Secular is not Neutral!

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Secular is not Neutral! By Geoff Chapman

September 30, 2014

A small, vociferous minority in Britain, headed by the National Secular Society, is campaigning to make our nation a secular state. Many people are being misled by the concept of secularism, believing that a secular state would be one in which people would be free to practise their religion, but where religious views would not be allowed to influence public policy or education.

ATHEISM IS ‘NON-TOLERANT’

However, this is a myth. In practice, secular does not mean neutral! One only has to read what the secularists and humanists write on their websites to realise that their picture of a secular society is one in which evolutionary views would be promoted as fact, whilst any criticism or questioning of evolution would be condemned as “religious”, particularly in education. Humanist Peer Matt Ridley recently claimed that faith is “a virus” which should have no place in education. He believes children needed to be protected from it, though he admitted that such a view was “intolerant, even bigoted”.1

  Lawyer Andrea Williams of Christian Concern, writes, “Secularism is NOT neutral — secularism is an ideology itself. It is also driven largely by atheism, another belief system. Atheism, in its rejection of God and its hostility towards Christianity, is a non-tolerant belief system which encompasses a very large terrain – often including the promotion of homosexual rights and other aspects of the prevailing political orthodoxy. There is nothing neutral in either atheism or secularism.”2

Some secularists even promote the illusion that secularism is the basis of our democracy. One writer claims: “The modern West is what it is largely because of secularism.”3

UTTERLY FALSE

History reveals that such a statement is utterly false. All our great social reforms were spearheaded by Christians, and the political and religious freedoms we take for granted sprang from these reform movements.  Vishal Mangalwadi, an Indian philospher, writer,  social reformer, and a former Hindu, wrote a book entitled “The Book that made your world.”4 In it he explains how the Bible transformed Europe and made the West a uniquely thinking civilisation; technical and tolerant, scientific and free, just and prosperous.  Mangalwadi also states the truth about the origins of science. “Many secularists associate the Bible with dogmatism, and science with skepticism or open-mindedness. Thus it is worth repeating that the West’s intellectual openness, which set it apart from Islam and Plato, is a result of Biblical theology… Science was not founded on the presupposition of God-less materialism.”5

DANGER OF LOSING BLESSINGS

Contrary to the claims of some, Vishal Mangalwadi insists that it was through the work of Christian missionaries, who believed that all people were equal, that education, health care and democracy came to his own nation. He also warns that western nations are in danger of losing the benefits and blessings of Bible-based morality. Attempts to secularise our society, and especially our educational system, must be strongly resisted. Far from being neutral it would establish evolution, with its atheistic connotations, as the only way to interpret life and its origin, and further erode established moral values which sprang from our Bible-based Christian heritage.

  Long ago the Psalmist wrote: “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.. The unfolding of your word gives light; it gives understanding to the simple” (Psalm 119: 130 & 160). If our generation is denied this light, it will be just as benighted as people in far-off lands before missionaries took them the Gospel. 

1. The Times, 21st July 2014. 2. “Is Secularism Neutral?” http://www.christianconcern.com/blog/is-secularism-neutral 25th March 2011.
2. “History, Nature, Importance of Secularism.” www.atheismabout.com
3. Thomas Nelson, 2011. IBSN 978-1-59555-322-5. 5. Mangalwadi, pp. 240-242.