"Religious Leaders Decry Imposition of Faith on Public Life"

From Friday's Washington Post (free registration may be required):

"Some religious leaders yesterday criticized this weekend's evangelical rally on judicial issues, arguing that the event suggests an imposition of faith on matters of U.S. public life.

"'Those in public office must never make religion the lens' through which constitutional matters are decided, said the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance."

I thought it ironic to see this article the same day I began reading Nancy Pearcey's Total Truth: Liberating Christianity From its Cultural Captivity. Consider this statement from page 68-69 of her excellent book on Christianity and worldview:

"The divide between public and private realms has widened to a yawning chasm. . . . In the private realm religion may enjoy considerable freedom--but only because the private sphere has been safely cordoned off from the 'real' world where the 'important' activities of society take place. Religions is no longer considered the source of serious truth claims that could potentially conflict with public agendas. The private realm has been reduced to an 'innocuous "play area",' says Peter Berger. . . .

"By allowing religion to be restricted to a segregated area of life, however, we have undercut one of its primary purposes, which is precisely to provide a sense of life's overarching meaning. As Berger writes, privatization 'represents a severe rupture of the traditional task of religion, which was precisely the establishment of an integrated set of definitions of reality that could serve as a common universe of meaning for the members of a society.' In fact, many evangelicals no longer even think it is the task of religion to provide a 'common universe of meaning.' Today religion appeals almost solely to the needs of the private sphere."

The Interfaith Alliance statement quoted above shows how some have capitulated to secularization. Pearcey's book challenges evangelicals not to unconsciously do the same. Our culture tells us that religious belief is a matter of private choice rather than publicly relevant truth. It's easy to follow our culture in this, and to make Christianity primarily into a self-help and personal salvation scheme. In God's eyes, it is far more than this: it is the basis for a worldview that can greatly and positively impact our neighbors and our culture. Churches are not consistently training us in how to carry our Christian worldview out into the public sphere, though. We know we should be honest and ethical; beyond that, what more does our Christianity say to our public lives?

For one thing, believers in public office must (despite the Rev. Geddy's statement) make Christian truth "the lens" through they view everything. The same is true for teachers, physicians, machinists, retail workers--all of us. God is God of all; his Word applies to all of life. The first step, of course, is to stay strong in study of Scripture. Because our culture has so trained us to keep it private, however, we may not even then know how to apply it to our public lives. Pearcey's book is a great resource for the training we need in how to do it.

Posted: Sat - August 13, 2005 at 08:14 AM |

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"Religious Leaders Decry Imposition of Faith on Public Life"

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson