Hope in a Time of Secular Despair
As Snell admits, Christianity and Judaism, with their critique of paganism and rejection of idolatry, played a big part in banishing the “magic” and “enchantment” from nature. And yet, while God is transcendent, He is also immanent. Indeed, Christianity is all about how the transcendent God entered the “immanent frame.” The church would do well to emphasize the doctrines of Creation, Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection, Sacraments, and Vocation, all of which should resonate with those who have an “immanent frame.” Snell thinks Christianity may well come back.
“Humans are not well-suited to radical immanence.” After all, those who believe only in what they can see are still made in the image of God and possess a supernatural purpose even when they reject any kind of transcendent reality. But such a disconnect creates anxiety and malaise. As a result, substitutes for transcendence are pursued, which only make things worse. So says R.J. Snell in his new book, Lost in the Chaos: Immanence, Despair, Hope, a penetrating analysis of contemporary secularism.
Snell is building on the work of the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, whose book A Secular Age argues that humans tend to think and perceive things through a “frame,” which, like a picture frame, limits what they can accept and imagine. Today, people tend to operate within what Taylor calls an “immanent frame” that fixates on the tangible and the immediately perceivable. There was a time, however, when people had a “transcendent frame,” through which everyone discerned a reality beyond the tangible and that gave the tangible meaning. The physical world was “enchanted,” that is to say, to one degree or another, it was “porous” to the supernatural, to gods or to God.
Secularism is not a matter of modern science replacing religion, Taylor shows, since religion has continued to flourish during modernity. The immanent frame allows for an “open-world” in which the transcendent remains accessible, though modern-day believers still embrace their faith as only one option of many and exercise it through an immanent lens.
But the immanent frame also allows for a “closed world,” the notion that the interior and material realm is all there is. Says Snell, drawing on Taylor, belief in a closed world is not a conclusion from rational or scientific argument. Rather, it is “a moral stance, an ethical commitment. … Secularity is demanded by a commitment to certain ‘values’” held by the person who insists on independence, nonconformity, resistance to authority, and refusal of the “consolations of an enchanted world.”
The coming apart of the “premodern” transcendent frame with the Enlightenment era resulted in an Age of Reform, a confident time of revolutions, social and political changes, and the new ideas of “modernism,” all celebrating a sense of liberation from the supernatural and otherworldly. But such reforms were often built on the unacknowledged remnants of the transcendent order. If matter is all there is, and matter can be reduced to physics and chemistry, meaning is impossible. “A universe of matter in motion reduces humans to matter in motion, ‘wet robots’ as we are sometimes called.”
If the universe isn’t “porous” to the transcendent, human beings aren’t either. We become the source of meaning, but that meaning is pretty much pointless, having no relationship to the outside world, which is also pointless. The result is what Taylor calls the “buffered self” in which we are self-enclosed, separated from others and the world, and autonomous. Today postmodernism has finished off any sense of transcendence. As Snell says, “Postmodernism and its progenitors critiqued and deconstructed any and every claim of order, harmony, or rationality as nothing more than projections of power and force.”
This allows for no hope of any kind. Life itself is no longer necessarily considered a good thing. Along with the decline in the number of marriages to the lowest level in history is the rejection of parenthood. Children have always been the sign of hope, Snell says. But today many young adults are getting sterilized on the grounds that it is immoral to bring children into this world. Coupled with the acceptance of abortion, the conclusion is that “it is not good to be, not worth giving life to another.”
So what can anyone do in this climate of despair? Snell examines three options. The first is “frenzied activism.” He notes the difference between “natural rights,” grounded in objective reality and transcendent morality, and today’s “human rights,” grounded only in the buffered self. The latter have no content. “They are formless aspirations to equality rather than substantive claims about the good.” They are purely negative: freedom as the absence of limits; autonomy as the lack of interference by others; diversity as nonconformity and nonuniformity.
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Kept by Jesus Christ
As Christians who have assurance of eternal life, we must be people of strong and biblical convictions. We must know that we are heard by God, liberated from sin, protected from Satan, distinct from the world, and united to Christ. It is my prayer for our churches that, in an unstable world built on shifting sand, we would be people who embrace these immovable convictions built on the rock, the true God, our Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the blessings of being a believer in Jesus Christ is having a certain knowledge of our salvation and eternal destiny. This knowledge, however, must produce certain convictions throughout our Christian life.
