Dennis Peacocke comments on the results of secular governance

Dennis Peacocke

Almost three centuries ago, the wiser minds of Western secular thought largely convinced the populace that only secular control of society could keep us all "safe" from the ravages of further ongoing religious wars. I am more than sympathetic with their quest to stop the religious conflicts that were racking Western Europe. Christians creating social havoc over doctrinal disputes is a long, long way from Jesus' teaching and lifestyle. Only religious carnality could create such a monstrous and unspiritual phenomena. That being said, the question nevertheless arises, "Has secularism kept us 'safe' from the carnage of religious fervour and pressed humanity into a more elevated and enlightened nature?" Let's look at the record.

Over the last three hundred years, Western society - secularly led and driven by greed, lust for power and super-heated nationalism - has given us almost nothing but wars. In fact, periods of secular peace have been a somewhat rare occasion. The English, French, and Germanic nations have engaged in the wars which have killed multiple times the casualties of the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. World Wars I and II alone killed around fifty-five million, at the most conservative estimate. Indeed, Napoleonic-type nationalism and the ideologies of an idyllic future, either Hitlerian or Marxist, took those numbers well near the hundred million number. Stalin, Mao, and their Asian allies saw to that in the slaughter of their own citizens.

Dare we mention secularism's massacre of the unborn? How "safe" were the millions terminated in Europe over the last forty years? How about the multi-millions, mostly girls, excised in China? What about right here in our "nation under God"? Throw in another 55 million or so. That easily makes multiple hundreds of millions of human beings kept "safe", but dead, from us religious fanatics. Why don't I feel safe and more protected by my secular keepers? After all, keeping religion out of politics, since they make such a dangerous cocktail, must indeed be the remedy to world peace and enlightened humanity.

The separation of the institutions of civil government and ecclesiastic government is both biblical and essential. But what, pray tell, is the problem here since the secularists have largely done this? It's all about fallen human nature, friends, and the secular anti-spiritual culture they have given us. They have abundantly proven its outrageous incompetency at the expense of at least a fifth of a billion human lives.

And that is...the bottom line.