Truth Magazine

By Bobby Witherington

In 1933, a group of 34 humanists in the United States set forth the philosophical and religious principles which they regarded as fundamental. The document they drafted is known as Humanist Manifesto L Herein are contained some 15 radical affirmations. Affirmation number one says: “Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existent and not created.” Affirmation number two says: “Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process.”

Forty years later (1973), Humanist Manifesto Il was published. In this even more radical document the signers thereof affirmed “a set of common principles that can serve as a basis for common action,” and which were designed “for a secular society on a planetary scale.” In this publication, Humanism’s ungodly goals regarding Religion, Ethics, The Individual, Democratic Society, World Community, and Humanity as a whole are set forth. In the section on Religion we are treated to such statements as: “We find insufficient evidence for belief in the existence of a supernatural; it is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of the survival and fulfillment of the human race. As non-theists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity …. But we can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species. While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves . . . . Rather, science affirms that the human species is an emergence from natural evolutionary forces.”

In the book The Humanist Frame edited by Sir Julian Huxley, one of the founders of The American Humanist Association, we note these statements from the pen of H.J. Muller in his chapter on “The Humanist Future”: “For once the theory of evolution was accepted, only wishful thinking could avoid the logical conclusion, so aptly expressed by Shaw, that man has created God in his own image, rather than the reverse. An animal among millions of other species of animals, living and extinct, man was confronted with the responsibility of justifying his own existence and of finding his own footing or else admitting his inadequacy” (p. 402). Later he said, “This illustrates that modern Humanism must be revolutionary in its outlook” (p. 413).

From the same source we read these words penned by Sir Julian Huxley: “Evolutionary man can no longer take refuse from his loneliness by creeping for shelter into the arms of a divinized father-figure whom he has himself created, nor escape from the responsibility of making decisions by sheltering under the umbrella of Divine Authority, nor absolve himself from the hard task of meeting his present problems and planning his future by relying on the will of an omniscient but unfortunately inscrutable Providence” (p. 19).

The preceding statements, made by authoritative figures within the fast-growing Humanist movement, are but a few among many that could be cited. But these are sufficient to prove that the Humanist concept of the universe is based on the evolutionary hypothesis. Of course, if belief in a Supernatural Being is summarily dismissed, as is generally the case among Secular Humanists, then belief in the theory of evolution becomes a logical necessity. Secular Humanists, in their minds, have reasoned God out of existence. Their philosophy is anti-Genesis from start to finish. They do not believe that “in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), for they do not believe God even exists, apart from man’s own imagination. They do not believe “God created man in his own image” (Gen. 1:27), for they believe God is simply a myth, and a myth can not create. Of course, man is real, so man is the creator – having, in the words of Shaw, “created God in his own image.” Having completely reversed Genesis 1:27, in concept and conduct they are thus forced to, also reverse Jeremiah 10:23 and conclude that “the way of man” is in himself, and that it is “in man that walketh to direct his steps.”

Let us get it straight; Humanism is not humanitarianism! Humanism is an evil tree that bears evil fruit, and which is rooted in the perverse soils of atheism and evolution. All true humanists are evolutionists. They believe life spontaneously sprang from non-life, and through eons of time evolved to produce life as we know it today, including man. To them, time plus chance equals man! In the words of Huxley, man is “made of the same matter and operated by the same energy as all the rest of the cosmos,” and is “linked by genetic continuity with all the other living inhabitants of his planet – animals, plants, and micro-organisms.” These, Huxley says, are all man’s “cousins or remoter kin, all parts of one single branching and evolving flow of metabolizing protoplasm” (The Humanist Frame, p. 19).

Logical-thinking, ancient Greeks said: “From nothing nothing comes. Something is. Therefore something was.” Modern men still quote these words of ancient wisdom. And well they should! Any mathematician knows that nothing subtracted from nothing, or nothing added to nothing still leaves nothing. Hence, the expression “something is; therefore something was” is axiomatic, or self-evident. The application of this principle leads us to say “for every effect there had to be an adequate cause.” This principle is expressed in Scripture in the statement “for every house is builded by some man. . . ” (Heb. 3:4). All intelligent people, including atheists and evolutionists, admit that a house did not build itself, nor did it evolve from a speck of mortar or a splinter of wood. It should be equally as obvious that “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20).

