Orthodox Christians Living in a Secular Age
"But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient of the day is its own trouble.” (OSB Matt: 6:33.) “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him, the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. And He said to them; “Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the Kingdom of God present with power.” (OSB Mark 8: 38-9:1.) I am beginning with the above passages from Sacred Scripture because the ultimate goal of Secularism is to completely erase God from all of human consciousness, thus allowing man to construct the universe of the autonomous man placing himself in the center of his own phantasmic microcosm. Within this self-centered microcosm, man does not seek first the things of the Kingdom of God, but often times seeks after material possessions that he thinks will fulfill his purely fleshly human need for wholeness. In creating this secular microcosm man shows how ashamed he truly is of his creator because he denies his very existence by denying that the one who created both man and all of creation exists.
Secular Man is truly ashamed of God in every aspect of his living as David Taylor, an American Secular Author, so rightly states by saying that secular man has removed God from not only public places but from his mind and heart stripping himself from God’s grace and only trusting in fallen human reason. Ultimately, what this autonomous demi-god does not understand is that God desires to fill him with the uncreated light of His Divine Energies, which is the only source of true human fulfillment or flourishing. We as human beings created in the image of God our creator, need this synergic relationship with Him in order to truly become human beings. It is necessary for all people to enter upon this course of purification which leads to illumination and ultimately Theosis, so that God may be restored to His rightful throne in the hearts of all mankind, thus breaking down the walls of Secularism.
The word Secular can be defined as; something that is related to worldly or temporal concerns, which is not overtly or specifically religious, such as secular music. The Secular is something that is not ecclesiastical or clerical in nature, such as secular courts or secular landowners. The Secular person is someone who is not bound by monastic vows or rules; specifically relating to, any form of Orthodox Clergy not belonging to a monastic community or congregation; a member of the “white” clergy as the Russians call it, or as others would say the married Priesthood. (Adapted from Merriam-Webster Dictionary) For Charles Taylor, the Secular can be defined and categorized into three different modes, which he calls the Modes of Secularity. These three modes make a direct reference to religion and how our modern society has divorced itself of the presence of the transcendent reality of God. These three Modes of Secularity that exclude religion are; the retreating of religion in public space, religion as a type of belief and practice which is or is not in regression, and finally religion as a certain type or kind of belief or commitment whose purpose and conditions in this age are being examined.
This Secularist Author, David Taylor clearly points out in his three modes of the secular, that Secularity separates the immanent and transcendent reality of God. When this phenomenon takes place mankind loses it’s the ability of relation to its creator, thus losing the ability to enter into the reality of Theosis, because man in this state tries to save himself by divorcing God from His role in salvation history. The Secular Man invents a rational way of thinking that separates the immanent nature of God from the natural world, and systematically reduces nature to its own immanence that could be understood by human reason only apart from God the creator of Nature. “This notion of the “immanent” involves denying, or at least isolating and problematizing any form of interpenetration between the things of Nature, on the one hand, and “the supernatural” on the other, be this understood in terms of the one transcendent God, or of the Gods or spirits, or magic forces, or whatever.”
Another interesting point about Secular Man is his desire to be happy and to “Flourish.” In this concept we see man selfishly seeking the good things of the earth for his own material gain, trying to find something to fill the God-sized hole inside of him. Today man is presented like never before with a society that reinforces a purely self-sufficient humanism with a wide array of available belief options. Therefore, the secular humanist can accept the final goal of belief that there is nothing beyond basic human flourish leaving God completely out of the picture. This self-sufficing humanism admits that there is a God but explicitly denies that He is at all relevant to human life. This type of humanism is a religion in and of itself because it removes God from his throne in the heart of man and places self there in His place.
True humanism can only be found in living the Orthodox Christian life because properly understood human flourishing is living a life in synergic communion with the Holy Trinity. In the Orthodox Christian point of view, we see this flourishing as agape, the boundless Divine Love which pours forth from God’s eternal essence, by which we are able to partake of through the power of His energies. In this agape Almighty God offers us the real possibility of transformation leading us to Theosis which is far beyond any type of human perfection we could ever imagine. This path of Theosis is only attainable through the exercise of human free will because God will not force us to love Him or enter into a life of repentance. We must believe with all of our beings in the transcendent God of our Faith, Who is also the God of immanence, who is able to both be in the world and hold the world in Himself. “The Christian story of our potential transformation by agape requires that we see our life as going beyond the bounds of its “natural” scope between birth and death; our lives extend beyond “this Life.”
We as Orthodox Christians need to be the Light of the World and show all people the way back to this Divine agape that is offered to all people by God so that Secularism does not bring about “the death of God.” We are called to witness to the truth of the Gospel and preach this life-giving Word of God to all the nations, so that when Jesus Christ comes in His Second and Glorious Coming all the people of the earth may recognize Him that they might be welcomed into the New Jerusalem of Divine Love.
