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
good one!
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