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What the Bible says about Secular Mind
(From Forerunner Commentary)

1 Kings 12:25-33

I Kings 12:25-33 records the beginning of the Kingdom of Israel's apostasy. Fearing that he might eventually lose political control over the ten tribes because of their long-standing religious ties to Jerusalem, capital of the Kingdom of Judah (verse 27), Jeroboam I instituted a state religion designed to meet his peoples' needs for convenience - and his own need for power. He built two shrines, one in Bethel, at the southern extremity of his kingdom, the other in Dan, near its northern boundary (verse 29). If not de jure, at least de facto, he exiled the Levites, the priestly tribe established by God, and installed in their place a priesthood of his own devising (verse 31). Finally, he moved the fall holy day season from the seventh month to the eighth, thereby effectively setting aside the Sabbath commandment, since the holy days are God's Sabbaths (see Leviticus 23:1-3, 23-44). All this "became a sin" for Israel (I Kings 12:30).

Jeroboam's apostasy, his movement to false religious practices, took deep root. In fact, the house of Israel never departed from the practices he established. II Kings 17:21-23 records this fact:

Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD, and made them commit a great sin. For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did not depart from them, until the LORD removed Israel out of His sight. . . .

Having abandoned the Sabbath, the God-given sign marking them as His people (Exodus 31:13-17), the folk of the northern tribes eventually lost their identification. That is why most Israelites do not know who they are to this day. The forefathers forsook the sign that denoted their connection to God.

Take this line of thought to its logical conclusion: The Sabbath is a memorial to creation and, by extension, to the Creator God (see Exodus 20:11). Modern-day Israelites do not know who they are today because their forefathers, generations ago, abandoned this memorial to the Creator God. Therefore, modern-day Israelites have come to abandon more than the sign: They have abandoned the God to whom the sign points. They no longer know God.

This is not an overstatement. Make no mistake: Failure to recognize who Israel is today is failure to recognize the God who made Israel! The distressing secularism running rampant in the modern nations of Israel today has its roots in Sabbath-breaking. The antidote for secularism in America is not an inane Constitutional amendment requiring the teaching of creationism in the state schools. The panacea some offer, prayer in the public schools, will not do the trick. Increased Sunday church attendance will not stanch the flood of secularism; after all, most Sunday worshippers accept the doctrines of biologic and economic determinism (i.e., evolution and socialism, respectively) just as avowed atheists do. Attempting to unite a people with its God through these measures is surely akin to building a wall with "untempered mortar" (see Ezekiel 13:9-23). In the coming storm, such a wall will fall.

However, one will never find a Sabbath-keeper who is a secularist, for the Sabbath-keeper has maintained his link with the Creator God. Sabbath-keeping and secularism mix about as well as oil and water.

Charles Whitaker
Searching for Israel (Part Twelve): The Sign

Psalm 14:1

Liberals, says James Hitchcock in "The Enemies of Religious Liberty" (First Things, February 2004, pp. 26-30), especially those infesting America's universities, have come to detest religion—any religion, anywhere. To these secularists, faith in the unseen God is incomprehensible and irrational. They view it as divisive to the coherence of society, as well as destructive. Stanford University professor and philosopher Richard Rorty believes that "the 'highest achievements of humanity' are incompatible with religion" (Truth and Progress, 1991). It may be instructive to see what Rorty's peers in liberal academia have to say about our religious freedoms.

Since they see religion as at odds with freedom, academic liberals are increasingly coming to believe that the state has the right—indeed the obligation—to "damage-control" religion. So, New York University Law Professor David A.J. Richards claims that it is necessary for the state to foster its own religion, "a religion and an ethics that validate the highest order moral powers of rationality and reasonableness of a free people" (Toleration and the Constitution, 1986). Chicago University Professor of Jurisprudence Cass Sunstein advocates using "the liberal state to force the intolerant to be tolerant" (The Partial Constitution, 1999). Intolerant here means espousing strong religious beliefs, beliefs by which one lives. European University Institute Professor of Legal Theory and Legal Philosophy Wojciech Sadurski argues that no state can permit religious groups that have not transformed themselves into bodies both "rational" and self-critical" (Moral Pluralism, 1990).

