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The Erosion of Christian Values in Church and Nation
Great Britain was once considered to be great nation under God, because of its worldwide influence in spreading the Christian gospel. British missionaries took the gospel across the world, to China, Africa, North America and India. Bibles societies translated, printed and distributed God’s word. The culture and laws of the country were largely based on biblical principles. Although not everybody followed the Christian faith, everybody knew the difference between right and wrong. Great Britain was a nation greatly blessed by God. Today, many Christians are disturbed by the way society has changed over the past three or four decades. The purpose of my talk is to show how the rise of secular humanism has eroded Christian values in our nation and in the Church.
In 1933 a small band of humanists drew up a document which they called The Humanist Manifesto. It called for the abandonment of traditional religion, in order to make place for the new moral relativism inherent in a man-centred, godless world. The second Humanist Manifesto of 1973 states that traditional religions that place revelation, God, or creed above human needs and experience do a disservice to the human species. ‘As nontheists, we begin with humans not God… No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.’
Today we live in a society that is controlled by secular humanism (SH). Its influence is everywhere, in schools and universities; on television and radio and the media in general; in the professions, politics and even in the church. Ever since the 1960s the Christian ethical consensus that informed British public policy has been breaking down. The old restrictions on pre-marital sex, pornography, abortion and homosexuality were first eroded and then removed. Yet only a few have stood against this onslaught, as the British nation is turning its back on God’ law and following a way that seems right to men—but its end is the way of death (Proverbs 14:12). A recent MORI poll has shown that 36% of people in the UK are humanists in their basic outlook.
The British Humanist Association:
When the British Humanist Association was formed in 1963, Sir Julian Huxley remarked, ‘Human knowledge, worked over by human imagination, is seen as the basis to human understanding and belief, and the ultimate guide to human progress.’ Polly Toynbee, columnist for the Guardian newspaper, was appointed President in July 2007. The Association, with its dazzling intellectual representation, has blossomed in public influence and political activity. It campaigns for a number of causes and is deeply committed to human rights. ‘We promote the recognition of human rights in all of our work, from marriage law, to education, to equalities, to our public services campaign. We use the language of human rights.’ The Association wants an end to religious broadcasting by the BBC. It has called for unification of existing anti-discrimination legislation into a Single Equality Bill, and it fully supports the Government’s equality and diversity agenda. In October 2008, the Humanist Association supported a fundraising drive to raise money for the Atheist bus campaign initiated by a Guardian journalist. The campaign placed the slogan ‘There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life’ on the sides of London buses in January 2009.
Secular humanism is a worldview, and some would say a religion; like a religion SH has its own meetings, its own ‘clergy’ of spokesmen, its own ‘creed’ of beliefs called The Humanist Manifesto. Prominent British humanists include Richard Dawkins, Phillip Pullman, Salman Rushdie and Polly Toynbee. A list of humanists of the Year will help us identify some of those most influential in the cause of the humanist agenda:
1. Margaret Sanger (1957) – birth control propagandist
2. George Brock Chisholm (1959) – psychiatrist, prominent in WHO and World Federation of Mental Health
3. Sir Julian Huxley (1962) – evolutionist
4. Carl Rogers (1964) – humanistic psychology
5. Erich Fromm (1966) – humanist psychologist
6. Abraham Maslow (1967) – humanist psychologist
7. Albert Ellis (1971) – psychologist, cognitive behavioural therapy
8. Joseph Fletcher (1974) – situation ethics
9. Mary Calderone (1974) – sex education, Planned Parenthood Federation
10. Henry Morgentaler (1975) – abortion, Morgentaler publicly stated that he had performed thousands of abortions
11. Betty Friedan (1975) – feminist
12. Corliss Lamont (1977) – Marxist philosopher
13. Carl Edward Sagan (1981) – astronomer and evolutionist
14. Faye Wattleton (1986) – family planning advocate, Planned Parenthood Federation
15. Lester R. Brown (1991) – environmentalist, global warning advocate
16. Richard Douglas "Dick" Lamm (1993) – leader of environmental movement
17. Richard Dawkins (1996) – evolutionist
In the past decade there have been an increasing number of challenges to the Christian faith. Numerous examples can be quoted. The BBC has admitted that it is biased against Christianity. In a secret meeting BBC executives admitted that the corporation is dominated by homosexuals. They acknowledged that ethnic minorities held a disproportionate number of positions and said the BBC deliberately encourages multiculturalism, and is careful to avoid offending the Muslim community while offending Christians is simply part of the culture. Tossing the Bible into a garbage can on a comedy show would be acceptable, they said, but not the Koran. The BBC drama Spooks portrayed evangelical Christians as extremists intent on murdering Muslims. Although the BBC received 55,000 complaints about the blasphemous Jerry Springer – ‘The Opera ‘, the broadcast went ahead. The foul mouthed musical – it uses around 300 swear words – portrays our Lord as a sexual deviant in a nappy.
