Secularism is not the Answer

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NOTE: This is not a post about Islam. Although the story that inspired this post was about opposing Islam with secularism in France, this is not a commentary on the validity of various forms of that religion.

I listened to an NPR story the week before Christmas that piqued my interest. The story was about an important issue in light the contemporary debate about religion, terrorism, and the public square. It dealt with an attempt by one French woman to promote secularism to young Muslims in France. 

The whole thing is about four minutes long and is worth a listen.

Mother Of Slain French Soldier Fights Against Radicalization
Eleanor Beardsley

While the author of the article, Eleanor Beardsley, doesn't provide overt commentary on the woman's activity, this is an article that is promoting a particular view of religion. The activist, Ziaten, is promoting secularism and Beardsley is implicitly lauding it.

Here is an excerpt from the transcript that illustrates the argument:

Amand Riquier, the principal of the high school Ziaten is visiting in the northern suburbs of Paris, says so far, no students have radicalized. But teachers are always looking for the signs, such as a sudden and zealous display of religiousness.
Secularism is one of France's most important values, up there with equality, fraternity and liberty. In French schools, neither students nor teachers can come to class wearing religious symbols such as the Muslim veil or the Jewish skullcap.
Riquier says Madame Ziaten's visit is important.
"She'll be able to explain to them that secularism in schools is not meant to constrain their faith, but is a necessary principle for us all to live together in harmony and equality," he says.
Ziaten tells the students how she moved to France from Morocco at the age of 17. She tells the kids this country gave her — and her French-born children — every opportunity.
She says boys like Mohamed Mehra, and those who attacked Paris this year, were abandoned by their families and society. She says they are utter failures who know nothing about Islam.
Islam is not at war with Europe, Ziaten emphasizes. She tells the students that some are trying to turn Islam into an identity. But it's a religion, she says, and it's a private matter.
"Your identity is French," she says. "And you have a future to build in France."

Enforced Secularism

Based on this worldview, religion is a private matter. It doesn't belong in the public square. 

The argument here is that banning religious expressions in public is necessary for living together. The signs of trouble are when students begin to live religiously.

Used in unaltered form via Creative Common License: http://ow.ly/WleKO

Used in unaltered form via Creative Common License: http://ow.ly/WleKO

In other words, religion is ok unless you actually live like it's true. The only forms of religion that are acceptable, by this standard, are those that don't make a difference in the way that you live.

Unfortunately, that defies the very nature of religion. Every meaningful religion makes demands. Sometimes those are consistent with the standards of the world and at other times they are not. Telling people they can't live out their faith is telling them that their faith does not matter, and that their religion isn't true. That is problematic.

In this case, it makes the assumption that the values of secularism are superior to all other religions. 

The Values of Worldviews

There is no such thing as a neutral worldview. Every worldview has values.

Beardsley acknowledges this in her article, "Secularism is one of France's most important values, up there with equality, fraternity and liberty."

The naked public square isn't naked; it's filled to the brim with values that make totalizing demands on life. In this case, one of the most significant values is 'secularism,' which in this context appears to mean denying the significance of religion.

So secularism is making religious claims, but without the argumentation. This doesn't promote liberty, it promotes a tyranny of the mind and soul. It makes absolute claims on every part of life, but without the warrant for it.

Conclusion

I've heard it said that Europe is usually a generation ahead of the US culturally. Many people make moral arguments based on what Europe does, especially about social policies. The assumption appears to be that they are doing it right and the US is dragging behind. However, before we support the tyrannical secularism that France has, we need to consider whether true religious liberty should be sacrificed for that purpose. Not allowing people to practice their religion openly and being overtly hostile to public demonstrations of faith may make it easier to live together, but it may make it harder to live.

While France's anti-religious policies may limit the radicalization of Muslims in public, it may also override the basic right to a freedom of conscience. That seems a high price to pay for peace.

Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel - A Review

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If you are a Christian struggling with how to find a way to positively engage the world around you while remaining orthodox, then Russell Moore’s book, Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel, is for you.