Theists, atheists, and evolutionists, if they are honest, have one thing in common; they have to admit the existence of a first cause which caused everything else. Something had to initially exist in order for something to exist now. And there could be but three alternatives – eternal mind, eternal matter, or eternal nothing. To believe that eternal nothing produced something is unthinkable. He who believes this has a problem which generally calls for treatment in a specially designed institution! This leaves two alternatives: eternal mind, or eternal matter.

Let us consider the second alternative first; namely, the belief that life as we know it, its design, its amazing complexity, and intellect, evolved from eternal matter. On the one hand, this would mean that mind, which is superior to matter, was produced by matter, its inferior. This is hardly consistent with the “mind over matter” concept! More specifically, it means that life came from non-life – which is the antithesis of every scientific experiment and observation to date concerning the origin of life. Moreover, the eternity of matter concept is contrary to the second law of thermodynamics, which recognizes the tendency in all the universe to degenerate, or to descend from the highly organized to the less organized. If left alone, metal rusts, wood rots, and buildings deteriorate. This law, also known as the principle of entropy, argues that the universe (matter) had a beginning – obviously so, for if it is running down, it must have been new at some point in the past. Furthermore, the most current sophisticated, scientific methods available for determining the age of the earth all agree that it is relatively Young – much, much younger than even the youngest age which is demanded by the evolutionary hypothesis. In fact, the scientific arguments against the theory of evolution are so consistent and so conclusive that honest evolutionists have admitted that the one compelling reason why they believe it is because the only other viable alternative is to believe in God! Against evidence to the contrary, they have forced themselves to believe in the eternity of matter. And they believe that through blind chance inanimate matter became animate, or that non-life sprang into life (spontaneous generation). According to them, inorganic matter became organic matter, which, through a transmutation process, became vegetable life, which became animal life, which became man. And all this without design, purpose, or any assistance from an intelligent being! And these are the people who deny every miracle recorded in the Bible, and ridicule the virgin birth of Christ! They think it incredulous to believe a virgin could conceive and bear a Son, but they question the intelligence of a person who refuses to believe an amoeba sprang of ancient slime and evolved into man. They are hardly in a position to criticize “blind faith”!

The Humanist concept of the universe is atheistic and evolutionistic. Being a belief structure, humanism is a religion. It admits to being a religion, and it has been so declared by the U.S. Supreme Court. But it is a religion which worship and serves the creature while often denying the very existence of the Creator. And being a belief structure, or a religion, humanism adversely affects man’s whole outlook upon life itself and man in general. In short, humanism was first conceived in the mind of the devil, and it can only lead to one destination – hell! We must “put on the whole armor of God,” and take “the sword of the Spirit” (Eph. 6:11,17), and resist this “ism” which is spreading like a cancer throughout the world. It is already much later than most people think. But if Christians will be as evangelistic with the truth as humanists are with their lie it may not be too late. Consider ye well!

Guardian of Truth XXVIII: 13, pp. 391-392
July 5, 1984

By Connie W. Adams

A struggle of epic proportions is now being waged over what has come to be called “humanism.” With some it is a catch phrase, a scare word. Some of the opposition to what is being called humanism is ill conceived and sensationally promoted. Some have built great reputations as champion fighters of humanism. Others have dismissed the subject as too academic for them. Some are blissfully unaware of the nature of prevalence of this philosophy. This special issue of Guardian of Truth is designed to contribute to an understanding of the subject and to alert readers to the real dangers posed by this system to the faith and morals of our generation.

We are all part of the human family and as such ought to be concerned with whatever is in the best interest of all mankind. Some have naively concluded that this is all there is to humanism. Some see it as nothing more than a continuation of the renaissance of the fifteenth century with its revival of learning, emphasis on progress, science and technology. I have talked with some school teachers, including some who are Christians, who think that humanism is the promotion of human welfare (humanitarianism). Others identify it with the term humanities (the study of past and present cultures). But the humanism of this article, and indeed of this special issue of this Guardian of Truth, is much more than that.

Humanism is a man-centered world view. There are two basic views of the world: (1) dualistic and (2) monistic. The Christian’s view is dualistic. There is the realm of material reality which is to be investigated by the natural senses using the scientific method. But the Christian sees a second area of reality to be confronted and that concerns God and the human soul. This part of existence is revealed objectively in the Bible. Humanism, to the contrary, is monistic. It views everything from the vantage point of material reality. It recognizes no God, no revelation from God, no moral or spiritual absolutes.

