If Priests Created the Secular . . .

Published on by D. G. Hart

So reasons Peter Leithart:

Our secular age can be sustained only if the secular has been carefully distinguished from the sacred, and only if the boundary between the two is vigorously, not to say violently, guarded.

But boundary-drawing between the sacred and profane is the work of a priest. It is the sacred act par excellence (cf. among many many texts from many religions, Leviticus 10:10).

So our secular age depends on a sacred gesture.

Which means that our secular age isn’t ultimately a secular age at all. Its secularity is a ruse, a trick of priests.

At least the Enlightenment was right about one thing: You can’t trust priests.

Is discomfort with the secular-sacred distinction the affliction of the shaman?

10 thoughts on “If Priests Created the Secular . . .”

  2. Half the time I read stuff like this from Leithart I really wonder what he’s smoking …

    My bet is edibles… mushrooms or peyote. Sounds like Leithart just came back from his Vision Quest, and maybe spent too much time in the sweat lodge.

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  3. Perusing firstthings.com one finds a long list of authors for the many articles appearing on the website. Looking through ‘L’ one finds on the page containing Leithart’s listing, authors whose total contribution (sans Leithart) to the website is seventeen articles. Leithart’s total? 10,866 (What? Is this his website?)

    Moving on to the ‘H’ category we find DG Hart with two. Two you say? Yes, and one is aptly titled, “Small is Beautiful.”

    Somehow Leithart’s writings don’t evoke “beautiful” in a confessional Reformed sense; views from the Pacific NW notwithstanding.

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  5. Was the Stellman prosecution of Leithart recorded? That has to be must-see stuff.

    Like World B. Free, you can’t stop either of those two, your best hope is to merely somewhat contain them.

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  6. @Erik —

    There is a lot of written material that is pretty excellent. I definitely read it, some of the principles posted a dropbox at the time. If you go through GreenBaggins you’ll see the links. I might still have some of it.

    But no it isn’t an excellent argument. Reader’s Digest version

    1) PCA exaggerates Federal Vision claims ignoring nuances in their ruling against Federal Vision. PCA declares belief in X implies belief in Y
    2) Leithart writes books where he asserts X.
    3) Jason charges him with believing Y.
    4) Leithart denies believing Y.
    5) Jason calls a bunch of witnesses who continue to assert that belief in X implies belief in Y.
    6) Leithart explains why in his mind he can believe in X and not Y.
    7) The court takes Leithart’s assertion of what he believes as being more informative than Jason’s arguments.
    8) Jason loses.
    9) Everyone freaks out since now X is explicitly permissible even though (1) is still on the books.

    Or even shorter version
    — Jason overcharges Leithart and can’t recover from that initial mistake.

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