Will Christians Arise to Confront Humanism?[1]

Robert L. Waggoner

Many people seem to be unaware that our whole culture now operates more by the values of the philosophy of secular humanism than it does by the principles of biblical Christianity. Whereas our national forefathers considered themselves to have founded a country which was based upon the precepts of the Christian religion, many national leaders are now declaring that our nation should be based upon no religion – not realizing that all laws, by their very nature, have religious foundations. For such persons, the ideal is that a nation and its institutions should be founded upon humanistic, not divine, precepts.

American Christianity seems to demonstrate little power to resist the assaults of modern secular humanism. This is partially because American Christianity seems content to apply religion only to personal, family and church life, and not also toward culture, education, law and other national institutions. Even though a majority of people in the United States profess to be Christian, the quality of American Christianity seems to be so weak that it often seems not the same as the Christianity of the Bible.

The philosophical conflict that now creates stress in the country is not really worthy of consideration if it is considered between secular humanism and American Christianity, or between secular humanism and historical Christianity, or even between secular humanism and denominational Christianity. These forms of Christianity, if they may be called such, have no absolute standard of authority to defend their particularities. Rather, the issue is between secular humanism and biblical theism. Here, the biblical text, the word of God, especially the New Testament, is absolute authority by which all professed Christians may refute and overthrow the concepts and values of secular humanism.

The cultural, educational, and legal tensions in this country, created by the conflict between these two worldviews, will not cease until one philosophy wins over the other. All who consider themselves Christian therefore need to understand the perspectives of biblical theism and recognize how they sharply conflict with the ideology of secular humanism. Theists must not only understand the nature of this conflict, but must also get involved in every area of the conflict, to implement or reinforce theistic values, and to overthrow the values of secular humanism in all social and cultural institutions. Church leaders must therefore realize the situation and train Christians to meet this challenge. Failure to do so may result in the diminishing, if not the abolition, of biblical Christianity throughout the nation.