CHAPTER 1

THE BIBLICAL SOURCES OF SECULARIZATION

We have defined secularization as the liberation of man fromreligious and metaphysical tutelage, the turning of his attentionaway from other worlds and toward this one. But how didthis emancipation begin? What are its sources?

Secularization, as the German theologian Friedrich Gogartenonce remarked, is the legitimate consequence of theimpact of biblical faith on history. This is why it is no mereaccident that secularization arose first within the culture of theso-called Christian West, in the history within which the biblicalreligions have made their most telling impact. The riseof natural science, of democratic political institutions, and ofcultural pluralism— all developments we normally associatewith Western culture— can scarcely be understood without theoriginal impetus of the Bible. Even though the conscious connectionhas long since been lost sight of, the relationships arestill there. Cultural impulses continue to work long after theirsources have been forgotten.

In this chapter we wish to uncover these biblical sources ofsecularization once more. We do so not to elicit either gratitudeor rebuke for the Bible, depending on one's attitude towardsecularization, but rather to strengthen our capacity to dealwith secularization today by showing where it came from. Weshall do this by showing how three pivotal elements in the biblicalfaith have each given rise to one aspect of secularization.

Thus the disenchantment of nature begins with the Creation;the desacralization of politics with the Exodus; and the deconsecrationof values with the Sinai Covenant, especially with its prohibitionof idols. The discussion is designed to make amply clearthat, far from being something Christians should be against,secularization represents an authentic consequence of biblicalfaith. Rather than oppose it, the task of Christians should be tosupport and nourish it. But before we deal with these matterslet us look briefly at the word secularization itself.

SECULARIZATION VS. SECULARISM

The English word secular derives from the Latin word saeculum,meaning "this age." The history of this word's career inWestern thought is itself a parable of the degree to which thebiblical message has been misunderstood and misappropriatedover the years. Basically saeculum is one of the two Latin wordsdenoting "world" (the other is mundus). The very existence oftwo different Latin words for "world" foreshadowed serioustheological problems since it betrayed a certain dualism veryforeign to the Bible. The relationship between the two wordsis a complex one. Saeculum is a time-word, used frequently totranslate the Greek word aeon, which also means age or epoch.Mundus, on the other hand, is a space-word, used mostfrequently to translate the Greek word cosmos, meaning theuniverse or the created order. The ambiguity in the Latin revealsa deeper theological problem. It traces back to the crucialdifference between the Greek spatial view of reality and theHebrew time view. For the Greeks, the world was a place, alocation. Happenings of interest could occur within the world,but nothing significant ever happened to the world. There wasno such thing as world history. For the Hebrews, on the otherhand, the world was essentially history, a series of events beginningwith Creation and heading toward a Consummation.Thus the Greeks perceived existence spatially; the Hebrewsperceived it temporally. The tension between the two hasplagued Christian theology since its outset.

The impact of Hebrew faith on the Hellenistic world, mediatedthrough the early Christians, was to "temporalize" thedominant perception of reality. The world became history. Cosmosbecame aeon; mundus became saeculum. But the victory wasnot complete. The whole history of Christian theology fromthe apologists of the second century onward can be understoodin part as a continuing attempt to resist and dilute the radicalHebrew impulse, to absorb historical into spatial categories.There have always been counter-pressures and countertendencies.But only in our own time, thanks largely to themassive rediscovery of the Hebrew contribution through renewedOld Testament studies, have theologians begun to noticethe basic mistake they had been making. Only recently hasthe task of restoring the historical and temporal tenor to theologybegun in earnest. The word secular was an early victimof the Greek unwillingness to accept the full brunt of Hebrewhistoricity.

From the very beginning of its usage, secular denoted somethingvaguely inferior. It meant "this world" of change as opposedto the eternal "religious world." This usage already signifiesan ominous departure from biblical categories. It impliesthat the true religious world is timeless, changeless, and thussuperior to the "secular" world which was passing and transient.Thus the vocation of a "secular priest," one who servedin the "world," though technically on the same level, was actuallythought of as somehow less blessed than that of the "religious"priest who lived his life in...