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Why Secularism Failed to Deliver More Tolerance

 

Many people are beginning to recognize division and intolerance are everywhere, and they are only getting stronger and more hostile. College campuses have to deal with violent rioting over speakers with certain viewpoints while at the same time creating “safe spaces” for students threatened by opposing ideas. Is this the legacy of progressivism: fight or flight? Apparently so. This intolerance and unwillingness to listen is a surprise to many. As Secularism grew, it was supposed to remove the hardened and divisive theological hang-ups that perpetuated conflict and inhibited tolerant dialog. An article in The Atlantic highlighted this unexpected volatility. Peter Beinart writes, “Some observers predicted that this new secularism would ease cultural conflict, as the country settled into a near-consensus on issues such as gay marriage.” Later he wrote, “For years, political commentators dreamed that the culture war over religious morality that began in the 1960s and ’70s would fade. It has. And the more secular, more ferociously national and racial culture war that has followed is worse.”

Why is there all of this intolerance and hostility? There are at least two main reasons for this: the nature of man and the lack of theology. Simply because a society secularizes, that doesn’t mean the nature of humanity is changing. You are a man whether you deny God or you worship Him. The biblical worldview tells us that regardless of what you do with God, as a man you are still made in His image. You still have an innate morality written upon your heart. You still are made for worship. You still are enslaved to the sin that creates contradictory thinking, hate, fear, violence, sensual indulgence, and every other perversion. All of this remains true whether you are in a technologically progressive setting or you are in a third-world setting digging through heaps of rubbish.


Because the image of God remains, and hearts are still enslaved to sin, such hostility will always be under the surface. Why? Because the only way to root it out is through Spirit-produced self-control and holy love for neighbor. What about the self-control present in the life of a young secular progressive? This is what you call common grace. God has restrained sin in a person so that its destructive effects have not blossomed. Yet, being a secular progressive means sin is still enslaving the heart. Therefore, the self-control being exhibited is actually in service to an idol. There is some desire on the throne of his heart, and self-control is being used to serve it faithfully. But if that idol is threatened or destroyed, watch out! So the first reason for this growing intolerance is that secularism doesn’t create dispassionate people with no moral commitments.


The second reason for growing hostility is that theology really does make a difference in how we respond to people, and not for the worse. There are at least two huge theological realities that allow the Christian to rest easy when he is opposed and contradicted. The first theological reality is that God is going to draw men to Christ and to the truth. The Scriptures speak of this many places, but here are a couple: John chapter 6 affirms this at least 4 separate times (vs. 37, 44, 45, 65) and 2 Timothy 2:25 says that God grants repentance that leads to a knowledge of the truth. If nothing can bring a man to God apart from this sovereign grace, and nothing can keep a man away from God when God draws him, then coercion has no place whatsoever in Christian interaction. This is the Christian’s foundation for religious liberty. We believe God deals with each person and so each person can live according to their own conscience. The Christian doesn’t have to resort to force, coercive threats, manipulation, or trickery. Since we proclaim a gospel that changes men, we don’t have to make it happen. This allows us to speak with people who hold different opinions, and not fear when they do not change. God will change them if he so choses. When you don’t have this reality, you will continually be tempted to force people into your ideas.


The second theological reality that frees a person from temptation toward hostility and intolerance is a theology of eschatology. While there is much in eschatology that is up for healthy biblical debate, there are a few things which are necessarily believed. A fundamental truth in Christian doctrine is that Christ will come back and bring a perfect judgment on every person and every action. This means that we don’t have to make everything right in this world. Jesus is going to do this and he will do it perfectly. We long for this day, and work faithfully in accordance with it, but have the promise that it will happen regardless. If you don’t have this promise, if there is no God who is going to make everything perfect, then it remains upon you to do all that you can do. Hostility will eventually erupt from that kind of worldview. Andrew Walker addressed this by saying, “If here and now is all there is, and if the closest approximation to justice that can be known is mediated through a progressive eschatology of the present, why give an iota of freedom at all? And that is what we saw happen at Middlebury College.” If this life is all you have, then allowing people to mess it up will become intolerable.


Religious liberty, tolerance, and freedom are concepts which are rooted in a biblical worldview. Remove a biblical understanding of man, sin, righteousness, freedom, and eternal judgment from the consciousness of a culture and you are left with a world out of balance. Fallen man is weighted toward sin and destruction and he will take his culture with him as he falls. There must be the weight of a biblical worldview on the other side to keep this from happening, but that is what Secular progressivism has decimated. There is no wonder that hostility and division is growing. May we be faithful to proclaim the good news that not only redeems man to God, but restores man to one another as well.

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