Secular Humanism’s Failure As A Worldview

From the desk of Gary DeMar:

John Dunphy is a self-avowed Secular Humanist. He is best known for this statement first published in 1983 in The Humanist magazine:

“I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level—preschool day care or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new—the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent in its promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of “love thy neighbor” will be finally achieved.”

As you can see, Dunphy is a worldview thief. He steals from the Christian worldview—“love thy neighbor”—so he can prop up his man-centered worldview that cannot account for either love or neighbors given the assumptions of atheistic, evolutionary humanism. Since the beginning of evolutionary time organisms have eaten their “neighbors” with no regard for either law or morality.

Continue reading. . . .

Secularism Indicted

Harry Blamires writes:

We cannot make sense of adult life with the mental equipment of the child. We cannot afford to carry into adult life a Christian consciousness so under-nourished and anemic that we slide into accepting faddish convenience recipes for worldly well-being as our daily diet. The evidence is that when the time comes for getting to grips with the Christian faith as adults and not as children, many of our contemporaries abandon their faith. They were early spoon-fed on the milk of the word, but in adulthood they discard the nourishment as babyish, and assume that there is no more to be said. Meanwhile, professing believers, men and women who perhaps make great steps forward in other spheres of life, all too often succumb to the epidemic of anorexia religiosa which destroys all appetite for progress in Christian understanding and commitment. (Recovering the Christian Mind, Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1988, 9)

“I Tremble For My Country”

Thomas Jefferson

Quoting Thomas Jefferson:

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is Just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

We Must Bear Witness Against Error

How many young ministers and Christian congregations are spoiled and ruined today by the influence of skepticism? The media sneers at religious principles and makes loud declarations of dislike for “denominations,” using vague phrases about the brotherhood of men, tolerance for all beliefs, and the imperative to recognize that what is true for me may not be true for you. Self-proclaimed “spiritual” leaders instruct us not to criticize false doctrines. Yet, we must not remain silent. Faith in the Word of God, and our love for the souls of men, demand that we bear witness against the errors of our day. As J. C. Ryle elaborates:

I know well that speaking plain about false doctrine is very unpopular, and that the speaker must be content to find himself being thought of as very uncharitable, very troublesome, and very narrow-minded. Thousands of people can never distinguish differences in religion. To the bulk of men a clergyman is a clergyman, and a sermon is a sermon, and as to any difference between one minister and another, or one doctrine and another, they are utterly unable to understand it. I cannot expect such people to approve of any warning against false doctrine. I must make up my mind to meet with their disapproval, and must bear it as I best can.

But I will ask any honest-minded, unprejudiced Bible reader to turn to the New Testament and see what he will find there. He will find many plain warnings against false doctrine:

“Watch out for false prophets” (Matthew 7:15).

“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy” (Colossians 2:8).

“Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings” (Hebrews 13:9).

“Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1).

He will find a large part of several inspired epistles taken up with elaborate explanations of true doctrine and warnings against false teaching. I ask whether it is possible for a minister who takes the Bible for his rule of faith to avoid giving warnings against doctrinal error? (“Pharisees and Sadducees”)