We live in a time where people are often weak, wishy-washy, devoid of real convictions, and content to just go with the flow and swim wherever the tide of the world take them. The apostle John rejects all of that in the life of a believer, asserting that if we have eternal life, then we should be strong; we should have convictions; and we should have certainty as a defining mark of our spiritual lives. In 1 John 5, John gives us five convictions that we should manifest as Christians who know that we have eternal life.
The first conviction we should have as believers is that we are heard by God.
Our confidence about our salvation should lead to confidence in our prayers. When we come into the presence of God in prayer – to make requests, to cast our burdens upon Him, to seek His grace and His help in a time of need – we should come with confidence and boldness. This attitude in prayer should be expansive; John tells us we can ask for anything according to God’s will. We have a certain knowledge God hears us because we know that we belong to Him and that He will give us whatever we ask of Him that is according to His will.
The one qualifier is we must ask according to His will, referring to anything revealed in Scripture. If we go through the New Testament, we see hundreds of promises and commands from God we are called to believe and obey – and we should pray that God would strengthen us to believe and obey His Word. The amazing thing is that we can pray all of these things with confidence, knowing God will perform His work in us to answer our prayers.
The second conviction we have as a result of our certainty of salvation is that we are liberated from sin.
If we want to be strong and stand firm in the evil day, then we must be convinced that not only are we saved and have eternal life, but we must also have been liberated from sin. We cannot be the kind of people who, when confronted with sin in their lives, respond, “I can’t help it!” We can help it because we have been born of God. We know we can battle against sin and win because of what God has done for us in Christ.
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Taking Unpopular Stands in a Strange New World
Christians today must oppose cultural evils, such as the taking of preborn life, the buying and selling of preborn lives, the ideological sexual abuse of children, and the persecution of religious minorities. Though the rapid changes in our society are confusing and distressing, we must understand them if we are to know when, where, and how we must take a stand.
According to Theodoret of Cyrrhus, on January 1, A.D. 404, an ascetic monk named Telemachus jumped to the floor of the arena during a gladiatorial match and begged the competitors to stop. The crowd was so angry at the interruption that they stoned him to death. When Christian Emperor Honorius heard about Telemachus’ act of bravery, he ordered an end to gladiatorial combat.
Telemachus’ stand led to martyrdom, but it changed a culture. Throughout history, similar stands made in Jesus’ name yielded similar results. Though they often came at great cost, and transformation was not instantaneous, in the end, a culture was left better.
Telemachus’ brave act occurred 91 years after Christianity was legalized by Constantine, and 24 years after it was made the state religion of Rome by Emperor Theodosius I. Earlier Christians denounced other evils, such as abusive sexual mores. They insisted that sex be limited to marriage and, following the Jews, rejected abortion and infanticide. They treated women and slaves as the spiritual equals of men. As a result, woman and slaves became leaders in the church. Pliny the Younger, in a letter dated about 111, mentions deaconesses, and a slave was made a bishop of Ephesus in the early second century.
Christians didn’t kill baby girls, a practice common among the pagans. Nor did they pressure girls into early marriage, or Christian widows into remarriage. As a result, Christian churches had a higher percentage of women than did society at large. In fact, Christianity was held in contempt by the Romans as “a religion of women and slaves.”
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High Anxiety: A Christian Leader’s Perspective
Written by Jason D. Bland |
Sunday, January 2, 2022
Simply put, when we turn to Christ in prayer, He provides peace over all matters. While it doesn’t remove the trials and tribulations, the sources of anxiety and stress, or absolve Christians from dealing with difficult situations, it does provide a path toward dealing with these challenges in a healthy and faithful way.Today, perhaps more so than at some other periods in our lifetimes, people appear to be overcome with high anxiety. We see this we turn on the television, open our social media feed, or talk to family or friends. In so many ways we’re bombarded with stress-inducing stimuli: the persistent/perceived threat of COVID (from both the government and media), the impact of wokeism and cancel culture, apprehensive views of US political leaders, etc. But we know that this is not where the Lord wants us to focus our thoughts and energy. We should not expect to live with the soul crushing weight of anxiety and stress. In fact, it’s quite to the contrary.
As Christians, when we face the turmoil and turbulence of our modern world, we must hold fast to the lessons of Philippians 4:6-7, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (NKJV 1997). Simply put, when we turn to Christ in prayer, He provides peace over all matters. While it doesn’t remove the trials and tribulations, the sources of anxiety and stress, or absolve Christians from dealing with difficult situations, it does provide a path toward dealing with these challenges in a healthy and faithful way.
