Just another outdated book?

The following is my response to a young secularist who told me recently that the Bible is an obsolete book that is not needed in the 21st century.

Here is my response: 


That's the assumption, that we know so much more today than ancient people, that we couldn't possibly learn or appreciate something from an ancient book, that we have moved on, so to speak, that the Bible is outdated. This recent conversation occurred within the context of a discussion that centered on technology as benefiting people's lives, which it often does, and obviously can. We benefit from modern science and technology. It often leads to longer lives, and has increased the
quality of life for many people. What many modern people don't seem to realize however, is that firstly, modern science arose in large part, out of a monotheistic worldview, especially in terms of hands on science and the development of the scientific method.

As some would assert, certainly there were earlier contributions, but in terms of the sustained biblical influence that permeated and influenced the Western world, out of this environment, modern science developed. The theological backdrop of an intelligent, benevolent God, where there is a understood (or believed) separation between God and nature, unlike paganism in which people would be afraid of nature as itself divine and therefore was often seen as dominating and unapproachable. Instead, on a monotheistic worldview, people were free to study nature. Nature wasn't God, it was God's magnificent creation, and we as human beings, created in the image of God, and esteemed as stewards of nature, were free to explore. Add to that, scientists expected to find order in nature on a monotheistic worldview, while understanding the natural world as being the creation of an intelligent supreme being. It seems to me, that much of what we have discovered through modern science is an affirmation of that worldview, that indeed, nature is at least consistent with what we should expect as the creation of an intelligent mind.

There is much that could be said about modern science in this regard, as requiring order, for science itself to function, that is consistent with a guiding intelligence. That's not quite what I set out to say here, however. I want to speak to the secular minded individuals out there, whom I think largely assume a Judeo-Christian worldview in their daily lives, and yet, I would suggest, are also oblivious to this influence in many respects. Another comment that I have heard made is that morality has changed in the last hundred years. Has it? Has it really? To what degree? Is it now right to steal? To
rape? To murder? Is incest now acceptable? Sexual abuse of children? Morality has not changed, and in fact, where it has, arguably our society is either paying a price, or we have simply admitted what was wrong all along, despite social and economic pressures to think otherwise.

How many unborn children have and will die or be born to single mothers who will struggle against poverty, due to the freedoms that the sexual revolution promised? Is that the kind of change of morality that we are assuming? We need to look deeper, in other words, and ask, what really are we questioning, and to what degree have certain things always been wrong, as in racism for example? Is it that racism used to be okay, or is it a collective Christian conscience, that has pushed for reforms over time? I would argue that it is the latter, that it is a Judeo-Christian ideological framework (speaking especially of the historically Christian world), that has led to reforms over time.

Many if not all, of the rights movements of the last century have been drawing from the same biblical well, that all persons are equal, because all persons are created in the image of God. In this way, just as we would not call Martin Luther King an outdated influence, why then do we call the book that influenced Dr. Martin Luther King, outdated? Do you see the contradiction here? Do you see the lack of depth in these discussions, where people often blame Christianity or Christians, while failing to note the larger Christian influence in the culture, which they are often assuming?

I say this to hopefully get people thinking about our common influences, in an increasingly divided society, where secular is often pitted against religion, especially Christianity, and to affirm our common experience as people. Our day to day experience as human beings points to a higher moral law which clearly exists, and points to a moral law-giver. How else would we experience such laws in our daily lives, even when no one is watching? We have a sense that some things are right, and some things are just wrong, all wrong.

What I really want to get across, for anyone who is interested, is that so much of what the West is, is rooted in a biblical frame of reference. Many of the moral expectations that I listed above are true cross culturally and across time, yes, that's a whole discussion, but in terms of where the West is at, proclaiming naturalism while expecting a cultural Christianity; the question is, how is any of these things wrong on a material worldview, objectively? That is the question that secularists are not asking, while they assume Judeo-Christian standards, which they also claim are outdated. On a
material worldview, all that matters, is what results in survival and procreation. What one does on a pale blue dot that we call Earth, will not matter, given enough time, objectively. Save the kitty, or let the kitty drown, it will not matter. All of what we know will fade into oblivion. Objectively, right and wrong do not matter on a naturalistic worldview, unless there is an external point of reference on which to ground: right and wrong.

This is the reason why I'm not a secularist, I think too much haha, as you can see. To my secularist friends, who say to me "oh, one can find meaning, playing chess or crocheting -one doesn't need religion!" Well -yeah, you can find meaning playing soccer or collecting stamps, but it is not objective meaning, it is not objective purpose, or objective good or evil. It's simply your opinion, that old records matter, or the World Cup matters. And that's where it gets scary, because along come people who call our secular bluff, the disillusioned and the psychopathic, but we expect more, don't we?

When I hear people talk, they don't talk as if raping or stealing or murdering is just someone's opinion, they talk as if these things matter! This again points to a higher moral law, what I see in the anger of secularists, ironically, who say that religion is evil. But how, on a material worldview? One carbon atom is just as good as the next, psychopathic or not. Their own anger proves their perspective to be wrong-headed, in that they are demanding objective standards which their own worldview cannot support. And I agree, to be very clear, it matters that kids go hungry, it matters that women, and men sometimes, are brutalized, because we are human beings, made in the image of God. Life matters, right and wrong matters, objectively, because life, grounded in the author of life -is sacred.

Can you begin to understand why it is that I take the time, to talk to young people like the above? Life matters, and the worldview that I see as having the greatest consistency is not materialism, nor is it Islam which I think is a product of the Arab conquests, nor is it an Eastern worldview, where the individual ultimately loses their individuality to a vague, impersonal force. Rather, it is the Judeo-Christian biblical worldview that grounds the worth and dignity of the human person in a benevolent Creator, who calls each of us by name, and sees us as individual persons, eternally. This is also
the worldview that the West is abandoning, in favour of just about any other option. You tell me, how will such and such a worldview ground the equal worth and dignity of all human persons?

These are the questions our society needs to begin to ask, before we judge the Bible as an outdated, irrelevant  book, which just so happens to have influenced many of the greatest reformers and intellectuals in the history of the Western world. It is the book that every human rights tribunal, every judge in the Western world, the U.N., and how many other organizations are assuming, while they dismiss? Much more can be said about the above, but to answer the question, what can we learn from an ancient book? What could it possibly teach us? To answer that question, I suggest we consider the
alternative, which is a worldview, where rape and murder and theft, all simply evolved, for very natural, reasons.

Thanks for listening,

Margaret Harvey


We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Thomas Jefferson