Secularism

In a continuation of my post on Monday, Isms, Addictions and Culture, I am reflecting on the dangers facing our culture today.  Last time I considered the concept of Humanism. Today I am considering the dangers of Secularism…

Secularism tries to separate government operations from religious influences.  While this makes a great deal of sense to some degree, there are aspects of government which must be considered in light of morality and morality is very often informed by religious doctrine and personal faith convictions. There is no way to completely separate the two anymore than we can separate our hearts from our brains. In our society today, we are bending toward government rights without the involvement of religious convictions.  Notice how many time citizens have voted for a particular state policy and then been over ruled by local, state, or national judges. If people are not allowed to inform the nation through their religious convictions then we slide right into humanism. Once people accept that we do not have the right to shape our laws by our religious convictions, we are no longer a free country.  There has been no active overthrow of our rights as citizens, we have simply allowed them to be taken out of our hands.  We may feel badly about this, but we fear the consequences of confrontation, so we acquiesce.  We insist that we have religious convictions, but we can’t help living in a society which no longer reflects them.

This is scenario should frighten us for it leads to some dark territory. As Dietrich Von Hildebrand once stated in a 1937 article “…the uplifting greatness and importance of human existence, only becomes apparent against the backdrop of the dialogue between man and God, where the need for redemption and the dependence of man on God is clearly grasped…” (My Battle Against Hitler) Once we deny the community of humanity under God, we eventually deny humanity’s intrinsic worth. Do we really want to go there?