Unbelief and ignorance are ancient, but they continue in modern contexts. Belief and knowledge are ancient, not modern, but they continue in modern contexts. They all function in the contexts mankind creates, prefers, inherits, and seeks to cultivate in current generations. It is clear that whatever we seek in our own context we feel we create or find. We tend to interpret our lives in the ways we prefer, without stern objectivity, and then move into the future with the baggage we take on. We may simply follow our feelings, from the way we comb our hair, to the sexual orientation we follow, to the management of mystery – and the list extends to everything affecting our lives. When the inclination goes in some direction and seems to be driven by our personal nature, we tend to follow it unless we find some other ideal for guidance and choose to follow it. There are various idealisms outside our physical (mortal) drives, purposes that will be chosen and by our wills take over the physical drives (found in biology’s context) in what we presume to be spiritual drives (found in the cerebral context). For the Christian this presumption (faith) is achieved relationship with Jesus Christ, change that is expressed in the analogy to physical birth – in a born-again experience. That experience moves the individual believer into a context that determines the life course. This born-again experience not only includes the factors of daily mortal belief and conduct in mortality, but carries over into immortality by those who sincerely embrace Christian faith (spiritual).
For years the newspapers have carried a weekly column by Chuck Shepherd entitled: News of the Weird. On November 16, 2013 his lead item included the following: Finding their religion – sans the religion: Various studies show “churchgoers” to be happier, more optimistic and healthier than other people, leading some atheists and agnostics to wonder whether the church experience could be fruitfully replicated but minus the belief in God. Hence the “Sunday Assembly” was created in London, and has now spread to New York City and Melbourne, Australia, with 18 other hoped-for openings by year’s end, according to a September report in The Week. Founders seek such benefits as “a sense of community,” “a thought-provoking [secular] sermon,” “group singing” and an “ethos of self-improvement,” exemplified by the motto “live better, help often, wonder more,” and the hope that eventually Sunday Assembly will organize Sunday school, weddings, funerals, and “non-religious baptisms.”
Someone needs to instruct these creative people that it has all been done before. They are reinventing the wheel. There are, and have been, individuals, groups and movements that achieve the context noted and desired by this movement. Many good humanistic movements, even once related to God, have taken the point of atheism or agnosticism that either God is preoccupied elsewhere, or that he never existed. A movement grew out of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) that adopted everything from the original orientation except any relationship with deity so to accomplish in a totally humanistic context what the theist would include in a plan for sobriety. There are others, even with some modicum of a faith that acted similarly to theism. Even some traditional churches have removed beliefs and conducts related to a personal God, but continue as churches. For some, as Scripture notes, God will say, I never knew you. It is said that in modern Israel that in spite of the importance of the faith of Israel founded in Abraham and Moses, a faith that distinguished Israel in the history of the last 4,000 years, there may be more agnostics and atheists than in any other ethnic group studied in modern history. Many of the remarkable achievers both in the past, and in current life claim Jewishness, but are atheists. They even keep some of the religious traditions. Various organizations offer services, fellowship, progress, and related benefits to better performance as human beings than that which appears in popular culture. They may be surprised that God assists in their effort. We return to common grace. Humanistic life was meant to find success, decency, good will, love, and all that is practical to a good life. In common grace this is highly commendable. Divine grace is for those receiving the redemptive story. Significant difference between high-level humanism and divine life is the difference of death and immortality in Christ. Humanism offers endings. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020