When Worlds Collide: Sacred And Secular
Preaching
Lions And Cows Dining Together
And 111 Other Sermon Ideas
Object:
Purpose Statement: How does our faith relate to the rest of our lives, including the interaction between religious and civic responsibilities?
I have a friend who is a very conservative minister espousing the typical conservative theology such as: everything that happens is planned by God for a purpose that we don't always understand, or people who don't profess Jesus as their Savior are condemned to eternal hell, and other such delights. Strange as it may seem, he is very liberal in his politics and positions on social issues. You ask how this can be? Perhaps, liberal politics and conservative theology fit together just fine and I simply don't understand. But if the two positions are really somewhat mutually exclusive, there may be a very reasonable explanation as to how someone could maintain both positions and see no incongruity.
a. We compartmentalize our worlds. Perhaps we could say that we live in two worlds: one sacred and the other secular. We can go to church and do our religious duties in the world of incense and candles, then step out the door into the "real" world where religion doesn't belong or work. We have conveniently kept these two worlds separate in order to minimize any conflicts. Jesus shared some thoughts concerning the conflicts between these two worlds. The Pharisees tried to trap Jesus with questions concerning paying taxes to Rome, and he responded by taking a coin and indicating we pay allegiance to the governing authorities to whom it is due and to God where it is due (Matthew 22:15-21). It isn't recorded for our edification, but I like to think he took time to explain how the two were related. He dwelt at some length (John 17:9-19) on these two worlds and the need for us to know our appropriate relationship to each. The truth is we live in two worlds but should not keep them separate. While we have civic responsibilities, our religious loyalties always take precedence. We always obey God's will as our faith world dictates, and follow civic law only when it does not conflict with God's law. When we understand that, our faith will guide us through every aspect of our lives by putting a sacred tone to everything secular. The entire universe is God's and we relate to the world by superimposing the sacred essence over it to indicate how the world should be if we were all to act appropriately. Currently, too many of us do not allow our sacred world to speak to the secular world as if our religion were irrelevant to the secular world. Take a page out of Amos and see how he castigated the Hebrews for not allowing their religion to govern their daily business relationships. The results were greed and opulence for some at the expense of poverty and injustice for others, and that was in the days when the religious law was the civil law.
b. Or we merge our worlds. Either, as in the first point, we live in two separate unrelated worlds, or sometimes the two worlds become tangled in an unholy alliance that corrupts both. There have been ample historic illustrations of church and state fraternizing too much. England provides a fine example of the church and state becoming too dependent upon each other so that special privileges and inappropriate influence have corrupted both worlds. The church crowned heads of state, and the clergy received their "living" through state appointments. Who you know determines who gets what. In our country, there are strong pressures from the Christian right to make our nation and government "Christian" by taking advantage of our majority to attain positions of special privilege such as: "in God we trust," "one nation under God," Bible reading and prayer (Christian prayer) in the schools, and so forth. If you are Buddhist, atheist, or any other non-Christian "you don't have to participate!" (see message C-10, "Why Teachers Can't Pray"). When the Christian church becomes special friends with the state, we give up our privilege of standing apart to speak a prophetic word to the secular. We compromise our position and become too secular at the cost of the sacred. To be fair, we must acknowledge Paul's comments (Romans 13:1-7) concerning Christians obeying the governing authorities because God appoints them. Paul would be the first to say that when those state authorities are in opposition to God's law, we need to obey God first and unquestionably. That is what Paul himself did. Paul's idea that "our government is appointed by God" only means God wants us to have orderliness in our society to maintain peace and justice.
I have a friend who is a very conservative minister espousing the typical conservative theology such as: everything that happens is planned by God for a purpose that we don't always understand, or people who don't profess Jesus as their Savior are condemned to eternal hell, and other such delights. Strange as it may seem, he is very liberal in his politics and positions on social issues. You ask how this can be? Perhaps, liberal politics and conservative theology fit together just fine and I simply don't understand. But if the two positions are really somewhat mutually exclusive, there may be a very reasonable explanation as to how someone could maintain both positions and see no incongruity.
a. We compartmentalize our worlds. Perhaps we could say that we live in two worlds: one sacred and the other secular. We can go to church and do our religious duties in the world of incense and candles, then step out the door into the "real" world where religion doesn't belong or work. We have conveniently kept these two worlds separate in order to minimize any conflicts. Jesus shared some thoughts concerning the conflicts between these two worlds. The Pharisees tried to trap Jesus with questions concerning paying taxes to Rome, and he responded by taking a coin and indicating we pay allegiance to the governing authorities to whom it is due and to God where it is due (Matthew 22:15-21). It isn't recorded for our edification, but I like to think he took time to explain how the two were related. He dwelt at some length (John 17:9-19) on these two worlds and the need for us to know our appropriate relationship to each. The truth is we live in two worlds but should not keep them separate. While we have civic responsibilities, our religious loyalties always take precedence. We always obey God's will as our faith world dictates, and follow civic law only when it does not conflict with God's law. When we understand that, our faith will guide us through every aspect of our lives by putting a sacred tone to everything secular. The entire universe is God's and we relate to the world by superimposing the sacred essence over it to indicate how the world should be if we were all to act appropriately. Currently, too many of us do not allow our sacred world to speak to the secular world as if our religion were irrelevant to the secular world. Take a page out of Amos and see how he castigated the Hebrews for not allowing their religion to govern their daily business relationships. The results were greed and opulence for some at the expense of poverty and injustice for others, and that was in the days when the religious law was the civil law.
b. Or we merge our worlds. Either, as in the first point, we live in two separate unrelated worlds, or sometimes the two worlds become tangled in an unholy alliance that corrupts both. There have been ample historic illustrations of church and state fraternizing too much. England provides a fine example of the church and state becoming too dependent upon each other so that special privileges and inappropriate influence have corrupted both worlds. The church crowned heads of state, and the clergy received their "living" through state appointments. Who you know determines who gets what. In our country, there are strong pressures from the Christian right to make our nation and government "Christian" by taking advantage of our majority to attain positions of special privilege such as: "in God we trust," "one nation under God," Bible reading and prayer (Christian prayer) in the schools, and so forth. If you are Buddhist, atheist, or any other non-Christian "you don't have to participate!" (see message C-10, "Why Teachers Can't Pray"). When the Christian church becomes special friends with the state, we give up our privilege of standing apart to speak a prophetic word to the secular. We compromise our position and become too secular at the cost of the sacred. To be fair, we must acknowledge Paul's comments (Romans 13:1-7) concerning Christians obeying the governing authorities because God appoints them. Paul would be the first to say that when those state authorities are in opposition to God's law, we need to obey God first and unquestionably. That is what Paul himself did. Paul's idea that "our government is appointed by God" only means God wants us to have orderliness in our society to maintain peace and justice.
