Mary Poplin

Presbyterian Church of the Master #1 of 4

April 12, 2015

IS REALITY SECULAR?

TESTIMONY&

WORLDVIEW INTRO

COLLEGE YEARS

Started college “Christian”

No class mention of God or Jesus

Few profs and friends hostile

Lacked Knowledge of Christ

Cannot be born Christian

A voice on the bare heights is heard, the weeping and pleading of Israel's sons

because they have perverted their way; they have forgotten the Lord their God.

TO FORGET GOD

INTELLECTUAL LIFE

Radical Feminism

Multiculturalism

Critical Theory (Marxist)

Cultural Studies

Post Modernism

BEWARE OF PLAUSIBLE ARGUMENTS

To reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery,

which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.

Colossians 2: 2-4

PERSONAL LIFE

Alcohol

Discoes

Drugs (recreationally)

Serially Monogamous

GOD GAVE THEM UP IN THE LUSTS OF THEIR HEARTS TO IMPURITY, TO THE DISHONORING OF THEIR BODIES…

Romans 1

For although they knew God, they did not honor Him…

Claiming to be wise, they became as fools…

Good and evil both

increase at compound interest.

C S Lewis

SPIRITUAL LIFE“Spiritual but not Religious”

Transcendental Meditation

Feminist Spirituality

New Age

Bending Spoons

DECEITFUL SPIRITS AND THE TEACHINGS OF DEMONS

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared… Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths.

THE DREAM

Cells in HIS Body

A Friend

The Bible

Conferences

MOTHER TERESA

“Our work is not social work

It is religious work”

I WAS HUNGRY, THIRSTY, NAKED, LONELY, SICK, IN PRISON… AND YOU… MATTHEW 25

INTELLECTUAL CRISIS

Secularizing Mother Teresa

No language the university could understand

Nor desired to understand

Foreign worldview (ancient, irrelevant)

Or sweet but untrue or unnecessary

WORLDVIEWS OPERATING SYSTEMS OF THE MIND

FOUR GLOBAL WORLDVIEWS

Material Naturalism

Secular Humanism

Pantheism

Monotheism (Judeo-Christianity)

FOR ANY OF US TO BE FULLY CONSCIOUS INTELLECTUALLY WE SHOULD NOT ONLY BE ABLE TO DETECT THE WORLDVIEWS OF OTHERS BUT BE AWARE OF OUR OWN—WHY IT IS OURS AND WHY IN THE LIGHT OF SO MANY OPTIONS WE THINK IT IS TRUE.

JAMES SIRE

THE SECULAR CLAIM

• Neutral, Unbiased

• Safer for Global World

• Necessary

• More reasonable

• More progressive

“If you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”

C.S. Lewis

SECULARISTS ON RELIGION

• Optional personal choice

• Faith and feelings for those who need

• Private, Not public, Do not bring to work

• Not a candidate for truth

• Dangerous

• Jews introduce a personal, all powerful God – I AM

• Jews oppressed group experience great success in extreme conditions

• Israel’s prophets fall silent 400 BC to Christ

• Lives of Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu

• Socrates, Plato, Aristotle

• Lyceum, Academy

• Sophists, Skeptics, Epicureans, Stoics

HISTORY – AXIAL AGE - FROM 800 BC 200 BC

CHRIST AS“CRUCIAL DIVIDING LINE –

THE AXIS OF WORLD HISTORY”

GEORG FRIEDRICH HEGEL

Problem of Secular Worldviews

No moral plumbline

Political determines the moral

Human Reasoning Alone

Ignore Laws of Human Nature