All Christians struggle with the notion of pursuing Christ daily, pouring out our worries at His feet, and trusting intentionally in Him. However, the burden of anxiety is not meant to be dealt with alone; rather, Christ shares that burden with believers and takes the pressure off their bruised shoulders. This is what happens when believers have an active and robust faith in the power of Christ to provide a solution for their tribulations – to give them peace and strength.
Consider for a moment the specific impact of COVID as an anxiety-inducing factor. Over the past two years, the levels of anxiety and stress have risen markedly due to the virus. In fact, the American Psychiatric Association released an article explaining the trends:
More than four in 10 adults (43%) report the pandemic has had a serious impact on their mental health, up from 37% in 2020. Fifty nine percent of younger adults are more likely to report a serious impact on their mental health due to the pandemic. More than half (54%) of 30 to 44-year-olds also report a serious mental health impact; fewer older adults (24%) report serious mental health impacts.
A key point of this article was that stress has become sustained, an evil that must be dealt with persistently, with no apparent end in sight. It’s also significant to point out that “younger adults” (Gen Z and Millennials), the backbone of our society’s workforce and economy, exhibit the most severe struggles with mental health issues. This is not a good sign for a society that hopes to recover from the pandemic and return to a healthy footing.
In direct opposition to this persistent anxiety and stress within the population at large, is the hope and peace that Christians exhibit through their faith in Jesus Christ. Their faith provides special access to a peace that the world can only dream of. Instead of fearing day-to-day trials and tribulations, or worrying about the possibility of catching the virus, Christians must live their lives in the fear of the Lord, the catalyst of spiritual wisdom. Proverbs 9:10 exhorts believers in this way: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (NKJV 1997). With wisdom and understanding Christians are reminded of the confidence they have in being children of God, the Creator of the universe who exhibits sovereignty over all things: time, space, and all of life circumstances.
This theological foundation, grounded in God’s infallible Word, should catapult Christians, including leaders in churches, business, education, etc., to lead with a supernatural confidence. They should live and lead with the utmost confidence in who God is and what He does in their lives.
This confidence is infectious. It is the salt that flavors the world with the unique peace that only Christ offers. Remember that Jesus said: “You are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13a, NKJV 1997). How amazing is the impact then of all Christians, including those whom the Lord has placed in positions of authority; their actions spiritually flavor the world about them, allowing the world to see the peace they live with every day. These actions create an environment and community that unbelievers will want to be part of.
Seth Godin, a contemporary business writer, has written about the power of community, or what he refers to as “tribes.” He stated, “[H]uman beings can’t help it: we need to belong. One of the most powerful of our survival mechanisms is to be part of a tribe, to contribute to (and take from) a group of like-minded people” (2008, p. 3). The Lord reaffirmed what we learn in 1 Thessalonian 5:14, where brothers and sisters in Christ are to comfort and support one another, to be patient, to create a loving community, i.e., a tribe. Continuing this thought of community, it becomes apparent why so many people have been hurting from anxiety, stress, and mental pain. COVID has caused many people to shut themselves off and live in isolation.
Christians, on the other hand, must be willing to step out and live their lives with confidence and exuberance, and dare I say, a little bit of courage within their community.
Clearly, there is no better tribe than the tribe of God. Only in this tribe can people receive peace and strength. What Godin described is what Christians live out every day. The salt with which Christians flavor their daily interactions is a continuous appeal to those who have stumbled, the fallen, the unbeliever. So, too, are Christians’ daily interactions with one another, an encouragement to their fellow believers and further strengthening the community. It is vital, then, for Christian leaders to live their lives, not with high anxiety but with the calm assurance of a Christ-filled life.
As others encounter the peace that Christian leaders offer it becomes infectious. People want to be safe, secure, even if it means escaping from their own thoughts or the constant attack of worldly tribulation. Therefore, it’s imperative for Christians leaders to live out their lives as Philippians 4:6 exhorted, without anxiety, and even more, with thanksgiving.
Christian leaders must be the ultimate example of this lifestyle. When people see the power of Christ-filled relationships, unbelievers will sense a compulsion to pursue it. If they encounter Christians who are just as worried, grief stricken, and full of doubts, why would they want to follow such a path? Instead, Christian leaders must offer the antithesis to the life of high anxiety – they must exhibit a life full of peace and strength.
Jason D. Bland is the founder of Signet Leadership, an organizational leadership consulting and coaching firm. He is a military veteran and experienced leader of organizational operations in both the military and civilian sectors. Jason is also a doctoral student at Regent University, studying Strategic Leadership.
