Historically, "secularization" first referred to the process of transferring property from ecclesiastical jurisdiction to that of the state or other nonecclesiastical authority. In this institutional sense, "secularization" still means the reduction of formal religious authority (e.g., in education). Institutional secularization has been fueled by the breakdown of a unified Christendom since the Reformation, on the one hand, and by the increasing rationalization of society and culture from the Enlightenment to modern technological society, on the other. Some analysts prefer the term "laicization" to describe this institutional secularization of society, that is, the replacement of official religious control by nonecclesiastical authority. A second sense in which secularization is to be understood has to do with a shift in ways of thinking and living, away from God and toward this world. Renaissance humanism, Enlightenment rationalism, the rising power and influence of science, the breakdown of traditional structures (e.g., the family, the church, the neighborhood), the technicization of society, and the competition offered by nationalism, evolutionism, and Marxism have all contributed to what Max Weber termed the "disenchantment" of the modern world.
While institutional secularization and ideological secularization have proceeded simultaneously over the past few centuries, the relationship between the two is not causally exact or necessary. Thus, even in a medieval, Constantinian setting, formally religious in character, men and women were not immune from having their life, thought, and work shaped by secular, this-worldly considerations. Likewise, in an institutionally secular (laicized) society it is possible for individuals and groups to live, think, and work in ways that are motivated and guided by God and religious considerations.
Secularization, then, is itself a fact of history and a mixed blessing. Secularism, however, as a comprehensive philosophy of life expresses an unqualified enthusiasm for the process of secularization in all spheres of life. Secularism is fatally flawed by its reductionist view of reality, denying and excluding God and the supernatural in a myopic fixation on the immanent and the natural. In contemporary discussion, secularism and humanism are often seen in tandem as secular humanism, an approach to life and thought, individual and society, which glorifies the creature and rejects the Creator. As such, secularism constitutes a rival to Christianity.
Christian theologians and philosophers have grappled in various ways with the meaning and impact of secularization. Friedrich Schleiermacher was the first theologian to attempt a radical restatement of Christianity in terms of the Renaissance and Enlightenment humanist and rationalist motifs. While his efforts were brilliant and extremely influential in the development of theology, critics charged that rather than salvaging Christianity, Schleiermacher betrayed crucial aspects of the faith in his redefinition of religion in terms of the human feeling of dependence.
No contemporary discussion of Christianity and secularism can escape dealing with the provocative Letters and Papers from Prison penned by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Primarily because the work is fragmentary and incomplete, Bonhoeffer's concepts such as "Christian worldliness," "man-come-of-age," the world's arrival at "adulthood," and the need for a "non-religious interpretation of Biblical terminology" have been subject to heated debate about their meaning and implication. Friedrich Gogarten (The Reality of Faith, 1959), Paul van Buren (The Secular Meaning of the Gospel, 1963), Harvey Cox (The Secular City, 1965), Ronald Gregor Smith (Secular Christianity, 1966), and the "death-of-God" theologians are examples of those who have pursued one possible course by restating Christianity in terms of a secular world. Kenneth Hamilton (Life in One's Stride, 1968) denies that this is the best way to interpret Bonhoeffer and argues that the German theologian never wavered in his basic, orthodox stance.
While discussions among theologians during the 1950s and 1960s tended to focus on adapting Christian theology to secularization, the 1970s and 1980s saw a vigorous new resistance to secularism in many quarters. Jacques Ellul (The New Demons, 1975) was among several voices arguing that secularism was itself a form of religion and was antagonistic both to Christianity and to a true Christian humanism. Francis A. Schaeffer (How Should We Then Live? 1976) and other fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals attacked secular humanism as the great contemporary enemy of Christian faith.
From the perspective of biblical Christian theology, secularism is guilty for having "exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator" (Rom. 1:25). Having excluded the transcendent God as the absolute and the object of worship, the secularist inexorably makes the world of man and nature absolute and the object of worship. In biblical terms, the supernatural God has created the world and sustains its existence. This world (the saeculum) has value because God has created it, continues to preserve it, and has acted to redeem it. While God is Lord of history and the universe, he is not identifiable with either (pantheism). Men and women exist in freedom and responsibility before God and for the world. Stewardship and partnership define man's relationship to God and the world.
The sacral, theocratic character of ancient Israel is modified with the coming of Christ. With the work of Christ, the city and the nation are secularized (desacralized), and the church as the temple of the Holy Spirit is what is now sacralized. The relationship of the church to the society around it is not defined in terms of a mission to resacralize it by imposing ecclesiastical rule upon it. The relationship is one of loving service and witness, proclamation and healing. In this sense, then, secularization of society is a Christian calling. That is, society must not be divinized or absolutized, but viewed as something historical and relative. Only God is finally sacred and absolute. Reestablishing the sacredness of God will, however, imply the proper, relative valuation of this world.
In no sense, of course, is the distinction between the sacred and the secular an unbridgeable gap. In the same way that God speaks and acts in the saeculum, Christians must speak and act creatively and redemptively. This means that the secular world must not be abandoned to secularism. In all cases, Christian life in the secular world is to be carried out under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and in obedience to the will of God rather than the will of the world. And in situations, such as the United States, where the general populace is enfranchised and invited to have a voice in public policy, public education, social services, and so on, Christians may work to ensure that the Word of God is heard and is given room among the many other voices which will constitute the heterogenous whole. To insist that the Word of God be imposed on all without exception is to fall once again into an unbiblical authoritarianism. To fail to articulate the Word of God in the saeculum, however, is to acquiesce in a secularism which, by excluding the Creator, can lead only to death.
