America has been the envy of the world’s population for most of its history because of the freedoms it guarantees its citizens through its constitution, freedoms derived because of our founding father’s recognition that we were created with inalienable rights given to us by our Creator God.
Many have compared America to a second Israel, and for good reason because like Israel, we are the only other nation that has looked to God with reverence for guidance and direction and based our laws upon His Word. Moses shared with the people of Israel what made them a great nation:
Look, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God has commanded me, so that you may do them in the land which you are entering to possess. So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God [is to us] whenever we call on Him? Or what great nation has statutes and judgments so righteous (upright, just) as this whole law which I am placing before you today? Deuteronomy 4:5-8 AMP
Like Israel, the world recognized America’s greatness was due to its relationship with God, as evidenced by the quote below from Alexis de Tocqueville, the French diplomat and historian who toured America in the 1830’s and wrote the following in his famed ‘Democracy in America’:
“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers – and it was not there . . . in her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there . . . in her rich mines and her vast world commerce – and it was not there . . . in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution – and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
The Lord through Moses warned the people of Israel that they not forget Him, the source of their greatness and goodness. He gave the Israelites the following instructions; wise words of counsel and warning that are applicable for us in America today:
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one [the only God]! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and with all your soul and with all your strength [your entire being]. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be [written] on your heart and mind. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children [impressing God’s precepts on their minds and penetrating their hearts with His truths] and shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up. Deuteronomy 6:4-7 AMP (See also Deuteronomy 4:9)
America’s decline is because we have forgotten God, the Source of our greatness, and we have failed to instruct the next generation in the truth of His commands. God warns us that the nation that forsakes Him, He will in turn forsake. (Isaiah 1:28; 2 Chronicles 24:18 Ezekiel 14:13-14 Judges 10:13
Our forsaking God is the reason we are experiencing the internal decline in our nation, as well as why we are losing the world’s respect that we enjoyed when we operated under the rule of God-inspired laws rather than laws based upon the dictates of man.
Not only was Israel’s eventual decline and the scattering of its people due to their forgetting God and His faithfulness, but it was also due to its embracing idolatry in place of God. Like Israel, we have committed two evils: we have turned our back on God and His commands, and we have embraced a false belief system that posits that man can control his own destiny apart from God. These words God spoke to Israel are true for us in America today:
“…for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Jeremiah 2:13 ESV
Yes, there have been and are grave consequences for our removal of prayer and Biblical teaching from our public schools, the institutions where the majority of the next generation is being educated. And there are also grave consequences for teaching a false belief system —Humanism—that we have substituted in place of God’s truth. Humanism (also known as secular humanism) assumes that there is no God, no spiritual dimension to life, and therefore no revealed absolute truth or moral code. It posits that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or God; that man is capable of determining what is good based upon his own judgment; and that scientific and technological advancements will enable mankind to make wiser decisions that will improve the conditions for humanity.
“Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality. “ The Minimum Statement on Humanism from the Amsterdam Declaration 2002 that represents the official defining statement of World Humanism
Since it does not accept that there is a God, it obviously opposes Creationism and embraces the teaching of evolution. The following is taken from a statement made by the 1977 manifesto of the American Humanist Association:
There are no alternatives to the principle of evolution, with its “tree of life” pattern, that any competent biologist of today takes seriously….Evolution is therefore the only view that should be expounded in public-school courses on science.*
The removal of the teaching of Creationism and the widespread teaching of the theory of evolution has dramatically impacted the beliefs of the citizens of our nation. Creationism lets students know that they are uniquely designed by their Creator; each person has significance, purpose, and is accountable to his Creator for what he does with his life. Evolutionary theory does not provide the same sense of meaning, direction, or accountability nor does it give the same hope in an afterlife to the adherents of its belief system.
Just a few of the secular humanists that have influenced our educational system and culture include:
- Mary Calderone: American physician and a public health advocate for sexual education
- Richard Dawkins: ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author
- John Dewey: leading psychologist of the 20th century and educational reformer
- Joseph Fletcher: American professor who founded the theory of situational ethics in the 1960s; leading academic involved in the topic of abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, eugenics and cloning
- Sigmund Freud: Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis.
