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The Division of Sacred and Secular



The daily life of 21st century Christians is sorted into systems which provide rhythm, comfort, and stability. As a human living in this time, I am well aware of the categories my life divides into. For example, Sunday is the day for church and rest, while Monday through Saturday is a time dedicated to working and studying. In fact, if I zoom out a little bit, I can see that most of my life fits into a neat box of comfortable divisions and boundary lines. American culture as a whole is identified by what categories we do or do not fit into. These boundary lines give us a sense of identity, they protect who we are by outlining what we do or do not do. In our culture, our worldview teaches us to organize our activities under their respective classification. However, there comes the point where this method of organizing begins to create divisions. We identify who we are by who we are not. When we think of doing “spiritual” things, we probably think of prayer, fasting, worship, and devotional time with God. Yet, the heart of the gospel is for the broken-hearted, the outcast, and the vulnerable. If our spiritual work does not include these people then it really is not spiritual in a biblical sense. True Christian spirituality is deeply concerned with the world around us, and this concern often surpasses words and requires action. Christianity cannot create divisions between what belongs to the secular world and what belongs to the church. Biblically founded religion seeks to permeate the whole world with the presence of God.

THE SACRED AND SECULAR DIVISION
I believe Christians are called to take all things and offer them back to God as an act of worship. God gave Adam and Eve a garden, and in that place, they communed and walked with God. What if we viewed the whole world as our garden? The mundane things in life cease to be merely ordinary and become fragrant offerings to God. The world as a whole is the sanctuary of God: our place of worship. Paul Evdokimov, an Eastern Orthodox theologian, effectively described this concept. He wrote, "In the immense cathedral which is the universe of God, each man, whether scholar or manual laborer, is called to act as the priest of his whole life –– to take all that is human, and turn it into an offering and a hymn of glory." I believe that the best way to cross the divide between categorizing things as sacred and others as secular is to change one's perspective. When we worship with others at a church, there is a real sense of the presence of God. We are aware that we are doing something "spiritual." However, when we leave the place of worship, this sense fades. There is an element of worship present in the ritual of everyday life.

CROSSING THE DIVIDE
If the created world indeed is the Lord's cathedral, this leaves no room for the concept of worship as a momentary thing. Rather worship is in all things. In the book of Genesis, readers see God blessing the created world. He blesses Adam and Eve (1:22), He blesses them again with a command to watch over creation (1:28), and he blesses the seventh day (2:3). The word used for blessed is "barak." The beauty of this story is that God blesses mankind, then man rises with the ability to bless God back. Out of all of creation, only humankind can bless God. We bless him for meals, we bless him for favor in circumstances, and in many other types of situations. As we bless what we have received, we begin to offer it as worship back to God. The act of blessing is not merely an attitude of gratefulness, but rather the recognition of Divine influence behind something, and the offering of that thing back to the one who initially gave it.
When we classify practices and objects as either sacred or secular we make it more difficult to see the goodness of God behind those things. In the creation narrative of Genesis God looked upon what He created six times, "And God saw that it was good." After the creation of man, "God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good" (1:31). To bless our neighbor, to bless our food, to bless our environment, to bless anything and everything that is created is to join with the spoken word of God uttered at creation and say, "it is good." We cannot categorize the world as secular, because God has called it good.

–Elliot Ford



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