Secularism in John 17: In the World, Not of It
Short answer: Secularism is the organizing of public life, institutions, and reasoning as though God were not a relevant factor. It is not simply unbelief in a private heart; it is a way of ordering a society. Jesus addresses this pressure in John 17:14-19, where he says of his followers, "I have given them your word. The world hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." He does not ask the Father to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one while sending them into it. So the biblical response to secularism is neither panic nor retreat, nor is it assimilation. Disciples live inside a world that no longer assumes God, and they do so as people who belong to Christ, carrying his word, his joy, and his mission into ordinary places.
What secularism actually claims
Secularism is easiest to understand as a rule about what counts in public. In a secular framework, courts, schools, governments, and public argument proceed as if religious claims were optional or private. That is the core of the idea: not that God is denied in every heart, but that God is treated as irrelevant to how public life is run. A secular age is not necessarily an atheist age; it is an age in which faith is one option among many and is expected to stay out of the shared square.
This is different from pluralism, which simply describes a society containing many beliefs. Pluralism says many faiths are present. Secularism says public life should be conducted without leaning on any of them. A person can therefore be a sincere Christian and still absorb secular habits of thought: assuming that faith is fine on Sunday but must be bracketed at work, in politics, or in how one argues about truth.
Jesus' prayer in John 17 is not a policy proposal for how a state should be organized. It is a prayer about his people in a hostile world. But it speaks directly to the pressure secularism creates, because it names the tension disciples will feel: they are given God's word, and the world resists that word. The question Jesus answers is not whether the world will be secular, but how his people will live when it is.
Jesus does not pray for removal
Notice what Jesus asks for and what he does not. He does not ask the Father to take believers out of the world. He asks that they be kept from the evil one. The prayer assumes presence, not escape. Disciples are to remain in the marketplace, the classroom, the family, the workshop, and the public square. John 17:15 carries the request, and the surrounding verses frame it: they are in the world, they are hated by it, and they are still sent into it.
This rules out the monastic instinct that treats withdrawal as the only faithful response to a secular culture. Hiding from the world may feel safe, but it disobeys the sending. Jesus did not found a community that flees; he founded a community that is sent. The same chapter records his words that as the Father sent him, so he sends them. Presence is not compromise. Being in the world is the condition of the mission, not a failure of it.
Yet the prayer also rules out assimilation. Jesus does not ask that his people blend in so smoothly that the world stops noticing. He says the world hated them because they are not of the world. A disciple who is indistinguishable from the surrounding culture has lost something essential. The tension Jesus describes is not a problem to be solved but a location to be inhabited faithfully.
Not of the world: what that does and does not mean
To be not of the world does not mean despising creation, culture, or ordinary human life. The world in John's Gospel often refers to humanity in rebellion against God, not to trees, food, art, or work. Jesus ate with sinners, attended weddings, and used everyday images in his teaching. Being not of the world means not belonging to its rebellion, not refusing to inhabit its streets.
It also does not mean adopting a sour posture toward neighbors who do not share the faith. Jesus' followers are hated by the world, but they are not commanded to hate it back. The same Lord who prayed this prayer commanded love of neighbor and enemy alike. A Christian response to secularism that is chiefly contemptuous has already drifted from the One who prayed to be kept from evil while remaining sent.
Positively, being not of the world means allegiance. The disciple's identity, hope, and final loyalty rest elsewhere. That is why secularism is finally a discipleship question, not merely a political one. When public life treats God as irrelevant, the disciple must decide whether Christ or the age will define what is good, true, and worth living for. Jesus' prayer assumes the answer and asks for protection so that the answer holds.
The sanctifying work of the word in a secular age
John 17:17 contains the request that gives the whole prayer its shape: sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. In a secular environment, the pressure is not usually overt persecution at first. It is the quieter pressure to think, speak, and decide as though God's word were not the standard. The remedy Jesus names is not better arguments alone, but the sanctifying work of the word itself.
This is why Scripture intake is not a devotional extra for believers living in a secular culture; it is the means by which they remain distinct. Romans 12:2 says, "Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God." The renewing of the mind is the counter-force to conformity, and it happens through the word Jesus asked the Father to use.
The practical shape is unglamorous: read, hear, memorize, pray, and obey. A disciple who is daily shaped by Scripture will find secular assumptions increasingly visible for what they are, not because the disciple became clever, but because the word did its work. The prayer assumes that God answers this request, and that his people are kept through the truth he gives them.
Sent into the world, not swallowed by it
John 17:18 gives the motion of the Christian life: as the Father sent Jesus into the world, so Jesus sends his followers into the world. The direction is outward. Secularism is not defeated by Christians clustering in safe enclaves; it is addressed by believers living faithfully in the ordinary places where they are sent. That includes workplaces, neighborhoods, schools, and public conversations where God is not assumed.
Paul models this in Acts 17. Standing among the philosophers, he does not begin with shared religious assumptions, because there are none. He begins with what he observes and reasons toward the God who made the world and calls all people to repent. The text records that he told the Athenians that God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything, and that he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world. Paul engages the secular mind on its own ground without surrendering the message.
