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?

Proof of God’s Existence Based on Human Exceptionalism

If we want to affirm the human values, rights, dignity, and equality that we in the West so esteem, we must also affirm the existence of God. Consequently, if we reject God, we also reject these values. Here’s why:

1. Each human has dignity, equality, and unalienable value.

2. Without God, there can be no human dignity, equality, or unalienable value.

3. God exists. 

Premise #1:  This is a premise almost universally accepted in the West. We believe that all should have equal protections under the law, despite the surpassing wealth and influence of some. The Bill of Rights had been based upon this assumption of equality. Our Declaration of Independence provided this assumption - that all are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights.  We also intuitively believe that humans deserve to be treated with respect and accorded rights consistent with our humanity. The denial of these truths leads to regarding and treating our fellow humans as animals.

Premise #2:  This Declaration emphasized the fact that these unalienable rights find their basis in a God who had created humanity to be like Him. Therefore, are value is somewhat commensurate with God’s, and we must treat each other accordingly!  Instead, if government granted our unalienable rights, government could easily terminate them.

Our human dignity is based upon the fact that we are god-like even if we have corrupted ourselves. We therefore have an obligation to treat our fellow humans with dignity, even if they have acted in undignified ways. Consistent with this, psychotherapeutic practice requires that we treat the clients with unconditional-positive-regard, as if they possess an unalienable dignity. If they don't, they will lose their client, since they too have an intuition that they must be treated with dignity.

Pragmatic concerns alone cannot suffice to retain these concepts of dignity and equality:

• When we regard our fellow humans materially (rather than god-like), we cannot perceive any equality or even dignity. Instead, we observe differences - that some are better, nicer, more educated, and contribute to our welfare. Meanwhile, others present society with a high cost. Therefore, from a materialistic point of view, there can be no equality. Instead, some deserve respect and others do not.

• It is not enough to treat others with respect and equality for merely pragmatic reasons. It will make us schizoid. Imagine the therapist who knows he must treat his client with dignity, while he doesn’t believe that client has any dignity. It would therefore be nothing less than manipulative and hypocritical to treat him with respect.

• Human history provides overwhelming testimony that pragmatism alone will not create the better society. Instead, self-interest will reign.

Besides, if we are just another member of the animal kingdom, albeit advanced, any belief in human exceptionalism will eventually erode. Can we raid our neighbors frig at will as we pluck an apple from a tree or extract milk from a cow? Of course not! Should eating other life forms – lettuce and radishes - be criminalized? If so, it would lead to the death of humanity. Must we maintain human exceptionalism? If not, we cannot maintain humanity.

There is only one way to preserve the dignity, equality and unalienable value of all humanity - by recognizing that we are the special creation and the children of God! If human exceptionalism exists, so too must God!

Death, Life, Afterlife, Atheism and the Meaning of Life

 

Often the best way to disagree with our opponents is to agree with them – to build bridges of communication by first sharing common perspectives. Philip Appleman, an atheist, wrote:

• Most of us need to be much tougher-minded than we are, more resolute in rejecting the bribes of the afterlife. Once definitely done with our adolescent longing for the Absolute, we would find this world valuable after all, and poignantly valuable precisely because it is not eternal. Doomed to extinction, our loves, our work, our friendships, our tastes are all painfully precious. We look about us…and discover that we are beautiful because we are mortal, priceless because we are so rare in the universe and so fleeting. Whatever we are, whatever we make of ourselves: that is all we will ever have –and that, in its profound simplicity, is the meaning of life. (Pique, Sept. 2012)

Of course, we can find much to disagree with in this statement. However, we can find areas of agreement, especially in the thoughts I’ve italicized.

This might sound strange to you, but death is a gift. It may be a painful reality, but we need it, at least for now. For one thing, an appreciation of the temporary nature of our lives provides an incentive to gain wisdom, as the Psalmist claims:

• Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

If instead, our lives were indestructible, we would have little reason to gain wisdom. Who would need wisdom about health matters? However, our lives are very limited, and therefore, we can’t take them for granted.

I like to remind myself of this fact. I do this by walking in cemeteries and reading the inscriptions on the stones. They remind me that my own life is very temporary, and even more, that my relationships are merely a temporary gift. This fact urges me to cherish my dear wife for the short time she has been entrusted to me and to keep the brief irritations in their proper, insignificant context.

