Spiritual value orientation is an important but little understood factor in human relationships, in both private and public affairs. This is observable in every-day life and in history. Even the atheist, George Orwell, believed that persons ought to function as though there were a God. Orwell’s God figment was conjured from human need. We wonder about the kind of God one might invent. Americans holding high perception of life for the individual, not quite perceiving the willingness of so many persons in the Middle East and in the name of Allah, to blow themselves up in crowds in order to create chaos for enemies. We learn from Scripture that God’s order is to live for him. Life is the goal. Such differences in perceptions are significant.
Differentials between friends, neighbors, mates, children and others become troublesome in the ordinary intercourse of life. William Howard Taft’s grandfather asked one of his sons, Henry, will you have mince pie or apple pie? Henry answered, I don’t care. It doesn’t make any difference. Well, said grandfather in all solemnity, if you don’t care, we won‘t cut a pie. He meant what he said. If the matter didn’t make any difference, why bother with eating a piece of pie? The point of the occasion was related to savor. If choice could not be made, save the pie. If it made no difference, why bake two? If it existed there ought to be some deliberate response to its existence. Religion is often treated as no more important than neutrality about Taft’s pie.
Vast numbers of Americans, Europeans even more, have lost the reality of the importance of God to nations. The separation of church and state, an excellent idea, has contributed to a feeling that, in the course of government, religion should make little or no inroads on political and secular life. Religion and the state are interpreted by the secularist as standing off each other. If conflict did not exist, there would not be so many objections to the influence of religion on the officers of government. A president may be linked with ignorance and superstition when he openly refers to his faith, or to prayer, and is implied to be intellectually incapable of adequate performance in the office he was elected to fill. Perhaps revealing its bias, the press made many implied negative references to the faith of the American president during the first decade of the 21st century and few to his predecessor during the decade earlier. It is affirmed that his predecessor made more public references to faith and Scripture than he did. Today, a comparable Gettysburg Address would be put down as too religious. The composition of that speech incorporates biblical language.
For large populations, faith considerations are more important than life, or finding social peace, or building economies. We fail when we slight the faith of individuals and peoples. In cultural anthropology we learn that it has been important for peoples to include God in their daily lives. The oft predicted success of secularism has not occurred. Mankind needs hope, and we commonly find that hope in God. Some god ideas are frivolous, peculiar, illogical, contradictory, and indefensible. God permits man’s forays. He is quite able to take care of himself. Christians, persons of redemptive faith, live out the imputed life of God in themselves. God is their most important personal possession. Secularists need to perceive faith as a reality factor if they wish to succeed with many proposals. Faith is alive and vital to mankind. Admission of a culture of God does not demand that humanists believe in God, but it does rightly ask that persons be respected for offering spiritual life meaning. It is reality for them. For the humanist death ends matters for us. Scripture argues for life and values, for here and hereafter. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020