Secularism and the Pandemic

Have you ever thought through the global pandemic of 2020 from a worldview standpoint? Well, I’m going to tell you what you need to know.

A worldview is a framework by which we make sense of the reality that happens all around us. Charles Colson years ago, teaching about worldviews said that every worldview answers three basic questions. The first questions is, “Where did we come from?” Worldviews have origin stories and those origin stories become the foundation for making sense of the world around us. Where did we come from?

The second question is, “How did we get into this situation?” How did these current circumstances arise? What happened to bring us to this moment? Where did we comes from? How did we get in this situation?

The third question is, “Where do we go from here?” What’s the solution? What’s the next thing we need to do? Where did we come from? How did we get here? What do we need to do to move forward?

Now Colson also said the way you judge a worldview is by asking one simple question, “Can you live consistently by your worldview?” You see, any worldview can make sense on paper. You can argue logically for all kinds of positions. But can you live by it?

I want to talk to you over the next couple of weeks about the two major worldviews that are in competition in our generation: The Judeo-Christian worldview and the Naturalistic secular worldview.

Let’s talk about Secularism first. Secularism answers question number one – “Where do we come from here?” by providing this answer. We are the product of naturalistic evolution that is blind random chance. Accidents have happened millions and billions of times in small movements over the course of billions of years to produce everything that we see today. We are, as human beings, in a sense the pinnacle to this point of evolutionary development. What that means is by answering the question of where did we come from with a meaningless random process it gives you some perimeters for moving forward with your worldview.

First of all, we’re the product of blind random chance. That means there’s no purpose, there’s no meaning, there’s no intentionality with anything that happens in our lives. It means that we have the opportunity to create personal morality because we’re not tied to some objective standard that is external to us. There’s nothing out there except the development of material reality around us. That means all behavior is relative. There’s no right or wrong. There’s no ability to say this or that is inherently wrong. The most we can say is “this is bad for society or this is good for society.” But there’s no way to enforce that for everybody to hold to the same moral framework.

It also means that our underlying approach to life is an evolutionary attitude of survival of the fittest. That allows what I would call an “anthropological flexibility.” If nothing matters, if everything is accidental, if the only point of existence is advancing our genes in the gene pool forward so that our personal progeny continues to perpetuate the human race, then anything goes. And I can then identify as anything that in a sense helps me gain an advantage over everyone else in the society.

The major issues that Secularism tries to deal with are typically over-population and abortion. These fit into the category of this meaninglessness of life. It doesn’t matter about all of those 60 million babies that have been killed in the last two generations. It only matters about creating a scenario where I can advance forward. And if that baby is going to over-populate the earth or even if it’s just going to inconvenience me, it’s to my advantage to move in that direction.

Besides over-population there is climate change. That’s a huge issue for secularists. The idea that fossil fuels are destroying the world and that we have to make radical changes like trillion-dollar programs to try to change human influence on the planet.

Also, there is racial and economic equity. That is a society where everyone has the same outcome - Equal Equity.

Well, question number two. How did we get here?  Well, their answer is, “We got here because of a racially privileged capitalism.” That is, all of the problems that we have are from an external force that has oppressed us and prevented us from being who we want to be.

Where do we go from here? What’s the future? Well, their argument is, “It’s the centralization of power so that you can forcibly correct inequities.” You put a government authority in place so that people are forced to go against their evolutionary impulses. And you make them do what is best based on what is best for those in power.

You eliminate supernatural viewpoints, that is the Judeo-Christian worldview has to go. And you reject objective standards for behavior. There is no right and no wrong. That’s why we want to empty the prisons and defund the police.

Alright. If those are the questions: We come from naturalistic evolution. We are in this situation because of racially privileged capitalism. And the goal forward is the consolidation, the centralization of power to force mankind to move in a particular direction – Are Secularists in this global pandemic being consistent with their worldview?

Think about it. If this is your worldview and these are basic frameworks by which you evaluate the world around you, it would seem that the pandemic is a perfect solution to the very problems that they say have to be dealt with.

For example, instead of locking people down you should let the pandemic blaze its way through the global population. Because what do they tell us needs to happen? Radical environmentalists who are operating from a secularist viewpoint tell us that the earth can’t sustain this human population.