Let Humanists Tell Us

I know of no better way to discover what humanists believe than to give them the floor to put it in their own words.

Humanism is primarily a method of procedure and a value system not a dogma about The method of procedure is the scientific method: the use of reason and observation in a naturalistic context. The value system involves the idea that human life in the here and now is the sole context within which morals apply and that satisfaction of human social and individual needs is the goal of ethics (Frederick Edwards, The Humanist, May/June, 1982, p. 48).

In 1933, a document called Humanist Manifesto I was published and signeo by 34 prominent citizens, including John Dewey, the father of the educational approach being used in America since his time. It was, in essence, creedal statement. In 1973, Humanist Manifesto II was published, initially signed by 261 people, many of whom were leading educators and some of whom were functionaries in government funded agencies at the time the signed the document. The identifying of the signees is an interesting study of its own, but beyond the scope of my assignment. There is no better was to learn what humanism is and what humanists believe than from this document.

“As in 1933, humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially faith in the prayer-hearing God, assumed to love and care for persons, to hear and understand their prayers, and to be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith. Salvationism, based on mere affirmation, still appears as harmful, diverting people with false hopes of heaven hereafter. Reasonable minds look to other means for survival” (preface, p. 13).

“Many kinds of humanism exist in the contemporary world. The varieties and emphasis of naturalistic humanism include ‘scientific,’ ‘ethical,’ ‘democratic,’ ‘religious,’ and ‘Marxist’ humanism. Free thought, atheism, agnosticism, skepticism, deism, rationalism, ethical culture, and liberal religion all claim to be heir to the humanist tradition” (p. 15).

Humanism is a philosophy with a world-wide thrust. Consider the following: “We affirm a set of common principles that can serve as a basis for united action – positive principles relevant to the present human condition. They are a design for a secular society on a planetary scale” (p. 15).

Humanism and Religion

“We believe, however, that traditional dogmatic or authoritarian religions that place revelation, God, ritual, or creed above human needs and experience do a disservice to the human species . . . . We find insufficient evidence for belief in the existence of a supernatural, it is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of the survival and fulfillment of the human race. As non-theists, we begin with humans, not God, nature not deity . . . . But we can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species . . . . No deity will save us, we must save ourselves . . . . Promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful . . . . There is no credible evidence that life survives the death of the body” (pp. 15,16,17).

Humanism and Ethics

“We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational, needing no theological or ideological sanction” (p. 17).

Humanism and Individual Rights

“Sixth: In the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion and divorce should be recognized. While we do not approve of exploitive, denigrating forms of sexual expression, neither do we wish to prohibit, by law or social sanction, sexual behaviour betwen consenting adults . . . Short of harming others or compelling them to do likewise, individuals should be permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their life-styles as they desire” (p. 18).

Humanism and Democratic Society

“Seventh: To enhance freedom and dignity the individual must experience a full range of civil liberties in all societies . . . . It also includes a recognition of an individual’s right to die with dignity, euthanasia, and the right to suicide . . . . People are more important than decalogues, rules, proscriptions, or regulations” (p. 19).

Prevalence of Humanism

While there are about 275,000 declared humanists in this country, the power and influence of this philosophy is much more pervasive than this figure would indicate. Among these are leaders in education, liberal religion, presidential appointees, the controlling forces of the news media, lawyers and jurists. The educational approach in our country has been slanted in this direction for half a century. This is the motivation behind many of the court battles in which the American Civil Liberties Union participates.

It affects the education of our children. Is anyone so foolish as to think that children can start in kindergarten and continue through high school and college with daily exposure to texts and some teachers committed to this notion without being influenced in thought and moral behavior? When origins must be studied without reference to God or the Bible, when values clarification strategy sessions are conducted with the presupposition that there are no right or wrong answers, when sex education studies present homosexuality, lesbianism and even bestiality as “alternative life-styles,” when social studies present communes and live in arrangements as choices equal to God-ordained marriage, and when death education is approached without reference to God, the soul or the hereafter, you had better believe that your children will be adversely affected.

