The Secular Creed

I have just finished reading The Secular Creed: Engaging Five Contemporary Claims written by Rebecca McLaughlin and published by The Gospel Coalition. In this small book, McLaughlin does a masterful job using reason and Scripture to refute five arguments from what some refer to as the secular humanist philosophy. The author handily rebuts the secular argument that belief in the God of the Bible is the cause of much of the corporate injustice and private anguish throughout human history. The secular humanist creed, says McLaughlin, has no basis for what it calls human rights; she correctly locates the foundation for all rights in the God who made everything.

It may be worthwhile to examine the title word, “creed.” This is not a word that is used much today. A dictionary lists as synonyms dogma, doctrine, and belief or faith. People familiar with mainline Protestant churches will recognize the word as many of them still recite the Apostle’s Creed regularly in their services. Many churches which don’t use the historic creed still have statements of faith which are creeds by another name. The church I grew up in treated the idea of a creed with disdain; we were taught to repeat, “No book but the Bible; no creed but Christ.” Of course, this too becomes a credal statement despite the denial.

 To say that a secular humanist has a creed is to point to an important fact: there are fundamental principles that undergird any organized system of thought. This is another way of saying that one’s worldview or philosophy forms the lens through which proponents see the world. As I have written many times, everyone has a worldview whether they know it or not. Many people would be at a loss to recite the main tenets of their governing philosophy, but one exists in spite of their ignorance. Identifying the basic premises behind any argument is essential to forming an opinion as to its validity.

This is what McLaughlin does so well in The Secular Creed. This is a timely book for Christians because we suffer criticism for our beliefs in personal confrontations and in the media almost daily. McLaughlin correctly points out that the “Christianity” we are being maligned for is typically not true Christianity at all. As I wrote in “I Don’t Believe in God,” the god being attacked by most atheists is not the God of the Bible. At the heart of the secular humanist argument is a straw man they have created so that they can destroy the false god they imagine.

In response to the humanists’ attacks through sexism, feminism, racism, and genderism, McLaughlin smashes their argument by establishing the fact that without a proper understanding of the God of the Bible, there would be no basis for human rights of any kind. This approach is not new, having been championed by many 20th century thinkers from C.S. Lewis to Francis Schaeffer. Lacking the moral foundation provided by the Judeo-Christian worldview, all secular philosophies devolve ultimately into nihilism. McLaughlin highlights this by recounting the heinous utilitarianism of Peter Singer and others.

Whereas her biblical defense of human rights is not new, the author’s development of the Scriptural theme of love caught my attention. To correct the secular credo that “Love is Love,” McLaughlin says that properly understood, God is love. She roots the idea of biblical love between persons in the creation order of man and woman entering a marriage relationship. She makes the point that this is an example of loving “the other,” much as loving your neighbor or loving the enemy would be. Male and female were created different yet complementary not only as imagers of the God who created them, but as foreshadows of the bride and groom relationship that would one day characterize Christ and the church.

McLaughlin characterizes same-sex physical relationships as perversions of the imago Dei God intended. Far from condemning same-sex attraction, she commends it as fulfilling the command to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. Clearly, however, that kind of agape love does not involve a physical relationship unless you count greeting one another “with a holy kiss.” The author maintains that the “one flesh” aspect instituted in the Garden of Eden is appropriate only within the marriage of a man and a woman. She contends that this unique relationship is supposed to reflect the loving relationship between humans and the one-and-only God who created and redeemed them. God often pictured His relationship with Israel as marital. Paul continues this analogy when he likens a husband’s love for his wife to the love of Christ for the church. Mess with the meaning of marriage, and you are destroying the supreme metaphor representing God’s love for His creation.

I should not have been surprised, then, when McLaughlin asserted that love of spouse is secondary to love of God. Of course, this must be true because the love one human has for another is so easily diluted by personal sinfulness and societal pressures causing it to become something other than the agape love which is required. Human love is too often either eros (physical only) or phileo (affection), and when either of those diminishes, the “loving” relationship can too readily be dismissed. Rightly understood, all human loving relationships must issue from the love of God which, “has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”

There is much more to say about The Secular Creed, but I will leave the remaining arguments McLaughlin throws against the other secular creeds for another time, or you can read them in full by obtaining a free digital copy of her book on The Gospel Coalition website. The thing that impressed me most about McLaughlin’s argument is the way she could legitimately see both sides, often even defend the “other side” for getting it right in contrast to a flawed Christian approach to the issue. If you will pardon a silly metaphor, we need to guard against throwing the banana out with the peel while being careful not to leave the peel where someone might slip on it. So, yes, I’ve gone bananas over this book. (Sorry)

Related posts: Disagree Agreeably; The Importance of Being Right

Creating Chaos

I have an unfortunate habit of creating chaos. By chaos I mean anything that does not follow God’s orderly plan for the universe. As I have written previously, when God created our world, He essentially brought order out of chaos. In Genesis Chapter One the Spirit of God was hovering over something that was empty and without form. When the voice of God thundered in His creative act, order was introduced into the chaos. Even the Hebrew metaphor of evening and morning marking the days echoes this idea. Evening is a time of darkness – a lack of certainty. Morning speaks of the coming of light and clarity. Theologians say God created “ex nihilo” or out of nothing. God spoke into the chaos of dark nothingness and created order.

