A holistic perspective on liturgy and secularism

When discussing "religion" in the modern world there are many dichotomies: religion and science, sacred and secular, mystery and certainty, faith and reason, supernatural and natural, clergy and laity, transcendence and immanence, church and state.

Each of us and the communities that we belong to need to make sense of these dichotomies, as they have profound implications in ethics, education, politics, science, theology, and human flourishing.

I recently found the underlying philosophical issues, particularly about secularism, addressed profoundly by an unexpected source.

For the theology reading group this month we are reading

For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy by Alexander Schmemann

I find it very helpful that this group leads me to read authors and books that I would not normally. I grew up in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. In contrast, my church experience the past forty years has been "low" church. Most of these churches have been dismissive of liturgy and tradition, and have marginalised the Eucharist (holy communion) and any notion of a "sacramental" view of rites such as baptism, marriage, and ordination. I have also not been able to grasp the thinking behind those who are enthusiastic about Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Perhaps, I am just too practical and pragmatic. 

However, in the past few years I have come to appreciate liturgy through the Every Moment Holy and Celtic Daily Prayer books of liturgy.

I have been blessed by this book. It is amazing! It is not at all what I expected. 

First, Schmemann shares my concerns about the way that liturgy can take on a life on its own, be an escape from the "real" world, and lead to obscure and inane ideas and divisive debates about issues such as transubstantiation.

Second, significant parts of the book are about deep philosophical issues such as I raised in my introduction. His analysis of secularism is brilliant and insightful, and at least fifty years ahead of analysis today. Schmemann contends that secularism is a Christian heresy. This resonates with a view promoted more recently by Tom Holland and Brad Gregory.

Sacraments are not "miracles" but transformations.

A sacrament -...- is always a passage, a transformation. Yet it is not a “passage” into “supernature” but into the Kingdom of God, the world to come, into the very reality of this world and its life as redeemed and restored by Christ. It is the transformation not of “nature” into “supernature,” but of the old into the new. A sacrament therefore is not a “miracle” by which God breaks, so to speak, the “laws of nature,” but the manifestation of the ultimate Truth about the world and life, man and nature, the Truth which is Christ.

page 102

“This is my body, this is my blood. Take, eat, drink.…” And generations upon generations of theologians ask the same questions. How is this possible? How does this happen? And what exactly does happen in this transformation? And when exactly? And what is the cause? No answer seems to be satisfactory. 

This leads to a discussion of the problem with a reductionist approach to sacraments.

Symbol? But what is a symbol? Substance, accidents? Yet one immediately feels that something is lacking in all these theories, in which the Sacrament is reduced to the categories of time, substance, and causality, the very categories of “this world.” Something is lacking because the theologian thinks of the sacrament and forgets the liturgy. As a good scientist he first isolates the object of his study, reduces it to one moment, to one “phenomenon”—and then, proceeding from the general to the particular, from the known to the unknown, he gives a definition, which in fact raises more questions than it answers. 

But throughout our study the main point has been that the whole liturgy is sacramental, that is, one transforming act and one ascending movement. And the very goal of this movement of ascension is to take us out of “this world” and to make us partakers of the world to come. In this world—the one that condemned Christ and by doing so has condemned itself—no bread, no wine can become the body and blood of Christ. Nothing which is a part of it can be “sacralized.” 

True sacramentalism must go beyond a false dichotomy between sacred and secular. A false dichotomy is an fallacy that limits the possible options, reducing complex analysis to either/or choices and not leaving room for both/and or dialectic.

“to free the terms “sacramental” and “eucharistic” from the connotations they have acquired in the long history of technical theology, where they are applied almost exclusively within the framework of “natural” versus “supernatural,” and “sacred” versus “profane,” that is, within the same opposition between religion and life which makes life ultimately unredeemable and religiously meaningless.

Another example is the relationship between Word and sacrament.

“The sacrament is a manifestation of the Word. And unless the false dichotomy between Word and sacrament is overcome, the true meaning of both Word and sacrament, and especially the true meaning of Christian “sacramentalism” cannot be grasped in all their wonderful implications. The proclamation of the Word is a sacramental act par excellence because it is a transforming act. It transforms the human words of the Gospel into the Word of God and the manifestation of the Kingdom. And it transforms the man who hears the Word into a receptacle of the Word and a temple of the Spirit.…”

There is even emergence!