I’ve seen estimates anywhere from one billion to five billion people need to be removed from the earth in order to have a sustainable population on the planet. Well besides the fact that that’s just moronic, think it though. These people who make such comments, they’re suggesting that one to five billion people be removed from the population. Well, if you really believed that then you don’t want a lockdown. You don’t want a stop the corona virus. You’re looking forward to a global pandemic. It’s the answer to all of your concerns. Let the earth be purged of the cancer called humanity. Open society back up and let the disease rage its way and whoever it takes out – Hey, survival of the fittest. That’s what we believe.

Instead of locking everybody up they should be concerned only with their personal protection and not really care what happens to other people. They should trust, based on a secular worldview, that blind evolution will always win out no matter what.

You say, “Well, if it’s blind evolution there’s no point to it. There’s no direction. There’s no standard.” Ah, but here’s where we begin to see the hypocrisy of a secular worldview. Colson said, “Can you live consistently by your worldview?”  A secular worldview cannot be sustained consistently. Let me give you some examples.

If you are rabid about lockdowns and vaccines from a secular worldview, you’re hypocritical to the very idea that you should let things run their course and let survival of the fittest drive the train. Why are you concerned with complaints about the loss of human life? We hear numbers thrown around all of the time – 200,000, 220,000, 260,000, whatever the number is somebody wants to use. We say, “Oh, it’s terrible, that many Americans have died.” If you’re a consistent secularist that shouldn’t even cause you to blink.

There are attacks on those who are not following the rules. Well, if you’re a consistent secularist your attitude should be, “I don’t care if you wear a mask. I don’t care if you go outside. I don’t care if you get the disease because it will just take you out of the gene pool.”

We want to close churches. If you’re a secularist who believes that supernatural viewpoints are dangerous, you should open up every church in the country and let those crazy Christians meet and infect each other and just die off and solve your problem. You see, they don’t hold to the consistency of their viewpoint.

If nature is random then why did we have Prince Harry, the member of the English Royal family, cut himself off? He and his American wife have moved to the United States and he is an environmental activist. He promotes environmentally safe travel. Eco-travel they call it. Harry told us this week that the corona virus is Mother Nature sending us to our room so that we have time to ponder our crimes against the earth.

Wow, so what you’re telling me, Harry, is that the earth has a consciousness and there’s a purpose and an intentionality to the pandemic? See, here’s where the inconsistency begins to show up.
Let me read you a Bible verse because I want to make an argument that there is something in all human beings because we are created in the image of God, there is something in us deep down that we know even when we tell ourselves it’s not true. In Psalm 103:15-18 this is what the Psalmist says.

"As for man, his days are like grass— he blooms like a flower of the field; when the wind passes over it, it vanishes, and its place is no longer known. But from eternity to eternity the LORD's faithful love is toward those who fear Him, and His righteousness toward the grandchildren of those who keep His covenant, who remember to observe His precepts."

What the Psalmist says is that human life is fragile. It shows up like new grass and when the wind blows it withers away and dies. We know because of the way we were created in the image of God, we know deep down that this life is not all there is. It is inherently fragile. It is brief from a time perspective.  But it’s ok that this life is brief because this life plays into a bigger picture of eternity. There is something else that we’re moving toward.

Secularists deny that to themselves and yet they still live out those basic assumptions because you can’t live by a secularist’s worldview. Let me explain.

They understand that human life at its bottom line is a precious commodity. Now if you’ve told yourself that there’s nothing after this life and this life is all you have, you’re going to hold on to it, if you’ll pardon the pun, with a death grip. That’s what we see. They’re panicked about any disease that potentially could cause death. Which is simply a failure to acknowledge that being human causes death. Nobody gets out of this life alive. And yet, they are struggling to not let this take away the only thing they have to hold on to. They understand deep down, despite the naturalistic presumptions, despite the worldview that they claim to believe, they know that human life is precious. But they think it’s precious because it’s all there is. We know that it’s precious because it’s been granted to us to us by God.

They also display the desperation born of rejecting the after-life, which is something that deep in our souls we understand.

Here’s the bottom line. Secularists, for all of their screaming about the pandemic, for all of their crying about lock downs and masks and everything else, they are not living consistently by their self-professed worldview. Secularism fails because you just can’t live by it.

Well, next week I’m going to come back and, unfortunately, I’m going to tell you the same thing about Christianity.

The problem with the pandemic in 2020 is not just the hypocrisy of secularists. But guess what, most Christians aren’t living up to the Judeo-Christian worldview either. And we’re going to talk about that. And our conclusion is going to be, “The winner long-term in the culture wars will be the side that lives its worldview consistently for the world to see.”

Join me next week. This is TruthCurrents.