The thrust of partisan enmity in this country, as far back as I can remember, has hinged broadly upon the divide between, on the one hand, “secularism” and the unfolding of scientific discovery--both in the fields of the physical and social sciences--and on the other hand “religion”, which is discussed cautiously and in public as something that is personal, something private, and something irrelevant and dwindling in its perceived backward-lookingness. Additionally, but implicitly, religion is regarded to be irrational, reactionary, fanatical--it is dangerous in its independent worldview.
This above breakdown is, in fact, a poorly drawn cartoon. The cause of discord is not in the least between Democrats and Republicans, the lines are not drawn between liberal progressives and constitutional conservatives, nor can the fuel for our strife be reduced to the secularists pitted against the religionists.
There are but two worldviews, as there are two views of man and God. One view takes shape in the Humanist creed--the other, the Christian faith. Both have spiritual dimensions. Both are (at present) non-falsifiable.
What lurks behind Humanism is much more complicated than a supposed fidelity to science. Christianity also, contrary to the way in which it is depicted in the media, is more formidable than some fairy tale. Each makes a bold claim: For the Humanist, man has matured to a point at which he is able to seize the crown of his own divinity, an exaltedness apart from God but over against His creation; for the Christian, God is ever his King of Glory, and man knows that his ultimate blessedness is hid with Him in Christ. For the Humanist, each blow to the Christian brings him one step closer to the imagined utopia of his making. For the Christian, every bruise incurred is in patient expectation of his King’s kingdom coming.
I would like to take a closer look at each worldview, beginning with the Ruler of Hostility’s religion: Humanism.
