In an article by Dr. John Seel and Lee Byberg, the authors maintain that our nation is not divided between the Right and the Left, conservatives and liberals, believers and secularists.  Rather both sides share a common condition: a culture of nihilism.  According to James Davison, a nihilistic culture “is defined by the drive to destroy and by the will to power.”  How do we rebuild meaning once again in culture?  This will mean  restoring what we have lost – a shared sacred space.   “Rebuilding this sacred order requires liminal leaders in the church, people able to navigate this in-between time, between the old collapsing order and what comes next.”

I find the idea of the sacred space or canopy, a way to visualize the task before me in my sphere of influence, with its heightened voices of anger, division and confrontation found on both the left and the right.  Could this be a “third way,” enabling believers to address the cultural crisis of our time?  A third way could be a healthy, appropriate  framework for men wanting to restore our culture.  As an  84 year old man, still with fire in his belly, this could help me in framing the message.  Just simply being a presence with this model in mind can be creative and effective.  

The authors maintain modernity has hollowed out the structures that give life a moral shape.  Expressive individualism has dissolve the bonds that hold communities together.  They warned, “without a shared scared order; societies unravel into confusion and conflict.”  The symptoms can be found  all around us.  But they warn the symptoms are far more lethal, more like a “systemic metastasizing disease.”  We have “lost our ability to find the way home.”  The two authors suggest that “renewal begins by rebuilding the deep structures of culture.”  This sacred order rests on three legs:  1) Authority – “the vertical source and story of truth and obligation,” 2) Plausibility – “the social and institutional environment that reinforces belief” and 3) Ritual – “the embodied practices that sustain identity and community.” 

First – Authority – “Every society needs a story that rises above preference.”  Morality is not a personal preference. People live by their stories. “They trust what captures their imagination.” The Christian story is a grand narrative. Culture is a normative invisible reality, with the power to define reality. “Truth is real and objective, morality is not up for negotiation but given, identity is derived, not designed, and freedom is found in conscious alignment with God’s design.”

Secondly – Plausibility –  “We learn truth not only by thinking about it but by belonging in it.”  “To restore the sacred order, we must build communities where faith is normal, desirable, and relationally supported.” 

Thirdly – Ritual – “If authority gives us the story, and plausibility gives us the community, then ritual gives us the embodied practices of the sacred.”  Through rituals, a community reveals what it loves and supports.   We need to restore rituals that will form people in the way of Christ.  Rituals create social patterns that give a sense of the sacred in our embodied experience. 

We are living through a civilizational crisis, a liminal space – “a threshold between ages.”  The authors call for liminal leaders with clarity, conviction and courage, who belong in places of relational solidarity and genuine communion.  “To rebuild a sacred order, we must restore the vertical of sacred authority, rebuild communities of plausibility, and renew the rituals that bind us together.”  The sacred canopy will not rebuild itself. 

I embrace the challenge. May more men see the vital need of restoring the sacred order or canopy in our culture.  It will take men with clarity, conviction and courage.