Governors, congressmen, presidents, lawyers, judges and other public servants will act and react in those roles consistent with the moral and spiritual presuppositions which have molded and shaped their lives. They can do no other.

The bulk of today’s entertainment fare in the movies and on television is planned and packaged by people thoroughly saturated with humanism. Add the influence of that from the hours weekly spent in such viewing to the hours and years of public education through which our children pass, and it is amazing that we are able to salvage any of them. It takes very strong family influence and spiritual conviction to offset such odds.

Humanism Contradicts the Bible

“The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God” (Psa. 14:1). The wise man wrote, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Prov. 1:7). Again, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14:12). The prophet said, “0 Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; for it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (Jer. 10:23). Paul said ‘ “the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God” (1 Cor. 3:19). Romans 1:18-32 gives the ultimate moral and spiritual degeneracy which follows in the wake of expelling God from human knowledge. Paul said, “professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” Is it not strange that those whom God calls “fools” are the shapers and molders of thought and action in modern America?

Guardian of Truth XXVIII: 13, pp. 386, 395-396
July 5, 1984

By Harold Fite

David asked the question, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” (Psa. 8:4). This is an age-old question, the answer to which answers other perplexing questions, such as, “Where did man come from?”; “What is his purpose?”; and “Where is he going.”

The Humanist conception of man is expressed in their Manifesto in the following fashion:

Manifesto I

Article 2: “Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as the result of a continuous process.

Article 3: “Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected.

Article 8: “Religious Humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man’s life and seeks its development and fulfillment in the here and now.

Manifesto II

Article 2: “Promises of immortal salvation or fear of damnation are both illusory and harmful . . . . Modem science discredits such historic concepts as the ‘ghost in the machine’ and ‘separable soul.’ Rather, science affirms that the human species is an emergence from natural evolutionary forces . . . There is no credible evidence that life survives the death of the body.

Article 5: “We believe in maximum individual autonomy consonant with social responsibility.”

According to the humanist, man is the product of the evolutionary process and his total personality bears the imprint of the social and cultural society surrounding him. His origin was an organic accident. His purpose looks no higher than this earth, and when he dies he ceases to exist. The totality of what constitutes man is placed in the grave.

The humanistic philosophy is atheistic in nature and materialistic in application. When one denies the reality of God, he removes that which makes a man a man. There can be no “manhood” without “Godhood.”

If there is no God, man is not a created being; he does not possess an immortal spirit; he has no moral responsibility and no eternal purpose. He does not bear the image of God, but only the mark of “natural evolutionary forces.”

The humanist begin “with humans, not God; nature, not deity.” The humanist’s man is stripped of the spiritual and stands as a physical, earthbound, materialistic being.

Since humanists begin with man, they attribute to him the exalted position of the highest being. God is dethroned and man is deified. Basically, humanism is the worship of man. As the highest being, his thoughts and actions are always right. They are but the means through which he seeks the “creative realization of human needs and desires.”

The Humanists advocate “maximum individual autonomy consonant with social responsibility.” While some may be fooled by autonomy consistent with social responsibility, what the humanist are advocating is unbridled freedom – the removal of all restraints. The man that demands absolute freedom is the same man that determines social responsibility. As man enlarges his area of expression, he will bring “social responsibility” up to approve it. Humanism is a self-serving, self-centered, religion. Denying self is completely foreign to humanistic philosophy.

Biblical View of Man

What does the Bible say about man? It begins with God. Man’s origin, nature, purpose and destiny relate to Him. The Bible teaches that man is a creation of God: “And God created man in his image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen. 1:27). He was formed from the “dust of the ground.” He is God’s crowning creation. He is “fearfully and wonderfully made.” God then breathed into him the breath of life and he became a living soul (Gen. 2:7). Man Is made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). He possesses mental faculties by which he can know and understand the things of God, and the intelligence to choose between right and wrong. This speaks of the moral responsibility of man.

Contrary to humanist doctrine, the Bible affirms the reality of the soul and its immortality. Jesus said, “And be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28).

Man is a dual being. Distinction is made throughout the Bible between the flesh and the spirit (soul) of man. Physical death is the separation of the two (James 2:26). The “dust returns to the earth and the spirit to God who gave it” (Eccl. 12:7).

