The New Secularism and the Death of a Nation

We will live or die, sink or swim, according to our beliefs. The progressive is poised to remove religion from the public, arguing that this has always been a secular nation. However, the “secularism” of today bears little resemblance to the secularism that had once made this nation great. A few quotations might bring this fact home.

In his Notes on Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, arguably the most un-Christian of our Founding Fathers, observed:

• Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not violated but with his wrath?”

Instead of removing or marginalizing our Judeo-Christian foundations, Jefferson, along with the other Founding Fathers, insisted that these were necessary for the preservation of our liberties.

His words were prophetic. As we have seen the weakening of the influence of the church and the strengthening of those who hate it, we have also seen the removal of our liberties by a new militant and secular religion. Here are just a few of many examples:

1. Christians fired for expressing their ideas about marriage, even outside of their job.

2. Mayors threatening to not allow businesses to come into their towns because of the owners’ beliefs about marriage.

3. Women threatened with dismissal from graduate counseling programs because they expressed disapproval of same-sex marriage.

4. Businesses fined, the owners required to go for “re-education,” and threatened with closure because they wouldn’t perform acts that their faith forbade.

It had been the vision of secularism to allow everyone a seat-at-the-table with free expression. In contrast, the “secularism” of today forbids Christians a seat. Instead, they must conform to a new religion if they want to be heard or even to work.

This “secularism” claims to be neutral, unlike other religions, and maintains that the “separation between church and state” requires that the Christian voice be kept silent in the public. However, this hadn’t been the thinking of our leading secularist, Jefferson:

• No nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can be.

Historian Robert Royal affirms that the secularism of the Founders was never supposed to impose a new monopolistic religion:

• The generation that led the American Revolution knew clearly that a secular government designed to take care of secular affairs did not mean a society in which secularism was in effect the official religion. Church and state were separated so that each could do it job better. (The God that did not Fail, 207)

In his Farewell Address, President George Washington warned that the nation’s welfare depended on its religion:

• Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports… Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for prosperity, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

Meanwhile, today’s secularists are naively convinced that morality and law can easily be maintained apart from the roots that had sired them.

Washington’s words have also proved prophetic. As the Christian faith has been degraded in the West, especially beginning with the early sixties, crime, drug use, depression, and loss of economic vitality escalated.

The new “secularists” have also rejected other lessons. They are convinced that our social problems are best addressed by big, powerful and over-reaching government – the very thing that the Founders had feared most.

• That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness… But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. (Declaration of Independence)

How long can a free people endure “a long train of abuses and usurpations… to reduce them under absolute Despotism” to a new and militant religion? How can a vast segment of a nation tolerate coercion designed to force them to violate their most precious faith? How can this not produce contempt for the government that coerces them in this unjust manner?

Why Seek New Solutions when the Old have Served us Well

There had been little unusual about this sermon delivered March 14, 1983:

“Disintegration in our nation’s social order – crime, alcoholism, drug abuse, family instability, divorce, corruption, poverty, inflation…- can simply be explained: God’s clear instructions concerning life have been disobeyed. The Bible has become a closed book.”

The Pastor then prayed:

“We thank Three, Father God, for the Bible – the incredible Book, ancient in origin, contemporary in wisdom, justice and truth…Help us see that we deprive ourselves of a wealth of resources when we neglect the Bible. For in it and through it we come to know Thee and Thy love for us, and we learn to know ourselves, our needs, and the provision Thou hast made for us…”

The only thing that might strike us as extraordinary about this sermon was the fact that it was preached on the floor of the United States Senate by its Chaplain (1981-1994), Richard C. Halverson, who had preached many similar messages during his term of office.

Why is this remembrance significant? Today we are told that we are not a Christian nation nor have we ever been so! While it is true that our Constitution gives no legal basis for the establishment of a Christian theocracy, Halverson’s sermon and also those of his predecessors make it clear that this great nation had always drawn its inspiration from the God of the Bible.

Our first president, George Washington, insisted that his Continental Army be amply served by chaplains. We understood that any military victory had to be based upon his army maintaining the spiritual high-ground that only the biblical faith could provide.

The evidence of the centrality of this Faith in the development and function of this nation was ubiquitous – so ubiquitous that the Preamble of every State Constitution gave recognition to the “Almighty.”

