In Christianity, there is a word that you'll often hear: "gospel." The gospel literally means "good news" but it is sometimes used to denote the entire world-view of Christianity. At its core, the gospel is about Jesus and His redemption and resurrection. But to most Christians it means more than that: the Ten Commandments, Christmas, heaven, church weddings, bible study, socials, and maybe even America and country music.
In our modern society, there are some words that are passed around that also seem to entail a lot of ideology and meaning. These words trigger a whole range of ideas and they signal to another person that you are part of their "religion." One of these words is "equality."
What do you think of when you hear "equality?" Do you think "1 + 1 is equal to 2?" Do you think "Pepsi is just as good as Coke?" Probably not.
Rather, you probably have political or social ideas come to mind. Like, how people should behave towards others, how government and society should be organized and maybe about how some groups have more privilege than others.
There's another one of these special words: "privilege." Privilege means that certain groups have been historically favored and others historically marginalized and we have a duty to reverse that favoritism until we achieve equality. Do you see how these ideas work together, complimenting each other? It is the basis of a comprehensive world-view.
On it's face, it's not contrary to Christianity, but it starts to deviate from Christianity in subtle ways. Christians don't usually talk about equality and privilege, but of charity and humility. Of faith and patience. Of gratitude and hope. It begins to become clear what the differences are when you examine the ideas behind these special words used by people in these two different world-views.
Christianity is about redemption of an individual and transforming that individual from a selfish person to a generous person. A dishonest person to an honest person. A violent person to a peaceful person.
On the other hand, the secular religion is about destroying evil power structures and replacing them with a structure that is fair and inclusive. "Fairness" and "inclusivity" are more examples of the special words in the secular religion. The secular religion seeks to transform society and power structures to make them more fair and inclusive, while Christianity focuses on transforming individuals into better people.
It is important for Christians to know that they are being preached to. There are points of conflict where the secular religion will claim that Christianity has been an evil, exclusive power structure, and therefore needs to be replaced. And there is some truth to what they say, when looking at the history of Christianity. But there is rarely an attempt to rationally look at the teachings and philosophies of the two world-views to see what they really mean and where they lead.
Usually, it isn't obvious that people are exchanging one world-view for another, but I've seen it happen over and over again. People start to adopt the "special words" of the secular religion and start to become more and more critical of Christianity. I can't tell if they are critically examining the secular religion or even if they know it exists. I suspect that they are unconsciously adopting new philosophies in an uncritical manner. If they would be as critical of the secular religion as they are of Christianity, they may find that Christianity is the stronger of the two.
But as long as they remain uncritical of their new world-view, they will never doubt that Christianity is false.
No comments:
Post a Comment