The apostle Paul wrote of the spirit of man being “clothed’ with flesh. He shows that if his spirit were separated from his body, he would be “present with the Lord.” But if his spirit remained in his body, he would be “absent from the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:1-8).

Jesus said, “I am the God of Abraham,” then affirms that “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matt. 22:32). Abraham had been dead for hundreds of years, yet there was a part of Abraham then living. Death is not the cessation of existence. Being made in the image of God, man has within him that which is immortal.

Man has a purpose for living. He is to glorify God in all that he does (1 Cor. 10:32). He does so by fearing God and keeping His commandments (Eccl. 12:13).

Not only does man have a purpose on earth, but one which far transcends this earth. The nature of man presupposes an eternal purpose. God has set eternity in his heart (Eccl. 3:11). Some day Jesus will descend from heaven with a shout and all who are in the grave will be raised and brought before God in judgment. “And these (disobedient, H.F.) shall go away into eternal punishment- but the righteous into eternal life” (Matt. 25:46). To realize this purpose is to realize the very best that there is in man. It is a gross perversion of purpose to serve self and to be consumed with the “here” and “now.”

While man enjoys freedom and liberty, he doesn’t make license out of liberty. There are restrictions on freedom; limitations on liberty (Gal. 5:13). Freedom is enjoyed as we live within the confines of God’s law. Man does not have the freedom to do as he pleases. Freedom is not a question of doing what we like but doing what we should! The ideal life is a life of denial (Matt. 16:24-26).

The humanist man is no man at all. He has been robbed of his virtues and values which produce greatness. There remains the twisted, grotesque shell which faintly and fleetingly remind us what he was and what he could become.

“The fool has said in his heart, there is no God” (Psa. 14:1).

God’s Man	Humanist’s Man
1. Created by God.	1. Product of evolutionary process.
2. Image of God.	2. Image of natural environment and social heritage.
3. Has immortal soul.	3. Has no soul.
4. Has eternal purpose.	4. Has no eternal purpose.
5. Purpose on earth is to glorify God.	5. Purpose on earth is to glorify man.
6. Life after death.	6. No life after death.

Guardian of Truth XXVIII: 13, pp. 388-389
July 5, 1984

By Ron Halbrook

Who and what is this monster of so-called “Humanism”? It is Satan appearing as an angel of light, whispering to the heart of man, “Ye shall be as gods – you need no one higher than yourself!” This is the same old sin and rebellion against God. It is atheism, a denial of God and o His authority over man. Man repeats with stupid monotony the experiment of trying to understand himself and the world around him through his own wisdom – without God. Humanism makes Man the measure of all things and puts him on the throne in the place of God. Humanism is idolatry. It worships and serves the creature and the creation rather than the Creator.

But God is still on His throne! We are not frantic or forlorn in the face of this new foe. He is only the old foe in new dress. We rise to meet the challenge of Humanism with confidence in God and in the power of His Word. One person with God can chase a thousand enemies of truth “and two put ten thousand to flight” because “their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges . . . . The eternal God is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them” (Deut. 32:30-31; 33:27). “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world , * , . For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 Jn. 4:4; 5:4-5).

Bible Humanism Starts With God

The Bible teaches the only true “humanism” if the term means genuine love for man and an understanding of his origin, nature, duty, happiness, and destiny. All of this is rooted in God Himself. God not only created man but also created him “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:2627). Like his maker, man has the capacity to love. Man’s duty, happiness, and destiny are bound up in two primary principles: Man with his whole being is to love God and to love his neighbor as himself (Matt. 22:34-40; Rom. 13:8-10). As creatures made for eternity, the highest good we can do is to serve God, to save our own soul, and to save the souls of lost sinners. When Christ died for our sins, He showed us the way to true greatness – in serving God and our fellow man (Heb. 5:8-9; Mk. 10:43-45). The Bible blesses humanity by teaching with unequalled power the spirit of unselfish service (Matt. 25:31-46; Jn. 13:1-17; Rom. 12:9-13:10; Gal. 6:1-10; Ja. 1:22-27; 3:14-16; 1 Jn. 3:1418; 4:7-21).

Secular Humanism Excludes God

Secular humanism is, at its heart, atheism. Human reason, material values, and secular or temporal concerns are emphasized to the exclusion of God, spiritual values, and eternity. That attitude toward life is not the property of a monolithic organization taking over America all of a sudden, but is the common property and logical end of a civilization moving further away from God into a state of decay. Myriad are the movements and men who have mesmerized our world with this message of human idolatry. How did our society get to this point?

