I recently read an article published on TheHumanist.com regarding an Atheist’s thoughts about Christianity. The Humanist is an American bi-monthly magazine published in Washington, D.C. by the American Humanist Association (AHA). The AHA is a non-profit organization that advocates for humanists, atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers.
My big picture impression of this article was that this particular Atheist writer (and actually most others like her who write articles disparaging Christianity) doesn’t actually understand Christianity at all. She and her ilk tend to filter their understanding of Christianity through the presuppositions of their naturalistic worldview beliefs. The end result is that they really have no clue about the actual beliefs of Christianity. (You can read this article for yourself at https://thehumanist.com/news/national/when-christian-nationalism-becomes-public-policy)
This article was written by Tess Sumner. At this writing, she is a freshman at Harvard University studying government and English. Besides writing articles for The Humanist, she also writes for the Harvard Crimson, the school’s undergraduate student newspaper. She can, perhaps, be forgiven a little for her lack of knowledge about Christianity because of her youth. However, since she writes quite a lot about the topic in multiple well established publications, she would do well to hold back a little until she understands better what she is writing about.
Sumner bases her conclusions on a survey that was done by the left-leaning Public Religion Research Institute. It is a polling organization that is funded by left leaning groups and focuses on issues of interest to Atheists and Progressives. While their polling methodology seems to be rather straightforward, the questions they ask definitely skew left, and thus often create a biased result.
In this article, Sumner cites a poll indicating that about 1/3 of Americans are either adherents or sympathizers of Christian nationalism. They deceptively define that as the belief that the United States is divinely decreed as a Christian nation and should privilege Christianity in its laws and institutions. She goes on to assert that this belief is strongly correlated with authoritarian attitudes, hostility toward immigrants, and tolerance for political violence.
In Sumner’s view, America’s values and institutional foundation should be based on Secularism. She sees that point of view as being neutral and inclusive of all points of view. That argument alone exposes her gross lack of understanding concerning what she is writing about.
She doesn’t realize that a Secular philosophy is not neutral as she believes it to be. The well established fact is that American society, including its various societal institutions, were indeed founded based upon biblical values. That doesn’t mean that Christianity as a faith system is being privileged in America’s various societal institutions. What it means is that the values that emerge out of Christianity are the value set that underlie how those institutions were established and operate. A distinction must be made between the religious faith and the values that emerge out of that faith.
The Christian values America was founded upon acknowledge an objective moral foundation and include such things as the value of human life, individual liberty, actual justice, the rule of law, equality of opportunity, freedom of conscience, due process, equal justice under the law, and others. Atheistic values, on the other hand, are based on a relativistic moral foundation and are thus arbitrary and changeable based on who is in power. It includes such things as the priority of the collective over the individual (and even human life itself), social justice, equality of outcome, government control over beliefs and ideas, political control over the economy, and so on.
The truth is, it is impossible for society’s various institutions to operate with neutral values – there is no such thing. There will be some set of values that underlie them. It is not a matter of biblical values vs. nothing, but biblical values vs. some other set of values.
What Sumner is really advocating for is not a neutral set of governing values as she believes, but to remove the objective based foundation of our current system and substitute a relativistic one in its place – a system that can be manipulated by those in power to accomplish their personal political goals.
The very last line of Sumner’s article states, “Christian nationalism asks who belongs. Humanism answers: everyone, and equally.” That is simply not true. She begins with a false premise and draws a false conclusion from it. Her belief that “everyone belongs equally” is betrayed by the fact that she has spent the entire article arguing that people who hold Christian beliefs should be shut out. Her contention is further undermined by the fact that she paints a picture of Christian beliefs that is simply not true.
While Sumer is the one who has articulated the beliefs here, she is far from alone. These are the beliefs of an entire segment of the population. It is very difficult for Christians to oppose people who espouse these kinds of beliefs if they are not equipped in a way that allows them to understand the worldview foundation of those who are making the arguments. Thus, it is critical for Christians to get up to speed on this. It is important not only to help keep society on the right track, but for our very Christian witness, as well.
Freddy Davis is the president of MarketFaith Ministries. He is the author of numerous books entitled The Truth Mirage, Rules for Christians Radicals, Liberalism vs. Conservatism, and his latest book Shattering the Truth Mirage and has a background as an international missionary, pastor, radio host, worldview trainer, and entrepreneur. Freddy is a graduate of Florida State University with a BS in Communication, and holds MDiv and DMin degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is a popular speaker, particularly on the topic of worldview and its practical implications for the Christian life. He lives in Tallahassee, FL, with his wife Deborah.
You may also contact Freddy at Leadership Speakers Bureau to schedule him for speaking or leadership engagements.
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