Paul Davison

The Religious and the Secular

The Hastings Baptist Church has been part of its community for 100 years. During that time the church has grown and the city of Hastings has grown even more. And Christians of different stripes have, no doubt, been at least a small percentage of the population of the town from the beginning. But what is the relationship between church and community, Christians and their neighbours, religious people and their secular colleagues?

Perhaps a hundred years ago, coming as many did from Mother England where church and state were (and are) part of the one package - perhaps it was easier to see how the two institutions were woven together into the fabric of society. But today, here, 100 years later - politics and religion - are like oil and water: they just don't mix. Or worse they are two compounds that when combined cause an explosion.

History is full of examples where religious ideology combined with political power have ignited to bring devastating results to many people. Holy Crusades, inquisitions, forced "conversions" stain Christian History. 400 years ago Baptists emerged from the Protestant Reformation and were paying with their lives for dissenting from the marriage of religion and politics, Church and Government. After more than a thousand years of such a union change would not be easy. The separation of these two institutions, and the hoped for freedom of religion, was certainly part of the American experiment. And similarly, New Zealand has never had an established church.

But the pendulum has not stopped its swing away from the religious towards the secular.

A new impetus is coming through books like:

• Richard Dawkins - "The God Delusion"
• Daniel Dennett - "Breaking The Spell: Religion As A Natural Phenomenon"
• Sam Harris - "End Of Faith: Religion, Terror, And The Future Of Reason"
• Christopher Hitchens - "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything"

These books are not ivory-tower essays - they can be found at the local Whitcoulls or Paperplus. The direction of the New Atheists (as they have been dubbed) is not merely the proposal of a different view of the cosmos - a world of evolution - a world without God. That perspective is not new - atheism has been around for quite a while. What is new is that religion is no longer to be tolerated. It's no longer a matter of "I believe this, you believe that - let's agree to differ". Rather, the view is that in a post-9/11 world, society must come to see that our modern day experience of global terror is the product of strongly held religious convictions.

Fervent religious beliefs are behind the Muslim Jihad - and that is matched by an equally zealous Christian agenda coming out of the USA. Politics in the name of religion is today's evil. And therefore, a rational, secular society cannot, and should not, leave any space for religious belief.

"Fundamentalism" is the new swear-word. Of course, everyone is a "fundamentalist". What we differ over is what we consider to be fundamental, foundational. It may be the fundamentalism of tenaciously held religious beliefs or it may be the fundamentalism that says that all religions are really the same.

It's strangely arrogant for a Christian or a Muslim or a Buddhist to insist that their faith is the one true religion - but somehow it isn't considered arrogant to say all religions are really the same - and they're all wrong! Historical amnesia seems to be preventing people remembering that 40 years ago the most dangerous countries in the world were run by atheists: the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia - where death was measured by millions of bodies.

But today, whether on a global scale or on the local front, religious belief - and in particular Christian belief - is under fire. Just listen to the tone, the angle, that the news media take on a story involving Christians. Once upon a time Sunday School was broadly considered to be educational for children - helpful in teaching morality and values. Now only negligent parents would subject their children to indoctrinational brainwashing.

Good Deeds Without The Good Word

Now there is a softer side to organised religion that is still accepted. Christians have a long history of social concern and social action. Churches that run homes for the elderly, help troubled teens, provide foster care, run food banks, drop off firewood, raise money for the poor, organise day care centres - these are valued and appreciated by our community. Christians who provide social services are admired and lauded. Which is to say, as long as churches are an extension of the secular agenda, there is room for religion.

"But just walk the walk - don't talk the talk. Happy to see it, but don't want to hear it."

The two options on the table seem to be either - sit quietly in a corner, believe what you want to believe, say what you want to say, but do so in the confines of your own group, your own meeting place. Or if you want to participate in the life of the community you need to conform to the secular mandate - leave your faith at home, zip your lips, and just do your deeds.

The blind spot in this anti-religious approach is to forget that everyone has a worldview, a philosophy, a set of values and virtues which is at work when discussions are being had and when decisions are being made. The question is whether the unspoken and the unexamined presuppositions are any better or any worse than the articulated and declared beliefs that are foundational to religious faith.

Christians belief that there is a God who has made this world and therefore owns what he has made. And this powerful God rules over his creation with benevolent care. And as the apostle Paul wrote, it is God who establishes the authorities that exist - to fulfil his purposes for working out law and order, and the beneficial agencies of government (Romans 13:1-7). Both Jesus and Paul speak of Caesar - no friend to Christians - but nevertheless playing his part in God's world. When Jesus spoke of giving to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God (Luke 20:20-26) - he was not speaking of two kingdoms, two rulers, two systems, two spheres of influence. No, he was speaking about the lesser and the greater, about Caesar's place in God's world.

And this informs how the Christians living in Hastings see the City Council and the Regional Council and the various agencies under their control. They have a God-given role to play in the good of society.

• Which is why Christians pray that God will give them wisdom;
• Why Christians will be good citizens through paying their taxes and
• Why Christians will give them respect and honour as those who serve the community - and God!

And because it is God's world in which they live and work, Christians will seek to explain and persuade and convince them of the virtues and values that they believe should inform the reflections and resolutions for the community. Christians have a voice in our community life - no louder than anyone else's - not privileged above anyone else's - and yet a voice to be heard.

Christians cannot lovingly live amongst people without seeking their welfare. The wisdom of God taught in the Bible is the clearest expression of justice available to humanity - inevitably we would want the community in which we live to gain its benefit.

100 years ago the first services of this church were taken by the minister from Napier Baptist. He was John Kendrick Archer. He went on to be the mayor of Christchurch and a leading light in the early years of the Labour Party - all the while continuing as a Baptist minister.

In the face of a growing separation between people of religious convictions and those of secular faith we are going to have to work harder at the relationship between church and community. It has been done in the past, but it will have to be done again in our day.