Have you set some life goals for 2020 yet? Maybe your goals involve eating less or exercising more. Maybe you want to read more books. Perhaps you aim to floss your teeth more often than the day before a dentist appointment. (I kid.)
But as you’ve planned for 2020 and made your annual resolutions, you may have overlooked one critical problem — a problem that, if remedied, could drastically impact your life.
It’s the sacred-secular divide.
Tracing the Sacred-Secular Divide
From an early age, we learn to place our faith in a box. We may pull it out on Sundays, but we neatly return it to its hidden place the rest of the week. As a result, for most of us, faith has little to do with our day-to-day lives.
We may claim to be Christians on Sunday, but the rest of the week we live, work and play as if God did not exist.
Most of us feel perfectly comfortable with this sacred-secular divide. It seems natural to us to segment and compartmentalize our lives in this way. But there’s one big problem with this way of living, as Abraham Kuyper explains:
There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!
Jesus is sovereign over everything, not just the churchy parts. The gospel is just as true on Monday as Sunday. And if we want to honor God, we must submit our whole lives to him.
As a result, we can’t keep our faith in a box. Faith deserves to be reunited with Monday to Saturday. Faith should have everything to do with our day-to-day lives. We should live, work and play for God’s glory.
Jesus is sovereign over everything, not just the churchy parts.
How to Bridge the Sacred-Secular Divide
How can you make faith impact the rest of your life? Practically speaking, what does it look like for faith to intersect with “secular” categories like culture, work or science?
At Intersect and the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture, we want to partner with you to help you answer these questions. We strive to give you thoughtful commentary and helpful resources that help you reconnect faith with your work, your wallet and your world — so you can bridge the sacred-secular divide.
One way we aim to do this is via our upcoming conference on Science and the Christian Faith (Feb. 7-8). An all-star group of scientists, historians and theologians will help us understand how science and faith intersected in the past so we can then better navigate the future. We’d love to have join us. (Learn more.)
If you want to join us on this journey, drop your email address in the form below. We’ll send you a weekly newsletter with some of our best articles and resources.
Plus, as our thank you for signing up, we’ll send you three exclusive e-books for free:
- Christian Voices on the Cultural Moment
- A Pocket Guide to Christianity and Culture by Bruce Ashford
- Every Holiday a Holy Day by Bruce and Lauren Ashford.
No matter where you live or what you do, you will face the sacred-secular divide. Will you join us in reconnecting faith with the rest of your life?
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