Religion stripped of divinity is a nonsense, writes Mike Horder.
Is the figure of speech ''secular religion'' an oxymoron? Ian Harris says no (ODT, 22.2.13).
My dictionary defines ''oxymoron'': ''a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction''.
And ''secular'': ''not connected with religious or spiritual matters''.
And, finally ''religion'': ''A belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods''.
If ''secular religion'' is not therefore an oxymoron what is? At this point I could say: ''I rest my case'' - but there are other points to be made.
We live in secular times. If it's not to be seen, touched, heard, smelt, or felt, it doesn't exist. That would be the predominant mindset. Recently, it was confidently asserted to me that science was on the cusp of discovering a formula sufficiently elegant to explain the whole of creation. Really?
No wonder God had to kick Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. Already they had munched fruit off the tree of knowledge of good and evil when told not to. If left there they might sample fruit from the tree of life as well and end up thinking themselves as good as God. Self worship - the ultimate idolatry!
And then there's the Tower of Babel - that tower the people started building because they thought the view from the top might enable them to see and understand everything. But God had other plans.
Today, we can easily dismiss these ancient stories as irrelevant fables. But they still have some powerful points to make.
Why this insatiable appetite to know it all? Might it be that, given the constraints of our human condition, there are some things that are simply unknowable? At best, in this life, all we can ever expect to see is (as St Paul put it 2000 years ago) ''through the glass darkly''.
But that's not to say that seeking after truth isn't, arguably, the most laudable of all human pursuits. Ian Harris, clearly one such seeker, provokes debate around some hugely important issues and we should be grateful to him for that. He quotes Prof Sir Lloyd Geering (another such seeker) at length.
Sir Lloyd says: ''A great deal that's believed and practised in Christianity today is superstition.''
I wonder what he's speaking of precisely - the virgin birth; the miracles; the resurrection; the very existence of God as a divine force? His preference seems to be for a god stripped of all the trappings of divinity - a humanised god, one we can more readily relate to in the here and now.
Sir Lloyd again: ''If we regard the past as laying down the permanent and unchanging foundations of religion, we're in real trouble.''
Possibly true. But isn't trying to rewrite the manual to accommodate the thinking of each successive age just as risky. Isn't the Christian charge to bring the world into conformity with the gospel rather than the other way round? In a secular world where escalating change seems to be the only constant, it's not surprising there's a growing hunger for God.
God, that is, with a capital ''G''. The God that was, is, and always will be - infinite, eternal, omnipotent, that pivotal part of our shared human consciousness - yet beyond the power of we earthbound mortals to ever fully fathom.
And Sir Lloyd again: ''Jesus was a rather special Jew who was able to see beyond His Jewishness to the significance of being human, and how to become fully developed human beings.''
To many this Jesus would seem to be a hugely watered down version of the real thing. Certainly, not the Jesus He himself claimed to be - the Messiah, only son of the living God. Rather just a thoroughly decent Jewish bloke.
I wonder if there are any other decent blokes from way back then whose teachings are still transforming the lives of countless numbers of people 2000 years later. No - this Jesus has to be someone extra special, someone quite phenomenal, someone, dare I say, divine.
Sir Lloyd finally: ''Common to both religions (Christianity and Buddhism) was their concern with right action rather than right belief.''
Once again I find myself singing from a different song sheet. I don't know about Buddhism but that view of Christianity certainly doesn't ''gel'' with what St Paul taught. He said we are justified by faith alone. Believe Jesus to be the one He claimed to be then watch the floodgates of good works open wide. Right action follows right belief - not the other way round. At least that's the message I get from my New Testament.
''Secular religion'' IS an oxymoron. Religion stripped of divinity is a nonsense. Without its supernatural, metaphysical, divine dimension religion degrades into mere philosophy. And ''philosophy'' my dictionary defines as: ''the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence especially when considered as an academic discipline''.
What Ian Harris et al propound, however sincerely, cannot be considered a religion however loosely that's defined. It is rather a philosophy - humanism, if you like, masquerading as faith.
Maybe we should simply give over trying to fathom the unfathomable. Maybe, instead, we should simply accept that mystery and uncertainty, have, and always will be, part and parcel of the human condition. Maybe, then, we might discover the awe, the reverence, the peace, that simple acceptance has the power to impart.
Mike Horder describes himself as just another seeker. He is also a member of the Anglican congregation of St Columba's in Wanaka.
