{"id":1654,"date":"2013-01-04T08:01:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T08:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/01\/how-secularized-has-american-evangelical-christianity-become.html"},"modified":"2013-01-04T08:01:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-04T08:01:00","slug":"how-secularized-has-american-evangelical-christianity-become","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/01\/how-secularized-has-american-evangelical-christianity-become.html","title":{"rendered":"How Secularized Has American Evangelical Christianity Become?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/p>\n

In a recent post here<\/a> I talked about what I see as the secularization of evangelical Christianity in America. I gave some examples of its symptoms\u2014that is, symptoms of secularization in American evangelical church life. I simply took for granted that secularization had long ago gripped and changed so-called \u201cmainstream\u201d Protestantism in America. Traditionally, that has been one of the primary ways of distinguishing \u201cevangelical\u201d from \u201cmainstream\u201d or \u201cmainline\u201d Christianity in America.<\/div>\n
Some commenters have wondered if secularity is necessarily bad. How, for example, can evangelical Christianity engage in mission to secular people without some degree of secularity? Of course, that raises many questions, too many to discuss here. All I want to do here and now is discuss what I mean by \u201csecularity\u201d (and \u201csecularization\u201d and \u201csecular\u201d) and explain why I think it is something evangelical Christians should avoid. (By \u201cavoid\u201d I don\u2019t mean \u201cseparate from\u201d physically. I\u2019ll explain further on what I mean by it.)<\/div>\n
The word \u201csecular\u201d has a long and rich history and many meanings. In one sense,\u00a0not the one I mean<\/em>, it is simply a description of priests and nuns who do not belong to any particular order. Its alternative is \u201creligious.\u201d A priest or a nun is \u201csecular\u201d who does not belong to, for example, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) or the Carmelite Order. A \u201creligious\u201d priest or nun is one who does belong to a particular order (which usually involves taking certain special vows and living a distinctive lifestyle).\u00a0Just to be clear<\/em>\u2014this is not the meaning of \u201csecular\u201d here.<\/div>\n
What I mean by \u201csecular\u201d (and its cognates) is\u00a0belief that human life can be lived successfully without God or religion<\/em>. \u201cSecularity\u201d is implicit belief in that; \u201csecularism\u201d is explicit and, usually, aggressive belief in that.<\/div>\n
When I suggest that American evangelical Christianity is largely \u201csecular,\u201d I do\u00a0not<\/em>mean that it has bought into\u00a0secularism.\u00a0<\/em>No evangelical I know espouses secularism. Evangelicals usually recoil with horror from it. It is \u201cthe enemy\u201d (e.g., \u201csecular humanism\u201d).<\/div>\n
No, what I\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0mean is that, to a very large extent, as I see it, American evangelical Christianity has bought into\u00a0secularity<\/em>\u2014an ethos, an outlook, a way of living life \u201cin the world and of it\u201d that is often, usually, unintended and even denied.<\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent post here I talked about what I see as the secularization of evangelical Christianity in America. I gave some examples of its symptoms\u2014that is, symptoms of secularization in American evangelical church life. I simply took for granted that secularization had long ago gripped and changed so-called \u201cmainstream\u201d Protestantism in America. Traditionally, that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Secularized Has American Evangelical Christianity Become?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a recent post here I talked about what I see as the secularization of evangelical Christianity in America. 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