The Secular Trojan Horse

I encountered a pro-choice argument that went something like this: "The pro-life position is a religious position and therefore has no role in public debate."

The argument rests on two false premises. The first premise is that the secular world belongs in the public world of facts while the religious world belongs in the private world of opinions and preferences. For the secular humanist, any position that is religiously informed ought to be excluded from public debate. In effect, the opposition can be silenced if its position is framed as religious. It's a clever form of censorship. In the abortion debate you may hear someone say something like, "I personally would never have an abortion (private, religious) but I'm not going to tell a woman what to do with her body. (public, secular)." This sentiment is indicative of someone who has grown up in the secular culture where this false dichotomy is neither questioned nor examined. Many, if not most, Christians have imbibed some form of this postmodern dichotomy.

The other premise (which the first is dependent upon) is the idea that the secular point of view is not religious. I would argue that secular humanists are just as dogmatic and religiously informed as anyone else. The anti-science transgender movement illustrates the religious nature of today's secular humanists. Gender designation is now by faith and not by sight. Nevermind the genitals, beards, testosterone-infused body structures, and DNA. Gender, in the secular world, is now regarded as a subjective taste relegated to personal preference. This smacks of religion.

Consider the secular stress on equality. Equality is a religious belief. Should supporters of human equality not have a public say on the matter since their position is religious? While the Christian has a theological basis for promoting equality the secularist does not. Do the ideas of the secular saint Charles Darwin not imply that certain breeds of the same species might be more likely to survive and are therefore superior to their kin? In order to maintain a belief in equality secular humanists must borrow from the theology of their religious neighbors.

Consider some of the faith-based assumptions in the scientific community. Naturalism, which under-girds the secular-scientific approach, is the idea that everything in the universe can be explained by natural causes. Is that not an item of faith? What about science itself? Is science not built upon the dogma that the universe is ordered and that it is governed by fix laws? Science rests on the assumption that there is law, order, and uniformity in the universe. These assumptions require a leap of faith.

Not only are the pet secular dogmas faith-based but so is the secular reaction to those who challenge their dogmas. Discussion is not permitted and those who waver from secular dogma are branded as haters (heretics). In the secular environment of the university there seems to be an uptick of thought policing and censorship resembling the methodology of witch-hunting inquisitors.

Secular humanists once understood that they preached dogma. Consider the first and second theses of the Humanist Manifesto written in 1933: "First: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-creating and not created. Second: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process." Interesting. Notice the prominence of the words "religious" and "believe." At least they were honest back then.

That was 1933. Today the semantics have changed. Secular humanism is now sold to the public as the neutral position. This is their Trojan horse. By pretending to not be religious they give themselves the only legitimate voice in the public sphere. The inhabitants of the horse now control the culture, media, higher education and even mainline Christianity.

To see the secular Trojan horse in action consider the history of Princeton University. Princeton was initially a Presbyterian school set up to train students in theological matters. The first professors were ministers. In recent years one of Princeton's more notorious professors, Richard Rorty, candidly said the following,“The goal of education is to help these youth escape the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents…. We are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable.” The Princeton Presbyterians allowed the secular Trojan horse into their gates and as a result they have been replaced and pushed out by the likes of Richard Rorty. The same thing has occurred in most American colleges and universities.

There are two things that Christians need to do to protect themselves from the secular Trojan horse. First, we need to unmask the horse. The secularists need to be exposed for what they are: religious adherents, and some could rightly be labeled as fanatic iconoclasts.

Second, we need to stop playing their game and following their rules. Why should secular humanists be allowed the neutral position? Why should they be allowed to push their dogmas in the public world? Why should we allow this secular, postmodern mindset to strip the Christian faith of its objective claims to truth?

Secular humanists are wolves in sheep's clothing. They are bent on consuming the sheep and taking over the pen. Christians have done very little about it. The temptation is to safely hunker down in our pens and ignore the ravishing of the other pens. But when the wolves invade, it will be too late. A couple will sneak into the pen, one will hold the gate open for the other wolves and then the sheep will be gone.

