Challenge of Secularisation

Question 1

What is secularisation?

Answer 1

• Secularisation is the process by which society becomes less religious.
• This can be seen by the fact that fewer people belong to a religion, and more people are atheist.
• Healthcare, education, and social welfare are no longer organised by the Church, and politics and the law no longer depend on religious teaching.

Question 2

How has religion been replaced as a source of truth and moral values?

Answer 2

• Aquinas and the need for doctrine and scripture
  o Human reason cannot grasp certain truths, for this doctrine and scripture are required.
• Dark ages
  o In the Dark ages religion was opposed to rational thought
  o Changed in 13th century when religion and rational thought worked together.
• 19th century Philosophers
  o Faith was becoming a matter of personal commitment.
  o Philosophers started seeing religion as something functional.
  o Karl Marx, keeping the working class from fighting their oppressors.
  o Freud, Satisfying a psychological need.
• Basing arguments on reason alone made religion redundant.
  o But secular morality was largely based on the ten commandments, even though morality was expressed in terms of reason rather than religion.
  o Modern secular humanism takes the view that humankind improves through reason and evidence.

Question 3

How has religion been relegated to the personal sphere (individualisation)?

Answer 3

• Historically, religion was not a matter of individual choice.
  o In 1555, the Augsburg settlement ruled that each prince would decide on the religion of his own state.
  o However, the Peace of Westphalia (1648) allows people to practise a religion different from the state religion.
  o As society became more secular, religion became a set of ideas and values that individuals might choose to follow.
• Today, personal faith is a matter of individual choice.
  o The number of people who choose not to belong to any religion is rising, and some Christian traditions place a heavy emphasis on personal commitment.
• Although the practices of religion are now mostly a matter of private choice, religion does still have a public role in civic occasions.
  o Also, many people value Christian culture, art and buildings, and trat the clergy with respect.

Question 4

What is the rise of militant atheism?

Answer 4

• John Robinson’s 1963 book Honest to God made the explicit view that God as ‘an old man in the sky’ did not work intellectually or theologically in the secular society of the twentieth century.
• At the same time, liberation theology was being developed in South America, the Roman Catholic Church was becoming more relaxed, and the Church of England was concerned with new forms of worship gender and sexuality.
• ‘Militant Atheism’ emerged into this situation.
  o Militant atheists see religion as both intellectually flawed and morally flawed.
  o They denounce literalist religions belief, equating belief in God with the tooth fairy.
  o They blame religion for wars and cruelty to others.
  o They want to remove religious influences from education and health care and view a religious upbringing as child abuse.
  o However, militant atheists misrepresent mainstream Christianity.
  o They assume all Christians are fundamentalist literalists, and at the same time they ignore atrocities and cruelty caused by atheists.

Question 5

What is the view that religion is irrational?

Answer 5

• There are non-rational elements in religion, but that does ot mean it is irrational.
  o From the enlightenment onwards, religious beliefs were explained in terms of human reason.
  o This was not entirely successful, because people’s beliefs do not only depend on reason but also on emotions and experiences.
  o Militant atheists suggest that religion itself is irrational.
  o To be religious is to be irrational.
• Taken literally, many beliefs do seem irrational because they cannot be justified using reason.
  o But if they are not taken literally, they may be considered reasonable because they inspire people to live in a way that shows what Jesus taught.
  o Religious beliefs are communicated with human language, which is both limited and flexible.
  o They may cause good or ill but is incorrect to describe them as irrational.
• People do not operate on the basis of reason and evidence alone.
  o Feelings and emotions are not subject to reason and evidence.
  o One view is that, since humankind is ‘fallen’, human reason is faulty anyway.

Question 6

What are the responses to materialistic secular values: the value of wealth and possessions?

Answer 6

• The value of wealth and possessions in Christianity
  o In the New Testament, Jesus reverse contemporary views about wealth and possessions.
  o He dealt with rich and poor equally, and commended charity.
  o He argued that riches distract from what matters in life.
  o In the earliest Church, some communities held goods in common as they awaited the end of the world, while others had social and economic diversions.
  o The monastic tradition encouraged men and women to give up personal wealth to live in community, and it is still practised in the Church of England and in the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.
  o After the Protestant Reformation, life in the secular world, with the financial requirements of family life, became equal in stats to voluntary poverty.
  o Charity giving and responsible use of wealth, however, continued to be religious duty.
• Relationship between religious belief and wealth
  o There is no noticeable difference in wealth overall between atheists and Christians.
  o Although most Christians reject it, the Prosperity Gospel, which teaches that God rewards those who please him, is influential in the USA.
  o On the other hand, many Christians live simply lives and give generously to those in need.
  o Many Christians are poor and may depend on services provided by their churches and fellow Christians to help them.
  o Many churches operate food banks, or services for the homeless.
  o Some Christian communities, for example, Bruderhof, copy the earliest Christians by sharing goods and living a simple life.

Question 7

What is McGrath’s defence of Christianity in The Dawkins Delusion?

