Secularism: Collaborate Gap Summary

The growth of secularism suggests a failure to offer a compelling gospel vision for everyday life, particularly regarding work and leisure. This applies both to reaching individuals in secular culture and to those switching out of Christianity. Re-engaging in this secular age requires fresh ways to see God at work in all of life and new ways of communicating that we can only find our authentic identity and value through a relationship with God.

Listening to the Current Reality

In the State of the Great Commission Report, Secularism was defined as the tendency of individuals to have no reference to any religious affiliation and thus the weakening of religion in the mindsets of the citizens in social mores and public institutions. To better understand what is going on, we can distinguish three aspects of this gap:

1. Secularisation is a long process that has been unfolding for several centuries.
2. It isn’t an ideology per se (an “-ism”), although various ideologies have been developed in this context, such as Marxism or, more recently, Wokism.
3. Over the years, the relationship between religion and the state has been continually evolving. This has been translated into legal terms through the political process, which is influenced to some extent by prevailing ideologies

In his book A Secular Age, Charles Taylor writes: “The eclipse of all goals beyond human flourishing becomes conceivable”. However, making “authentic” choices about one’s life is a heavy burden to carry, and many people adopt different strategies to help them in their search for their real selves (their identity), such as:

• Fighting for their “rights” with people who claim the same identity as themselves
• Getting support from “experts” (psychologists, therapists, life coaches, etc.)
• Embracing wokism (“It isn’t my fault”; my problems come from the structures of society and cultural norms, so I’m just a victim of class, gender, race, etc)

The Christian message offers a better story.

The best way to respond to secular society is by adopting a missionary outlook, seeking to understand contemporary culture and to demonstrate the gospel through tangible actions. Secular society is the culture in which we are to live as Christians and reach out with the gospel.

Some key takeaways from the listening step are:

• Secular Assumptions and Identity: Many young Christians hold secular views about the self. To address this, it’s suggested to help them by emphasizing a reality larger than themselves.
• Christian Position in Society: There’s a debate on whether Christians should strive to regain a visible position in a secular world or remain faithful as a minority. It is crucial to balance the concept of following Jesus as a choice while emphasizing its significance beyond individual identity.
• Secularization as an Ally: In some contexts, secularization may be seen as an open space to support Christianity by opposing religious nationalism.
• Resistance in Affluent Societies: People in wealthier societies often resist the gospel because they no longer feel the need for God.
• Legislative Challenges: Governments may pass laws contrary to biblical teachings, such as the legalization of LGBT rights, posing challenges for churches. Defining the church’s role in society is essential, balancing its prophetic and evangelistic roles while wisely engaging with culture. In some contexts, it will be necessary to acknowledge the Church’s shortcomings.
• Digital Engagement: The church needs to engage people in digital spaces where they seek answers.
• Individualization and Loneliness: The trend towards individualization leads to loneliness, creating opportunities for the church to offer community and God’s truth.
• Ministry: understanding and engaging with secular culture and equipping individuals to navigate it and integrate faith into everyday life are essential for effective preaching and teaching.

The main conclusion from the Listening process is that secular society has effectively eliminated all reference to Christianity through its plausibility structures (government, law, media, education) so that most people don’t even consider the Christian faith as an option and live outside of any formal religious affiliation. Christianity has become invisible, although Christian-inspired values still exist (the value of the individual, for example, as experienced in democracy and human rights), they are not seen as such. There is also a vague yearning for “spirituality” to give meaning to life.

Imagining a Preferred Reality

As we look to the future, our prayer is that Christianity will increasingly be seen as plausible. This is because people will begin to see the Christian as good for society, and as virtuous and trustworthy. Consequently, there will be an increasing openness to the faith, leading to more conversions.

This change of perception of the Christian faith will stem from the fact that Christians will be seen as people of integrity and actively involved in helping others. This will enhance the validity of the Christian voice in public discussions and societal matters. As a result, many people will know they can turn to Christians and the church for assistance, whether in personal need or for guidance. Furthermore, the prevalence of trusted Christian friendships will become a key factor in the spread of the gospel, as personal relationships with Christians will help build plausibility and openness to faith and give opportunity for suitable apologetics to demonstrate the credibility (ie the truth) of Christianity.

This change of perception will flow from the importance given to the “scattered church”. The main contact with Christianity will be with Christians in their everyday relational networks. The story of the spread of the Christian faith recounted in Acts shows how “ordinary” Christians (not just the apostles) were instrumental in evangelising Judea, Samaria, Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, even reaching out to Greeks (Acts 8:1, 4 and 11:19 -21).

However, in our present-day secular context, the “scattered church” refers not to a forced diaspora but to the theological concept that Christians are still “the church” even when they are not meeting together (“the gathered church”). Gathering as Christians to learn to love God and others in their cultural context will motivate and equip the believers to live the 97% of their lives that they live “in the world” without being “of the world” (John 17:16, 18).