Moore has been on various news outlets over the past few years as a spokesman for conservative evangelicals, particular for the Southern Baptist Convention. If this has caused you to wonder what he is doing and why he says the things he says, then this book will be helpful for you, too.

Avoiding Twin Dangers

Moore is outlining the twin dangers of Christian engagement in the public square. On the one hand, it is easy for Christians to become like grumpy old people telling kids to get off their lawn. On the other hand, it also easy for Christians to leave unexamined many of the ills of society as long as it doesn't directly impact them. We can’t afford to fall into either one of the errors if we are going to reach the world with the good news of the gospel.

The thing that keeps us from falling into either of these errors is a proper understanding of the gospel. Moore begins by discussing the culture shift that has pushed Christians from the center of the cultural conversation to the prophetic edges. He is careful to note this reality reflects the fact that the values coalitions of previous decades sounded very Christian without actually being converted by the gospel. As the conversation shifted away from something that resembled a Christian ethic, the Christians that remained faithful to the gospel seemed to have two options: either compromise or get left out of the conversation. This is a false dichotomy.

Gospel Foundation, Contemporary Issues

Early on in the volume, Moore digs into the meaning of the gospel. He makes it clear that the gospel isn’t about either personal salvation or social justice; it’s about both. If the Christian church loses its understanding of personal conversion and individual redemption, she loses one of the cornerstones of the gospel message. Salvation is not based on redemption of the whole, but on Christ’s atonement for the individual. At the same time, if Christian individuals miss the central redemptive themes of historic Christianity, which offers a strong dose of the pursuit of justice in society, then they miss out on some of the key implications of their own gospel conversion; redeemed individuals seek to redeem society.

With both these aspects of redemption in mind, Moore addresses a number of major issues that are central to the contemporary cultural discussion: immigration, religious liberty, and family stability. These are social issues that tend to divide Americans from each other and are the topics that commonly lead to calls for compromise and accusations of a lack of compassion.

Convictional Kindness

This is where Moore’s call for convictional kindness comes in. Convictional kindness is standing firm on ethical norms without shame, while confronting the angry accusations of the surrounding world with a gentle spirit. The conviction is birthed from confidence in the objective moral order in creation that is witnessed to by the special revelation found in Scripture. It requires rational, well-thought through positions that are both coherent and correspond to the truth in God’s creation. Kindness is built on the understanding of our own personal need for redemption. We, too, are growing, learning people who have pasts that we may have forgotten. Those that we disagree with, even those waving fingers and shouting in our faces, are people made in the image of God who deserve to hear the message of redemption. That’s a message they won’t be able to hear if we are shouting back. In fact, joining in the shouting will keep our “conversation partners” from hearing both our arguments on the issue and the message of the gospel.

Moore’s overall argument is hugely important as Christians seek to be salt and light in a world that (still) desperately needs the gospel. He also makes subtler points that are even more significant for Christians to hear. For example, in discussing the issue of gun control or gun rights he explains that there is no single Christian position. He has a position, which he does not articulate, but he notes more significantly that no one can speak for an official Christian position. There are certainly moral elements to the question, but at the same time the bulk of the argument is prudential and legal. It would be unethical to leave loaded guns within the reach of toddlers, but the capacity of a magazine and the process for background checks for weapons are prudential questions. This doesn’t mean that the question is not significant, but that we should be careful about promoting our preferred position as a gospel truth when it isn’t. Doing so encourages wrangling within the body of Christ and it largely discredits the message of the gospel because the faulty logic is apparent to any who care to see it. In this example, the Second Amendment is a benefit of being American, not a right imbued by the gospel.

Conclusion

Onward has been published at a time that conservative Christians in America feel like they are under assault because anything resembling a Christianesque ethic is being pushed farther toward the margins. Moore helps by explaining that Christianity has always been strange and that we should continue to cling to our strangeness. We have to articulate the gospel in our homes, in our churches, and in our culture if we are to have an impact. Moore’s book is an encouragement to continue to live faithfully in private and in public, but with a confidence founded on the truth of the gospel not fueled by a majority in the polls. 

