Two Rival Religions? Christianity and Post-Christianity
On
November 3, 1921, J. Gresham Machen presented an address entitled,
“Liberalism or Christianity?” In that famous address, later expanded
into the book,
Christianity and Liberalism, Machen argued that evangelical Christianity and its liberal rival were, in effect, two very different religions.
Machen’s argument became one of the issues of controversy in the
Fundamentalist/Modernist controversies of the 1920s and beyond. By any
measure, Machen was absolutely right: the movement that styled itself as
liberal Christianity was eviscerating the central doctrines of the
Christian faith while continuing to claim Christianity as “a way of
life” and a system of meaning.
“The chief modern rival of Christianity is ‘liberalism,’” Machen
asserted. “Modern liberalism, then, has lost sight of the two great
presuppositions of the Christian message — the living God and the fact
of sin,” he argued. “The liberal doctrine of God and the liberal
doctrine of man are both diametrically opposite to the Christian view.
But the divergence concerns not only the presuppositions of the
message, but also the message itself.”
Howard P. Kainz, professor emeritus of philosophy at Marquette
University, offers a similar argument, warning that it is now modern
secular liberalism which poses as the great rival to orthodox
Christianity.
Observing the basic divide in the American culture, Kainz notes:
“Most of the heat of battle occurs where traditional religious believers
clash with certain liberals who are religiously committed to secular
liberalism.”
Kainz offers a crucial insight here. He suggests that one of the most
important factors in the nation’s cultural divide is that persons on
both sides are deeply committed to their own creeds and worldviews —
even if on one side those creeds are secular.
“This explains why talking about abortion or same-sex ‘marriage,’ for
example, with certain liberals is usually futile. It is like trying to
persuade a committed Muslim to accept Christ. Because his religion
forbids it, he can only do so by
converting from Islam to
Christianity; he cannot accept Christ as long as he remains firmly
committed to Islam. So it is with firmly committed liberals: Their
‘religion’ forbids any concessions to the ‘conservative’ agenda, and as
long as they remain committed to their secular ideology, it is futile
to hope for such concessions from them.”
Kainz’s argument bears similarities not only to Machen’s
observations about the theological scene, but also to Thomas Sowell’s
understanding of the larger culture. As Sowell argued in
A Conflict of Visions,
the basic ideological divide of our times is between those who hold a
“constrained vision” over those who hold an “unconstrained vision.”
Both worldviews are, in the actual operations of life, reduced to
certain “gut feelings” that operate much like religious convictions.
Kainz concedes that some will resist his designation of secularism as
a religion. “Religion in the most common and usual sense connotes
dedication to a supreme being or beings,” he acknowledges. Nevertheless,
“especially in the last few centuries, ‘religion’ has taken on the
additional connotations of dedication to abstract principles or ideals
rather than a personal being,” he insists. Kainz dates the rise of this
secular religion to the French Enlightenment and its idolatrous worship
of reason.
Looking back over the last century, Kainz argues that Marxism and
ideological Liberalism have functioned as religious systems for millions
of individuals. Looking specifically at Marxism, Kainz argues that the
Marxist religion had dogmas, canonical scriptures, priests,
theologians, ritualistic observances, parochial congregations,
heresies, hagiography, and even an eschatology. Marxism’s dogmas were
its core teachings, including economic determinism and the
“dictatorship of the proletariat.” Its canonical scriptures included
the writings of Marx, Lenin, and Mao Tse Tung. Its priests were those
guardians of Marxist purity who functioned as the ideological theorists
of the movement. Its ritualistic observances included actions ranging
from workers’ strikes to mass rallies. The eschatology of Marxism was
to be realized in the appearance of “Communist man” and the new age of
Marxist utopia.
Similarly, Kainz argues that modern secular liberalism includes its
own dogmas. Among these are the beliefs “that mankind must overcome
religious superstition by means of reason; that empirical science can
and will eventually answer all the questions about the world and human
values that were formerly referred to traditional religion or theology;
and that the human race, by constantly invalidating and disregarding
hampering traditions, can and will achieve perfectibility.”
Kainz also argues that contemporary liberalism has borrowed
selectively from the New Testament, turning Jesus’ admonition to “render
unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s,” as a
foundation for “absolute secularism,” enshrined in the language of a
wall separating church and state. Thus, “religion [is] reduced to
something purely private.”
Secular liberalism also identifies certain sins such as “homophobia”
and sexism. As Kainz sees it, the secular scriptures fall into two
broad categories: “Darwinist and scientistic writings championing
materialist and naturalistic explanations for everything, including
morals; and feminist writings exposing the ‘evil’ of patriarchy and
tracing male exploitation of females throughout history up to the
present.”
The priests and priestesses of secular liberalism constitute its
“sacerdotal elite” and tend to be intellectuals who can present liberal
values in the public square. Congregations where secular liberals
gather include organizations such as Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, the
National Organization of Women, and similar bodies. These groups “help
supply a sense of affiliation and commonality for the religiously
liberal.”
The rites and rituals of secular liberalism include “gay pride”
parades and pro-abortion rallies. Interestingly, the eschatology of this
movement is, Kainz argues, the distillation of pragmatism. “In the
estimation of the religiously liberal,” Kainz asserts, “all lifestyles
and all moralities can approximate this goal, as long as the proscribed
illiberal ’sins’ are avoided.”
Kainz readily admits that not all liberals are committed to this
religious vision of liberalism. As he sees it, “There are many people
working for social justice, human rights, international solidarity, and
other causes commonly regarded as liberal without a deep ideological
commitment.” His point is that conservatives may find common cause and
common ground with these non-religiously committed liberals.
“For many ‘moderate’ liberals, liberalism is a political perspective,
not a core ideology,” he observes. “In the culture war it is important
for Christians to distinguish between the religiously committed
liberal and the moderate liberal. For one thing, Christians should not
be surprised when they find no common ground with the former. They may
form occasional, even if temporary, alliances with the latter.”
Kainz’s article “Liberalism as Religion: The Culture War Is Between
Religious Believer on Both Sides,” appears in the May 2006 edition of
Touchstone
magazine. His analysis is genuinely helpful in understanding the clash
of positions, policies, convictions, and visions that mark our
contemporary scene.
Though Kainz does not develop this point, all persons are, in their
own way, deeply committed to their own worldview. There is no
intellectual possibility of absolute value neutrality — not among human
beings, anyway.
The conception of our current cultural conflict as a struggle between
two rival religions is instructive and humbling. At the political
level, this assessment should serve as a warning that our current
ideological divides are not likely to disappear anytime soon. At the far
deeper level of theological analysis, this argument serves to remind
Christians that evangelism remains central to our mission and purpose.
Those who aim at the merely political are missing the forest for the
trees, and confusing the temporal for the eternal.
Two rival religions? Machen was right then, and he is right now. The
real struggle is between Christianity and Post-Christianity.
