Religion and Democracy
Brent Railey writes:
[S]ecularism is a religion with a naturalistic worldview diametrically opposed to the Christian worldview—a worldview that a significant population still has.
I'm not sure that secularism qualifies as a "worldview," but as a philosophy there's nothing inherently "naturalistic" about it. There was a time when "secularism" was used to describe a philosophy that bears some resemblance to what Railey writes, but that was back in the 19th century. Times have changed.
Secularism, to begin with, cannot be a religion any more than bachelors can be married — it's very definition is that of being non-religious. Secondly, both atheists and theists have adopted "secularism" as a political principle, thus demonstrating that there is nothing inherently "naturalistic" about it. The point of social or political secularism is to have social or political institutions be independent of religious institutions.
The pressing idea of democracy encompasses a citizenry that is self-governed. It is a “government by the people, for the people, and of the people.” In the United States, we elect officials who will legislate and enforce laws on our behalf. If our elected officials go against the will of the people, then we have the power to remove them by not reelecting them. ... In a democracy, ultimately it is the people who make the rules that represent the values of that society.
Actually, America is a constitutional, democratic republic. This means (in the context here) that majorities don't always get what they want. Democratic voting is limited in ways that ensure the rights and liberties of minorities.
Every nation that has declared secularism or atheism as the national philosophy has had a dictatorship that devalues human life and suppresses human rights—and outlawed religion.
On the other hand, countries that have declared a specific religion to be the basis for their nation have been free, haven't devalued human life, haven't suppressed human rights, and haven't outlawed any religions. Examples that come to mind include Iran, Saudi Arabia, and much of medieval Europe. Wonderful places, all of them, where people can (or could) be free of the influences of pernicious secularism.
Without God, there is no absolute standard of morality.
There are quite a few atheists who disagree with this position. Many atheists are relativists when it comes to morality, but others believe in objective moral standards. Some are even moral realists. It may be that Brent Railey wouldn't agree with their arguments but somehow I have the feeling that he isn't even aware of them, much less has good reasons for disputing them.
Look at America. For the long time that this nation embraced Christianity, this nation was able to self-govern. ... [D]emocracy without religion will only result in confusion. With no absolute standard of right and wrong, the citizenry loses the ability to self-govern, because they can’t agree on what is right and wrong.
Whereas with religion, everyone always agrees on what is right and wrong — yes? Obviously not. Brent Railey's view here was firmly and finally discredited by the Civil War and the battle over slavery.
E. Brooks Holifield writes in his book Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War:
“More than most other theological debates of the period...the slavery controversy displayed the extent to which cultural assumptions governed biblical interpretation. Especially visible was the intrusion into theology of assumptions about race. ...[T]he proslavery reading of scripture reflected the southern commitment to a hierarchical, organic social ideology that considered relations of dependence a necessary part of the natural ordering of things. This was one reason that the defenders of slavery so often linked their defense of slavery with their belief that children should be subordinate to adults and women should be subordinate to men.”
“To a segment of American intellectuals, the theological impasse meant that theology could no longer articulate the moral vision that held the culture together. ...[T]he slavery controversy among the theologians revealed...the inability of theology to unite Americans or to help them transcend the pull of economic and political interests. The cultural language that supposedly united Americans proved itself able to contribute even more forcefully to their division”
In Noah's Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery, Stephen R. Haynes writes:
“In [Virginian George] Fitzhugh’s view [Fitzhugh being the most respected slavery apologist of the decades prior to the Civil War], abolitionists sought nothing less than the reorganization of American society. They wished “to abolish...or greatly modify, the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, the institution of private property of all kinds, but especially separate ownership of lands, and the institution of Christian churches as now existing in America.” If they are successful, Fitzhugh warned, government, law, religion, and marriage would be among the casualties. Just as abolitionists could not recognize the South apart from its support for human servitude, Fitzhugh perceived Northern social ills as by-products of a free society, whose principles were at war with “all government, all subordination, all order.” If slavery is wrong, he reasoned, then all human government is wrong.”
This was obviously a time when America "embraced Christianity," but it's just as obvious that the nation had great difficultly when it came to self-governing and that Christianity utterly failed as a basis for agreement on even question of whether slavery was moral. To expect Christianity to do any better today when the diversity of religion generally and Christianity in particular is greater than ever before is to engage in willful blindness. The facts of American history make it absolutely clear that Christianity not only isn't necessary for self-government, but also that it's exacerbated at least as many situations as it's been used to help.
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