Nonviolent Action - A Review

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There are, generally speaking, three distinct understandings of war. The first is pacifism, which holds that war is never right and a nation is never right to go to war, even in self-defense. The second is just war, which argues war is a last resort, but that there are conditions under which war is justified. The third is crusade, which finds war is acceptable for ideological reasons regardless of other considerations.

Ronald Sider is a pacifist. Unlike earlier voices in his tradition, however, Sider has gone from proclaiming pacifism as normative for Christians alone (as earlier anabaptistic pacifists did) to claiming pacifism in a universal norm. While this book is about more than rationale for war, it is still no surprise that Sider ends up claiming nonviolent action is the expected response of all Christians in all situations. I disagree with the breadth of Sider’s conclusion, but there is much to learn from Sider’s perspective nonetheless.

Summary

The book is divided into four parts. In the first part, Sider recounts some of the instances in history of nonviolence apparently achieving its tactical goals. He includes Gandhi’s resistance to the British Empire, Martin Luther King, Jr., resistance to guerrillas in Nicaragua, and the overthrow of Marco is the Philippines. Each of these highlights a place where non-violence was the primary form of action used against a political threat, with a positive result.

Part II recounts the use of nonviolence on a grander political scale with the overthrow of the Soviet Empire in both Poland and East Germany. The third part covers more recent resistance movements, including the impact some Liberian women had through prayer and protest, the nonviolent tactics used in some portions of the Arab Spring, and the recent growth of peacemaker teams, which are equipped and trained for nonviolent interference in political situations.

Part IV moves from description to prescription as Sider calls for a renewed dedication and investment in nonviolent action, including training volunteers who are willing to die to nonviolently resist in conflict areas.

Analysis

Nonviolent Action will convince only those who are already inclined to believe that Christian Ethics really demands such methods which have never really been tried. First, the bulk of the book is designed to show places that nonviolent action has been tried in response to oppression and aggression. Second, Sider makes no defense for his premise that nonviolence is the only course of action for Christian ethics. Instead he argues that nonviolence is better than violence, so we need to be nonviolent. Even sympathetic readers that dislike violence should demand more careful support for a position.

Beyond the flaws in the argument, there is an unacknowledged limit of the scope considered in the context surrounding the nonviolent movements. In other words, Sider describes situations in which nonviolent action was taken and positive results achieved, then he asserts nonviolence was the ultimate cause of success. This may be the case, but Sider’s analysis is not sufficient to justify his conclusions. The fall of the communist regimes in East Germany and Poland may have been expedited by nonviolent resistance, but the communist capitulation may have had nearly as much to do with the underlying economic weakness of socialism causing a collapse.  Similarly, Sider does not consider that the nonviolent resistances of Gandhi and King may have been made possible because a world with a conscience and a will to fight stood by to watch the proceedings. In other words, nonviolence may have worked in some cases because there was an external threat of violence if things got out of hand.

Ronald Sider

Ronald Sider

Those criticisms are significant, but they do not undermine the overall value of the volume. Sider’s larger point is that nonviolent action should be the first effort and be more robustly invested in. Seeing the long term impact on combat veterans makes looking for alternative solutions when possible a more appealing alternative. Additionally, the recent events in Ferguson might have been more helpful and less polarizing had the protestors taken a stronger stance toward nonviolence. Sider’s expectation that nonviolence will really work in all situations is unrealistic, but his description of the success in some circumstances warrants further, more detailed evaluation.

A second strength is that Sider is advocating for action. The flaw in some pacifistic argument is the ostrich-like hope that if violence is ignored it will eventually go away. In some descriptions of the position, the pacifist approach boils down to a non-interventionist strategy, which has had significantly negative results historically. Instead, Sider recognizes the evil in the world and calls for action to end conflict through nonviolent resistance, even to the point of losing life. There is something worth consideration in Sider’s case.

Conclusion

This is basically a popular level book with some sociological research to support it. The conclusion outpaces the argumentation at several points, but this is still a thought provoking text. It has some significant weaknesses, but the strengths are sufficient to make it worth reading. Nonviolent Action is unlikely to become a classic text on the subject, but it makes a contribution to an important conversation in turbulent times.

Note: A gratis copy of this volume was provided by the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.