Are Religious Views Merely Private?

I found this quote from Darrell Bock's commentary and thought it was insightful.

It is popular in our day to be neutral. In a culture where tolerance is highly valued, nonpartisianship is attractive. In religious discussions we try to avoid stepping on toes, for in Western cultures religious views are generally considered private. We want to avoid offending others in a culture that is diverse. But neutrality is not always a good thing, and neither is polite disengagement. Some issues are important enough to require our considered choices...

If God exists, should we think of him as having a liaise-faire attitude, not interested in how we relate to him? Jesus argues that is not the case. Religion by its very nature is a public affair, since it deals with how people relate to reality and to others. Though religious coercion such as marred European history in the Crusades and the Thirty Years War is wrong, so is our culture's tendency to relegate religious concerns to the fringe world of private reflection. The issues are too important to be kept peripheral. Ultimately we must ask each other, What centers our lives, what do we accept as truth, what defines our character? (Luke, Vol. 3 of the IVP New Testament Commentary Series, pg. 212, emphasis added by me).

Religious views are not private no matter how much our culture tries to pretend they are. A person's views of ultimate reality, purpose, morality, the existence of God (or lack thereof), and his character shape our everyday decisions. This is true of everyone from stay at home moms to politicians. Saying religion has no place in the public sphere is simply a way of saying, "As long as what makes you tick is something other than the God of the Bible you may speak." While this foolishness is lamentable, it is not my main concern. My hope is that we will love God and others enough to speak the truth of the gospel to our friends and neighbors even if our culture (or those to whom we speak) label us as intolerant. May God give us wisdom and courage to speak the most important truths often and without fearing man.