“the Greek word leitourgia. It meant an action by which a group of people become something corporately which they had not been as a mere collection of individuals—a whole greater than the sum of its parts. It meant also a function or “ministry” of a man or of a group on behalf of and in the interest of the whole community. Thus the leitourgia of ancient Israel was the corporate work of a chosen few to prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah. And in this very act of preparation they became what they were called to be, the Israel of God, the chosen instrument of His purpose.”

page 25

Beauty is important and should not be eliminated for reasons of functionality.

“Once more, the joyful character of the eucharistic gathering must be stressed. For the medieval emphasis on the cross, while not a wrong one, is certainly one-sided. The liturgy is, before everything else, the joyous gathering of those who are to meet the risen Lord and to enter with him into the bridal chamber. And it is this joy of expectation and this expectation of joy that are expressed in singing and ritual, investments and in censing, in that whole “beauty” of the liturgy which has so often been denounced as unnecessary and even sinful. 

Unnecessary it is indeed, for we are beyond the categories of the “necessary.” Beauty is never “necessary,” “functional” or “useful.” And when, expecting someone whom we love, we put a beautiful tablecloth on the table and decorate it with candles and flowers, we do all this not out of necessity, but out of love. And the Church is love, expectation and joy. It is heaven on earth,”

Faith is not just intellectual belief or assent to propositions. It is love, relational, and trust in Christ.

But faith itself is the acceptance not of this or that "proposition" about Christ, but of Christ Himself as the Life and the light of life. (I Jn. 1:2). 

In this sense Christian faith is radically different from "religious belief." Its starting point is not "believe" but love. In itself and by itself all belief is partial, fragmentary, fragile...  Only love never fails (I Cor. 13). And if to love someone means that I have my life in him, or rather that he has become the "content" of my life, to love Christ is to know and to possess Him as the Life of my life. 

(p.104-105)

Moses was a failure and so why do we project success

[Moses] dies, by all human accounting, a failure, and knowing that he is a failure, knowing that everything that he has worked for in leading, training, and praying for this community will unravel as soon as the people enter Canaan. 

It is a familiar story for readers of Scripture, even though frequently suppressed. What does this mean? 

It means that we have to revise our ideas of the holy community to conform to what is revealed in Scripture. 

It means that we cannot impose our paradisiacal visions of hanging out with lovely, upbeat, and beautiful people when we enter a Christian congregation. 

It means that God’s way of working with us in community has virtually nothing to do with the world’s idea of getting things done, of what ‘works’ and what doesn’t. 

It means that God hasn’t changed his modus operandi of choosing the ‘low and despised in the world’ (1 Cor. 1:28) to form his community. 

It means that we who want to get in on what God does in the way God does it in all matters of community, will have to give up pretensions of shaping an organization that the world will think is wonderful as we parade our accomplishments to the tune of ‘worship’ or ‘evangelism.’

Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, p. 266

Laura Cerbus has some helpful thoughts on this subject.

Living as a Christian is counter-cultural

What is absolutely basic to the Christian life? Eugene Peterson argues that it is not all about us. Rather, it is all about God. Furthermore, it is not about Christians doing stuff. Rather it is about Christians participating in what God is doing. This means that Christians must act in ways and use methods that align with the actions and methods of Jesus. This is Christian integrity. This goes far beyond avoiding sexual or financial impropriety.

Unfortunately, these absolutely basic things are contrary to the culture in which many Christians live, particularly in North America. And, due to globalisation, these pernicious influences have spread.

Two things absolutely basic to the Christian life are, unfortunately, counter to most things North American, which makes this intersection a confused place, clogged with accidents, snarled traffic, and short tempers. To begin with, the Christian life is not about us; it is about God. Christian spirituality is not a life-project for becoming a better person, it is not about developing a so-called ‘deeper life.’ We are in on it, to be sure. But we are not the subject. Nor are we the action. We get included by means of a few prepositions: God with us (Matthew 1:23), Christ in me (Galatians 2:20), God for us (Romans 8:31). With…in…for…: powerful, connecting, relation-forming words, but none of them making us either subject or predicate. We are the tag-end of a prepositional phrase.

The great weakness of North American spirituality is that it is all about us: fulfilling our potential, getting in on the blessings of God, expanding our influence, finding our gifts, getting a handle on principles by which we can get an edge over the competition. And the more there is of us, the less there is of God. 

Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, page 335

The advertisement below crassly captures the powerful cultural forces working against those who want to follow Jesus.

