The Frontline Against Secularism

In anticipation of Peter Leithart's Defending Constantine, due out in November, I am reading Against Christianity, and it has helped crystalize something for me.

The church's liturgy revels in the union of the natural with the supernatural. It revels in the wedding of word, water, bread, and wine with grace, forgiveness, cleansing, and strengthening.

This is the frontline in the battle against secularism, which marginalizes the supernatural to the private sphere of personal belief. It divorces grace from the natural order of everyday life. It tries to make the things of God off limits to public discussion (90-91).