Checking in on Secular Culture

Introduction
There is one thread tying together the greatest evils of American paganism, a fashionable and flaming war on human beings as human beings. No longer is man made in the image of God with dignity and worth. No longer is man the prize of creation as body and soul. No longer is man an embodied being of essence preceding existence, fashioned by a Maker with a Nature making humans with a nature.

The noble reality of spirit and body; mind and brain, and the corresponding necessity for respect and rank, is under attack. So, a pregnant woman is afflicted with a “medical condition” that can be terminated. A vulnerable teenager is goaded into gender fluidity while doctor’s profit. Each is the same lie of autonomy concealed under the protective cover of “Progress!”  So-called “progress” turns out to be the reduction of human nature into a self-chosen identity of amorphous abstraction that wrecks embodiment, suppresses the truth, and yells on X.

And so all around us is a secular culture that rests on lust rather than restraint, perversion rather than beauty, scientism rather than Creator, child sacrifice rather than “women and children first,” physical mutilation rather than biological realism, euthanasia rather than caring for the weak, self-promotion rather than generosity, “social justice” rather than justice, immodest dress rather than decorum, rudeness rather than courtesy, public assassination rather than debate, ALL CAPS rather than gentleness of speech, mother murderers rather than nurturers, TikTok at 1.25 speed rather than the inner dispositions of the soul, Andres Serrano rather than Rembrandt, Sexyy Red rather than Bach, individual rather than the household, suppression of speech rather than exchange of ideas, prodigious lies rather than curiosity about the truth, self-assertion rather than love.

Let’s take a closer look at two occurrences that demonstrate the claptrap of modern life, and what it does to human beings.

First, Lame Apologies
Imagine Dylan, an executive at a national corporation that is riding high on self-indulgence and promotions. There he is, climbing the corporate ladder, selling his soul to his boss, per company policy. But then, one day an internet sleuther uncovers some iffy tweets from a decade ago. Pictures of racially insensitive Halloween costumes, posts about how Colin Kapernick was no hero, and Dylan liking a message that expressed grief at the death of Rush Limbaugh. Some truly outrageous stuff, it is.

In the course of these operations, at length comes out that the actions, tweets, likes, and costumes don’t reflect Dylan’s “core values.” Renewed resolutions are laid down insisting that he is “learning” and that his hands are now habituated to all thing’s inclusion. Really, they are. So, obviously, whoever was offended misunderstood. Dylan’s been taken out of context and misrepresented, so all should be stimulated to a settlement of ‘forgive and forget.’ These actions were a long time ago and not a reflection of Dylan’s up-to-date motives, which remain in unassailable support of ‘women’s reproductive freedom.’

When the apology is over and the news cycle switched over, the “offended” begin searching anew for the next person to bring into submission to the death works of secular ideology. Mere onlookers are left with the empty feeling that to agree with the ‘apology’ is to participate in the fraud. Yet, since everyone else is nodding along without resistance, they find themselves doing the same.

This is a lame apology for at least two reasons. First, while it assumes right and wrong, Dylan’s got them in the very reverse of God’s judgment. He is apologizing for things that merit no apology. The prophet Isaiah might interject, “Woe unto them that speak good of evil, and evil of good, which put darkness for light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for sour” (Is. 5:20). Second, Dylan’s apology is as sincere as his desire to keep his paycheck. It’s not rooted in a standard higher than his standard of living, which is coercion of the spineless variety. One’s left wondering how much pandering is needed to qualify as “apology.”

In contrast to the lame apologies of secular society stands Christian’s apology in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. Christian offers a sincere apology to his friend Hopeful after leading him off the straight path. Christian says, “Good brother, be not offended; I am sorry I have brought thee out of the way, and that I have put thee into such imminent danger. Pray, my brother, forgive me; I did not do it of an evil intent.” Hopeful responds, “Be comforted, my brother, for I forgive thee; and believe, too, that this shall be for our good.”

This is a proper apology for at least two reasons. First, Christian is apologizing about the right thing. He did wrong leading Hopeful off the path. This put the pilgrim’s in mortal peril. Christian did wrong and apologized for his sin. Second, Christian’s apology is not a half-baked sincerity to the effect that there is nothing real. There is no play-acting. It is earnest and in submission to the divine standard.

Second, Forced Diversity
Diversity is the goal of secular society. This is the movement that tears down America and builds up other civilizations. It is called multiculturalism. People of a different time would have seen plainly that you cannot teach people to respect other cultures by teaching them to despise their own. Nevertheless, in the secular ethos, diversity is pursued with unmatched vigor, which leads to diversity officers twisting themselves into a pretzel, as in the recent Stanford photoshop scandal.

If you missed it, Stanford University used artificial intelligence to alter a photo of three students, whose appearance and ethnicity were changed to reflect more diversity. The original photo was taken in the Stanford dining hall. But then it was altered using AI before being used in promotional material.

What’s odd about this story is that Stanford already has a diverse student body that was reflected in the original photo. A Hispanic student was replaced with an AI-generated Black female, presumably because the Hispanic person was not deemed “diverse” enough. Others in the photo were edited to be more attractive.

Stanford has been met in their “progress” with opposition. But it will soon fade away because their heart was in the right place, pursuing the “core value” of diversity.

In truth, even a place like Stanford, which has students from sixty different countries, is among the least diverse places in the United States, as confessional Christians and political conservatives are made to feel very uncomfortable. And heaven help the poor student who volunteers at the local pro-life ministry. In elite American life, diversity stands for the philosophy of those who claim to be tolerant long after their tolerance was proven hypocritical.

Conclusion
The fakeness of the secular “values” leaves one with a nihilistic aftertaste. In contrast to forced diversity standards, the church is the one place that brings together people of different backgrounds based on something real. Diversity, which is self-righteously claimed by the revolutionaries, is in fact owned exclusively by the church. Christ’s death and resurrection creates a system of morals, metaphysics, and meaning that is incomprehensible for those that are committed to the broken shards of identity politics.  

Atop God’s New Society is King Jesus, the Great Reconciler and Peacemaker, who has made a church by death and resurrection; blood and sacrament; love and life. Because of the love of Christ, divisive sins are abolished. In Colossians 3:11, Paul mentions various barriers that divide people. There are ethnic barriers (“Greek and Jew”). But in Christ, Jews and Gentiles are part of the church together. There are cultural barriers (“Barbarians, Scythian”). But in Christ, people of different cultures are part of the church together. There are social barriers (“Slave and free”). But in Christ, people of different social status are part of the church together. By faith in Christ, sins are forgiven and crushed. And, when two people, previously divided, are baptized into the body of Christ, they are bound together in Christ.

Nothing needs to be forced or faked. People of different colors don’t have to be bussed across town so that every church meets the “diversity” quota. Every congregation doesn’t have to look like a Crayola box. In the New Covenant of Christ’s blood, God saves those of different ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, and this fulfillment is found in the Church Universal, which makes mandated diversity in the local church, just as empty as the mandated diversity in secular society.

_{Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.}