The British government is using the police force to intimidate and harass Christians. We all know of the shocking treatment of Harry Hammond who was convicted of a crime for opposing homosexuality in a street demonstration in October 2001. Although Mr Hammond was attacked and knocked to the ground, he was arrested, not those who attacked him. He was charged under the Public Order Act (1986), convicted, fined and ordered to pay costs. In 2003 the Anglican Bishop of Chester was investigated by police because he gave an interview to his local paper pointing to research showing that some homosexuals had changed to heterosexuality. In 2005 police questioned Lynette Burrows, after she expressed the view on BBC Radio that homosexual men may not be suitable for raising children.
In October 2005, a 74-year-old gentleman, Mr John Banda, standing near London Bridge Station, displayed around his neck a poster with quotations from Scripture, ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ and ‘Repent therefore and be converted so that your sins will be forgiven’. He was approached by three policemen who ordered him to immediately remove the poster. They warned him that if he failed to do so he would be arrested. He was told that the words on his poster were offensive and that by displaying them he had broken the law. They specifically referred to Mr Banda having been in breach of the Public Order Act. Yet when a large group of Islamists carried placards in London, shouting, urging violence and inciting murder, to the astonishment of the general public, their march was allowed to continue and even appeared to be afforded police protection, although an obvious offence was being committed.
In 2008 two Christian preachers have been banned from handing out Christian tracts in a Muslim area of Birmingham. They were threatened by a police officer with arrest for committing a "hate crime" if they returned to the area.
Professor Michael Reiss, director of education of the Royal Society, provoked a furore when he called for creationism to be treated in school science lessons as a legitimate world view. Such was the fury of the evolutionary establishment that the professor, himself an evolutionist, was forced to resign.
Such is the power of SH that it seeks to control the words we speak and the thoughts that we think. Those who do not bow the knee are certain to face intellectual ostracism, intimidation and abuse. It is indeed a tyranny.
Understanding the aims of secular humanism:
In order to understand the aims and motivation of SH, we must understand God’s purposes for mankind as described in the first three chapters of Genesis. According to Scripture, in the beginning God created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th day. We read that God created mankind, male and female, in his image. Sexual reproduction is God’s idea for humanity. Man was created from the dust of the earth; God put the man into His Garden to dress and keep it. God saw that it was not good for the man to be alone, and so He created a woman from the rib of the man to be his helper in working God’s Garden. The creation of woman from the rib of man is of great symbolic importance, largely forgotten today, for it helps us understand the nature of the relationship between men and women and the meaning of marriage. God took the woman (Eve) and brought her to the man (Adam), who was overjoyed at the helper God had provided.
God ordained the institution of marriage with the words ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh’ (Genesis 2:24). And here we see the symbolism of the rib, for at marriage the rib enters the man and the two, male and female, become one flesh. Marriage, ordained by God, is an indissoluble, one flesh, and lifelong union. This is God’s plan for humanity. Male and female are commanded to be fruitful and multiply. It is through the family, created by God, that the divine plan for mankind to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion, is to be fulfilled (Genesis 1:28).