Sooner or later in this life we get invited or commanded to do something. But in that doing, we never become the subject of the Christian life nor do we perform the action of the Christian life. We are invited or commanded into what I call prepositional participation. The prepositions that join us to God and God’s action in us within the world—the with, the in, the for—are very important, but they are essentially a matter of the ways and means of being in on and participating in what God is doing.

These ways and means are the second basic in the Christian life that are also counter to most things American. Ways and means must be appropriate to ends. We cannot participate in God’s work but then insist on doing it in our own way. We cannot participate in the building of God’s kingdom but then use the devil’s tools and nails. Christ is the way as well as the truth and the life. When we don’t do it his way, we mess up the truth and we miss out on the life.

Power, science, and the academy

Power is the ability to influence what people think, how they feel, and how they act. Power can be direct or indirect, explicit or implicit. Like money and technology, power in itself is morally neutral. Power can be harnessed for good or for evil. Power can be used to protect the weak and to enact justice. It can also be used by the strong to cause untold suffering and injustice.

How does the concept of power play out in science and in the academy? Science and universities are human institutions. Hence, their activities and organisation inevitably involve the exercise of power. Power affects what people believe is true, the narratives they live by, how the social context shapes academia, and whether the strong triumph over the weak. Below I discuss the power of ideas, the power of narratives, how economic power shapes the academy today, and the paradox of the power of the powerless. The latter gives hope in a situation in which it is easy to despair.

Power of ideas

Universities are primarily about thinking. Teaching an academic discipline is ultimately about training students to think in a particular way about a subject, whether physics, sociology, or theology. Research is concerned with thinking about a topic, gathering data, analysing the data, and formulating concepts and theories that make sense of the data.

Ideas are powerful, for better or worse. Ideas can enable us to synthesise and understand vast amounts of information. Academic disciplines begin with new ideas and accelerate when these ideas provide an understanding of a dimension of reality. For example, genetic information is encoded in the biomolecule DNA. 

On the other hand, disciplines stagnate and may become dangerous, when ideas become ideology. Then, an idea becomes an assumption that should never be questioned and is claimed to have universal applicability and validity. For example, Freud's view that the subconscious is shaped by repressed sexual desires and this determines behaviour. Ideology can frame discussions about economics, from both left-wing and right-wing perspectives. Free markets are efficient and produce the best outcomes for everyone. Or, the only way to produce a fair and just society is for the state to control capital and the means of production.

Power of narratives

Stories are powerful. They capture our imagination and frame what we believe is true, what is possible, and how we should live. Individuals, families, institutions, and nations all have narratives that they live by. 

Here are three powerful narratives involving science. These three narratives are interrelated.

a. Over the past two thousand years, Christianity has consistently been opposed to scientific progress. 

Promotion of this narrative began about 150 years ago with the publication of an influential book by John William Draper, History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874). This was followed by Andrew Dickson White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896).

The book is still in print and available on Amazon. The publishers blurb for the 1993 edition states:

“The struggle of science over outmoded medieval concepts is still emerging. Even a century after its publication, White's great work has much to teach us about the dangerous effects of religious doctrinalism on education and moral growth.” (1993 edition)

Scholars of science and religion today accept that this narrative (known as the conflict thesis) is false. See for example, Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion, Edited by Ronald L. Numbers. In contrast, it is accepted that Christianity did not hinder but facilitated the rise of modern science.

Nevertheless, this narrative is still promoted by prominent public intellectuals, such as the New Atheists, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris.

b. Science makes possible certainty in all areas of knowledge. It is the ultimate authority on what is true.

This idea began with Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and continued with Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1827). Auguste Comte (1798-1857) was the first philosopher of modern science and a founder of sociology (social physics). He was the founder of positivism, claiming that societies progress through three stages: theological, metaphysical, and positive. These correspond to eras of primitive (Christendom), Enlightenment, and modern science. 

This narrative of increasing certainty through a universal scientific method achieved power and legitimacy due to the successes of Newtonian mechanics. It gave an accurate quantitative description of the motion of the planets and cannonballs. It even predicted the existence of a new planet, Neptune, in 1846.

This narrative led to pressure for the biological, social, and human sciences to be more like the physical sciences and use statistical and quantitative methods. It has led to a marginalisation of the humanities in universities. It promoted liberal theology and doubts about traditional Christian doctrines and the modern relevance of the Bible. 

This narrative promotes the idea that science is the ultimate authority concerning what is true and important. In a desire to seek greater legitimacy in the modern world, attempts are made by apologists for major religions that their ancient texts are actually scientific and even predicted modern scientific discoveries.

c. Progress. Increasing scientific knowledge results in greater human flourishing and less human suffering.

