The Lord is here; his kingdom has come. (Part 2)

The Lord is here; his kingdom has come

Part 2: The false secular dismissal of God

An experience of the presence of God is the bedrock of faith. Without it, religion becomes simply a code to live by, a set of social conventions to guide society. Such a foundation is not sufficient to make religion robust, and we see in our own secular society how quickly a majority of people cast off the outward conventions of a religious society, because there was no heart for most people to make it vibrant and personally relevant.

This is tragic, because the entire history of humanity suggests that there are fundamental aspects of our nature that make us intrinsically religious. A secular view has become dominant, that this was simply a mistake, based on our scientific ignorance of the material world and our superstitious, and therefore unworthy, tendency to see enchantment – both good and evil – in every tree and brook. The idea is that, in our primitive state we were extremely vulnerable to the powerful forces of nature, and to the whims of human rulers, and so we created belief in God as a sort of comfort blanket to make us feel better. We felt less vulnerable if we believed that an omnipotent figure was somehow “on our side”. Religion is understood as pathetic and futile attempts to manipulate the divine into giving us favours. We try and make a deal with God whereby we sacrifice some things that we value, and God will repay us ten-fold. In this secular understanding, the progress of science in understanding the material world, and the progress of society in creating enough wealth and security to enable most of us to have the opportunity of a reasonably pleasant life, simply make religion redundant. Thus, a majority of people in Britain have voted with their feet and have little or nothing to do with faith. They see this as a liberation and a discovery of truth. Religious people have to recognise that many of the criticisms of religion in this secular analysis have a large element of truth to them. However, there are better ways to understand religion, and once we adopt a deeper understanding, we immediately see that religion is as vital as ever.

In taking, what I would term as this superficial and easy secular analysis, it immediately gives people, in their minds, the freedom to just ignore religion and so commit to activities that are perceived as more enjoyable and conducive to human well-being. Thus our secular society has thrown out the supremely precious dimension of a religious life of which they have no inkling, along with the trivial detritus of religion of which they are aware.