In the Garden, Satan deceived the woman by challenging God’s word and enticed Adam and Eve to rebel against God’s word. In Genesis 3:15 God said to the serpent, ‘And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel’ (Genesis 3:15). Here we learn from Scripture of the battle between two seeds, the seed of Satan, described by our Lord as children of the devil (John 8:44), and the Seed of the woman, who is Christ and His church. According to Matthew Henry, ‘A perpetual quarrel is here commenced between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil among men; war is proclaimed between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.’ This is the spiritual war referred to in Ephesians 6.
Secular humanism, the seed of the serpent, attacks God’s plan for humanity in every conceivable way. It attacks God as creator, it attacks man in God’s image, it attacks humanity as complete in male and female, it attacks marriage and the family, it attacks God’s plan for sexual reproduction through marriage, it attacks the command to be fruitful and multiply, it attacks man’s role in working God’s garden and it attacks woman’s role as man’s God-given helper. SH is really an extension of Satan’s rebellion. Just as Satan deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden, so he deceives mankind into believing his lies and rejecting the word of God.
Secular humanism is a highly aggressive ideology whose main purpose is to destroy the Christian faith and every aspect of biblical morality. Its aim is to wipe every vestige of the Christian faith from the minds of the British people—to obliterate everything in British history that points to the Christian faith, to change every law based on biblical principles, to pervert every moral teaching that comes from the Bible. SH is engaged in a massive re-education of the British population. It is grounded in deception and specializes in propaganda, unbelief and untruth. The terrible reality is that humanism appears to be winning this battle for truth as many people, even Christians who are not careful to test every thought in the light of the Bible, have become its victims, without even being aware of the deception.
Here then are ‘The Five Pillars of Secular Humanism’. Keep them in mind for they will help you to identify the latest strategy of the evil one:
1. Atheism – there is no God
Secular humanists are usually atheists or agnostic. They come from widely divergent philosophical and religious backgrounds, ranging from socialism, to Marxism, to feminism, to environmentalism. However, we must stress that some humanists have secretly donned the clothes of the faith and infiltrated the visible church. They plan to destroy the church from within. The Bible refers to them as false teachers.
2. Evolution – there is no creator
Humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.
3. Amorality – there is no moral law
SH aims to destroy the biblical moral foundation of our country—a foundation that has stood secure for a thousand years. As there are no absolute moral laws, every man is free to do what is right in his own eyes.
4. Human autonomy – man is king
Having rejected the biblical concept of original sin, humanists view man as a self-directed being with unlimited potential. They put their faith in man’s ability to solve all problems. Psychotherapy has been developed to make man feel good in his sin.
5. Global salvation – save our planet:
Humanists see themselves as being in control of the planet. Humankind must join together to save the planet from untimely destruction caused by climate change. Environmentalism is a key tenet of the humanist agenda. The problems facing humankind can be solved by world government, run by humanists who understand the dangers generated by nation states and feelings of patriotism. From an economic viewpoint, humanists promote the ideals of socialism.
Let us now turn our attention to the methods that SH uses to challenge God’s truth.
Doctrine of theistic evolution:
The most fundamental biblical truth is that God created the heavens and the earth and everything that is in them in the six days of Creation, as recorded in Scripture. This biblical truth is the foundation of our faith, and a revelation of the nature and character of Almighty God. ‘Through faith we understand that worlds were framed by the word of God’ (Hebrews 11:3). We worship the God who created the heavens and earth through the power of His word.
The wonder of God’s creation is deeply troubling to the conscience of the humanist, for he senses that he is accountable to an Almighty Creator, for God’s eternal power and Godhead are clearly seen and understood by the things that are made (Romans 1:20). In an effort to justify his unbelief the humanist foolishly and vehemently denies the plainest truth of all, that God has created the heavens and the earth. Instead he places his faith in natural selection, the theory of Darwin, to explain the wonder and beauty of God’s creation.
There has been a concerted campaign by secular humanists to promote evolution as a scientific fact. Science is twisted and manipulated, using dating methods based on flawed assumptions, to support the idea that the universe is 13.5 billion years old. The fossil record is misinterpreted. The whole edifice of evolution is based on false science and assumptions that cannot be proved.
