David Tacey – Drawing Out the Sacred in Secular Times

"Paul writes – In his essay, What is Religion For? Drawing out the Sacred in Secular Times David Tacey believes that we find ourselves (as others have done in previous generations) in “a destitute time, a time devoid of spiritual meaning and direction, a time eclipsed by the darkness of the world… our present night”. Now, he doesn’t intend that to sound gloomy, rather, as he writes in this essay, and writes elsewhere, the spiritual is breaking through in lot’s of interesting ways in our contemporary Western context. Quoting Indian Poet Rabindranath Tagore he describes faith, as “the bird that feels the light and signs while the dawn is still dark.”

In this present time “religion [needs to move] from a spirituality of dwelling to a spirituality of seeking or journeying. Religion’s task is not to point to itself or to explain itself, but to reach beyond itself into the world. It does this by reaching into and drawing out the sacred depths in people’s lives” (p.47), says Tacey.

He continues, “In a secular time the majority of people no longer come to religion and do not participate in religion’s rituals, so religion has to go out to the people.” “The locus of engagement”, he believes, “is no longer primarily the sacred building, where most people are not gathering, but the wider secular community in which a great deal of activity and human restlessness is taking place. In a sense, the whole world becomes the new temple, because anywhere in the world can be made potentially holy by the advent of homecoming, that is [by recognizing and being drawn to or by] the presence of something sacred at work in it…”

Interestingly, he says “the task of ministry is different in a destitute time, because ministry must shift from preaching the word to listening for the word. It’s general direction shifts from evangelism to prophetic listening… We need to listen, as St. Benedict proclaims in his Rule [RB Prologue 1 which Terrence Kardong O.S.B. notes as “closely resembling the exhortations found in the wisdom literature of the Bible], with the ears of the heart to the thoughts and feelings that come from the hearts of others…”

You will find the introduction to this series, here.

From Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog David Tacey – Drawing Out the Sacred in Secular Times – Part 1 of 3