Why is this important to remember? Ours has been one of the greatest civilizations that humanity has ever known. We therefore need to ask, “What has made it great, and can we continue to be great if we divorce ourselves from our very traditions that have made us great? How long can we stand if we continue to banish every mention of our God from public discourse?”

The Progressives answer that this is a new world requiring new answers. However, new answers have often been tried – the French, Spanish, Russian, and the many sexual revolutions - but always with disastrous results. What reason do we have to believe that these answers will work today? If we lacked tried and proven solutions, blind hope might be rationally more appealing.

Why Religion should Continue to have a Privileged Place in our Nation

This country has privileged religion. Our First Amendment protects us against government infringement upon the “free exercise” of religion, and consequently, up until now, we have enjoyed incredible religious freedom in our USA! However, now voices are now forming a chorus against this right. A new Federal Hate Crimes bill has threatened our freedom to preach in as far as the preaching can possibly be construed to lead to a ‘hate crime.” A distorted interpretation of the First Amendment’s injunction against setting up a Federal religion has been pushing religious expression out of the public. Many Christian student groups have been barred from campus because of their insistence on retaining the Christian nature of their group.

Now, many are arguing for further restrictions on religion:

1. Taxing Churches
2. Placing Churches and other Christian groups under restrictive Federal Guidelines

However, Wilfred McClay, University of Tennessee, argues that it is essential that the USA retains its protections of religion. (I will summarize four of his five reasons for this with some modification.)

1. Our Tradition: McClay argues that all of the Founding Fathers signed on to the understanding that religion was essential and needed protection from government:

• The Founding Fathers had diverse views about a variety of matters, very much including their own personal religious convictions, but they were in complete and emphatic agreement about the inescapable importance of religion. (Christianity Today, Nov. 2012, 27)

To support his point McClay quotes George Washington’s Farewell Address in 1796:

·        Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports.

In 1789, Washington also stated:

·        If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution…might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it.

2. American Pluralism: In opposition to today’s secularism which wishes to extend its control into all areas of life, McClay writes,

• A society flourishes best when the moral communities within which consciences are formed – churches, synagogues, mosques, and the like – remain healthy.

However, their health is being increasingly threatened by a federally supported religious secularism that has little tolerance for any religion apart from its own. The universities have barred many Christian groups from meeting. Ironically, they cite their “non-discrimination” policies which they use to discriminate against the free expression of Christian values.

We have a tradition of religious liberty worth preserving. Ibn Warraq, Muslim turned atheist, argued in favor of Western freedoms in a panel debate on “Why the West is Best.” Here is the substance of his presentation:

• The great ideas of the West—rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law and equality under the law, freedom of thought and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy—are superior to any others devised by humankind. It was the West that took steps to abolish slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in Africa, where rival tribes sold black prisoners into slavery. The West has secured freedoms for women and racial and other minorities to an extent unimaginable 60 years ago. The West recognizes and defends the rights of the individual: we are free to think what we want, to read what we want, to practice our religion, to live lives of our choosing.

All of this is now being threatened by a monopolistic, totalitarianism secularism that only allows expression of its own values. For example, two students in graduate counseling programs were both threatened with expulsion from two state schools because they wouldn’t agree with the gay agenda.

3. Danger of Alienation: When there is a sense that the prevailing society respects the rights of the religious, we can together celebrate our shared traditions and history. McClay therefore writes,

• If believers sense a general willingness to acknowledge their legitimate role in public life, they will likely feel a stronger and deeper loyalty to the American experiment. But if they encounter instead a rigid insistence upon a rigorously secularist public square, the result could very well alienate religious subcultures, whose sectarian disaffection could become so profound as to threaten the very cohesion of the nation. (28)

At best, this disaffection will cause Christians to further disassociate from a culture which they regard as hostile. While many secularists are hoping for just this result, they need to count the costs again.

The American contract – the contract that has nursed and supported us – calls for liberty. This is what we have all signed on for.

4. Social Benefits: Historically, Christianity has provided the vision to build hospitals, health care centers, and to build schools. In a 2008 article in The Times (UK) by Matthew Parris, a journalist and former British MP, reflected on his visit to Malawi:

• Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOS, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good…Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone, and the machete.

Speaking more globally about the benefits of Christianity, McClay cites Thomas Jefferson’s words that decorate the walls of the Jefferson Memorial in DC:

• God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. (29)

Perhaps, we should all be trembling!