By Jim Mettenbrink
Last week, in our review of the religion of Secular Humanism in the USA, we concluded by asking, “What has been the impact on Christendom?”
That the opportune venue to indoctrinate an unwitting society with Humanism was the public school system. It began with John Dewey’s program in the 1930s at Columbia University to condition teachers.
By the 1970s, the impact was evident even in theological schools. At about the same time (1975) when the Lavista NE High School implemented a mandatory Values Clarification course for seniors, the impact of Theological Modernism rose in the Concordia Lutheran seminary ( LCMS), the most conservative of Lutheran churches. The seed of Seminex was sown in a 1973 conference that charged professors of denying “sola scriptura,” i.e., doctrine must come from only scripture (Bible). Some of the admitted doctrines were that Jesus was not necessarily born of a virgin. Adultery is not necessarily wrong. What was the origin of the professors’ foundation that they could deny the absoluteness of the Bible? And the students who accepted the changes were already primed to make up their own minds. Implicitly, the rejection of the Bible as absolute and rejected the Sovereignty of God and thereby the inspiration of the scriptures. Seminex as an independent movement lasted until 1987 but it merged with a few other synods to form the ELCA.
At about this time (1990), a couple of friends were pursuing doctorates at Emory’s theological school. They said they were the only two in the class who believed the Bible is was inspired by God – from the very mind of God. The others depend on their feelings for what they believed. In other words, they are their own source (god).
Now some churches ordain homosexuals as ministers, a clear rejection of God’s word (Romans 1:24-28). What is the result of this unbelief undergirded by Secular Humanist indoctrination?
The conclusion of Barna’s (religious pollster) 2020 poll – in 30 years “we have transitioned from a people who upheld the existence of absolute moral truth to a nation where the majority now rejects moral absolutes. The result has been a seminal shift in our collective focus, from other to self, and from absolute truths to conditional truths. That shift, in turn, helps to explain why the ‘doesn’t/don’t know/don’t care’ population, regarding the existence of God, has mushroomed from 8 percent to 32 percent in just 30 years – a 300 percent increase! That’s one-third of the nation’s adults who have chosen to dismiss traditional teachings about God.”
Trusting self and one’s desires, rather than submission to God and His inspired word (Bible), ultimately results in destruction –“And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it” (Jeremiah 18:9-10).
We need to make the radical change and return to God – 100%!