Is Reality Secular? Thoughts from Chapter 1

Because I find myself in so many conversations with students that dive into Christian apologetics, Jess put the book Is Reality Secular?  into my hands.  It's written by Dr. Mary Poplin, a professor from Claremont Graduate University in California. In this book, she aims to explore this question by examining the four global world views: Material Naturalism, Secular Humanism, Pantheism, and Judeo-Christian Theism. Needless to say, it's academically heavy.

In this first chapter, she opens with a story about exploring this question with a class of PhD students. One of them, eager to respond, states, "Setting aside the idea of truth..." In this moment, with some of the brightest students in the nation, Poplin realized that that statement unveiled how secularism has rooted itself in the west. Truth is no longer a reality, but an idea that we can set aside. (This baffled me.)

Poplin goes on to describe how secularism has replaced the ideas of Christianity as the main narrative  to guide Western society. Secularism, which says that scientific evidence and human reason are all we need as guidance. As logical as it may sound, secular humanism also has its blind spots. I found this quote from William Cavanaugh quite eye opening: 

"The myth of religious violence promotes a dichotomy between us  and them, the hordes of  violent religious fanatics in the Muslim world. Their violence is religious, and therefore irrational and divisive. Our violence, on the other hand, is rational, peacemaking, and necessary. Regrettably, we find ourselves forced to bomb them into higher rationality."

In fact, Poplin goes on to say that the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were not against Christianity, but against the pervasive secular moral and economic systems of the West. It's plain to see if you examine the targets - the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, and the White House...not the National Cathedral. Although secular humanism appears neutral, it actually isn't. The truth is that it is actually as emphatic about its doctrines as radical Islam. Neither view will tolerate anything outside of itself. 

Interesting enough, many of the uprisings that occur within nation-states come from ideals (egalitarianism, justice, freedom, human rights) that have roots in Christianity. As atheist German philosopher  Jurgen Habermas pointed out:

"...Christianity has functioned as more than just a precursor or a catalyst. Universalistic egalitarianism, from which sprang the ideals of freedom and a collective life in solidarity, the autonomous conduct of life and emancipation, the individual morality of conscience, human rights and democracy, is the direct legacy of the Judaic ethic of justice and the Christian ethic of love. This legacy, substantially unchanged, has been the object of a continual critical re-appropriation and reinterpretation. Up to this very day there is no alternative to it. And in light of the current challenges of a post-national constellation, we must draw sustenance now, as in the past, from this substance...Everything else is idle post-modern talk."

In order to see truth as it is, any person must know the thrust of each major world view, as well as the motivations behind their own world view. Failure to do this is actually a failure to see reality as it is presented, whether wholly or a jaded spin, by our friends, the govenment or the media. 

I'll end with this quote by Dallas Willard. He encapsulates Poplin's motivation for the book well.

"Is reality secular? Is adequate knowledge secular? And is that something that has been established as a fact by thorough and unbiased inquiry? Is this something that today's secular universities thoroughly and freely discuss in a disciplined way? Certainly not! Nowhere does that happen. It is now simply assumed that every field of knowledge or practice is perfectly complete without any reference to God. It may be logically possible that this assumption is true, but is it true?"