(NOTE: This lengthy article originally appeared as a three-part series on the website Intellectual Conservative
and May 26, 2015 at http://intellectualconservative.com/the-tyranny-of-radical-secularism-part-3-of-3/
.
Here is the first installment of that same three-part series.)
The War of the Words
Let’s take the first misused term, “secularism,” first. Radical
secularists have so thoroughly distorted the terms “secularism” and “secular”
that they have become the equivalent of the term “non-religious.” But that is not
the original meaning of the words or what our nation’s devout Christian
Founders understood them to mean. They used the term “secular” simply to
distinguish civil society or the state from religious bodies or the Church.
Something that is distinct from something else is not necessarily the enemy of
that other thing. Yet that is what we have been trained to think in the modern
age. Religion and society, faith and reason, faith and science, love and truth,
public and private life, the spiritual and material worlds, are now commonly
regarded as polar opposites, as inherently contradictory and opposing realms
that must be hermetically sealed off from each other. For its own good, each
must supposedly occupy its own tightly defined sphere of influence and not be
allowed to interfere in any way with the operation of the other.
This great divorce between distinct realms that are in fact
mutually compatible, complementary, and interdependent is a bitter fruit of the
relativistic and materialistic philosophies that increasingly dominate our post-modern
society and that provide a basis for the destructive totalitarian ideology of
radical secularism. Relativism, of course, is the irrational idea that there is
no such thing as absolute religious, moral or spiritual truth, whether
accessible to human reason alone or divinely revealed. Rather than being gifts
of God and paths to absolute truth that tend to unite mankind, faith, morality,
spirituality, and reason are viewed as purely human attempts to impose order on
a chaotic and meaningless cosmos. In this great sea of relativistic truth, it’s
up to each individual to decide for himself or herself, in a hermetically
sealed vacuum, what to believe (if anything) and what is morally right and
wrong. The only absolute truth that can be known for certain by all humanity is
what can be discovered about the material world through scientific research.
And there we have just defined materialism—the even more irrational idea that
nothing exists beyond what we can see and hear and measure and quantify.
Relativism pushes God out of the picture, while materialism denies his
existence a priori.
These two unreasonable atheistic philosophies, which
contradict human experience and common sense, form the backbone of the
radically secularist ideology that is now infecting our nation. This
totalitarian ideology carries within itself the potential to destroy American
society in the following three stages: First, by making the world seem
unintelligible and meaningless and preventing us from living the fully
integrated, harmoniously complete lives that our Creator intends us to live;
second, by isolating individual human beings within themselves, cutting them
off from each other and from their Creator; and third, by destroying the
religious and moral foundations on which our nation is built.
Next comes the much-misunderstood and much-abused term
“freedom.” In their self-constructed parallel universe closed off from God and
devoid of absolute moral truth, militant secularists understand freedom as the
unlimited right of each individual person to do whatever he or she wants to do.
In their view, no external religious precepts, moral laws, spiritual
guidelines, legal restrictions, cultural traditions, or any other kind of
constraints may be imposed on human behavior because these would automatically infringe
on human freedom. Having kicked God out of the picture, each individual person
becomes a fully autonomous, all-sufficient god, freely deciding on his or her
own absolute and final authority what is good and what is evil. Radical
secularists denounce Christianity, with its absolute religious doctrines and moral
teachings, as the great enemy of human freedom, claiming that the Christian
religion and Judeo-Christian moral code must be jettisoned if America
This warped, erroneous, and dangerous view of human freedom is
radically different from the traditional Christian and Western concept of ordered
liberty that shaped the worldview of our nation’s Founders. They saw human
freedom as a gift from God and understood it as the ability to act in accord
with the natural moral law. They understood that each of us bears a moral
responsibility to God and to each other for how we use our freedom. And they
knew that religion and morality are what make a nation truly free. Grounded in
the false philosophies of relativism and materialism, the radically secularist
concept of freedom is irrational because, instead of liberating human beings,
it enslaves them within themselves. Moreover, their theory cannot be put wholly
into practice: even extreme secularists are forced to abide by certain laws and
requirements imposed by our government for their own good and the good of the
whole society. Any attempt to fully implement their distorted anarchic notion
of freedom in the real world would result in total chaos, from which a
totalitarian dictatorship would swiftly rise up to restore order. Thus, instead
of leading to the Promised Land of genuine freedom as its adherents claim, the
radically secularist ideology leads inescapably to the utter destruction of
human freedom.