Evolution is propagated with an evangelical fervour by the mass media. The TV series, The Genius of Charles Darwin, written and presented by Richard Dawkins, won Best TV Documentary at the British Broadcast Awards in January 2009. The BBC takes every opportunity to present an evolutionary view of origins to mark the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth. In the programme, Charles Darwin & the Tree of Life, David Attenborough takes us on a passionate journey through Darwin's discoveries – and explains why they are so important. The Open University presents a lavish guide to evolution—the Tree of Life poster to help us explore evolution in our own homes, with a gorgeous wall poster. You can have your copy delivered to your door – for free, from The Open University.
In publicly funded schools the teaching of evolution is compulsory. The National Curriculum for England requires that students be taught that the fossil record is evidence for evolution, and says that creationism has no place in science lessons. If creation is raised by students, teachers should say that it is not a scientific theory and that further discussion should be saved for religious classes.
Despite the weakness of the scientific evidence, and despite the fact that evolution dogma is a central weapon in the attack on the Christian faith, many Christian leaders, and especially evangelical Anglicans, have felt obliged to interpret God’s word to make it consistent with Darwin’s theory of evolution. The Church of England has apologised to Darwin for misunderstanding him by getting their first reaction wrong. Rather than stand against the deceptive theory of evolution, many Christian leaders have joined themselves to the evolution bandwagon. The compromise is to integrate Scripture and evolutionary presuppositions to formulate the ridiculous doctrine of theistic evolution. This doctrine teaches that God is the author of evolution, for he used evolutionary processes to create the world over billions of years.
We are asked to believe that a day does not mean a day but a billion years. We are asked to believe that when God said ‘Let there be light’ it took a billion years for light to appear. It is a flawed theology that fundamentally rejects the character of the God of Scripture. This doctrine is now widespread among evangelical Christians and is taught by most theological colleges and preached from many pulpits. Many churches are teaching their young people that God created by evolutionary processes. Those who do so assure their congregation that the first chapters of Genesis are an allegory, not a literal history of Creation. However, those who teach theistic evolution have difficulty in explaining whether Adam emerged from an ape or not! They have even more difficulty in explaining how death came before sin. Theistic evolution has fundamentally changed the doctrine of the church. I believe that it is a foundational heresy that always leads to other doctrinal compromises.
It is essential for believers to hold on to the truth of 6 day creation, as taught in Genesis and to teach the doctrine of creation faithfully to young people. It is the foundation of the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
Secular humanism attacks marriage and the family
The family created at marriage is the God-given institution for a man and woman together, as father and mother, to raise children. The welfare of a nation depends on family stability, for in the family children are taught a moral framework, discipline and respect for authority. In the 19th century GB was characterised by family stability for it was widely believed that marriage was for life, no matter what.
A sustained campaign by secular humanists has undermined marriage and the family. The first stage of the campaign was to make it easy for marriage to be broken by divorce. This struggle started in the 19th century when humanists and liberal theologians joined together to fight for the liberalisation of the nations divorce laws. An on-going campaign has succeeded in gradually extending the grounds for divorce, until the Divorce Reform Act of 1969 finally brought in no fault divorce. A further reform in 1996 made irretrievable breakdown the sole ground for divorce. Psychological theory cultivated the idea of a good divorce for the sake of the children. All that is now required for a divorce is a statement by one partner that the marriage was at an end. No facts are required, only a declaration that the marriage is finished. The state now does everything possible to assist couples end their marriages as quickly and easily as possible.
Divorce has become commonplace, with around 150 thousand marriages ending in divorce each year. Each year around 200 thousand children are affected by the divorce of their parents. Over a lifetime, 4 in 10 marriages now end in divorce. In the decade since 1996, over two million children (2.1 million children) have been affected by the breakup of their family. The transformation of England from a society with virtually no divorce in the 19th century, to a society with mass divorce in the final decades of the 20th century, is one of the most important social changes to occur in our lifetime.
Decline in marriage:
Coinciding with the growth in divorce has been an ongoing ideological challenge to the relevance and meaning of marriage. Politically correct sociological theory, which claims that marriage is a cause of women’s oppression, an institution that inhibits a woman’s psychological growth, has become the new orthodoxy, replacing the biblical view of marriage. Attacks on marriage in films and on TV, in magazines and the popular press are commonplace. World famous feminist author Germaine Greer provides an example of the feminist attack on marriage. In her best seller The Female Eunuch (1970) she ridiculed marriage, presenting a detailed argument why women are foolish to marry. This book had a major impact as it persuaded women to see themselves as victims trapped in oppressive marriages.
