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[Back to index of February articles] The sacred and the secular are inseparable By Bishop John Bryson Chane The Scottish theologian Alasdair MacIntyre once wrote: "The division of human life into the sacred and the secular is one that comes naturally to western thought. It is a division which at one and the same bears the marks of its Christian origin and witnesses to the death of a properly religious culture. For when the sacred and the secular are divided, then religion becomes one more department of human life, one activity among others. This has in fact happened to bourgeois religion... Only a religion which is a way of living in every sphere either deserves to or can hope to survive. For the task of religion is to help see the secular as the sacred, the world as under God. When the sacred and the secular are separated, then ritual becomes an end not to the hallowing of the world, but in itself. Likewise if our religion is fundamentally irrelevant to our politics, then we are recognizing the political as a realm outside of the reign of God. To divide the sacred from the secular is to recognize God's action only within the narrowest of limits. A religion which recognizes such a division, as does our own, is one on the point of dying." MacIntyre's words offer much food for thought to all persons who have a deep love and concern for their nation and the Episcopal Church. For some time now, prodded by church growth specialists, sociologists and contemporary theologians, major Christian denominations in America have been wringing their hands over their general inability to effectively reach out and minister to an increasingly diverse population made up of aging baby boomers (those born between 1946-1964) and their children, the Generation Xers, (1965-1976) and those I call "millennial casualties," (born after 1976 to Generation X parents). Millions of dollars have been spent on the slick demographic analysis of denominational population centers within America's cities, suburbs, exurbs and rural communities. Snapshots have been developed producing clearer pictures of population growth, decline, and diversity as defined by culture, language, economics, education and faith receptivity within the nation. The Episcopal Church and its member dioceses, along with the national offices of the Presbyterian, Lutheran, Congregational, Baptist and Methodist churches and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have been actively engaged in researching new information about trends in church attendance, age of participants and the surfacing needs of those who attend. At least on the surface, everyone seems to want to learn how to be better "missioners" of the Gospel of Christ. MacIntyre's words in addressing the consequences of the separation of the sacred and secular and the institutional fatality that will ultimately result in such separation must be an integral part of the church's analysis. Demographics alone are not enough if the Episcopal Church is to be truly missional, apostolic and Christ-centered. Too often we who are viewed as "church leaders" look at the phenomenal growth of non-denominational mega-churches, the financial resources that come from such growth and the diversity of church programming and worship experiences that are a part of mega-churches and say; "What we have to do is to replicate the same in our denomination." Are we building church centers and congregations to be missionary centers of outreach to our cities, towns and rural centers or are we ghettoizing religion into the haves of the suburbs and the have-nots of the city? Are we training those we are seeking to bring into our new 21st century congregations to be missionaries who clearly understand that the sacred and the secular are inseparable? Far too often, popular churches fail to address the story of Christ's crucifixion as the painful story of our own betrayal of God and God's people in our daily lives. Too often the gift of Maundy Thursday and the gut-wrenching emotion of Good Friday are lost to Easter eggs, lilies and the ecstatic, sensory experiences of well scrubbed, highly orchestrated and festively decorated Easter Morning services. The resurrection is the greatest event in the life and history of the Christian community, yet to experience it in all its fullness, we have to walk the way of the cross with Christ. There is no easy road to salvation! There is no easy road to freedom! If the "religious right" has taught Americans anything in the last 10 years, it has taught us that the sacred and secular are united as one and that the fundamental failure to see them as such is to see God narrowly defined and limited in the course of human life and history. The religious right, however, has failed miserably by establishing its agenda on the basis of political expediency, control and power politics rather than the agenda of the Good News of God in Christ. My hope is that the Episcopal Church will ask itself whether it has lived up to Christ's commandments to be both apostolic and missional. Has the Episcopal Church been guilty of dividing human life into the separate compartments of the secular and sacred, and in so doing disengaged itself from ministering to the culture and people around it? Has the Episcopal Church made the conscious decision to be a comfortable place in an uncomfortable world? MacIntyre's words need to very much in our hearts and minds as the Episcopal Church [Back to index of February articles]
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