Glenn Stassen in his recent work, 'A Thicker Jesus', notes seven indicators of secularism from the work of Charles Taylor. That is, attitudes towards democracy; modern science; individualism; sin; the Cross; love; war.
Stassen notes that causes that affect systems are by nature complicated, and not reducible to single factors.
Here are some initial reflections, with a view to a paper I will be presenting in a few weeks time with regards to sexuality; and the whole question of the sanctity of male and female components in that which God calls 'marriage'.
Democracy
Our early Baptist forebears would probably have distinguished, should they have known to do so, between liberal democracy and social democracy. An understanding of the dignity of the individual in the biblical narratives always sets that person within the social narrative.
Modern Science
Scientific theory now moves us to think in ways beyond a simple, mechanistic Deism: 'God's in charge of all that goes on'. Facing reality means facing up to an appreciation of complicated systems. And process and development is integral to our understanding of systems.
An understanding of God's sovereignty has to be worked out in the light of the fullness of divine revelation in Jesus Christ, as a journey with Jesus. It needs to be a journey of hope. It involves maturing and growing into completeness - Romans 8.20.
Individualism
If we can grasp that God is Trinity - three aspects of Persons integrally related within single real Personhood, then we should be able to grasp at least something of a biblical understanding of real persons as persons in relation rather than as atomised individuals. Individualism, frankly, is a foreign concept to Christianity. Isolated individualism and Christianity do not go together.
Sin
To state the obvious, yet easily forgotten: a Hebraic understanding of sin is 'a violation of God's will, by a breaching social protocols and parameters laif down by God'. Jesus does not violate this truth. Relationships matter to Jesus. Right relationships. There can be relationships that are, in God's eyes, simply a violation of His purposes for human society.
The Cross
A 'Punch and Judy' Debate, that is characterised by obsession with affirming or denying penal substitution, has obscured a deeper and wider understanding of the Cross for many contemporary Christians. I stand alongside the excellent new Testament scholar Michael Bird, who taught at Highland Theological College, in this. I have no problem with penal substitution; neither do I have a problem with NT Wright's insistence on wider implications of the Cross. I am happy with both Piper and Wright, even if they are not happy with each other!
The excellent work of the North American New Testament scholar, Michael Gorman, reminds us that the Christian life involves not only a message about the Cross but a call towards the way of the Cross. Where, in all the contemporary discussion, are God's call to mortification and repentance in the Christian life? Where is there a proper suborning of persons' preferences for the sake of a transformed social order that we are called to work towards?
It seems to me that there might be not only a docetism expressed towards the Christ of the cross, but also a docetic view of our humanity that fails to appreciate the need to harness sexuality and our humanity's appetites, immature and as yet imperfect as they are.
Love
Love is not simply an investment in the other as opposed to an investment in self. Love is an investment in the other in the context of the other belonging to the social fabric which defines them.
War
A renunciation of violence does not mean our renunciation of discipline. The war we wage is not one against others but against selfhood and self realisation at the cost of social integrity and social maturity.
These are my starting thoughts!
