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by Dennis Peacocke
March 2012
Secular society is committing suicide in its attempt to keep Judeo-Christian values out of the public square. As it gains momentum in its crusade, the cultures of the Western World are manifesting the results:
·Economic crisis due to the values corruption of the economic system’s financial leaders
·Seriously declining birthrates contributing to the de-funding of post-World War II workers’ retirement systems
·Massive disintegration of the family unit with half of marriages ending in divorce, nearly half of children being born out of wedlock, and the ever-growing tendency for couples to choose living together
·The increasing loss of moral capital with which to challenge the other religions of the world to seriously consider Christ’s values and principles as the solution to mankind’s greatest needs
Where does secularism expect the values required to hold society together to come from? Surely not the political parties, whose supreme value is the pragmatism of winning elections. Perhaps they are looking for them to come from their “sanitized” public school systems where spiritual values are illegal to discuss, and their supreme moral value is the toleration of virtually all people’s opinions and values as being equivalent in virtue simply because they are held with “sincerity”. Maybe it is from the Universities who view religion and its values as the superstitions of weak people incapable of living in the reality of logic and reason?
Could it be that they expect the sacrifices required to produce virtue and excellence and sustainable relationships will come from the world of media, contemporary music, and the movie industry? Maybe its the labor unions? Could it be that they have no greater faith than to believe man as an evolving organism has within his own Darwinian self the innate capacity to self-regulate with values that magically appear out from his benign drive for the survival of the fittest? It is a mystery indeed, all sarcasm aside.
In secularism’s demand that all spiritual virtues or religious sentiments be kept outside of the creation and management of man’s social systems and remain in the realm of one’s private conscience or contained religious services, it is guaranteeing its own demise. However, beyond all these criticisms and observations, one very painful fact remains; the Church has permitted it to be so by its own privatized preoccupations and its relative failure to seriously and energetically disciple the nations as Christ commanded in the so-called Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20. There have been exceptions to this to be sure, but the statement nevertheless holds for the majority of Christianity. We have not loved our neighbor as ourselves or we would have been far more concerned for their welfare.
Now, the consequences of secularism’s value vacuum have emerged in the one place all of mankind’s hearts are nearly universally linked- our wallets. Economics and our hearts are tied together for multiple reasons, many of them legitimate and necessary- food, shelter, clothing, health care, education, and general provision being the most basic. So what are we Christians going to do to change the situation? That, my friends is the question and……the bottom line.