Feb 10, 2018 | Culture, Explanatory Power
In my previous post I dealt with why secularism might be appealing in our modern context. I argued that it’s not anything inherent in secularism that makes it more appealing than Christianity, but the cultural messaging machine that promotes it. That’s why it’s a paper tiger and can be no more enduring than was the Berlin Wall. Remember that for those of us who lived through the Cold War from the 60s through the 80s, the Berlin Wall appeared like an unalterable fact of existence we’d just have to live with for the foreseeable future. It certainly didn’t seem like a paper tiger, until Ronald Reagan came along. But now we know it was as brittle as the worldview that upheld it. Secularism is, I contend, no different. Why? Tomes have been written about what secularism is, why it will or will not endure, and why it is or is not a credible worldview. A measly little blog post can’t do any of that justice, but a few thoughts about the weakness of secularism as a worldview will have to suffice, and why it doesn’t ever have to appeal to our children.
The philosophical foundation of secularism is naturalism, or materialism, the view of existence that the material is all there is. The good news for Christians, and their children, is that such a view of reality is logically, rationally, and philosophically absurd. The cool kids, culturally speaking the secularist/naturalists as I wrote about in my last post, want to make us think that naturalism is the most obvious thing in the world, that only a religious obscurantist would think there might be some spiritual reality beyond what our five senses experience. But the more scientific knowledge advances, the less cool these kids become.
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Feb 4, 2018 | Culture
I ended my last post claiming that secularism is no less a paper tiger than the Berlin Wall. That’s quite an assertion in the face of a secular cultural hegemony that seems to approach absolute. Everywhere we look, people who claim the name of Christ are on the defensive. Many (most?) Christian parents feel insecure against the onslaught. It seems for many (most?) Christian parents that keeping their kids Christians in the face of such hostility is a challenge they might not be up to. The goal of my book and this blog is to convince them that this is not the case, at all. That we can have confidence is what inspired me to write the book. I finished the book where I began:
The conclusion I come to at the end is the conviction I started with at the beginning: Christianity is so powerfully credible that my children should never ever want to leave it, or even be slightly tempted to do so. God has revealed himself in so many compelling ways that it is inconceivable that a secular Western culture would be more appealing to our children than Christianity. God has provided us an over-abundance of resources to make the Christian Faith winsome, appealing, attractive, and compelling to our children. Thus, we should have every confidence that we can keep our kids Christian.
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Feb 3, 2018 | Notable Quotations
[I]t is God’s plan for us that we should walk through this world in great weakness—physical and spiritual—so that we might never forget our desperate need for the one who walked this path perfectly in our place. His primary goal is not our perfect obedience and success, which might allow us to claim some of the glory for ourselves. His goal is Christ’s glory, which becomes all the more visible through our great weakness, and even through our ongoing struggles with indwelling sin.
—Ian Duguid, “Victory through Suffering, “ Modern Reformation Magazine, July 2016
Jan 26, 2018 | Culture
As I stated in my last post, The Berlin Wall is a great metaphor for the current reigning worldview in the West, secularism. My thesis: Secularism is a deeply flawed and weak explanation for the nature of reality. Correctly understood, we don’t need to fear secularism as a threat to the faith of our children. Thus we can have confidence that we can keep our kids Christian.
Secularism as pushed by Western cultural elites is a faith (i.e., a religious) commitment to a world without God. The secularist won’t tell you that you can’t or shouldn’t believe in God (as a good post-modern relativists you can believe anything you want as long as it floats your boat—”true for you but not for me”), but that belief must stay withing the walls of your church or home. The reason secularism is so pernicious is not because of it’s “doctrines” or what it asserts, but because of what it assumes: a reality where God is optional. The secular worldview in ways large and small, overt and covert, is presented as the default position (worldview) of enlightened, educated, rational, and reasonable people. It is assumed as superior because it is ostensibly “scientific,” and thus not in need of “faith,” which of course religious people need because they lack “evidence” for what they believe.
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Jan 22, 2018 | Culture
On the evening the title of this post came to mind, I’d been interacting with a possible publisher for the book. They have a concern with what appears my excessive confidence that we, Christians, can keep our kids Christian. Having read just the first few chapters and my proposal, it didn’t surprise me that they found my confidence problematic. To see if my confidence really is excessive, I suggested it’s necessary to read the argument I make throughout the book. I think it’s not excessive, but fair-minded people could certainly disagree. We’ll find out. Which brings me to secularism, and what will obviously have to be multiple blog posts as I address it.
Christians face a certain, unique reality in the 21st Century West (post-Constantine and the development of “Christendom”), one that has been brewing for hundreds of years. This reality, one that has everything to do with the confidence I speak of, is secularism of a certain kind. It is important to understand the distinction between the healthy secularism of government not being run by a state church, and the very unhealthy secularism of a worldview in which God is at best persona non Grata. You can find a great historical overview of how we got to this point in Hunter Baker’s The End of Secularism. Originally, as Baker argues, secularism was a reaction to the protracted wars of religion in Europe, and the idea of a Christian state that led to those wars. All religion and politics did when combined was create strife and misery. Secularism’s proponents had the benign intention of creating civil peace by getting religion, or The Church, out of the governing business. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there, and thus the secularism I address in these posts.
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