The state, therefore, becomes mentor, teacher, and priest. Princeton University's Steven Macedo in his book, The New Right Versus the Constitution, sees the state as "a permanently educative order," allowing the legitimate authority to use its coercive powers (read, police powers) against "illiberal churches" in order to promote greater freedom. He has no problem at all with excluding religious people from public office, such as judgeships.

The government's new "educative" power sets it in opposition to parents' rights to raise their children in their own religion. Politics professors Amy Gutmann of Princeton and Dennis Thompson of Harvard "explicitly hold that the state need not be concerned that its educational system might violate the rights of religious believers" (Democracy and Disagreement, 1996). William and Mary School of Law professor James Dwyer holds that "religious education inculcates 'reactionary and repressive' values in children, and for the good of the child, the state is not only obligated to prohibit such schools completely or monitor them closely but also to monitor closely how parents educate their children at home" (Religious Schools vs. Children's Rights, 1998). He goes on to state that "parental choice in education might be 'inconsistent with the state's aims.'" Under the banner of children's rights, parental rights are wiped away!

Not unpredictably, Dwyer demands that "all education inculcate feminism and permissive attitudes toward sexual behavior, and that religions which fail to do so be made subject to state regulation." He believes that the government does not violate the First Amendment restriction against the establishment of religion "so long as its actions are intended to inhibit religion rather than to favor it." Kathleen M. Sullivan of Stanford University Law School claims that "religion must be treated 'asymmetrically' from other freedoms, with 'entanglement' between government and religion a good thing for the purpose of restraining religion."

These haters of God would commit mayhem against the United States Constitution (and against Americans) in order to build their utopian society of sterile rationality and unfettered choice. While we are unable to stop them, we can be thankful that we side with the One who can—and will. In the utopia He builds, religion will have a paramount place.

Charles Whitaker (1944-2021)
Liberal Haters of God

Romans 1:18-32

In this passage, Paul gives a brief but appalling overview of the effect of people turning their backs on the Creator God. Mankind has worshipped the creation more than the Creator, and thus, God gave mankind over to vile affections and to a mind devoid of true judgment—his own natural mind. Since man's experiences shaped his judgment regarding conduct, his ability to judge truth became vague and led to the horrible perversions Paul lists. Today, the world groans with the weight of bearing the fruit of this idolatry.

Our own personal experience confirms the validity of these verses. Paul lists the consequences of a purely secular mind, which resulted from leaving the True Source of right standards out of our lives. He shows that when we follow the path described, we not only lose godliness but also true humanity.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Second Commandment (1997)

Romans 1:28

Romans 1 provides a brief overview of the horrific effects of mankind turning its collective back on the Creator God. Verse 28 from the Revised English Bible reads, "Thus, because they have not seen fit to acknowledge God, he has given them up to their own depraved way of thinking [reprobate mind, King James Version] and this leads them to break all rules of conduct." The term "reprobate mind" indicates a mind devoid of proper judgment. When God's judgment against Adam and Eve went into effect, mankind's choices in daily life became based almost entirely upon human experience.

This passage shows specifically what happens when people leave the Source of true values out of their lives. They become like a pinball, wandering aimlessly and bouncing from one jolting experience to another. Perhaps humanity can be described as a bull in a china shop, breaking things at every turn and causing an incredible amount of destruction and pain without ever being able to compose itself to create a lasting, peaceful lifestyle. Put another way, people become like animals in a jungle, competing viciously to survive and to eat before they are eaten.

Paul exposes the consequences of a purely secular mind. When God is removed or removes Himself, mankind not only loses godliness, but also true humanity. This degeneration occurs because man is not seeking God. Christ, however, did not seek His own will: "And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him" (John 8:29). This is what made the difference between Christ and the rest of mankind, resulting in His judgment being completely unclouded.

This leaves us with the question, "How can a person discern truth in moral and spiritual areas if he already has the wrong source and is not consistently seeking the right One?" He cannot! John 7:15-17, 24 offers a biblical example of this truth:

And the Jews marveled, saying, "How does this Man know letters, having never studied?" Jesus answered them, and said, "My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority. . . . Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."

The people could not perceive their murderous intentions. It is hoped that this confrontation helps us see the vast gap in understanding between the people, whose main source for values was human experience, and Jesus, whose source was God. Those confronting Jesus did not realize that they were being misled by their idolatry, as Paul reveals in Romans 1.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Second Commandment


 




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