Trumping Truth

The 1966 cover of Time: IS GOD DEAD? sparked considerable controversy. Fifty years later Time will soon launch a similar cover which asks if TRUTH IS DEAD? The catalyst for the cover: President Trump.

Forget Trump for a moment. Did Time unwittingly connect the death of truth to the death of God? Does eliminating God eliminate any hope for objective truth? Observers have described the last several decades as postmodern. Postmodernism suggests that there is no absolute truth, that truth is relative. Before postmodernism, if I had a truth claim someone may challenge the truthfulness of my claim. In postmodern times, if I have a truth claim someone may challenge the fact that I have a claim to truth! This has been especially true in the realm of religion and morality.

Consider a metaphor from Kurt Vonnegut's postmodern novel, Cat's Cradle. The novel centers around a terrifying man-made substance called "ice-nine" which remains a solid at room temperature. When ice-nine comes into contact with water it turns the property of water into solid ice-nine. Place ice-nine on your tongue and all the liquid in your body freezes. Pour ice-nine into the ocean and all water connected to the ocean would soon become solid wiping out all life on earth.

Was eliminating God the ice-nine that began to erode truth? And why would the relativism of ice-nine end with religion and morality? Would it not eventually spread to any and all truth claims?

Several decades ago, Francis Schaeffer observed that faith, values and morals were sequestered and isolated into the irrational private sphere of non-truth while reason and science were allowed to remain in the rational public sphere of truth. Faith and religion were relegated to the world of relativism while reason and secularism remained in the world of facts and absolutes. Mainline Christian churches fell prey to this mindset as they bought into the idea that religion is subjective and personal, ignoring the fact that the Scriptures make a historical, objective claim to absolute truth.

Schaeffer argued that humans cannot live with a split between the secular and sacred. Humans cannot live like machines. In order to have meaning, humans must make a "leap of faith" from the rational world of secular facts to the irrational world of faith. Failure to make this leap results in a tension that can lead to nihilistic despair.

As humans leap from one sphere to the other the ice-nine of postmodernism infiltrates the secular sphere. Secular subjects like history, logic and science are falling prey to relativism. Secular truth, like sacred truth, is no longer objective but subjective. This means that I get to determine weather or not they are true for me. For example, if someone makes a scientific claim about gender differences and this claim does not fit my preferences then they are oppressing me. In today's postmodern world, claims to absolute truth are now viewed as oppressive power plays.  As Obi Wan Kenobi said, "Only Sith's deal with absolutes."

Are you absolutely sure about that Obi Wan?

Enter Sith Lord Trump. The Time article bemoans the fact that Trump doesn't seem concerned about the truth or that he is adjusting reality to fit his subjective and ideological views. Should this surprise anyone? The reason why progressives are so terrified of Trump is that they are now on the receiving end of  their own tactics. The ice-nine of postmodernism has boomeranged back on them. Trump has taken their tools and weapons and is effectively wielding them against the progressive mainstream. For example, after the election many progressives suggested that fake new sites helped Trump win the election. Rather than argue about the fakeness of news sites or their impact on the election Trump took the "fake news" grenade and hurled it back at his critics by calling the mainstream news fake.

Like it or not, we are in a new era where all truth is becoming subjective and as a result power determines truth. Trump is the new King Saul anointed by a reluctant and defeated religious right to wage war against the progressive Philistines. Unlike the religious right, Trump is not afraid to use the weapons of postmodernism.

The secular-progressive monopoly on truth is crumbling and I don't have much sympathy for them. They are the ones that unleashed the ice-nine postmodern  plague of relativism. They should look back at the March 1966 Time magazine cover and consider if that is when this all started.

