Total truth--the split in our lives

Nancy Pearcey wrote an important book a few years ago—Total Truth. It’s the kind of book that can be read more than once. That’s what I’ve been doing lately, and I wanted to share some of her ideas. This is the second blog on the book. She talks about the importance of the secular/sacred dichotomy in our society and how it has been used to push religious faith out of the public arena. We have a unique challenge here in the West if we want to have an impact for Christianity -- we need to learn how to liberate it from the private sphere and present it as total truth, applicable to all of society.

The first step, she says, is to identify the split mentality in our own minds. Evangelicals are highly committed to their faith, according to many surveys. On the other hand, when asked to articulate a Christian worldview perspective on other subjects (such as work, business, and politics), they had little to say. Their faith is almost completely privatized, restricted to areas of personal behavior, values and relationships. They don’t think “Christianly” about the rest of their lives and how their faith has answers for living in this public sphere.

Pearcey says we must understand three parts of the Bible story to fully bring healing and wholeness to our split lives -- creation, fall, and redemption.

Regarding creation, the biblical doctrine says that nothing is preexistent or eternal except God. No part of the creation is inherently evil or bad. We can hate the sin, but we should also exhibit a deep love for this world as God's handiwork. We don't want to lead monkish lives, separating ourselves from life around us.

We must also understand the cosmic scope of the fall. Even the natural world has been affected by human sin. We have to insist that evil and disorder are not intrinsic in the material world but are caused by human sin, which takes God's good creation and distorts it for evil purposes. As in example, Pearcey talks about music, which is good in itself, but popular songs can often be used to glorify moral perversion.

The good news is that all eventually will be redeemed. The material world will participate in this final redemption. Every valid vocation has its counterpart in the new heavens and new earth, which gives our work eternal significance. The early reformers of the church gave work a higher standing than it had held during the middle ages. Now you could glorify God with the most menial tasks.

This comprehensive vision of creation, fall, and redemption allows no room for this secular/sacred split. It’s something we need to think about as we go about our busy days. We are to see all we do and experience as part of the total Christian message. Only Christianity as a worldview can put it all together in a coherent package, bringing total truth to both our private and public halves.