The following diagram can be used as a template to help think through this issue. The visual tool of a healthy church is greatly beneficial in helping each Christian grasp how a church can be missional in a secular society.

Creating a Way to Close the Gap

What would be the way to close the gap between the invisibility of churches and a positive perception of Christianity? Ultimately, there is the need to equip Christians to share the gospel with grace and truth in all areas of life. This is true for the workplace, but also as regards believers in schools and universities, in family life, in their local community, and in their leisure activities. People will see visible and tangible evidence of the Christian faith in the context of personal relationships. In a world of fake news and suspicion of other people, in a society where insults, discrimination, and manipulation are rife, the Christian’s deep conviction is to be trustworthy day in and day out and demonstrate this Christ-like attitude. In other words, the messenger precedes the message. This, in fact, reflects the way in which “user evaluations” (to recommend a product) are widespread in today’s society.

The big challenge, therefore, is to help the gathered church prepare the messengers to integrate faith into daily living and display Christian virtues in all areas of life. This reveals the need for intentional discipleship, mentorship, and resource-sharing, with a strong focus on prayer, generosity, and building relationships. In youth work, the intellectual component is essential to help young people connect their faith with everyday experiences, whether in school, friendships, or activities. This implies providing practical resources and training to equip Christian children, youth, and young adults to live out their faith in a secular world. 

Collaboration between churches, parachurch organizations, and experts is critical for developing discipleship programs and tools that address secularism and cultural engagement. Learning from existing networks, sharing resources, and developing systematic content on critical issues are necessary steps for advancing the mission.

What would this look like on a local church level?

1. The church is called to be the new “plausibility structure” composed of the redeemed, displaying genuine love (John 13:35 / 1 Thess 3:12) and providing genuine answers (Col 4:4 / 1 Pet 3:15) to:

• reach out to secular unbelievers
• show the wonder of our Christian faith to people contemplating “switching to the unaffiliated” (opting out of Christianity).

2. When the church meets together each Sunday, not only will there be time for worship and Bible teaching, but also encouragement and training so that Christians can understand the world. This will lead to amazement about the world God has placed us in (a good point of contact with unbelievers), an understanding of contemporary ethical issues along with a sound biblical analysis (and how to communicate this winsomely) and advice on practical concerns (relationships, time and financial management, addictions, leisure activities).

3. By encouraging innovation and collaboration across generations, the church will allow the younger generation to take leadership roles with the support of older generations.

Communicating a Prayerful Proposal

It is proposed that the best way to close the gap between the church and secular society is to equip and empower each Christian to love the people in their environment, in each of their relational networks (work, school, family, local community, friends) and be visible, tangible evidence of the goodness of the Christian faith. The challenge is to bring the church to understand the importance of the scattered church and to give sufficient time and energy to preparing the messengers.

This would effectively close the gap, but what should collaborative action be working towards? The bottleneck seems to be church leaders who do not see the necessity of orientating the gathered church in this direction or have the means or the ability to do so. Pastors, in particular, have not received training on how to do this in their seminary studies.

What follows is a list of 12 areas that call for collaborative action if we are to face up confidently to our secular culture and to bring the gospel to the millions of people who are effectively “unreached” in this context.

1. Include modules in the training of pastors in seminaries and Bible colleges so that they learn how to prepare the messengers.
2. Figure out how to give further training to existing pastors who did not get this help when they went through seminary, and also how to train lay church leaders who have never had this training.
3. Create and curate resources on secularization (books, websites, podcasts etc).
4. Create and curate resources on the major ethical issues today in order to help pastors and leaders teach relevantly on these topics in their churches.
5. Reimagine discipleship in the light of the emphasis on the scattered church (“The boat must be in the water but the water mustn’t be in the boat”).
6. Create resources for the believers to discover their gifts in the context of the scattered church (not just gifting for the gathered church)
7. Cooperate with parachurch movements, each one with their particular speciality of ministry, in order to help Christians be good witnesses in the scattered church.
8. Set up and develop professional networks to encourage Christians to influence every sector of life—arts, media, business, law, social services, science, etc.
9. Conduct research on what Good News means in the secular context and how to communicate this. Why do we say that the Christian faith is good when many of our contemporaries see it as repressive and discriminating?
10. Use the arts to communicate the gospel in the secular context
11. Find ways to connect with the younger generations, both those within our churches and those outside.
12. Make the best use of technology within the church to reach unbelievers.

Authors

David Brown
David Brown is a pastor in France and the author of a dozen books (mainly in French) on the interface between the gospel and culture. For several years he led the GBU, the French student movement affiliated to IFES, and he continues to serve in the GBU publishing house and as coordinator of the Human Sciences network.