The third term being misused by secularist fanatics—this one
with almost laughable irony—is “tolerance.” Tolerance by definition is a
positive thing: according to the World English Dictionary, it is “the
acceptance of the differing views of other people, for example, in religious or
political matters, and fairness toward the people who hold these different
views.” Acceptance and fairness are the two key elements of tolerance; both of them
flow from basic Christian principles of justice and charity, and both are grounded
in the innate dignity and inalienable rights of the human person which
Christianity upholds. Therefore, without Christianity, there would be no such
thing as tolerance, properly understood.
Unfortunately, as with “secularism” and “freedom,” radical
secularists have twisted the concept of tolerance completely out of shape,
transforming it into a negative thing that actually justifies their bullying
tactics. Their warped view of tolerance is based on the dangerous idea that Christianity
must not be allowed to play its traditional role as the dominant force shaping
modern American politics, culture, and society. Secularist zealots see the
Christian religion as the great enemy of tolerance (and thus of human society
in general), and therefore they exhibit a profoundly nasty and increasingly
blatant intolerance toward it and its followers. Here again, the radically
secularist bigots have things precisely backwards. It is thanks to the
Christian religion that they have the right to speak their minds in public—a
right they constantly abuse to heap vitriol on Christianity and poison the
thinking of the general public. Radical secularism is the most intolerant and
tyrannical ideology the world has ever seen. Its cruel and doctrinaire
adherents are bound and determined to impose their false and distorted
worldview on the rest of us. They unrelentingly demand lock-step conformity to
their destructive ways of thinking and acting. And yet, despite all this, we’re
supposed to believe that their pernicious quest to eliminate all religious—and especially
Christian—symbols and references from American public life is driven by “tolerance”
for other viewpoints. What these devious fundamentalists really mean by that
word is tolerance of every religion except Christianity.
This brings us to the fourth term stolen and hijacked by the
militant secularists, “pluralism.” They use this term (which is synonymous with
their own favored term, “multiculturalism”) to mean that the fundamental Christian
and European elements of American culture must surrender their privileged
status and take their place as equals alongside Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist,
Animist, New Age, Asian, African, Latin American, Oceanic, and any and all other
minority cultural elements. In their view, a truly “pluralistic” society is a
homogenized blend of all religions and cultures within it. Radical secularists
insist that all religions and cultures should equally contribute to influencing
our national life. The twin errors of moral relativism and religious syncretism
lie at the bottom of this multicultural directive. Moral relativism is the idea
that moral absolutes do not exist and that no single moral system should guide
American conduct. Religious syncretism is the idea that all religions are of
equal value and that no single religion should be the dominant influence on
American culture and public life. As a pluralistic society and as a nation of
immigrants, we should indeed welcome the opportunity for cultural enrichment
presented by the variety of peoples, religions, and cultures that make up the
kaleidoscope of modern American life. However, this does not mean that we must
submerge or abandon our fundamental identity as a Christian and Western nation.
In fact, it is that very identity that allows our nation to be pluralistic in
the first place: The values of freedom, tolerance and respect for human rights
that we so highly prize in American culture flow from the Christian religion
and the Judeo-Christian moral system. Thus Americans who hail from different religious
and cultural backgrounds should (as most do) respect our traditional cultural identity
as a Christian and Western nation.
Radical secularists, however, deny and dismiss the obvious fact
that European Christianity is the basis of our cultural diversity. They believe
(in their hermetically sealed soap bubbles) that freedom, tolerance and respect
for human rights can just as easily exist and flourish in a multicultural soup devoid
of Christian and European underpinnings. Thus they are hard at work
transforming our Christian and Western country into a “multicultural” country. The
radically secularist multiculturalists profess firm faith (on what basis?) in
the absolute equality of all human cultures, and the gospel of multiculturalism
has been faithfully proclaimed to all Americans by President Obama in these
words: “We are no longer just a Christian nation. We are also a Jewish nation,
a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation and a nation of
nonbelievers.” The absurdity of such a statement is readily apparent. Regardless
of the religious and cultural variety that may exist within it, each nation has
and evinces a predominant religious and cultural identity. Take away that predominant
identity, and the nation as we know it would cease to exist. If Israel was not
a Jewish country, what kind of country would it be? If India was not a Hindu
country, what kind of country would it be? Along with their substantial Jewish
and Hindu majorities, both countries feature an amazing variety of different
cultures, religious traditions and ethnic groups. Yet we call Israel a Jewish
nation despite the fact that only about 75 percent of Israelis are Jewish, and
we call India a Hindu nation despite the fact that only about 80 percent of
Indians are Hindu.