The current movement of secular humanism is just another rising of the tide of unbelief such as ebbs and flows throughout history. Why is the tide running so high now? The men and movements which have questioned God, the Bible, and Jesus Christ for 400 years in Western Civilization, especially for the last 100 years in America, sometimes in the name of religion, have all contributed to this emergence of widespread humanism. We shall briefly sketch some representative trends.

The Renaissance of 1350-1650 was a transition from medieval to modern history stimulated by the rediscovery of the classical treasures of ancient Greeks and Romans. Educated and affluent classes focused their interests less on the corporate structure of the Church (i.e. Roman Catholicism) and more on the individual person. This classical Humanism seen first in Italy was soon matched north of the Alps by religious Humanists such as Erasmus (1466-1536) who shared the desire for original sources, discontent with inherited traditions, and hostility to existing structures. Here, increasing emphasis on morals, ethics, and Bible study in the original languages led to the Reformation era of 1500-1650. The influences of Renaissance and Reformation trickled down to less educated and affluent classes when men like John Wycliff (d. 1384) and Martin Luther (1483-1546) put the Bible into the hands of the common man in his native tongue.

Decadent Religion Feeds Secular Humanism

While religious reform spread, so did over-reactions against the superstition and corruption of Catholicism. People who equated “Christianity” with “Catholicism” sometimes rejected even the Bible and were left with nothing but their own intellect. Because so many people in Europe looked to their own mind for light, the 1700s may be called the Age of Reason. This rationalism contributed to Deism, which held to God while rejecting the Bible as a special revelation, Jesus as divine, and all miracles. It was represented by Voltair (1694-1778) in France, David Hume (1711-76) in Scotland, and Thomas Paine (1737-1809) in America along with our founding fathers Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Other rationalists were skeptics and atheists. Writers like William Paley (1743-1805) in England and L. Gaussen (1790-1863) of Geneva defended the evidences of Christianity and inspiration of Scripture. French liberalism, English rationalism, and secular and political concerns made America extremely irreligious during and after the Revolutionary War.

From the turn of the century until the War Between the States (1861-65), America experienced a series of religious revivals although Unitarianism and other rationalist and liberal ideas persisted. But tendencies toward rationalism, materialism, secularism, atheism, and worship of “the scientific method” in nineteenth century Europe were soon to hit America like a tidal wave. False and decadent religion strongly contributed to theferment of doubt and disbelief in God. It is amazing how many of the spokesmen who arose against Bible principles were raised in some “branch” of Judaism or Christendom. That includes Karl Marx (1818-1883) and F. Engels (1820-1895) who in the Communist Manifesto debunked all religion as “the opium of the people.” Several Frenchmen like Saint-Simon and Comte envisioned a secular “religion” blending science, socialism, and humanism to give the world unending progress. Others like Godwin in England, Proudhon in France, and Bakunin in Russia offered progress through anarchy – annihilation of God and the State. German philosophers like Schopenhauer, Feuerback, and Nietzsche pronounced God dead and pointed to a coming perfect race.

Evolution Feeds Secular Humanism

Secular humanism with its naturalist bent gained great momentum everywhere when an Anglican-turned-agnostic named Charles Darwin (1809-1882) published his hypothesis of evolution. First a scientific theory, by the later 1800s it was being applied to all social and political institutions and offered as the explanation for the origin of religion from natural sources. Everything supernatural – God, the Bible, Jesus Christ, the creation account, miracles, etc. evolved from ancient myths and legends. Such ideas were popularized by English writers T.M. Huxley (1825-95) and Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) along with the American politician Robert Ingersoll (1833-99) and the University of Chicago educator John Dewey (1859-1952).

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century the faith of many Americans began to crack under the pressures of the Industrial Revolution, labor movements, urbanization, waves of immigration, political ferment, and other social changes. Just as had happened during the American Revolution, God was taking second place in many quarters to secular and material concerns. Growing acceptance of naturalism contributes to spiritual decay but is also the symptom of decay already in progress. Just as the gospel requires fertile ground, all forms of unbelief including secularism and naturalism require hearts which are open to the particular message. Unbelief feeds upon itself.