- Betty Friedan: American writer, activist, and feminist. A leading figure in the Women’s Movement in the United States
- Aldous Huxley: English writer best known for his novel Brave New World
- Abraham Maslow: American professor of psychology who created Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
- Bill Nye: American science educator
- Carl Rogers: American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology
- Margaret Sanger: American sex educator, nurse, and birth control activist who established Planned Parenthood
- B. F. Skinner: American behaviorist, author, inventor, social philosopher and poet
- Benjamin Spock: American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care, published in 1946, is one of the biggest best-sellers of all time and hugely influenced child-rearing
- Gloria Steinem: feminist, journalist, social activist and spokeswoman for the feminist movement
- Gore Vidal: American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist
- Kurt Vonnegut: American author and satirist
- Walt Whitman: American poet, essayist and journalist
Secular humanism beliefs infiltrated our educational system in the 1930’s and now permeate our public educational system and our culture as a whole. Through our public schools, our nation’s children are being indoctrinated in a set of beliefs, values, and behaviors that are sharply contrary to the teachings of the Bible. As God warns us in His Word, there are consequences for forsaking the truth and embracing false teaching. We are, as God’s Word instructs us, reaping what we have sown.
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked [He will not allow Himself to be ridiculed, nor treated with contempt nor allow His precepts to be scornfully set aside]; for whatever a man sows, this and this only is what he will reap. For the one who sows to his flesh [his sinful capacity, his worldliness, his disgraceful impulses] will reap from the flesh ruin and destruction, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Galatians 6:7-8 AMP
If we liken our children’s minds to fertile soil, our schools have removed the ‘good seed’ that was being sown—Biblical truth– and replaced it with ‘bad seed’—secular humanism. The bad seed, like weeds, has taken over and ‘invaded’ the minds of our vulnerable children. We as a nation have been deceived into thinking that we will not pay the consequences for what we have been teaching our children for almost the past century. Over the years, students trained in our schools have risen to positions of influence in journalism, social media, entertainment, politics, government, the military, businesses, institutions of higher learning—including many seminaries—as well as parents in our homes—and they in turn are teaching the next generation the secular humanism worldview they were taught. Christians and non-Christians alike are commenting that our nation seems to be ‘going to hell in a hand basket’. School shootings; students consumed with ‘doing whatever feels good’ without regard to others; rampant promiscuity, homosexuality, and gender identity confusion; a lack of respect for authority; and epidemic drug addiction, depression and suicides are just some of the ‘fruit’ produced by our nation’s forsaking God and His laws and embracing secular humanism.
In general, our educational system– which used to be based upon absolute truths derived from a biblical worldview, is now teaching that truth and morals are relative and can be determined by man, which clearly impacts how one looks at everything– from math problems, to social issues, to even one’s gender.
Why is it essential that we know this influence in our culture? Because there is a consequence for our lack of knowledge.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge [of My law, where I reveal My will].
Because you [the priestly nation] have rejected knowledge,
I will also reject you from being My priest.
Since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I will also forget your children. Hosea 6:4 AMP
What we fill our minds with is important because our thoughts influence our beliefs; our beliefs impact our actions and shape our character; and they ultimately affect our eternity.
‘For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he…” Proverbs 23:7 KJV
Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” John 6:28-29
When I think of Humanism which assumes that man alone apart from God has the answers to the big questions of life—the following verse comes to my mind:
There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. Proverbs 14:12 ESV
God instructs us on how to keep away from self-deception:
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2 ESV
May we be found faithful to renew our minds by studying God’s Word and spending time in prayer and communion with Jesus, the Living Word, so that we will know the Truth that alone can set us free from deception, sin, and death, and free to enjoy the abundant and eternal life He offers! (John 8:32)
*American Humanist Association, “A Statement Affirming Evolution as a Principle of Science,” The Humanist, January-February 1977, Vol. XXXVII, p. 4
Written by Julie Van Gorp