Because of the continuous ideological challenge, few politicians are prepared to openly support traditional marriage for fear of being labelled as those who discriminate against single mothers or homosexuals.
Modern secular marriage:
A consequence of the onslaught on traditional marriage has been the emergence of the concept of secular marriage. Marriage ceremonies take place in a secular arena, and vows are secular in nature. Secular marriage is all about personal fulfilment and psychological growth. In the 19th century around 90% of all marriages were solemnized by a church service. In 2005 only a third of marriages took place in church, and many of those who marry in church have a secular attitude towards their marriage. The notion that marriage has a religious or moral dimension is debunked by modern secular thought.
The success of the humanist campaign to devalue marriage is reflected in a steep decline in the marriage rate. Since 1972 there has been a fourfold reduction in the first marriage rate; among men the rate has declined from 86 per 1000 to 22 per 1000 single males and is the lowest since figures were first recorded in 1832. Remarriage has plummeted at an even faster rate.
The rise in cohabitation:
A consequence of the widespread scepticism towards marriage is that couples are choosing to cohabit. Because marriage has lost its meaning, young couples now simply live together in a sexual relationship. The average duration of cohabitation is around 2 years. The consequence has been a massive rise in the number of children born outside marriage; by 2007 the figure was 44.3% of all births—305 thousand children. As this trend continues, within a few years a majority of children born in the UK will be born to unmarried mothers. In the last decade, 2.6 million children have been born outside marriage.
Language is used to support the idea that marriage and cohabitation are morally equivalent relationships. The word ‘partner’ refers to couples who are living together, whether or not they are married and the words ‘husband and wife’ are falling into disuse; official government publications now use the word ‘partner’ in place of husband or wife.
To accommodate the growth of births to single mothers, in the early 1980s the British Government dispensed with the age-old concept of illegitimate births. By this action the government gave official recognition to the single-parent family, thereby accepting that a father was not an essential part of the family. A new type of ‘family’, made up of a single mother and her children, had gained the official recognition of the state. The British Government saw the father’s role in the family as a non-essential, optional extra. The Embryology Bill passed by Parliament last year (2008) states that the women receiving treatment with donor sperm can consent to any man or woman being the child’s father or second parent. This means that a woman could list her best friend on the birth certificate. The word 'father' may be replaced with the phrase 'second parent'. A child can now have two female parents.
Another attack on the family is the Civil Partnership Act of 2004 which gives same-sex couples rights and responsibilities identical to civil marriage. It is now possible for homosexuals to marry and even to adopt children. So society’s understanding of what constitutes a family has been radically altered. Increasingly the concept of the family has become separated from marriage, while the idea that there are many different, equally valid, types of family has gained wide acceptance. We now have traditional families, cohabiting families, stepparent families, single parent families and same-sex families.
The rise in divorce and cohabitation, and the growth in single parent and same-sex families is the rotten fruit produced by the tree of secular humanism. What we are witnessing is an attack on the divine institution of marriage that is having enormous consequences for the whole nation. Sadly the church has stood by silently as the biblical view of marriage and the family are in the process of being destroyed. If current trends continue the nation is doomed to social anarchy.
The national rejection of God’s plan for marriage and the family has led to a substantial decline in the birth rate in the UK, which has been below replacement level since 1972. The current total period fertility rate is around 1.8 children per family when around 2.12 are required to replace the population by natural means. Significantly, recent immigrants have higher fertility rates. The demographic composition of the population is undergoing a rapid and substantial change. The Muslim population in Britain has grown by more than 500,000 in the four year period 2004-2008. Indeed, the Muslim population multiplied 10 times faster than the rest of society, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The disastrous state of our children:
The collapse of marriage is having a disastrous effect on our children. In the last decade over 4 million children are growing up outside a stable family situation because of the divorce of the parents or the failure of their parents to marry. A Unicef study of 21 industrialised countries shows that Britain’s children are the unhappiest in the West. The Good Childhood Inquiry found that more than a quarter of teenagers said that they frequently felt depressed.
