The Sacred-Secular Divide describes the pervasive belief that faith is essentially private, church is a leisure time option, and God is primarily interested in some things - such as prayer, social action, Alpha and so on - but other human activities are at best neutral.
Private faith
Of course we protest, 'It's just not true'. And indeed it isn't. But are we equipping adults, and children, to lead Gospel-infused extraordinary lives wherever they are?
Nationally 50% of Christians have never heard a sermon on work. Something that people spend 65% of their lives doing 'in the public arena' as 'ordinary Christians'.
There's been much debate about Harry Potter - whether or not we should read these books. But are we helping young people to think Christianly about their English literature curriculum for GCSE and A Level? The atheism of Samuel Becket's Waiting for Godot, the sexual mores of D.H.Lawrence's Women in Love, for example.
Leisure time Christianity
'Leisure time' Christianity leads to engagement with 'leisure time' issues. Because of the sacred-secular divide, Christians are not encouraged or helped to think Christianly or rigorously about what they are doing in so many areas of their own lives and in the life of the UK today.
Flawed understanding of church and spirituality
The flaws are buried deep. In our understanding of church and the role of the 'minister'. In our understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. In our understanding of what on earth God was up to when he created his world and humanity.
We lean towards a pietistic, private Gospel. In reality, however, we have a whole life embracing, fully comprehensive Gospel for the transformation of all things.
The extraordinary Christian life
If we start to break down the Sacred Secular Divide we start to release 'ordinary' Christians into the epic purposes of God - wherever he has placed them. The 7.5% of the population that regularly goes to church suddenly looks like an enormous resource for the Kingdom of God. A huge opportunity.
Read more
To read more about the Sacred Secular Divide you can download The Great Divide: Overcoming the SSD Syndrome (pdf file). This is an edited version of the 5th Catherwood Lecture in Public Theology delivered by Mark Greene in 2001 in Belfast.