Answer 7

• Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist who argues the case for militant atheism in his book The God delusion.
  o He focuses on using science to challenge supernatural religion and literalist beliefs and assumes that all Christians hold these views.
  o The theologian Alister McGrath argues that science is not in a position to judge on matters of religion.
  o Science can only talk about things that can be assessed using reason and experience.
• The God Delusion criticises fundamentalist attitudes as if they were mainstream on matters of homosexuality, abortion, inclusiveness, freedom of choice in matters of religion and religious education.
  o He assumes that such views represent Christianity as a whole.
  o Dawkins assumes that science leads automatically to atheism, but this means that religious scientists choose to ignore the ‘truth’ of atheism.
  o His outlook allows only for reason and evidence and is humanistic.
• In The Dawkins Delusion, McGrath counters that Christianity is compatible with science.
  o Dawkins assumes that science leads automatically to atheism, but this means that religious scientists choose to ignore the ‘truth’ of atheism.
  o McGrath thinks that religion and science have some overlap and can therefore enrich one another.
• McGrath oversimplifies the ideas of Feuerbach in order to dismiss them, and he suggests that atheism may be an excuse for immorality.
  o McGrath accuses Dawkins of favouring evidence that supports his point of view.
  o Single science should not be biased, Dawkins’ views on religion are unscientific.
  o Dawkins’ criticisms of religion do not present a fair and balanced view.

Question 8

What are the new forms of expression?

Answer 8

• Fresh Expressions
  o Fresh Expressions grew out of the report ‘Mission-shaped Church’ in 2004.
  o It is active in several British Churches.
  o The term ‘fresh expressions’ is used for Christian groups which operate alongside conventional Churches.
  o They work alongside people outside traditional Churches.
  o Sometimes, they build an alternative kind of Church; but they also mix with people who are not conventionally religious, as Jesus did.
  o Unlike the approach to religion criticised by Dawkins, Fresh Expressions explores the concerns and views of ordinary people, and then aims to see how Christian ideas and teachings may be relevant.
  o It deals with religious values and expressions in ordinary, secular situations.
  o Although the language and approach of the Fresh Expressions movement is quite different from that of the older theological traditions, it has parallels with Paul Tillich’s idea of God as ‘Being-itself.
  o Fresh Expressions draws out values and meanings from a situation, rather than trying to impose them from outside.
  o Fresh Expressions works within secular life, putting the life and teachings of Jesus into practice. It operates in a secular context for those who are not church members.
• The House Church Movement
  o Early Christians met in private houses.
  o Later, the Church used church buildings and developed a formal ministry.
  o This started to change during the Reformation, with its emphasis on personal commitment and the authority of the Bible, Some Christians today have always met in private houses, for example, the Plymouth Brethren.
  o The House Church movement started in the 1960s, to try to return to the practices of the Early Church.
  o It developed particularly in evangelical and charismatic traditions.
  o House Churches tend to meet in private homes, but the British New Church Movement aims to set up new Church communities and meets in larger building to accommodate numbers.
  o New Churches focus on the Holy Spirit calling individuals to a way of life or worship, based on a specific understanding of the Bible, which includes healing the sick and casting out.

Question 9

What is the social relevance of Christianity?

Answer 9

• If Christianity is to be socially relevant, it must engage with the lives of people in society today and work for good within society.
  o Since politics is concerned with the way society is ordered, it therefore must be politically relevant.
  o Politics and social relations are generally defined in terms of power.
  o Christians see the world as good, created by God, but Christians are expected to look beyond the world to the Kingdom of God, where the weak are lifted up and the powerful are put down.
  o One view is that individual lives are transformed by the gospel, although people conform to existing social and political norms. If enough people are changed by religion, that impacts on society as a whole.
• Secular ownership of Christianity
  o Although the number who attend Church is decreasing, many people feel a sense of attachment to their local church. This suggests that society is less secular than expected. Churches can also express national identity, for example, the Russian Orthodox Church in post-Soviet Russia.
  o Christianity follows the example of Jesus, who taught that secular duties of caring for the poor and healing the sick matter more than religious rules.
  o Teaching and healing have now become separate from organised religion because Christianity is intrinsically secularising - it concerns itself with human well-being.
• Liberationist approach
  o Liberation theology developed during the late twentieth century in Central and South America.
  o Liberation theologians saw the teachings of Jesus as a source of liberation from injustice.
  o That might involve Christians becoming active in social movements for change - secularising the gospel to make it relevant to the lives of ordinary people.
  o Liberationists wanted secular action to change the structures of society while traditionalists wanted to give spiritual support to the poor.
  o Óscar Romero was a Catholic archbishop who was assassinated during Mass for supporting secular action in El Salvador.
  o Liberation theology in Britain has focused especially on inner city poverty and injustice. The Church of England archbishops’ Faith in the City.
  o A Call to Action by Church and Nation considered the state of communities and churches in inner cities in Britain.
  o It identified Urban Priority Areas, where the majority of people were living in poverty, and made recommendations to the Church, calling on them to engage with secular issues such as law, benefits and social support.
  o It also called on the government to address social inequality by changes in the law.
  o As a result of the report, the Church Urban Fund was established by the Church of England to support religious and secular action to tackle poverty and powerlessness.