Sexual promiscuity among children is now rampant, while society remains entirely indifferent. It has taken the story of a boy of 12 fathering a child by girl of 14 to produce a sense of shock. Around a quarter of girls and a third of boys are sexually active before their 16th birthday. Over 80 thousand children under 16 (32 thousand are 14 or younger) attend a contraceptive clinic for the first time each year. These figures do not count those who go for repeat supplies of contraception. Sexual immorality among our children is a national disgrace. Where is the witness of the church?
Feminism:
The feminist movement is grounded in secular humanism. The aim of feminism is to ferment a war between the sexes. It aims to convince a woman that she is not man’s helper but his opponent. The biblical concept of male headship in marriage and the church is anathema to the feminist mind.
While many people regarded the claims of the more radical feminists as nonsense, the constant demand for sexual equality in all spheres of life has struck a chord. According to feminist rhetoric there should be equality in every respect between the sexes, and especially in the work place. Women are encouraged to place their career before their family life. A consequence has been a rapid rise in the age motherhood.
Yet feminism is a destructive ideology that damages people. Those who follow it must understand that it will damage their marriage, their family and themselves. It does not bring freedom, but bondage. It does not help women live better, more fulfilled lives, but rather empty, futile lives. It does not produce equality between men and women, but distrust and conflict. In particular, feminism is destructive for children, for it teaches mothers to put their own interests above those of their children. The feminist movement has devalued children by supporting abortion, and by persuading women to believe that childrearing is not as important as a career.
The tragedy is that feminist ideas have entered the church. Despite the teaching of Scripture, in many churches women are exercising authority over men and preaching in the church. The feminist mindset has meant that the words of some of the greatest hymns of the Christian church, which have been sung by generations of believers, are thought to be offensive to women. Especially unacceptable are the words ‘man’, ‘mankind’ and ‘sons’. As a consequence some modern hymnals have culled sexist language from traditional hymns.
Abortion:
Secular humanism claims that abortion is a human right. An unborn child is simply a collection of cells; therefore abortion is of no more consequence than removing a troublesome wart. The Abortion Act of 1967 was a major victory for the forces of secular humanism. It represented a watershed in the revolt against biblical morality and is the ultimate attack on the dignity of man created in the image of God.
Since abortion was legalised there have been over 6 million abortion performed in the UK, and the trend continues to be upward. The number of abortions carried out in England and Wales in 2007 was 198.5 thousand. Most of these abortions were funded by the NHS. The flood of innocent blood shed in the UK has been a national disgrace. Effectively Britain is aborting itself into oblivion.
The worst part of the abortion holocaust has been the silence of the church. Today there is hardly a church that laments the shedding of innocent blood. We are silent as our sons and their daughters are sacrificed to the demon of abortion; the land is being polluted with the innocent blood of our unborn children. (Psalm 106:6, 37, 38)
Many churches, under the pretext of crisis pregnancy counselling, have joined the blood letting. The mainstream Christian charity, CARE, has a network of around 150 counselling centres attached to churches. My book What is going on in Christian Crisis Pregnancy Counselling? (2005) documents how CARE’s counsellors use the non-directive, non-judgemental counselling techniques of Carl Rogers to help women decide whether or not they should abort their unborn child. Women are not told that abortion is wrong, for to do so is considered to be judgemental. Instead, they are provided with three options, and presented with the pros and cons of each option, including abortion. They are then helped to choose the option with which they are most comfortable. The message of these centres is founded on situation ethics and is identical to that of secular pro-choice abortion counselling centres. The so-called Christian crisis pregnancy counselling centres, which condone abortion and emergency contraception, are a shameful blot of the witness of the church in our nation.
The outrage of amoral sex education:
The sex education programme of the British Government, which started in the late 1960s, has been heavily influenced by the FPA. In 1974, by an Act of Parliament, the British Government became responsible for supplying contraceptives to children, free of charge. And the most shocking aspect of this legislation is that it gave family planning experts the right to provide children with contraception without the knowledge or consent of their parents. Children of any age, that is children as young as 11 or 12, can be given contraception or an abortion without their parents’ knowledge or consent. You will remember the outcry when a health worker organised an abortion for a 14-year-old schoolgirl behind her mothers back. The mother heard about her daughter’s abortion in the street as she engaged in a chance conversation with a passer-by.
