"Today's Christians know that they do not, as their ancestors did, live in a society where God's presence was unavoidable.  No longer does Christianity form the moral basis of society.  Many of us now reside in secular communities, where arguments drawn from the Bible or Christian revelation carry no weight, and where we hear a different language from that spoken in church.

"Instead of engaging this secular world, most Christians have taken the easy way out.  They have retreated into a Christian subculture where they engage Christian concerns.  Then they step back into secular society, where their Christianity is kept out of sight until the next church service.  Without realizing it Christians have become postmodernists of a sort: they live be the gospel of two truths.  There is religious truth, reserved for Sundays and days of worship, and there is secular truth, which applies the rest of the time.

"This divided lifestyle is opposed to what the Bible teaches.  The Bible tells Christians not to be of the world, sharing its distorted priorities, but it does call upon believers to be in the world, fully engaged.  Many Christians have abdicated this mission.  They have instead sought a workable, comfortable modus vivendi in which they agree to leave the secular world alone if the secular world agrees to leave them alone."

This is not a call for confrontation, but of engagement.  Leonard Sweet recently said that the world is looking for Love and the Church is giving them Reason.  Christ called for us to genuinely love as He loves, and then, as the opportunity arises, share with them the Good News of what a relationship with Christ has meant to our lives.  But sadly for many of us D'Souza's words are all too true. 

LifeQuest is a call to live Sacred Lives throughout the week, to engage the world in which we live, and to be a light shining out from the God who lives within us.  To do so, we believe that we need to spend time in communion with God through prayer and in learning what His words mean to our lives so that our minds and hearts can be transformed to be like Him in order to allow Him to shine through us.

This week starts a new year, and all too quickly it will become an old year.  Let's start now by determining within our hearts that we will not live by "two truths", that instead we will make every day "sacred" and will engage our world with the truth and love of Jesus Christ, and let's set the priorities in our life that will draw us closer to God and enable us to do what we have just determined in our hearts to do.

One last point, you may feel like you are not ready to engage the world in which you live and work.  May I suggest that you give the discussion boards here a shot.  You do not have to be a regular attender (or an attender at all) to participate.  There you will find people of various beliefs and cultures, and a safe place to begin your discussion with others.  We currently have several self-proclaimed atheists, spiritual seekers, and followers of Christ.  All care for one another and are in involved in honest dialog on significant questions and issues associated with our faith and our culture.  It's a great (and safe) place to become engaged.

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