We’ve all seen the tears, relief and joy when a loved one is miraculously pulled alive out of the rubble of a killer-earthquake. Nothing is more precious than their reunion with the loved one! All hurts and resentments are forgiven and forgotten.

It is therefore no wonder that the Psalmist prays:

• Show me, O Lord, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath. Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro: He bustles about, but only in vain; he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it. But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you. (Psalm 39:4-7)

Death and the prospect of death not only restore us to sanity – a proper appreciation of our lives and relationships - it also restores our primary relationship. If we are indestructible, there is little to hope for. Drought, disease and thirst can’t touch us. However, as the Psalmist is reminded that he is a mere “breath,” he is forced to look hopefully towards God. Only God is an adequate source of hope. Even if a man “heaps up wealth” during his short sojourn, it is utterly meaningless.

Once we build our bridge of communication through sharing areas of agreement, we can begin to use it to probe the disagreements. In contrast to our Biblical perspective, Appleman asserts:

• Whatever we are, whatever we make of ourselves: that is all we will ever have –and that, in its profound simplicity, is the meaning of life.

However, how can we can we find hope and consolation in such a “meaning” – “Whatever we are, whatever we make of ourselves?”  Instead of producing hope, it lays an extra burden on our backs to produce and accomplish - but for what? We can even argue that an accomplishment-based identity is socially counterproductive. Emphasis on our differing levels of accomplishment separates people into classes, breeding arrogance, isolation and stratification rather than community.

This of course brings additional problems. If we derive our ultimate value from our job or our children, what happens to us when they depart? Won’t this create an unhealthy dependency?

Appleman also insists that we are “priceless because we are so rare in the universe.” Although rareness can drive up the price of oil, what makes us a priceless commodity? Rarity can’t do it! The bubonic plague is rare, but this does not make it priceless.

Besides, if we are just another animal on the evolutionary gradient, we might be priceless to our children, but so is the cockroach to its children, at least until the children leave home and we become an elderly burden. What then makes us priceless in an unchanging, objective sense?

Our Declaration of Independence identified the source of our pricelessness:

• We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Our Founding Fathers understood that our value and rights couldn’t depend upon others, least of all government or society to bestow them. Our rights and value had to rest upon sturdier stuff – our unchanging and all-wise Creator. Only He could make our rights unalienable rights. If instead our rights and value were granted by government, they could just as easily be retracted by government.

Appleman needs to understand that our pricelessness can only be grounded in a priceless God. Lord, grant us the wisdom to be the light!

The White House, its Pride and Prejudice

The White House has just released the Presidential Proclamation: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, 2012

In regards to LGBTs, it proudly proclaims that “no one is a second-class citizen, no one is denied basic rights, and all of us are free to live and love as we see fit.”

This proclamation is based upon the belief that LGBTs have the right to receive legal recognition and support in marriage. However, if the White House is really serious about its claim that “no one is a second-class citizen, no one is denied basic rights, and all of us are free to live and love,” it must also strike down laws against adultery, open marriages, polygamy and pedophilia. Hasn’t the law also relegated these people to a “second-class” status? And so, isn’t it hypocritical for the administration to complain about LGBTs as “second-class citizen[s],” while turning its back on the rest? This is reminiscent of our Declaration’s proclamation that “all, are created equal,” while the African American remained in chains.

The administration justifies its stance by appealing to the Golden Rule: “treat others the way we want to be treated.” While this is a sound principle, it has its limitations, especially when it comes to law. I don’t think that human rights should by extended to pedophiles to seduce minors – even when the minor is amenable - nor to the billionaire who wants to marry 100 young girls. There are certain behaviors and lifestyles that government should not promote. In fact, every law that we have on the books is a statement about certain behaviors that government will not tolerate, and many for good reason. (Perhaps NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s assault against soft drinks is a notable exception.)

Sadly, those who stand in the way of this modernistic, permissive understanding of “human rights” are equated with bigots:

• I call upon the people of the United States to eliminate prejudice everywhere it exists, and to celebrate the great diversity of the American people

The White House would not have been so dismissive, intolerant, and polarizing if it had instead written that it desired its own philosophy to prevail for such-and-such reasons. However, it has divisively taken the stance that the opposing opinions represent “prejudice.”