When God created the first human, He ordered the elements found in the dust of the earth – the water, the minerals, the proteins, the amino acids – and then breathed the miracle of life into His creation. He then gave the first humans the responsibility to rule the Earth as His vice-regents. Name the animals; till the ground; spread the order across the globe. Sadly, Adam and Eve had other plans than to follow God’s direction. They wanted to determine how to order creation in their own way. As the record shows, this resulted in millennia of chaotic existence for the human race.

We all follow in Adam’s footsteps until we are reborn into God’s family by trusting the finished work of Christ on the cross. Even then we still tend toward chaos if we are not careful. There are three ways that I see this happening in my life. First, I sin, sometimes unconsciously and sometimes willfully. We all do, of course. John says if we say we don’t sin, we are liars. The good news John also reports is that if we confess our sins, God will forgive us. We also have the blessed hope that when Heaven and Earth become one again, God’s perfect order will be restored – no more sin.

The second way I create chaos is more subtle. I worry. This too may be sin if my worry stems from lack of faith. However, I believe that sometimes my worry is due to a character flaw that isn’t necessarily a transgression of God’s perfect order. It’s just a consequence of my humanity that has not yet been completely sanctified. Like so many others, what I do, as someone put it, is borrow trouble from tomorrow. I am an incorrigible what-iffer. What if it rains on the day of our picnic? What if inflation outpaces my income? What if I have misunderstood God’s will for my life? And so on endlessly. This creates unease and diminishes peace and disrupts the order God intends for me to live in. I still struggle to accept Paul’s blessed comfort: to be content in whatever state I am.

There is a third way I create chaos that I have come to believe is not sin at all, but rather it fulfills God’s purpose: I offend people. As I wrote recently in “When Being Right is Wrong,” I cannot help but offend some people because the proclamation of the truth will offend. My Lord is the Chief Corner Stone, but He is also the Stone of Stumbling, the Rock of Offense. This feature of Christ’s existence is not popular. Our politically correct society demands the removal of all offense. A believer who wants to be true to God’s will cannot comply. Outspoken Christians will find themselves thrown to the lions, just as Daniel was when he refused to bow to the king’s image. This chaos, this clash of kingdoms will continue until Christ returns to vindicate and rescue His bride.

There can be a positive result of this form of chaos for the believer. The Psalmist said, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I could learn your statutes.” This is the fruit of the contemplation mentioned earlier in the Psalm: “Though princes sit together speaking against me, your servant will think about your statutes; your decrees are my delight and my counselors.” When we know what is right, we have a duty to share it. If we are standing on the truth, we have to say with Martin Luther, “Here I stand; I can do no other.”

It sounds like an oxymoron, but chaos is a major part of God’s perfect order: orderly chaos? Perhaps I should say it's part of God’s plan to restore order. The Heavenly Father disciplines those He loves – creates chaos in their lives – for the purpose of perfecting them. Jesus promised His disciples that some of their enemies would come from their own households. He also said, not necessarily as hyperbole, that He came not to bring peace but a sword. The night before the most chaotic day in history, the Master comforted His followers with this: “In the world you will have [chaos] but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

Unity is a feature of the order God expects the church to show the world. Jesus prayed for it on the night He was betrayed. Paul encouraged it throughout his epistles. King David longed for it, though he new better than most that it was elusive. He wrote, “Look, how good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity.” Unity, like all graces, will not be complete until we are all glorified. While we wait for that blessed day, we should be, “eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

I note that Paul said it would be unity of the Spirit; this leaves open the possibility that we may not have unity of mind or affection. It gives tacit approval to differences of opinion and friction between different personality types, perhaps even denominational distinctions. What we cannot do is create chaos in the church over non-essential matters. Agreeing to disagree, accepting differences, unity not uniformity – that is what Jesus prayed for.

But still, I create chaos. I embrace chaos, not when it represents sin in my life, but when it signals the Kingdom of Light piercing the darkness. The Message puts it like this: “God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He’s set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.” Jesus rescued me from the chaos and placed me in His marvelous light. It’s my job to share that light even if it creates chaos.

Related posts: The Knowledge of Good and Evil; The Importance of Being Right; Bringing the Kingdom