No one dares to suggest that Israel should submerge its Jewish
identity into a Jewish-Muslim-Christian soup or that India should abandon its
Hindu identity and become a Hindu-Muslim-Sikh-Buddhist-Christian-Jain nation. Yet
when it comes to the United
States
Finally, we come to that well-known phrase “separation of
Church and state,” which has become the chief weapon of the radically
secularist crusaders in their all-out war on America’s Christian roots. By
establishing a secular republic, the founders never intended that religious and
civil institutions should be completely walled off from each other, occupying
separate and non-overlapping spheres of influence. They simply intended that
our national government—which would deal primarily with political, economic,
and military matters—would not be run or controlled by any particular religious
institution. They never intended that our government be indifferent to
religion, much less nonreligious or even hostile toward religion. One searches
the writings of the founders in vain for any reference to the idea of an
absolute “separation of Church and state.” In fact, only a single isolated
mention of this phrase was made in a letter of Thomas Jefferson.
On the contrary, as educated men and as Christians, the
founders knew well that religious and civil authority both come from God and
fulfill complementary roles in human society. People are by nature religious,
and civil government is needed to maintain an orderly society. Since both
religion and civil society are human needs, some mutual overlap between the two
spheres is natural, normal, inevitable, and indeed essential to the proper
functioning of both. The state must fully respect the rights of the church, and
the church must be subject to the laws of the state in civil matters. By wisely
establishing an unofficially Christian nation with a constitutional republican form
of government, the Founders intended to preserve America’s Christian identity
while avoiding the abuses that a state religion could bring. According to Pope Emeritus
Benedict XVI: “The legitimate separation of Church
and State cannot be taken to mean that the Church must be silent on certain
issues, nor that the State may choose not to engage, or be engaged by, the
voices of committed believers in determining the values which will shape the
future of the nation…. Respect for the just autonomy of the secular sphere must
also take into consideration the truth that there is no realm of worldly
affairs which can be withdrawn from the Creator and his dominion.” [1]
A Christian Nation
Our identity as a Christian nation is rooted in the devout
Christian faith of the people who settled and founded this country. From the
first English Puritan Pilgrims who disembarked at Jamestown and Plymouth Rock in
the early 1600s to the later English, German, and Irish Protestant, Anglican,
and Catholic settlers of the 1700s, nearly all of the American colonists were
dedicated Christians who attended church regularly and practiced their faith
publicly. The main reason why most of them came to these shores was to live in
a land where they could worship God freely and practice their Christian faith openly
without fear of government interference. They freely, explicitly and
unapologetically expressed their Christian faith in the official governing documents
that they wrote and collectively adopted.
Our nation’s recorded Christian heritage begins with the
first words of the first document signed by an early band of American colonists:
The Mayflower Compact of 1620 began with the words, “In the Name of God, Amen,”
and stated that the purpose of the voyage was to found a colony “for the Glory
of God, and advancements of the Christian faith.” Our nation’s official
founding document, the Declaration of Independence, states that men “are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”; that “the laws of
Nature and of Nature’s God” entitle them to establish their own free and
independent nation; that the representatives of the thirteen states appeal “to
the Supreme Judge of the world” for the rectitude of their actions; and that
they pledge their lives, their fortunes and their sacred Honor “in support of
this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence”.
In the Pledge of Allegiance, we call ourselves “one nation under God.” Our official national anthem, “The Star-Spangled
Banner,” as well as our other great patriotic hymns “America the Beautiful,” “My
Country ‘Tis of Thee” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” are eloquent and fervent
prayers to God rooted in biblical Christianity that acknowledge His sovereignty
over our nation. Our official national motto, engraved on our currency since
the mid-1800s, is “In God We Trust.” The oath of office, which is taken on a
Bible, includes the prayer, “So help me God.” Each session of the Supreme Court
is opened with the prayer, “God save the United States and this Honorable
Court.” A public prayer is offered at each presidential inauguration. Every single
U.S. president has professed the Christian faith and invoked God’s blessing on
our nation in his public addresses. Prayer, Bible reading, and displays of the Ten Commandments were common
in public schools until the 1960s (and still would be today were it not for
some misguided court rulings driven by the radically secularist ideology). And
thousands of town hall meetings across the country each year still regularly begin
with a prayer. Never mind the unfounded claims of extreme secularist naysayers:
the Christian religion is truly woven deeply into the fabric of our nation.
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