BEING A CHURCH IN A SECULARISED WORLD
Keywords:
CHURCH, SECULARISED WORLDAbstract
Undoubtedly, the Second Vatican Council enabled the Church to
have a new interpretation of herself for the present era. Not unlike
theologians of earlier periods, participants of Vatican II also
identified pertinent issues in the life of the Church, issues that form
the basis of their deliberations. These early theologians employed
every literary form as well as the collective memories of members
that were available to them in establishing Christian orthodoxy in the
face of a massive secularising influence. Social theorists such as Karl
Marx, Sigmund Freud, Max Weber, and Émile Durkheim, all agree
that modernization of society would include a decline in the level of
religiosity. Pope John XXIII convoked the Council in order to align
the Church and her mission with modernity. The metaphor of “Salt of
the earth and Light of the world” (Mt 5:13-16) in a sense articulates
this mission of being a church in a secularising world.
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