A current proponent of this narrative is the Harvard psychologist, Steven Pinker in his book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. Below is the publishers blurb.

Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.

This narrative promotes the idea that all social problems have scientific and technical solutions and that any limits on scientific research and the development of new technologies will be bad for humanity. 

The problem with all of the three narratives above is that they are not true. Yet they are appealing and powerful as they promote particular political and philosophical agendas.

Economic power shapes the academy today

All institutions are located in a historical, social, political, and economic context. Today that context is dominated by economic ideology, which has labels such as globalisation and neoliberalism. This ideology promotes the idea that "free" markets produce the best outcomes for all. Briefly, this means that decisions should be made in terms of economics. Students are consumers, faculty are human resources, and universities are businesses. Resources (capital, infrastructure, personnel, influence) are allocated based on what will generate the most income for an institution. The goal of scientific research is to generate technology that will promote economic growth. Researchers are competing with one another to obtain resources. Research is to be managed like a factory production line with well-defined timelines, measurable outcomes, and techniques. Everything has to be efficient.

This all leads to the marginalisation of the humanities and curiosity-driven scientific research. Awe, wonder, collegiality, doubt, and play are cute irrelevancies.

Universities are dominated by money, management, marketing, and metrics.

Like the culture, life in a university is dominated by the relentless pressure of individualism, immediacy, functionalism, and secularism.

This is a dramatic shift from the seven core values that shaped medieval universities, one of which was the notion of "scientific and scholarly knowledge as a public good transcending any economic advantage it might bring".

Derek Bok, a former president of Harvard University, has documented the problem of commercialisation in his book, Universities in the Marketplace, published in 2003.

There are multiple problems with letting economic ideology control universities and science. First, it is inhumane, diminishing the value of people and knowledge, reducing both to economic commodities. Second, it promotes economic inequality and injustices. Universities have become another means for the rich and powerful to increase their wealth and power. Third, this approach will fail to produce the putative desired outcomes of graduates who contribute to society through their creativity, expertise, and service or to produce new scientific knowledge that leads to technologies that benefit humanity. Countless examples of discoveries in science resulted from pure curiosity and had no clear practical application. However, some [but far from all] of these discoveries eventually led to unanticipated industrial applications in computing, communication, materials, or medicine.

The paradox of the power of the powerless

In the long run, the mighty do not triumph. The proud are humbled. All empires fall. This is because of the judgement of God. It is also because they cannot accept the way that the world really is and live by lies. Ultimately, they come up against reality and truth. God has made people and the world in a certain way and to function in a certain way. For those who do not accept this eventually their world unravels. This does not just apply to those with military, political, or economic might. Intellectual rulers (Freud, Marx, Plato, Dawkins) also have clay feet that eventually crumble. Intellectual fashions pass.

I find inspiration in the story of the early church. Their triumph over the mighty Roman Empire has been documented beautifully by Rodney Stark in a fascinating book he published in 1996, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries 

Other inspirations for counter-cultural resistance are provided by Walter Brueggemann in The Prophetic Imagination and by Vaclav Havel, in Power to the Powerless.

This might capture our imagination as to the way forward. I believe it is to form counter-cultural informal academic communities that live by the truth.

This post is part one the session that I will be leading in a Seminar course on Power that my fellow "holy" scribbler is giving this week at Asian Theological Seminary in Manila.

Living as a Christian in the academy

Tonight I am giving a public lecture at Asian Theological Seminary in Manila.

Here are my slides

Here are some related resources

A chapter I wrote, "Living as a Physicist and a Christian", in the book, Why Study? Exploring the Face of God in the Academy, published by Singapore FES.

An article in the IFES Journal Word and World, Towards A Christian Vision for the Modern Secular University

A talk I gave at the IFES World Assembly in 2019.

Is My Phone Changing Me? Digital Discipleship in a Secular Age by Marcus Brooking

This gives a succinct discussion of how smartphones reduce attentiveness and distract us from sustained engagement with others, with ideas, and with God.

Church, community, sects and personal empires

When we think of "church" we may think of a specific gathering of people, building, or denomination. However,  in the Bible, there is only one church, and it is global, diverse, and centred around Jesus Christ.

