The End of Secularism by Baker Hunter

Author:Baker, Hunter [Baker, Hunter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2009-08-04T16:00:00+00:00

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Purpose-driven Secularism

George Marsden has written about the enormous gulf between the two dominant views of reality that contend for the American mind. The first begins from the notion that “there is a being great enough to produce and to oversee the universe,” whereas its opposite declares “things operate sheerly through impersonal forces.” If one takes the first point of view, that which includes a creator/maker “of immense intelligence, power, and concern for us,” then “every other fact or belief will have some relationship to that being.” 1 To attempt to ignore this theo-political difference and many others through an emphasis on secular liberalism essentially results in victory for a naturalist worldview by ruling competitors out of court. Antifoundationalists see it. Catholics see it. Evangelicals see it.

That victory works to the advantage of certain parties in various aspects of political and cultural life. In his celebrated book The Naked Public Square , Richard John Neuhaus observed that the American people are largely religious, broadly Christian, and resentful of the movement toward secularism. It was a change in public life about which they were not consulted, and it rankled them. Secularism seemed to have been imposed upon the society in which they live. 2 The question is, did the movement toward public secularism occur in an organic way as has typically been portrayed by the theory of secularization or was it the result of human interest and human agency? Christian Smith affirms the latter state of affairs. If he is correct, then the critique of secularism as the basis for the American public order gains increased salience.

Secularists and Their Revolution

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