Liberalism Feeds Secular Humanism

Many religious leaders tried to patch their own and their hearer’s cracking faith with the mortar of compromise. The traditional view of Scripture as an infallible revelation underwent such a revolution that the crucial period of 1875-1900 was a turning point comparable to the Reformation itself. With the validity of the Bible at stake, several varieties of liberalism arose as efforts to draw the line somewhere between an infallible Bible and atheism. But the poison of rationalism, naturalism, and secularism were in every pot of liberal compromise. Much of American religion tilted on an angle in the direction of secular humanism during 1875-1900 and has been sliding more and more in the same direction ever since.

Popular preachers – Henry Ward Beecher (1813-87), Phillip Brooks (1835-93), Lyman Abbott (1835-1922), and Washington Gladden (1836-1918) – rode the new tide of evolutionary thought and helped reduce Christianity to a benign form of religious humanism. The effort of German philosophers, historians, and biblical critics to peel away all myths and to find some kernel of truth in Christianity had great impact on American religious leaders such as A.C. McGiffert, C.A. Briggs, and W.R. Harper, President of the University of Chicago. In the place of true and false religions, Hegel put a dialectical process of ever evolving truths. Schleiermacher made experience rather than doctrine the essence of all truth; all religions may share in it. Baur saw God in all creeds and dogmas, Ritschl found values in each individual’s moral judgments, and Harnack peeled off the miracles and deity of Jesus only to find a few humanistic principles.

Just as naturalism dictated the inner thought of liberal religion, secularism dictated the liberal’s plan of action and vision of the future. Liberal preachers and churches committed their resources to the vision of a secular kingdom of God on earth. The Social Gospel offered a whole gamut of solutions for industrial, urban, and political problems. While working toward the great society, churches offered services for every aspect of the carnal man – food, lodging, education, child care, medicine, and recreation.

World War I chastened the optimism and progressivism of the Social Gospel, but the slide toward secular things in the name of religion continues today. Liberalism was proclaimed and popularized by Harry Emerson Fosdick until recently. In this century, the Germans Barth and Brunner along with the Niebuhr brothers in America called upon liberals to find some objective word from God in Scripture. But their Neo-orthodoxy retained such biblical criticism and naturalism, and gave way to the radical secular theologies of the 1960s. The Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy over the Bible and evolution had its roots in the 1890s, received great publicity in the 1920s, and continues today. Einstein’s theory of relativity in physics was borrowed in the 1920s to bolster liberalism’s theory of relativity in morals and religion. About the same time, American society became fascinated with Freud’s naturalistic claim that all human behavior – including the conscience and religion can be explained in terms of sex drives.

A Decadent Society Feeds Secular Humanism

Twentieth century man is ripe for secular humanism. He is made ripe by the self-confidence and affluence generated by industrial and technological revolutions. Science has replaced God as man’s benefactor. The emptiness of liberal religion has betrayed man into the hands of secular humanism with its naturalism and atheism. The convulsions of the 1960s revealed a tremendous shift in moral and religious attitudes. Historians recognize that the strongest force in “this steady rise of religious anti-traditionalism” is “a growing commitment to . . . naturalism or “secularism… and increasing doubt about the supernatural (Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People, p. 1087). The “death of God” and birth of secular religion have been popularized in the mass media, as have situation ethics, the 44new morality,” and permissiveness. Polls have shown for fifty years that preachers often reject the basic teaching of the Bible and that most young people have sex before marriage. The shallow vaporings of Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller are a cruel joke in the face of our decadent society!

Nietzsche wrote in 1886, “The greatest event of recent times – that ‘God is Dead’, that the belief in the Christian God is no longer tenable – is beginning to cast its first shadows over Europe” (Johnson, Modern Times, p. 48). The shadows are lengthening in modern America. The Humanist Manifestoes (1933, 1973) and Secular Humanist Declaration (1980) deny God, the Bible, Jesus Christ, the soul, salvation, hell, and moral absolutes. The acceptance of Satan’s lie that man can be his own god is a sign of decay. It is sin. It works death. The darker the darkness of sin grows, the brighter the light of the gospel of Christ shines if we will but preach it (Phil. 2:15-16)!

Guardian of Truth XXVIII: 13, pp. 387, 406-407
July 5, 1984