'The Secular Saint'

The Benedictine Option has been around 10-15 years. It is comprised of Christian families and individuals who create their own usually rural communities. The downside is that, while it focuses on becoming more like Christ, it often neglects bringing people to Christ. 

The second model is the identification model. This approach attempts to be thoroughly imbedded in society so that they can make the biggest difference for justice and care of the poor. This approach often engages in the different movements in hopes of achieving what they consider a right or holy end. While this approach attempts to be fully engaged with the world, it can often loose its identity to the world. It can get caught up in the causes of this world while diminishing the cause of Christ. They can lose sight of the one and only cause, the cause of Jesus’s unique power to save and renew the world.

The third approach to Christians’ relationship to the world is called transformational. This model declines from separating from the world and avoids identifying with the world. Jesus described it in His prayer to the Father: “They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.  Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.” (John 17:16-18). Simply put, Christians are called out of the world into new life in Christ. Christ then sanctifies (makes us like Himself) each Christian as they understand and enact the truth of a Christ-centered posture toward the world. The purpose is to send us into the world to be a witness just as Jesus was. 

Secular means world. Saint means set aside for God’s good purposes. The secular saint is a Christian who fulfills God’s purposes in the world he inhabits – home, work, clubs, schools, etc. Jesus came into the world to save sinners and launch the new age of the Kingdom. Jesus affirmed that He has done what He was sent to do and now His disciples have been sent to fulfill His Kingdom purpose where they are around the world and throughout time. We are secular saints. We don’t draw away into a Christian enclave nor do we cave to the causes and movements of this world. We are secular saints who walk by faith and in the power of the Spirit to enact the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. 

For Christ and His Kingdom,

Jonathan