Feminism's Final Wave

A few years ago I wondered if feminism was dead. The transgender movement seemed poised to inherit feminism's cultural waves. Girls would have to step off the high school softball field as transitioning male to female athletes stepped up to the plate with their biological advantages. Last year a transgender student made it to the Alaska state track meet which means that the young lady that finished behind him could not compete. There is a social justice pecking order and feminists are beginning to find themselves left behind in the world of social justice grievances. The feminist movement looks old, white and hopelessly binary. How can such a movement survive when Facebook allows you to choose from over 50 genders?

But wait, not so fast! A well-organized army of feminists flooded Washington D.C. like a pink tsunami. The choice of head-wear at the Women's March included hats that resembled reproductive organs and hijabs. For those who do not see the world through the social justice warrior lens the presence of hijabs alongside "pussyhats" seemed bizarre and out of place. While pro-life feminists were dis-invited from the march, Muslim feminists were readily accepted. Observers might scratch their heads as they consider the anti-abortion stance of most Muslims as well as the rights and status of women in Islamic societies. Saudi Arabia is the beating heart of Islam and also happens to be a place where women are publicly segregated and something as mundane as driving a car is frowned upon if you are female. Controversy erupted when Saudi women participated in the Olympics. An Islamic cleric likened the athletes to prostitutes.

The most noticeable leader of the Women's March was a Muslim woman who lamented the fact that sharia law was not welcome in the United States. Her name is Linda Sarsour, a daughter of Palestinian immigrants and an activist who pushed for NYC public schools to close for certain Islamic holidays. Linda was invited to be a leader of the event. I assumed that those who invited her to the march were white women who didn't want the march to be about white women. After doing a quick Wikipedia search on the organizers my suspicions were confirmed. The white organizers of the march were quick to hide behind minority individuals.

All of this points to a new social justice movement known as intersectionality. Feminists have adapted intersectionality as a way to survive the ever-evolving world of social justice causes. Intersectionality is a term used to describe the way that various social advantages or disadvantages overlap. The following video is an instructional piece that uses pizza to describe intersectionality:

The problem with your typical feminists is that they look super privileged when they walk about with their $4 Starbucks and their homemade, hand-knitted "pussyhats." According to the video they are nothing but "cheese pizzas." Feminism is thus allowed to survive as long as it checks its historical privilege and couples itself with other victim groups (or other pizzas in their fight against a world run by burgers). The Women's March, while predominantly white, was careful to include various minority, trans, and lesbian groups. Without intersctionality the feminist movement would be cannibalized or co-opted by those who are higher up on the social justice scale.

Social justice warriors also breathed life into feminism because it is politically useful. They can build a case against President Trump based upon sexism and Islamophobia. Trump is not as vulnerable on issues related to race, homosexuality and transgenderism. Currently, victimizing Muslims and women is politically expedient, but that could all change with a shift of the political winds. By the way, whatever happened to the BLM movement?

What intersectionality gives it can also take away. Beneath the social justice veneer of solidarity is paranoia and infighting. There are signs that social justice warriors are beginning to turn their weapons on each other (cheese pizza vs. deluxe pizza). A cannibal can survive with other cannibals as long as they're not competing for resources. If feminists are not careful they may find themselves next on the dinner plate as their social scale tips from victim to privileged.

A Church that Reads the Koran

A few years ago Luther's church in Germany began their Reformation service with a call to worship from an Islamic minister. A lone German woman protested from the balcony. Her testimony is in the video clip below:

The disease has apparently spread to Scotland where an Episcopalian cathedral celebrated the Epiphany of Jesus with a reading from the Koran. The lector read about the annunciation of Jesus from the Koran in Arabic. Within the Koran's annunciation of Jesus is the anti-Christian teaching that Allah (God) could not have a son. The Koran also describes Jesus talking as an infant, a tradition which Mohammad inherited from the Gnostic sects that inhabited the once diverse area of Arabia.