This language is inflammatory. It signals that those who hold such opinions are prejudiced and should be silenced. Thus the call to “eliminate prejudice everywhere it exists!”

All of this is done in the name of “human rights.” However, this administration fails to acknowledge that our human rights find their origin in our Creator, as specified in the Declaration of Independence:

• All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…

If government has the authority to grant such rights, it also has the authority to repeal them. This of course would mean that our rights aren’t “unalienable,” but conditioned upon the whim of those in power. Subsequently, whatever government deems as right, is right, if there is no higher Authority – the absolute Law-Giver. And according to no traditional religion has He established the right of SSM.

However, this administration is making its “human rights” appeal to the nations of the world based upon principles that necessarily transcend those nations and their traditions and legal codes they want to change. Therefore, this administration is speaking for God without any proof that it has the authority or authorization to do so.

And it is not just those who are in opposition who are being tarred with the label of “prejudice.” This policy also represents a charge against the Book that supports this “prejudice.” Indeed, the Apostle Paul had warned:

• Therefore God gave them [those who rejected Him] over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. (Romans 1:24-29

Such writing and thinking is now labeled “prejudice,” even though every major traditional religion would agree with Paul’s stance. It also reflects the modernistic chauvinism that “What we believe represents progress over former ideas.”

If the Bible’s teaching in favor of traditional marriage exclusively is bigoted, then there needs to be some open and public discussion on the subject. However, our permissive society is increasingly intolerant of such discussion. Even worse, we are now equated with “Nazis,” who must be silenced.

Oddly, the release concludes by invoking “our Lord”:

• I have hereunto set my hand this first day of June, in the year of our Lord…

One can only wonder, “Which Lord is ‘our Lord?’”

A Letter to a Friend Struggling with the Issue of Same-Sex Marriage

You raise several important issues. Let me just respond to the one that I think is at the crux of the confusion:

• “In my opinion, the state CANNOT, by the laws as set out in the Constitution and by the equality statements in The Declaration of Independence, deny anyone certain rights that they give to others.”

Even though we would agree with the Declaration that we are all created equal, this doesn’t mean that the State can’t discriminate behaviorally. The State exercises the right to disqualify certain people from driving based upon their age, performance and driving record.

In fact, all laws discriminate. Therefore, the question must be whether or not they discriminate justly and in a way that promotes the general welfare. This should also pertain to the institution of marriage.

The State has always exercised discrimination in regards to marriage, divorce and child custody issues – and yes, their authority ultimately comes from God in all areas. The State has understandably discriminated against polygamous marriage, pedophile marriage, incestuous marriage and forcibly arranged marriage.

Should the State not be involved? Should someone be able to start a business marrying 100 young girls from Moldavia in order to give them residential and monetary benefits? Should parents be prevented from marrying off their 5-year-old girls to a billionaire for money and so he can have sex-slaves? Of course not!

What would be the long range impact of instituting gay marriage? Can any society survive such an institution?

• For example, in Norway, a country that has had de-facto same-sex marriage since the early nineties, illegitimacy is exploding. In Nordland, the most liberal county of Norway, where they fly gay “rainbow” flags over their churches, illegitimacy has soared—more than 80 percent of women giving birth for the first time do so out of wedlock, and nearly 70 percent of all children are born out of wedlock. Across the entire country of Norway, illegitimacy rose from 39 percent to 50 percent in the first decade of same-sex marriage. http://www.allaboutlove.org/same-sex-marriage-countries.htm

• But it’s not just Norway. Blankenhorn reports this same trend in other countries. International surveys show a mutually re-enforcing relationship between same-sex marriage and illegitimacy. Natural marriage is weakest and illegitimacy strongest wherever same-sex marriage is legal.

  

• [Blankenhorn]: “redefining marriage to include gay and lesbian couples would eliminate entirely in law, and weaken still further in culture, the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child.”…He goes on to warn that if same-sex marriage is adopted, the claim that “every child needs a father and a mother” will probably be viewed as “divisive and discriminatory, possibly even as hate speech.”

 • Furthermore, homosexual activists are fighting to change marriage laws because they know that there is a causal connection between law and behavior. As people like Sullivan and Signorile have admitted, they don’t want to change the law so they can get married, but because they know that a change in the law will change the attitudes and behaviors about marriage and homosexuality for all of society.

Will this nation profit from such a change?