Transformation, pgs 45-46)
Robert Benson argues that separating the secular and sacred, the distinguishing of holy and profane spaces are, as Bishop Barron and Paul Tillich allude to (above), false and destructive. This is a result of thinking and acting not rooted in the way it’s supoosed to be, so to speak. In ‘a properly configure world’ all things are sacred, whole, rooted in God’s “as it should be.” Benson believes though, that the folks most responsible for creating this problematic mindset are those who are, in fact, most religious, most faithful. And that a corrective is needed. What do you think?
We invite you to come, listen, ask and discuss with us.
