Letter to a Post Christian Nation – Part 2 – What are our Values?

Dear Fellow Citizen,

What do you think when you hear politicians speak of ‘our values’? What are ‘Australian (American, British…put in your country of choice) values? What are human values? Are they self-evident? There was a time when most societies considered it was acceptable for people to own slaves. Other societies have practiced infanticide, cannibalism, ritual prostitution and the slaughter of the unborn. How do we know what right and wrong is?

Modern Australia was built on Christian foundations. That is where our ethics, laws, morality and freedoms came from. For example, Australia never permitted slavery because the colonists who came out were enormously influenced by William Wilberforce, John Newton and others opposed to slavery because of their Christian faith.

If you remove the root of Christianity, what are you going to replace it with? Some think the answer is simple. They believe that human beings are basically decent and that whilst there are some ‘bad eggs’, the truth is that it takes religion to make good people act badly. Therefore, the theory goes, if we get rid of religion, then we will end up in a perfect society – governed by reason and compassion. Remove the virus of religion and all will be well.

Except that is just a theory. And like all theories it should be tested. What happens when society does that? We do have examples in history and today. Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, the French Revolution and others tried to remove religion from public society. The result? Bloodshed, violence, inequality and injustice on a cosmic scale! It is true that some Christians have behaved appallingly, and that Christianity has sometimes been used as an excuse for great evil – but whilst Christianity has slain its thousands, atheism has slain its tens of millions.

But you will say the choice is not between Christianity and Communism (or Fascism) – but that there is a better more rational way. As humanity ‘progresses’ we don’t need the crutch of religion or ideology anymore. It’s a nice theory – but I ask again what are you going to base your values on? What is their source?

Sam Harris argues that Christians “believe that unless the Bible is accepted as the word of God, there can be no universal standard of morality.” That’s not strictly true. Our position is that without God there can be no universal standard of morality. A point with which Richard Dawkins, Harris’ fellow NFA (New Fundamentalist Atheist) agrees. Without an absolute God there cannot be an absolute morality.

But Harris disagrees. “We can easily think of objective sources of moral order that do not require the existence of a law giving God. For there to be objective moral truths worth knowing, there need only be better and worse ways to seek happiness in this world.” But can you not see how meaningless that statement is? Who defines what happiness is? And if happiness is your standard of morality what if someone argues that killing people, or stealing their goods, makes them happy?

Western liberal democracies, including Australia, have been based upon Christian foundations (just read Tom Holland’s ‘Dominion’ to get the point). This does not mean that the Bible was used as a moral or legal code book to give us every detail of what we should do and how we should behave in society. However Christian principles such as equality, diversity and tolerance, have been fundamental to our societal well-being. To put it simply, all Western societies have operated on the basis of different ‘magisteria’.The state is generally secular, not in the sense of being ‘without God’, but in the sense of not being run by the church. Theocracy (church rule) has not been the norm. But the state has never been absolute either. Church and state have worked together.

But with the removal of Christianity from the public sphere we are now in danger of creating an absolutist state – where the state determines not just the economy, punishment of crime, or defence of the country – but also gives us every aspect of our morality. Since there is no external moral authority, the state becomes the absolute ruler of all. Which in reality means that the wealthy, powerful, elites get to determine what is right and wrong for the rest of us. Equality before the law is gone. In fact, it is astonishing just how quickly equality, diversity and inclusion have come to mean the exact opposite of what they used to. In modern ‘without God’ Western democracies, some are more equal than others, diversity of viewpoint or lifestyle is not permitted, and people are excluded from public life in the name of inclusion!

In 2015 the former Scottish First Minister declared – “In fact, what there has been is a demonstration that if society lays down boundaries on what is acceptable and what is not, then behaviour can change for the better, and a good thing too”. Therein lies the hubris and irrationality of modern political leaders. They think that by writing laws they can change human hearts – because it is out of the heart that the behaviour comes. But this has never worked. Yes, governments can punish…and influence…. but they cannot change humanity.

But Christianity does change human hearts. And that impacts behaviour and society. Because society is made up of humans, and no human, whether Christian or not, is perfect – then we are not going to have the perfect society. But we can have a better one. Christians are called to be salt and light.

Without Christianity we will find a growing inequality, more violence, division and disunity. In order to deal with this the governing authorities will become more authoritarian and limit freedom of speech, religion and even thought.

Your choice is simple. You can follow people like the Chinese film star, Yao Chen, who has 70 million followers on Chinas equivalent of Twitter – Weibo. Prospect magazine reported that “Yao’s concern with social justice is bolstered by her 2003 conversion to Christianity; she cited the Bible as helping orient her moral compass” (Prospect – April 2012).

Or you can go the root that Adolf Hitler preferred. His personal secretary Traudl Junge gave the following fascinating testimony – “Sometimes we also had interesting discussions about the church and the development of the human race. Perhaps it’s going too far to call them discussions, because he would begin explaining his ideas when some question or remark from one of us had set them off, and we just listened. He was not a member of any church, and thought the Christian religions were out-dated, hypocritical institutions that lured people into them. The laws of nature were his religion. He could reconcile his dogma of violence better with nature than with the Christian doctrine of loving your neighbour and your enemy. ‘Science isn’t yet clear about the origins of humanity,’ he once said. ‘We are probably the highest stage of development of some mammal which developed from reptiles and moved on to human beings, perhaps by way of the apes. We are a part of creation and children of nature, and the same laws apply to us as to all living creatures. And in nature the law of the struggle for survival has reigned from the first. Everything incapable of life, everything weak is eliminated. Only mankind and above all the church have made it their aim to keep alive the weak, those unfit to live, and people of an inferior kind.” (Until the Final Hour –p108)

I know which one I prefer!

Let me know if you have any thoughts or questions on this, or indeed the first letter. (theweeflea@gmail.com)

See you in a couple of weeks…

Yours,

David (The Wee Flea)

Letter to a Post Christian Nation Part 1 – The Big Questions