Government guidelines emphasise that knowledge and availability of contraception is a major part of the Government’s strategy to reduce teenage pregnancy. Children are taught how to use contraception and where they can get their free supply. There has been a massive, government funded campaign promoting the messages of sex education for the last three decades. Every health authority in the UK has a health promotion department promoting the message of ‘safer sex’. I estimate that around 5 million sex education leaflets and pamphlets are distributed each year.
Here are the four characteristics of sex education taught in the UK:
First, it is amoral. Sex education never teaches that any type or form of sexual activity is wrong. To do so is judgemental, or worse, moralising. So the decision whether or not to have sex is their choice, and whatever choice they make is right for them, provided they use a condom. The effect is to demoralise sexual behaviour in the eyes of children. A recent Government leaflet encourages parents to talk to their children about sex, but ‘remember that trying to convince them of what’s right or wrong may discourage them from being open’. But open to what, the ideas of the sexual revolutionaries? Here the Government is making it plain that it does not want parents to teach their children a moral framework or warn their children about the dangers of sexual immorality.
Second, sex education is explicit in language and image. Much of the sex education material is pornographic in nature. The purpose is to destroy modesty among children and to arouse sexual lust and so encourages sexual activity among children. This is one of the reasons why almost one in three children are sexually active before they turn 16.
Third, sex education promotes bisexuality as the norm; it helps children find their ‘true’ sexual orientation. The booklet King and King, which is being piloted in primary schools, is a fairy tale that promotes homosexuality among children aged 4 to 8.
Fourth, it is hostile to marriage and the traditional family. Children are taught about sex as if there was no such thing as marriage.
For the past three decades the British Government has used sex education as an ideological weapon against the biblical view of sexual conduct, marriage and the traditional family. Its aim is to undermine the Christian virtues of modesty, chastity, self-control and faithfulness. The consequence is that a generation of children have been indoctrinated into sexual immorality. They believe that sex is a play thing, the only value is pleasure. We have a generation of children that are without a moral compass—that are sinking in the quagmire of amorality.
And where is the church?
Does it oppose the government’s amoral sex education programme? On the contrary. The great Christian compromise in the field of sex education is described in my book The Outrage of Amoral Sex Education (2006). CARE has developed a so-called ‘Christian’ version of sex education with support from many Christian churches. CARE’s sex education programme, named evaluate… informing choice, is entirely consistent with the government’s approach. CARE’s prayer guide asks us to continue to pray that God will bless their sex education project ‘that complements the National Curriculum of Sex and Relationship Education’. CARE’s teaching on condoms, yes, CARE teaches children about condoms, is based on the policy of the World Health Organisation. CARE’s condom quiz for school children aged 13 to 15 asks this question: ‘Are two condoms better than one? Answer: no. the opposite! And then ‘Can a girl get pregnant if she jumps up and down after sex? Answer: yes and she would look rather odd! CARE is trivialising sexual immorality among children.
The psychological onslaught:
Human autonomy is one of the pillars of secular humanism. Psychotherapists have made a great contribution to the cause of secular humanism and many, including Carl Rogers, Erich Fromm and Abraham Maslow have been awarded the accolade of Humanist of the Year. The psychological way is undoubtedly a major weapon in the onslaught against the Christian faith—the worship of God is replaced with self-worship.
The psychological theories of Carl Rogers, one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th Century, are firmly grounded in secular humanism. Rogers’ central idea was the glorification of self. His counselling method is ‘non-directive’ and ‘non-judgmental’ because the client must be free to decide their own version of right and wrong. The purpose of his counselling is to make the client feel good in his selfishness and sin. Sinful man becomes the source of his own morality and sets his own standards, for there is no God to whom he is accountable.
