Philosophy – Secular Totalitarianism 

Modern secular totalitarianism was fostered by two worldwide influences: the narrow-minded and godless attitude of atheistic science and the totalitarian medieval church. It was a rising protest against the almost complete domination of Western civilization by the institutionalized church and was augmented by materialistic science.

For three hundred years, Western and select Eastern thinking have been progressively secularized. Atheism has always denied God, while secularism ignored him. Recently, however, secularism has assumed a more totalitarian attitude, assuming to take the place of the religion whose bondage it once resisted. Present-day secular totalitarianism, in concert with expanding atheism, dares to assert that people do not need God.

The secular revolt through which society is now passing did break the bonds of totalitarian religious domination of the Middle Ages, but now it threatens to establish a new and godless type of mastery over the hearts and minds of modern people. Tyrannical and dictatorial political states are the direct offspring of scientific materialism and philosophic secularism. They free humans from religious slavery only to betray them into the tyranny of political and economic slavery.

To the secularistic revolt, we owe the amazing creativity of modern industrialism and the unprecedented material progress of global civilization. However, the revolt caused religion to be cast aside by many, and even those who still professed to be religionists became unwitting secularists. Someday, all will realize that religion and science have essential roles in creating an enduring and peaceful society. The great stumbling block is coordinating the ideas and ideals of religion and science through enlightened philosophy, while neither scientists nor religionists attempt to dominate the minds and souls they claim to serve.

Ultimately, religion and government should be kept separate. A religious state can be as totalitarian as a secular one. The domination of Western civilization by the church during the Middle Ages proved that. The present-day challenge of God-knowing leaders who recognize the need for the separation of religion and government is to find the wisdom to serve both of them impartially, honestly, and honorably.

Secular totalitarian optimism is an illusion and a recipe for conflict. Without God, neither freedom and liberty nor property and wealth will lead to peace. It was not necessary for secular revolutionaries and totalitarian idealists to sacrifice faith in God to establish government and civil order.

The inherent weakness of secular totalitarianism is that it discards fraternity and religion for politics and power. One cannot establish the brotherhood of men while ignoring or denying the fatherhood of God. The great mistake of secular totalitarianism is this: In revolting against the almost total control of life by religious authority, and after attaining liberation from such religious tyranny, the secularists went on to institute a revolt against God.

Secularism can never bring peace to mankind. Nothing can take the place of God in human society. Without God, without genuine religion, secularism can never coordinate its forces, harmonize its divergent and rivalrous interests, lessen racial antagonisms, or mitigate conflicting nationalism. Secularist human society, despite its unparalleled materialistic achievement, is slowly disintegrating. The chief cohesive force resisting this disintegration is nationalism. And nationalism is the chief barrier to world peace, the immediate cause of unending war.

The complete secularization of science, education, industry, and society can lead only to disaster. Because the secularistic materialistic revolt of the last three centuries went too far and lost sight of God and true religion, there also followed the unlooked-for harvest of world wars and international unsettledness. During the twentieth century, more humans were killed than during the preceding twenty centuries. And this is only the beginning of the dire harvest of materialism and secularism.

Faith in God does not stand in opposition to the enjoyment of the many conveniences and advantages of modern living. Neither religion nor science should oppose labor-saving material innovations, loving tolerance, social service, democratic government, civil liberties, or reverence for Deity.

Secularism may claim to have brought about modern freedom and innovation, but that would deny the momentous influence of the true liberator of humanity who set the wheels of true reform in motion twenty centuries ago. Many of the gains of modern industry and social reform have come from the unrecognized and unacknowledged spiritual workings of the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.

In his discourse on sonship and citizenship, and framed in modern language, Jesus said:

There is nothing incompatible between sonship in the spiritual kingdom and citizenship in the secular or civil government. It is the believer’s duty to render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and to God the things which are God’s. There cannot be any disagreement between these two requirements, the one being material and the other spiritual, unless it should develop that a Caesar presumes to usurp the prerogatives of God and demand that spiritual homage and supreme worship be rendered to him. In such a case, you shall worship only God while you seek to enlighten such misguided earthly rulers and, in this way, lead them also to the recognition of the Father in heaven. You shall not render spiritual worship to earthly rulers; neither should you employ the physical forces of earthly governments, whose rulers may sometimes become believers, in the work of furthering the mission of the spiritual kingdom.