Coram Deo: Living Life in the Presence of God in a Secular Age - Paperback

by Harry a. Van Belle Phd (Author)

The world is facing a number of major problems today: the effects of climate change, gun violence, the mass-migration of people from the third world, major conflicts between and within nations, the rise of racism worldwide fuelled by ideologies of populism, nationalism, fascism and anti-semitism, the opioid crisis and the disappearance of truth speaking, to mention only a few.There appears to be no consensus among world leaders on how to deal with any of these. The result is a paralysis of decision-making.. What is lacking is an overarching vision that binds us together. Each of us seems doomed to "doing what is good in our own eyes" (Judges 21: 25).Why is this happening? We live in a secular age. Most of us live our lives without an explicit awareness of God. Some time in our history we deliberately and systematically exorcised God from our collective consciousness Something essential is lost when we decide to live life without God. Human existence easily becomes a perpetual restless search to serve and worship something or someone other than God, without the chance of ever arriving anywhere.That is the way it is today, but it does not have to be that way. The Hebraic-Christian Scriptures tell us about coram deo, or a life lived in the presence of God. In this story God's presence in our lives is like a protective dome over us, like a rainbow that lights up the world after a thunderstorm. What this means for our present predicament is the focus of this book.