The legacy of Rogers’ ideology can be found in the school classroom and the abortion counselling office. Progressive teaching, influenced by Rogers, has taken a non-directive, non-judgmental attitude towards morality. The consequences have been catastrophic for the moral education of children, for they are no longer taught the difference between right and wrong.
The Christian counselling movement has integrated the psychological way right into the heart of the church. The psychological theories of Freud, Maslow and Rogers and others, have been integrated with Scripture to form a Christian model of counselling. Over the last three decades there has been a massive growth in Christian counselling in the UK. Virtually every theological college in the land has a course in psychology and counselling. The Wesley Owen website lists over 200 titles that deal with Christian psychology and counselling. Every branch of the church has been infected by the Christian counselling scene. Many churches have trained counsellors, and many refer troubled members of their congregation to a Christian counselling service, where they pay money to receive Christian counselling.
Psychological counselling is believed to be of such value that a network of professional counsellors is sponsored by the Baptist Union, the Methodist Church, the Salvation Army, the United Reformed Church and the Free Churches’ Group (acting on behalf of other Free Church denominations) to provide psychotherapeutic services for ministers and their families. The Churches’ Ministerial Counselling Service is run by the Baptist Union and provides professional counsellors who can be seen anonymously. The counselling is based on Roger’s non-directive approach.
Faith in psychotherapy is such that ministers of the gospel are assured that the service is trustworthy because the counsellors are recognized by the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). It is amazing that Christian leaders feel the need for non-directive psychotherapy to deal with their problems.
One of the fruits of the Christian counselling scene is the emergence of a therapeutic gospel that aims to meet the emotional needs of the congregation. Such is the impact of the psychological way that the message of many churches has undergone a subtle change. There is a growing consensus that traditional teachings about sin, wrath and judgement make the gospel message appear unattractive in a modern world.
Secular humanism in education:
SH understands the power of education to propagate its dogma among a new generation of children and young people. In their eyes the purpose of education is to change attitudes and values to construct a politically correct, secular, socialist society. An award winning essay in The Humanist (1983), makes the point, ‘The battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: A religion of humanity – utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to carry humanist values into wherever they teach. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new – the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism.’ [John J. Dunphy]
Since the 1960s, state education in the UK has been driven towards a progressive ideology by means of teacher training, and the ‘philosophical cleansing’ of the teaching profession. Teacher selection is biased towards those who exhibit progressive, liberal, socialist views. Progressives give particular attention to English, History and RE, because of cultural importance of these subjects. Progressive education is based on the concept of relative truth, which is changing all the time. Progressive education downgrades factual knowledge and the three Rs.
The dangers of state education in the UK are easy to see. Children are taught in a moral vacuum. The theory of evolution is taught as a scientific fact; sex education is taught without moral guidance. The ethos of the class room is non-directive and non-judgmental, where children are led to believe that there is no such thing as right or wrong. Multi-faith education teaches that all religions are of equal value. Children are taught a distorted version of history that conforms with the dogma of secular humanism. They are made to feel ashamed of their British heritage, and especially of the British Empire.
Conclusion:
We must understand that SH is the face of a deep evil that is at war with the God of heaven and His people. It is total warfare, and at stake is the future of Britain as a Christian nation. It is a spiritual battle between light and darkness; between the god of this world, who was a murderer from the beginning, and the gracious God of Scripture. Today there is an intense battle between the seed of Satan and the Seed promised by God to redeem mankind from sin and hell. Satan and his hosts seek to destroy mankind, the pinnacle of God’s creation. His purpose is to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). This is the spirit that drives SH, a spirit that is aligned with the rulers of the darkness of this age. ‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole amour of God…’ (Ephesians 6:12, 13).
The greatest danger to the nation is a compromised church—a church that tolerates false teaching. We must understand that Satan can transform himself into an angel of light. ‘Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness’ (2 Corinthians 11:15).
The church needs a prophetic voice to stand against the tide of evil that is engulfing our society. The true church needs courage to stand against false teaching and to expose it for what it truly is. SH fears the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Let us take every opportunity to oppose the teachings of SH by using God’s word. Let us put on the full armour of God and take our stand against the evil of SH. Let us engage in the battle and ‘earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints’ (Jude 3).