There is strong belief, in the new millennium beginning the twenty first century, that the peoples of the world, the nations, are more and more turning to secularism. The reasons for the humanistic growth are many, as recited in numerous publications, including S.J.D. Green’s book on: The Passing of Protestant England. Green makes references to the United States and other countries, both in reviewing large negative movements and unexplained exceptions to negative forces impacting the Church. Dallas, Texas is an illustration of offering negative forces, like distracting leisure entertainments (secular/humanistic), but is seen as a force for Christian evangelicalism (spiritual/theistic). The reasons run through a list from boredom with the church, to the victory of the youth culture, to the effects of warfare, to politics that picked up on charity that had always been a religious value; to pluralism that overtook unity of action and loyalty; to conduct changes that disregarded some long-held morality factors, even to the decline of the Sunday School, with these and other causes, large and small, becoming extensive for the decline of religion. Relative to Europe and the Western Hemisphere this relates to Christianity. Decline is seen as affecting both the Catholic and Protestant Churches. The implication is that well-ordered natural life provides enough answers for humanity, and that religion is fading as a relevant factor in the ongoing of mankind.
Earth’s population faces a number of problems in the stew of life. The problems are exacerbated by the varieties of approaches and methods for addressing them. The two largest approaches relate to natural answers (humanistic in that assumptions relate to verifiable natural evidence) gained from the evidence of nature and human experience. The second relates to spiritual (extra-nature) carrying contexts of life into a pattern of philosophy based on faith assumptions. The two basic assumptions for Christianity in this context are that God exists and that he is involved (communicates) with mankind. Much of the literature from both orientations is at odds with the claims and beliefs of the other. This creates considerable tension for both sides, but especially for theists in that their evidence is not so tangible. The evidence for the humanist is the bird in hand, while the evidence for the spiritual sequence is in yonder bush – perhaps unreachable or shrouded in mystery. At least that is the way the thoroughgoing secular humanist perceives the scenario. The problems for the massive population are exacerbated by the differences within both the scholars of the natural context, and those of the theistic context. The conflicts within and the conflicts without contribute to a stew the masses have some difficulty in swallowing and digesting.
Most persons are amateurs in knowing and managing the information of the professional scholars of either earth science (currently natural evolution), and those religionists believing in a personal God (for our purposes, Christians). Laypersons have little idea how evolution is supposed to work, how the millions of years are calculated, how differences in genomes are formed, and the story becomes even foggier in the variant claims of persons in the same camps. Humanists have sincere difficulty in accepting any perception of human life that is not found in nature. So they cannot accept the Christian belief that: The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1) Humanists interpret on their own. If balanced, theists can accept both perceptions and articulate them without violating either. One formulates the narrative from inside out as the perception of mankind, while also believing in that which is found outside making its way to mankind’s perception. From this inside information we are told that our universe began with a Big Bang. From the outside information, we who hold to that information claim that if the Big Bang is the way it happened that God gave the Big Bang to generate the universe and gave it controlling factors to form what we have. Further (and this is the real toughie), God maintains his original interest in his creative gestures, so interrupts some factors from time to time for purpose. Those interruptions are not to be interpreted as violations of laws any more than a person violates nature in stopping the fall of an apple from a tree violates the laws of gravity. Nature permits it to fall to the ground and rot. God may want me to catch it and eat it. We do well to include God in our learning to meaning. Some argue that atheists are well served to act as though there is a holy God in life. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020