That is the pattern: presence with conviction. Being sent does not mean going silent about Christ. It means speaking and living as one who belongs to Christ while genuinely present among those who do not. The disciple is not absorbed into the world's assumptions and not removed from the world's streets. Jesus prayed for exactly this, and he prayed it knowing the world would hate his people for it.
Caesar and God: two loyalties, rightly ordered
Secularism often raises the question of divided loyalty: how much belongs to the state and how much to God? Jesus answered a version of this in Matthew 22:21, where he said, "Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." The answer refuses both extremes. It does not say Caesar is irrelevant, and it does not say Caesar is ultimate.
This distinction is not a modern secular settlement, but it does give Christians categories for living within one. Government has real, God-given responsibilities, and believers may honor them. But the state is not the source of ultimate authority, and its claims cannot swallow what belongs to God. When public life demands that faith be entirely privatized or that loyalty to the state replace loyalty to Christ, the disciple knows which claim is higher.
The ordering matters. Caesar is given what is Caesar's within a life already given to God. That means a Christian can be a faithful citizen without being a captive of any political program, and can be a faithful disciple without treating every earthly authority as demonic. Wisdom is needed, and faithful Christians differ on many applications. But the principle stands: two loyalties, rightly ordered, with God's claim first.
Living wisely where faithful Christians differ
How exactly Christians should engage a secular society is a matter on which sincere believers disagree. Some emphasize cultural engagement, building institutions, and arguing in the public square. Others emphasize the local church, faithful witness, and patience, expecting that the surrounding culture will not be won by programs. Both instincts can be found among people who love Scripture, and both can go wrong: engagement can become accommodation, and withdrawal can become neglect of the mission Jesus gave.
What is not debatable is the shape of the disciple. Colossians 2:8 warns, "Be careful that you don't let anyone rob you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ." And 1 John 2:15 says, "Don't love the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father's love isn't in him." These warnings are about love and allegiance, not about geography. A believer can live in a secular city without loving its rebellion, and can live in a religious town while loving the world.
So the practical question is not whether one is conservative or progressive, engaged or quiet. It is whether Christ holds first place in the affections. Where he does, the disciple can navigate a secular age with neither panic nor compromise, trusting that the Father answers the prayer Jesus prayed: keep them from evil, sanctify them in truth, and send them into the world.
Biblical fidelity check
John 17:14-19 establishes several things plainly. It establishes that Jesus' followers are given God's word, that the world resists them, that they are not of the world as Jesus is not of the world, that Jesus asks the Father to keep them from the evil one, that he asks for their sanctification in the truth, and that he sends them into the world. What the passage does not establish is a detailed political program for how a modern state should be ordered, whether religious symbols should appear in public buildings, or what laws a secular government should pass. Those are questions the text informs by principle but does not answer by precept, and Christians who agree on the passage often reach different conclusions about policy. The text also does not establish that the world is simply a place to be escaped or that culture is inherently evil. Jesus sends his people into the very world that hates them.
A common misreading treats not of the world as a call to cultural withdrawal, as if faithful discipleship required disengaging from public life, ordinary work, or unconverted neighbors. That reading contradicts the same prayer, which sends believers into the world rather than out of it. Another misreading treats being in the world as permission to blend in, as if the absence of visible difference were a virtue. That too contradicts the text, which says the world hated them precisely because they were not of it. The passage holds both together: genuinely present, genuinely distinct, kept by the Father, sanctified by the word, and sent on mission.
Other passages that speak to John 17:14-19
Several related passages help fill out what it means to live as a disciple in a world that no longer assumes God. What does Colossians 3:23 mean for ordinary work? addresses how daily labor becomes service to Christ rather than service to the age. What does John 10:10 mean by abundant life? clarifies that life in Christ is not measured by the world's terms of success. What does Matthew 11:28-30 mean by easy yoke? shows the rest and formation Christ gives to those who follow him under pressure. And What does Matthew 18:20 mean? reminds believers that they are not sent alone but gathered with Christ present among them.
Frequently asked questions
Is secularism the same thing as atheism?
No. Atheism is a belief that God does not exist. Secularism is a way of organizing public life as though God were not a relevant factor, and it can be held by people who are personally religious. A society can be secular in its institutions while many of its citizens believe in God. That is why secularism is a discipleship pressure rather than merely a debate about God's existence: it shapes assumptions, habits, and public reasoning even among believers who would never deny God with their lips.
Does John 17 teach that Christians should withdraw from culture?
No, it teaches the opposite. Jesus explicitly does not ask the Father to take his followers out of the world; he asks that they be kept from the evil one while remaining in it, and he sends them into it as the Father sent him. Withdrawal contradicts the sending. The passage calls for presence with distinctness, not retreat. Christians may differ on how to engage particular institutions, but the direction of the disciple's life is outward into the world, not away from it.
How can a Christian avoid being conformed to a secular world?
Romans 12:2 gives the pattern: refuse conformity and pursue transformation through the renewing of the mind, so that God's will becomes discernible. In John 17 Jesus asks the Father to sanctify his people in the truth, adding that God's word is truth. Practically, this means steady exposure to Scripture, honest examination of the assumptions one has absorbed, prayer, and life among God's people. Conformity usually happens by drift, not decision, so the counter is deliberate, habitual, word-shaped living rather than occasional resolve.
