All in Secular vs. Sacred
Mindful of how she and her husband raise their kids a listener and Patreon supporter of mine, Danielle, e-d me with a great question, are Christmas and Easter pagan holidays? After all, they both had pre-Christian pagan origins. I answer her great question by working through the way that God works, taking pre-existing forms and transforming them to his glory. Come and think with me in this least-worst blast-from-the-past.
Like a classroom where a substitute teacher fills in for the regular, I am, here on the holidays, interrupting my series. How should believers go about our Christ-given mission? Maybe it is 33%, each, with an eye to the past, present, and future? Maybe it is a balanced 50%-50% mix of indigenous and ancient Jewish culture? Using my recent trip to Costco to fill my truck and the recent Roman Catholic Synod on Synodality I think aloud with you about how we ought to frame mission. Along the way I also describe the work of some of my Christian heroes: Mother Theresa, John Wesley, Phil Keaggy, and John Wimber. How did they go about Christian mission? Come laugh and think with me!
The global church has seen its fill of horrors: pastors and priests betraying their call by sinning and deflating congregants' attitudes toward Christianity. And yet the broader culture still makes evident a hunger for transcendence: spirituality is on the rise. So what, respectively, do religion and spirituality take as their focus and their telos? I compare spirituality and religion in this episode. Along the way I also share more strategic questions one might ask in thoughtful conversations. Come think and laugh with me!
What does it mean to be human? The orthodox Christian worldview teaches we are embodied souls; not souls trapped in bodies, not spirits doomed to earth, but integrated, each valuable. The Postmodern secular worldview now holds we are consumers; choice is the exercise of willpower and nothing—especially others—should interfere with the exercise of one's own choice. The body, with all its appendages, is thus the both vehicle of consumer-choice and something to be used up, at will. In the first 12 minutes I talk, from Psalms 106, about the continual presence of God. Come think and laugh with me!
Significant to our culture's secular quality has been the presence and role of feminism. I offer a historical overview of family-and-public life, noting how the Industrial Revolution did things to women, men, and the family that the Feminist movement was right to protest and critique. Along the way I also note some of the shortcomings of the Feminist critique. At the show's beginning I reflect on the legalization of drugs in the state wherein I grew up: Oregon. Come laugh and think with me.
A recent experience at the Oregon coast: an unknown woman walked into our camp and began to visit with us. When, after ten minutes, the pleasant conversation turned to the cultural-shift she went on a verbal tirade. It made me think, what are some good questions to ask in an honest conversation? Why are questions disarming? Why do questions make for space? Oh, and this episode has a "special" advertiser joining us. Come laugh and think with me.
If it's hard to look back on one's personal history it's doubly hard to do that concerning group history. But to that end I unpack American Evangelicalism's trio of emphases: conversion as a subjective experience, turning pastors into celebrities, and a hyper-individualistic expression of Christian life. All three are two-edged blades, having both healthy and injurious qualities that help (or not) us navigate turbulent times. I also start the show with a prayer for broken relationships. Come laugh and think with me!
Darwinism is not merely a philosophy affirmed and disputed among scientists. No, today it permeates significant avenues of public life: law, education, theology, language, and economics. Herein I recount the whos and hows of this viral social spread. At the show's beginning I play back the contents of a "church-board meeting" I recently secretly recorded; silence is the tack of acquiescence. Come laugh and think with me!
Darwinism asserts there is no there-there. Life's just the product of random chance. And so, life is inherently meaningless and empty. But most Darwinists, even in our crazy PoMo society, cannot live inside such emptiness or meaninglessness. Drowning in emptiness but still hearing the echo of morality in their souls, what do they do? They make leaps of faith, leaps of faith that defy the cold-emptiness of Darwinian philosophy. Even, I'm sad to say, even Jordan Peterson makes such faith-leaps. How so?
Darwinists tell us the universe is empty and meaningless. But that's just not true once one begins studying life. For instance, the Leafcutter ant exhibits profoundly sophisticated behaviors. The queen ant, herself, follows innate algorithms that help her build and foster enormous colonies. Hence, life is pre-wired by intense and specific coding; all of which suggests the hand of an exquisitely sophisticated intellect. I also reflect on recent SCOTUS rulings and address the question of whether or not America is God's chosen nation.
What are the two central truths upon which I hang my own hat of belief? Importantly, both truths are rooted in history, fact, reality. The dogma of Lord Secularism says that the universe, for no discernible purpose, produced complex life; but there is no meaning to life. The Lord of creation sings that the cosmos is sated with beauty, love, and purpose; that life is grounded in meaning. Across these two diverse worldviews I search for answers. (Oh, and I also sing a Beatles song with new lyrics about top-level bribery.) Come laugh and think with me!
Most every self-aware person asks two questions, "what is life all about?" and, "who am I?" The human race always has, and does today, yearn for meaning. The Secular and the Sacred go about deep meaning in oppositional ways. Because it says the universe is empty and without purpose, Secularism shouts that we must create our own meaning. The Sacred, an element of reality that lives deep down in our bone marrow, says that the cosmos is sated with meaning. We don't just "need" religion, we are religion! I compare and contrast the Secular and Sacred on this ever-present question: what is life all about?
There is a shared public imagination: all science is peer-reviewed, all scientists are empty of bias, scientists work in labs, labs are sterile and pure. So all science is, itself, objective, impartial, and pure. But none of that is true. Science is, and scientists are, pre-loaded with bias, supposition, and philosophical coding. (If the Covid hysteria doesn't clarify that I don't know what would.) I describe how scientists (many, not all) try to blind us with the authority of their discipline. But their logic doesn't hold.
Like a big-plumming hat drum major marching out a steady beat for the entire band, secularism's facts-values dichotomy has been drummed down into every facet of life. Sadly that includes too much of the Church. More, that dichotomy helps us understand why so many confessing Christians can give their hearts to Jesus but then keep him entirely out of their intellectual processing. They've agreed with drum-major-secularism that religion is subjective, private, and something to be kept out of the public square. But, is that even true? Who lives as though there is no meaning in life? Or, who lives as though science is their ultimate guide?
I enjoy listening to Sirius XM radio. They have a couple comedy stations that crack me up. But when a comedian starts shredding marriage, "that ol' ball and chain!", I flip the channel. They are, like most of society, captured by the secular view of marriage as an impediment, an occlusion, an unnecessary obligation. I explore how philosophers' ideas creep into popular culture, and then how that shapes our views of both marriage and family. We also unpack the biblical view of marriage. The contrast between the secular and the sacred on marriage and family is stark indeed!
Most Protestants are products of the secular-sacred split. We believe there are realms that belong solely to God (our hearts, church, prayer, bible reading, evangelism) and realms that belong to not-God (our minds, and every single thing else in life!). No wonder then we do life mostly as do secularists. Worse still, we have jobs that we believe are less-than fully Christian. How to rectify this? Bring healing to this bad philosophy? I also talk about how a recent Jordan Peterson speaking engagement impacted me. And I discuss what to do about your non-Christian, even Christ-hating, friends and family.
Unaware, most Christians do life through a secular-sacred prism. We believe there are arenas that are isolated to the secular and others given to the sacred. Along similar lines we believe there things reserved for our minds to do and other, more private things, for our hearts to do. None of this is biblical and none of it is helpful. Most Christian colleges fall prey to this same schism and all politicians are chained to the secular-sacred split. In this ground-laying episode I clarify my own presuppositions and define important terms. Come think and laugh with me!
