Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

PASTOR'S PENS 2008

December 21st “Being part of the natural world reminds me that innocence isn't ever lost completely; we just need to maintain our goodness to regain it.”   Jewel             “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake,” that’s the essence of a new holiday ad from the American Humanist Association. It’s the first campaign of its kind in the US. The American Humanist Association predicts it will raise public awareness of humanism as well as controversy over humanist ideas. “Humanists have always understood that you don't need a god to be good,” said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association. “So that's the point we're making with this advertising campaign. Morality doesn't come from religion. It's a set of values embraced by individuals and society based on empathy, fairness, and experience.”             This new campaign is just one more in a recent spate of atheistic claims that religion and theism are not only wrong, but unnecessary and probably even evil. But can this worldview demonstrate that it’s correct? No way! Think about it. How do we even define good, if we don't believe in God? God in His Word, tells us what’s good and bad, and right and wrong. If we’re each defining what's good, it's going to be a crazier world than it already is. Apart from a transcendent God there’s no standard for good. Good becomes whatever the individual defines it to be. Some believe having a harem of teenage girls is “good.” Others believe flying planes loaded with unsuspecting passengers into tall buildings is “good” for it achieves some geopolitical ends. One Mom recently thought that it was “good” to leave her five month old baby in the car in subfreezing weather while she went into a store to do some Christmas shopping.             The humanist experiment to sustain a good (moral) society without appeal to a Supernatural lawgiver and a revealed set of rights and wrongs is sitting on the foundation of a culture that was created from the belief in a Creator who has granted to His human creatures certain “inalienable” rights. The ethics and values that Americans have long embraced such as freedom, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, honoring parents, compassion for the needy, as well as empathy, justice and fairness are all grounded in the understanding that God made us and expects us to behave in these moral ways. We have lived, written laws and behaved on the basis of these bedrock beliefs. Are we to expect then that all these ethical principles and practices will somehow flow from the belief that there is no God, no created order that makes man's existence purposeful and special, no absolute set of rights and wrongs, and no eternal consequences for the way we live? There are some recent examples of societies that do not believe in God nor recognize a mandated divine value on human beings. They’re associated with names like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Idi Amin and Saddam Hussein. Devoid of any sense of God or godliness, they created a social order of evil that destroyed millions of lives. So much for the morality of godlessness.             Then, in this non-theistic world, who’s going to decide what “being good” is? We’ve traditionally asserted that being faithful to your marriage partner is “good.” But now there are those who not only want to redefine marriage but also those who insist that marriage itself is a bad thing. For centuries, our society has valued sexual chastity, making it almost synonymous with the concept of "purity." Now, those who value such an ideal are routinely called foolish, even mentally and socially deficient. Is being good respecting others' property or may I take what I can get away with as long as it "doesn't hurt anybody"? Dare we broach the human-life topics of abortion and euthanasia? Are cheating, lying, and carousing on the "good" list or the "bad" list? How is anyone going to be good if no one agrees on what "good" is?             Finally, without a divine touchstone, why is it I am supposed to care what anyone else thinks is good behavior? If humans are only biological phenomena who populate a random universe for a brief span of years before disappearing into nothingness, what motivates us "to lead ethical lives of value to self and humanity" (the stated goal of humanism)? Is it completely utilitarian, i.e., "I scratch your back and you scratch mine"? Is the motivation to good behavior the approbation of our fellows which stokes our self esteem? Or, do we hope to sustain kindness and mercy and brotherly love on the flimsy platform of some ill-defined and irrational altruistic impulse?             The more likely outcome of godless, autonomous ethics is what we see played out among us every day. Humans grounded only in their self-interest pursue any avenue which appears to gratify, satisfy, stupefy, or mollify. Love becomes self-indulgence. Other human beings devolve into a means to an end. Use them. Abuse them. Discard them. Ignore them. When the humanists protest that this is not good, the reply is, “Who are you to decide what’s good for us?” Man’s inhumanity to man only gets worse the more "enlightened" we become. The 20th century brought us not only the Humanist Manifesto but the worst human rights record in history. Against this backdrop, the humanist expectation of god-less ethical living is more implausible than Santa Claus.             God had a better plan. We celebrate it this week. It’s called the Incarnation. God Himself came into this world, to set the world and us straight. "Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till He appeared and the soul felt its worth." That’s the reason we rejoice. That’s a reason to be good...and not just good, but more importantly, godly. Because God came and bore our sins on the Tree, we can be forgiven and godly and live for all eternity! Now that’s something to celebrate!!