Overview
Why are many churches becoming emptier and emptier? You hear people saying, “I’m spiritual, not religious.” People aren’t necessarily leaving religion. They are just putting their religion in something else—seculosity. Seculosity is a portmanteau of “secular” and “religiosity.” David Zahl defines seculosity as “a catchall for religiosity that’s directed horizontally rather than vertically, at earthly rather than heavenly objections” (xxi).
As the subtitle suggests, Zahl covers “religions” such as career, parenting, technology, food, politics, and romance, but also fandom, leisure, and Jesusland (Zahl’s shorthand for Christianity that prioritizes behavior and societal reform rather than grace). Generally, these things are not inherently bad, but become bad when you trust in them more than God. Zahl states the purpose of his book as “to look at how the promise of salvation has fastened onto more everyday pursuits like work, exercise, and romance—and how it’s making us anxious, lonely, and unhappy” (xiii). Essentially, people are searching for righteousness in places other than God/church.
Zahl puts a different twist on understanding righteousness in today’s world as the idea of being “enough.” Zahl insightfully points out that in our contemporary culture “we fail to recognize that what we’re actually worshiping when we obsess over food or money or politics is not the thing itself but how that thing makes us feel—if only for a moment. Our religion is that which we rely on not just for meaning or hope but enoughness” (xiv). And yet the problem that everyone faces is that no matter how hard one strives to be enough, they will never get there. Zahl likes this word “enough” because it doesn’t sound religious, old-fashioned, or too judgy like “righteousness”; instead, it is more subjective and less threatening (xvi).
Evaluation
We admit that the opinio legis is strong in the world and to all of us by nature—Zahl just gives it a name: “performancism,” which is “the assumption, usually unspoken, that there is no distinction between what we do and who we are” (6). If you aren’t busy enough, you aren’t enough. If your kids aren’t performing well enough, you failed as a parent and aren’t enough. In our capitalistic society, everything is a competition or a problem to be solved. Performancism is likely at the root of the growing anxiety, loneliness, and fatigue people are facing. It is all about finding enoughness in what I do.
Other areas in which people try to find their enoughness are community (a sense of belonging) and meaning (a purpose for one’s life). Fandom and Politics, for example, offer a sense of community with others who share the same views as well as meaning in a shared cause.
Zahl provides examples of these things becoming a religion:
- Busyness: “As tired as it makes us, busyness remains attractive because it does double duty, allowing us to feel like we’re advancing on the path of life while distracting us from other, less pleasant realities, like doubt and uncertainty and death” (4).
- Romance: “If we’re looking to another person to accept us in order to feel good about ourselves, then our attention will be focused on how well or badly we are doing every time we’re around them, and not on the person themselves” (19). (Also listen around to hear how the myth of a soulmate has taken on new terminology—people are searching for “my person.”)
- Fandom: “With fandom there’s a redemption on offer. When my team wins, I win. When my favorite band does well, I am vindicated or exalted. Call it vicarious atonement or imputed glory—it’s all quite theological at bottom” (128).
- Politics: “The seculosity of politics is what happens when the political becomes not one lens among many for understanding the world (e.g., the metaphysical, the psychological, the spiritual) but the only one. Or the only one that matter” (159). “Divisions arise when people seek differing forms of righteousness. In fact, we may not even recognize the other’s concern as righteousness at all” (162).
- Jesusland (within the Christian church): “Is the church a hospital for sinners or a schoolhouse for saints…. Does it prioritize relief or growth?” (181). “One of the chief ways Christianity morphs into seculosity occurs under the heading As exciting a prospect as transformation may be, when it takes center stage in a person’s spiritual life, it swallows up grace and turns Christianity into a vehicle of anxiety and exhaustion” (186).
This book does not exhaust seculosity, and Zahl acknowledges that; but once you put on these glasses, you see it everywhere. There are many things other than our Creator that people turn into religion. Zahl uses many contemporary and relatable examples to show what he sees—yet being contemporary, some examples may become dated in the years to come.
Yet this book is not just about pointing out how many ways people are leaving God and the church. It also has gospel to offer as the solution to finding “enoughness.” Here is one example from the chapter on romance:
The Bible does not eschew romance or deny its transcendent thrill. Instead, it posits… a model in which the groom gives himself fully for his wayward bride, satisfying rather than introducing expectation, the sign of his fidelity being not a ring, but a cross. This groom, Jesus himself, is under no illusions about what he’s getting/gotten himself into. He does not wait for his beloved to get her feelings right in order to leverage his devotion, but stands ready to absolve her of them. He knows that he’s marrying the wrong person, that “the wrong people” are all there are. Yet he refuses to spare himself the heartache. (37-38)
It is refreshing the way Zahl weaves law and gospel through this work and especially in his conclusion on “What to ‘do’ about it.” Zahl encourages us to let go of control and let God do the doing. One of his suggestions is the church needs to be grace-centered, “a religion of capital-G Grace would hold to Jesus Christ as the central revelation of who God is, and the cross as the central revelation of who Christ is—not just in terms of sacrificial love, but in terms of law-fulfilling righteousness imputed to non-transformed sinners like you and me” (209). What a wonderful encouragement to continue proclaiming sin and grace that meets our people where they are!
Recommendation
This book is accessible to both pastor and layman. I would recommend this book to any pastor who wants to refresh his preaching and day-to-day ministering to his people. This book has helped me recognize where hearts may be leaning and to communicate law and gospel in a contemporary way in 21st-century America. Zahl clearly translates “churchy” vocabulary into more contemporary language, which the preacher can utilize well and which the church member can grasp. This book comes with a discussion guide which could be used in a small group Bible study. I could see this book helping pastor and members self-diagnose areas of their life they have been placing ahead of God and turn to Christ for forgiveness and their only source of “enoughness.”