Craig M. Gay writes:
If we are 'conservative,' we have probably tended to think of the 'the world'--and hence 'worldliness'--in terms of temptations to various kinds of dissipation and to personal, and particularly sexual, immorality. If we are 'liberal' in disposition, we have perhaps conceived of the 'world' in terms of socio-economic systems, and 'worldliness' as complicity in these evils. Both views are certainly correct. Personal immorality and socio-political injustices are indeed worldly evils to be condemned and avoided. But what if it can be shown that both the 'conservative' and the 'liberal' positions, while partly correct, actually miss the heart of the matter? What if the essence of 'the world'--and hence 'worldliness'--is not personal immorality and/or social injustice as such, but is instead an interpretation of reality that essentially excludes the reality of God from the business of life?
[. . . 'T]he world' is a human construction. It represents a kind of false order that we construct for ourselves in the place of God's good creation. Indeed, the cosmos is something we must continually reconstruct and maintain for ourselves in the face of threats posed to its unreal continuities and coherences by the real reality of created order and particularly by the reality of creation's Creator. [. . . We act as if ] the sorts of things we are able to observe in the ordinary course of events circumscribe the boundaries of the possible. Our construction of 'the world,' in other words, is often premised upon the assumption that we are capable of comprehending reality in its totality, that we are capable of rendering it stable and predictable, and that we are capable-at least in principle--of making reality work for us. [. . .] Indeed, it is the very nature of 'the world' to prevent us from recognizing the existence of anything beyond sensible and temporal regularities.[. . .] For once we have reduced reality to a 'world' of things and objects, which is the end-product of this convenient fiction, we can begin to exert our will over reality, and we can begin to act 'as gods' within. (5-7)
According to Gay, the world (or cosmos to invoke the New Testament term) is the way in which human beings seek to understand the world without God as its source and lord. In modern times, Gay charges, we live our daily lives, make our economic, political, and many times even ethical decisions, and create and experience culture without considering God. At best, we have privatized our spiritual lives in such a way that spirituality is reduced to something personal and domestic. The problem is that, having done this, we find it almost impossible even as Christians to see and act in the world in a different manner.
In your last paragraph you offer analysis with which I agree, word for word.
ReplyDeleteBut what is the alternative? Does not the alternative look like a theocracy of some sort?
Exploring alternatives has to happen at a number of levels. For example, in theory I could go back to that church and state post from late April or so. There are a range of options that need not give into a pure theocracy without privitizing faith entirely. Yet in practice in the U.S. for the foreseeable future, I think the best we can do is a principled pluralism in which a large number of positions seek to build common bridges of understanding with one another and seek to inluence each other on policy decisions.
ReplyDeleteWithin smaller polities, we still do have the option of building on more shared understanding, and that's where those options become more live. I would still favor a model where the institutional church stays separate from governmental offices, but in which local leaders can openly bring their faith to bear on policy.
As to churches themselves, we have to work to help our members begin to reexamine the world they live in and develop habits of life that resist the cosmos. I think Christian universities are places that kind of resistance can be practiced, however ineffectively.