Eugene Peterson reflects on the centrality of community in the third section of Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology 

“When I became a pastor I didn’t think much about the complexities of community… I didn’t come to the conviction easily, but finally there was no getting around it: there can be no maturity in the spiritual life, no obedience in following Jesus, no wholeness in the Christian life apart from an immersion and embrace of community. I am not myself by myself. Community, not the highly vaunted individualism of our culture, is the setting in which Christ is at play.” 

 p.226

“The Bible furnishes us with a rich vocabulary that gives texture to the bare term “community”: people, people of God, congregation, great congregation, church, chosen people, royal priesthood, temple, family, body, commonwealth.”

The church is notorious for divisions. Just look at the list on Wikipedia of scores of different Baptist denominations, particularly in the USA! Today most of the largest and fastest-growing churches are independent churches, often centred around a single personality. We may tend to use the word "sect" to refer to an obscure and weird religious cult. Peterson uses the word sect in the sense of denomination, division, or niche Christian group.

“A sect is a front for narcissism. We gather with other people in the name of Jesus, but we predefine them according to our own tastes and predispositions. This is just a cover for our individualism: we reduce the community to conditions congenial to our imperial self.”

“The sectarian impulse is strong in all branches of the church because it provides such a convenient appearance of community without the difficulties of loving people we don’t approve of, or letting Jesus pray us into relationship with the very men and women we’ve invested a good bit of time avoiding.” 

“A sect is accomplished by community reduction, getting rid of what does not please us, getting rid of what offends us, whether ideas or people. We construct religious clubs instead of entering resurrection communities.” 

p. 244

Building an intentional community of Christian writers

For the past seven years or so, I have been privileged and blessed to be part of the "holy" scribblers: an eclectic group of writers interested in the interface of Christian theology, spirituality, and life. We are an example of an intentional Christian community.

Here I reflect on how I have benefitted from the group, why it works so well, some unique dimensions to the group, and what lessons might be learned for others wishing to establish such Christian communities. This post is motivated by the need to reflect on this for a seminar that some of us will give at the end of this month at the Asian Theological Seminary in Manila. Although the group is rather unique, some of my observations below highlight several dimensions that may be relevant to other intentional Christian communities.

The group has been helpful to me for many reasons. I enjoy the group and the fellowship we have. For my writing activities, the group provides some structure, accountability, feedback, advice, networking, and encouragement. 

Almost all the group members have published several books. Several say they would never have started, persevered with, and finished these books without the support and advice of the group. During the pandemic, we wrote a book together.

At several of our writer's retreats, I read draft chapters of my first book, Condensed Matter Physics: A Very Short Introduction. Positive feedback encouraged me to persevere. Networking is also important. Through the group, I have been connected to an excellent editor, who has been incredibly helpful in shaping a book on science and theology I am writing.

Who is in the group? We are mostly "retired", having worked  at some time in a range of fields: social work, marketing, medicine, education, law, physics, psychology, theology, ... Most of us have Ph.D.'s and have spent significant time teaching in universities and seminaries, including in Asia. There is an approximate gender balance. We are involved in a range of churches and all hold to the beliefs and practises of historical Christianity, such as the Nicene Creed. On the one hand, all this highlights the uniqueness of this eclectic group. On the other hand, it shows the dimension of common backgrounds and perspectives. But, there is unity in diversity.

What do we do together? Here regular rhythms are important. Every Wednesday we spend most of the day in the library of a local theological college, Trinity College Queensland. We have long chats over morning coffee and lunch. The rest of the time we are in the library working on our own writing projects.

One or two times a year we go away together for a week, sometimes to a local monastery. We share meals and use the Celtic Daily Prayer book for Morning, Midday, and Evening prayer. During the day we work on our own writing projects. After dinner each evening, we take turns reading out loud to the group some of what we have been writing.  This is followed by animated discussion and feedback. Given the high level of trust coming from long-term relationships, the feedback is honest and sometimes critical.

There is synergy and overlap with the activities of the groups that members are involved in such as Theology on Tap, A monthly theology reading group, Northumbria Community, and Franciscans,...

Due to the long-term relationships in the group, there is a strong commitment to meeting and persevering. Over the years, I have seen many groups wind down rather fast, because individuals are motivated by "what I can get out of it". If they don't immediately get tangible benefits, they decide to just "do their own thing" or go and look for another group.

The group is informal: there is no constitution, doctrinal statement, bank account, committee, minutes of meetings, leadership positions, or written goals, ... This sounds rather counter-cultural. Sometimes we do have to make decisions, such as where and when to have our next retreat and how to respond to inquiries from prospective new members. Such decisions are made by consensus.

So key elements are long-term relationships, time, trust, honesty, informality, rhythm, synergy, unity in diversity, ...