I come from a family that grew up in the Bible Belt. The thing about the Bible Belt — and no one tells you this growing up — is that it really holds things together. Communities, Calendars, Rhythms of Life — they were all bound together by a participation in the Christian faith that went beyond spending every Sunday and every Wednesday night in the services of a local church. Singing together. Eating together. Listening to the same local Christian radio station.
Our lives, even as Christians, have grown increasingly secular. This frustrates me.
Philosopher Charles Taylor, in his book A Secular Age, argues that secularism isn’t the absence of religion, but something more complicated than that. And it’s been increasing for a long time. Perhaps hundreds of years. In the age of accelerations we live in, I’m wondering if its affects are being felt more these days.
Another philosopher, James K.A. Smith, wrote a book treating this rise in secularism called bluntly How to Not Be Secular. He argues that secularism is a formal worldview, not just a neutral way of understanding things. It’s actually got its own set of beliefs and practices that shape and practice how one thinks and acts in the world. That, by default, makes secularism sort of… religious. His question behind the whole thing is this: are human beings simply biological organisms? And if so, then what are we supposed to do with the longings and desires we all have? Can we use simple evolutionary terms to explain those away?
Christianity is a particular set of beliefs and practices that are a response to a personal encounter, at some point in one’s life, with God. C.S. Lewis has a nice quote on that:
“I believe in Christianity, as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” C.S. Lewis, Is Theology Poetry?
It is a worldview. If you’d like to hear Lewis’ additional context for that commonly used quote, I think it is worth reading:
I was taught at school, when I had done a sum, to “prove my answer”. The proof or verification of my Christian answer to the cosmic sum is this. When I accept Theology I may find difficulties, at this point or that, in harmonizing it with some particular truths which are imbedded in the mythical cosmology derived from science. But I can get in, or allow for, science as a whole. Granted that Reason is prior to matter and that the light of the primal Reason illuminates finite minds, I can understand how men should come by observation and inference, to know a lot about the universe they live in. If, on the other hand, I swallow the scientific cosmology as a whole, then not only can I not fit in Christianity, but I cannot even fit in science. If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on bio-chemistry, and bio-chemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees. And this is to me the final test. This is how I distinguish dreaming and waking.
When I am awake I can, in some degree, account for and study my dream. The dragon that pursued me last night can be fitted into my waking world. I know that there are such things as dreams: I know that I had eaten an indigestible dinner: I know that a man of my reading might be expected to dream of dragons. But while in the nightmare I could not have fitted in my waking experience. The waking world is judged more real because it can thus contain the dreaming world: the dreaming world is judged less real because it cannot contain the waking one. For the same reason I am certain that in passing from the scientific point of view to the theological, I have passed from dream to waking. Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, and the sub-Christian religions. The scientific point of view cannot fit in any of these things, not even science itself. I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.
I had a conversation with a colleague last week about what the outcome of spiritual formation/discipleship is supposed to be: Christlikeness. As Christians, we are aiming, however imperfectly, towards the target of treating God, ourselves, and others the way Jesus might in a similar situation. My seminary notes say Christlikeness is a lived demonstration of the character of Jesus in our relationships. That reconciliation is a life-long journey — and I don’t know that any of us ever really get there. But we aim, hands shaking, and do our best.
The Lord God gave me the ability to teach
so that I know what to say to make the weak strong.
Every morning he wakes me.
He teaches me to listen like a student.The Lord God helps me learn,
and I have not turned against him
nor stopped following him.I offered my back to those who beat me.
I offered my cheeks to those who pulled my beard.
I won’t hide my face from them
when they make fun of me and spit at me.The Lord God helps me,
so I will not be ashamed.
I will be determined,
and I know I will not be disgraced.He shows that I am innocent, and he is close to me.
So who can accuse me?
If there is someone, let us go to court together.
If someone wants to prove I have done wrong,
he should come and tell me.Look! It is the Lord God who helps me.
So who can prove me guilty?
Look! All those who try will become useless like old clothes;
moths will eat them.
This prophesy from Isaiah about Christ, the suffering servant, teaches us something about what Christlikeness looks like in the face of accusation and judgement. A suffering servant — killed for teaching a way of being that threatened the reigning global military superpower — later coopted by the same global military superpower (hey, if you can’t beat ‘em, you might as well join ‘em…)… and yet still resonating in our hearts thousands of years later. The image of the two walking with, but unaware of, Christ on the road to Emmaus comes to mind — “Weren’t our hearts leaping within us the entire time He was with us?!” — imperfectly, sometimes blindly, still journeying.
I realized this week that the fundamentalist evangelical Christian camp I grew up with and the progressive camp that I don’t jive with either these days have some overlap in their worldview. Both start with the belief that you can’t trust the inputs from your five senses to understand nature or yourself for either worldview to hold up at all.
To the Christian fundamentalist, you might ask “how are the stars that we see so far away if the world is so young?” and to the progressive, you might just ask “What is a woman?”. The amount of mental gymnastics one has to go through for the answer to either in a way that makes sense is exhausting. My wife noticed that in one camp the worldview starts with “You are sinful and fundamentally evil and broken.” and the other, for those who deeply and personally identify with a particular left-of-center orientation, with some sort of trauma that leaves you with a lot of questions around exactly who or what you are. And so we retreat further into worldviews that distance us from our created bodies and senses. I think Christianity offers a worldview that starts in Genesis 1: “and God created… and it was good.” That includes you. In every physical, spiritual, and metaphysical way. Fundamentally and existentially. Right now. Today. Down to your fingers and toes. As deep as your soul. As complex as your mind. And then further reinforced with this idea that “God loves you and me.” Before that happened and continuously. Even right now. Where we are on our journey today. Completely loved and accepted.
Jesus then asks us to love the folks in the red MAGA hats, and the LGBTQ+ folks, and the nosey neighbors… everyone. And, wow, is that difficult. And, wow, don’t I prefer to sit over here with my right opinions and judge. Holding onto my own hurts instead of opening myself up to being healed. Being defined by exterior voices instead of listening to the inner voice of God’s love.
Happy Resurrection Sunday, everyone.
In other news, we are moving our family to Eugene, Oregon this summer. We are listing the home we brought our babies home to in two weeks. How is that for burying the lead? Work is already lined up for everyone — pray that the right family-sized home lines up for us as well. It’s a wonderful fit for our family. A new adventure. Everything is 15 minutes away from everything else, except the ocean and the mountains — you have to go about an hour either way to get to those. My mentor told me a long time ago that you don’t work at a life, you play at it — so we are playing at this next chapter in Eugene. This is the “kids starting school and growing up” chapter, and we can’t wait to see where it takes our little family.
Grace upon grace to each of you.