This church is not interested in the teachings of Christ but in cultural acceptance. Their goal is more political than spiritual and it spills over into their sermons. An excerpt from the Christmas sermon likened King Herod to Donald Trump:

But Herod didn’t manage to kill the Christ child, didn’t manage to kill hope, didn’t manage to wipe out love either.And neither will Trump. Nor Putin. Nor any of the putative far right big men (or big women, that’s not impossible either) be able to wipe love out either.Love always wins.

The midnight mass sermon also began with a mention of Trump and Brexit.

I believe that people of Europe have three options: Christianity, Islam, or nationalism. I think that nationalism will check the Islamic surge and that it will be godless and brutal. Christians have stepped aside and in their eagerness to be agreeable to secularism they have rendered themselves irrelevant in Europe. Their desire to be acceptable will only allow evil to flourish. 

Perhaps it won't be nationalism. Perhaps apathy and inertia will allow Islam to finally take over Europe. If Europe becomes an Islamic continent the culture, languages, and rich history of Europe will disappear under Islam's heavy yoke. The cathedrals will become mosques and diversity will be a thing of the past. 

I think about the Hagia Sophia, that beautiful domed mosque in Istanbul. Was it built by Muslims? Was it designed to be a mosque? 

No, it was a church, a product of Christianity which was converted into a mosque in 1453. The dome architecture of Islamic mosques is not original to Islam but to an ancient, eastern Christianity which today is but a shadow of its former self and a warning to what will happen to a Christianity that compromises. 

   

Samaritans and Refugees

Is there a Biblical mandate to take in refugees? The pope recently declared that Christians who are against refugees and other religions are hypocrites.

Be good Samaritans. Support the refugees. Amen.

The pope shames others from behind his high Vatican walls dressed in fine linens and surrounded by luxury like the rich man in the story of poor Lazarus (Luke 16:19-21). The pope mentions that Jesus condemned hypocrisy more than other sin. The main hypocrites of Jesus' day were the Pharisees. They boasted about fasting, giving to the poor and following other religious rites to a tee. They dressed differently than everyone else. They were looked up to as an example pious living. They presumed to be an authority on the Word of God and lectured others on how they should live godly live. Sound familiar?

Okay, so the pope is a hypocrite. What about his claim about those defenders of the West who are against "refugees and other religions?" Consider the pope's words: "It's hypocrisy to call yourself a Christian and chase away a refugee or someone seeking help, someone who is hungry or thirsty, toss out someone who is in need of my help."

Has the pope considered that a Christian could be all about helping refugees while being against reckless refugee programs? A cautious approach to refugees is not the same as "chasing" someone away or "tossing" someone out. We also have a duty to our nations and to our neighbors in the West. The Good Samaritan found the wounded man on the road. He cared for his wounds and paid for his stay in the inn. He did not take the man back to his house and place him in a room across from his children. Christianity teaches us to love our neighbor, but it also teaches us to use discretion. You can care for the homeless but it does not mean that you have to let them sleep in your bedroom or have a say in the affairs of your household.

The pope also implies that the we should be accepting of all religions. Has the pope failed to notice that the heroes of the Bible smashed idols, expelled pagan worshipers, and cleansed the city of shrines dedicated to foreign gods? Has the pope failed to notice that some of the Bible's villains were leaders who allowed false gods in Israel? Leaders like Ahab and Ahaz tolerated the likes of Jezebel who in turn refused to tolerate the people of God. The religion of Islam carries such baggage as its participants are bound by the duty to support Sharia law, not only is Sharia law anti-Western but it is anti-Christian. The pope seems more interested in being the high priest of Babel rather than the high priest of the church of Christ.

I know of Christians who have reached out to refugee communities. New ministries spring up across the American landscape to serve both the physical and spiritual needs of refugees. They do this because they have been taught to love their neighbor as themselves. When we encounter them we love them as Christ loved us. We are also a citizen of a land, we have a duty to good stewards of our nations, we are to seek our nation's welfare and to pray for the authorities so that we may live in peace.