America's Established Religion, 1992

by   Chris Gudmundsson                                                                                                                         Vol. V, No. 6, November 1992

[Chris Gudmundsson serves on the staff of Old Forest Road Church, Lynchburg]

I have repeatedly been shocked and perplexed to hear of the stands taken by the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs and by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. They have seemed to me more like defenders of free secularism than like defenders of free religion. Then, of course, I have had to balance these feelings of alarm with the fact that there are many of my sincere, Christ-loving Baptist brothers and sisters who agree with the stands these organizations have taken. These opposite-pulling tensions had me in quite a quandary. Having no desire to judge my brethren, I went digging in search of the roots of these two groups.

What I discovered was this: the BJCPA and Americans United are fighting last century's battles. They are not secularists. They are not traitors to the cause of Christ or His church, as some of my fellow conservatives have suggested. They are loyal Baptists fighting the same battles their Baptist forebears fought and won in the 1700's and 1800's.

The problem is that they are fighting the wrong enemies. Catholic parochial schools are not the enemy. Fundamentalist colleges are not the enemy. Invocations at high school graduations are not the enemy. The enemy is a loose-knit collection of basic assumptions that have been embraced by our culture at large, by our public school systems, by our social service agencies, and by our government. These assumptions are slowly but definitely becoming the established state religion of the United States of America.

Stop for a question. What is religion anyway? Webster's defines it as "a system of faith or worship; conscientious devotion to a principle or ideal..." No mention of God? Why not? Because you do not need a god to have a religion. What you need are faith (the willingness to order your life according to certain principles or ideals) and worship (the ascription of supreme value to those principles or ideals). Historic Baptist faith is a religion, to be sure. So is Marxism. So is orthodox Judaism. So is Optimistic Evolutionary Humanism. So is Islam. So is Ayn Rand's Objectivism. So is Teutonic paganism (surprisingly popular among college students these days). So is the New Age movement.

Back to America's established religion. This religion, as we have noted, has not yet been systematized by any one person or group. Rather, the religion exists as certain basic assumptions which have wormed their way into widespread acceptance by the American people – and widespread enforcement by Uncle Sam. These assumptions are outlined below.

Secularism, or anti-theism. The assumption is that God has no place in public life-especially not in public schools. The God who is particularly despised is the traditional, fatherly, personal, holy, Judaeo-Christian God of the Bible.

Evolution, or human autonomy. Here is the reason why God is not a viable discussion topic in a public setting. The concept of a sovereign God implies accountability – and we don't like that idea. Hence, evolution: a convenient, albeit scientifically impossible explanation of man's origins. Now man is at the top of the heap. Evolution is, of course, the most entrenched of all the tenets of the new establishment religion. It is taught to third graders in public schools across the country.

Naturalism, or science-olatry. The assumption is that the universe is a closed system. There is no such thing as the supernatural. Anything which appears to be supernatural is simply an aspect of nature which we have not yet understood scientifically. All of this serves admirably to protect us even more completely from that most horrifying of evils, moral accountability.

Psychology, or don't -punish-me-I'm-not-guilty-I'm-just-sick-ism. Since man is only an animal and there can be no supernatural solutions to his problems, we solve his problems (huh?) through psychology. That is, we tell him he is not wicked; he just had a bad childhood. Therefore, he cannot be held – guess what? – accountable. If you think that psychology is not a part of the establishment religion, ruminate for a while on the significance of the fact that there is such a thing as a court-appointed psychiatrist.

Existentialism, or just-do-it-ism. The assumption is that since on the rational level man is ultimately incapable of discovering any meaning or significance for his life in this deterministic, cog-in-the-machine universe, meaning must be discovered through experience. On the physical level, this becomes rank hedonism: get all you can, can all you get. He who dies with the most toys wins.

Well, that was our state religion in the mid-80's. But, as we Christians have known for the last two millennia, man has an intrinsic need to believe in the holy, the divine, the higher-than I. It's no secret. Even Julian Huxley, a noted infidel, recognized that man functions better if he believes there is a god. We know why. It is because that is how God made us. But the new establishment religion cannot embrace that explanation – it violates assumption number one. The solution to their problem (i.e., the spiritual barrenness, the nihilistic despair of classical secular humanism) is the last assumption of our new establishment religion:

Pantheism, or I-am-god-ism. The assumption is that the best way to believe in god without believing in the supernatural is to believe that nature is god. Of course, the truly delicious corollary is that now man is god as well. Now that's autonomy! And that's the New Age movement. Wed it to the old secular humanism and you have America's established religion in 1992. Perhaps we should call it pantheistic humanism.

It is becoming our new establishment religion. It is compulsorily taught in our schools. It dictates that the government can take our children from us if we practice biblical corporal punishment. It denies funding to schools that dare to espouse belief in the traditional Judaeo-Christian God, while encouraging (coercing?) all schools everywhere to toe the “politically correct" line. All beliefs compatible with pantheistic humanism are enlightened and "scientific," and therefore approved. All beliefs involving the existence of absolute moral principles or a personal God are reactionary, bigoted, narrow minded, and products of the Western-culture-worshipping, white Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, male, patriarchal, stupid, homophobic oligarchy. These are not tolerated. Why not? Because they do not agree with the established state religion, pantheistic humanism.

Now understand, this is not a conspiracy theory. I do not know anything about the Trilateral Commission, and I could not care less about Freemasonry. I do not postulate the existence of some sinister secret council orchestrating the whole affair. I am simply watching what is happening in our society. What is happening is the establishment of a new state religion. It has no pope, no pastors, no seminaries, no denominations. But it is a religion. It was determined to be a religion by our courts in 1961 and again in 1965. It was declared to be a religion by the Humanist Manifesto of 1933.

Baptist Joint Committee, Americans United, there is your enemy. There is our enemy. We Baptists, who have always fought for freedom of religion and against official establishment of any religion, have found ourselves in the odd position of playing pawn to Satan as he aggressively works to establish pantheistic humanism as the official religion of our land. He has already duped many of us into believing that the government, in the name of separation of church and state, can promote and fund non-theistic or pantheistic philosophies while systematically denying any support or funding for traditional theistic institutions. Perhaps without even realizing it,

Uncle Sam is establishing a state religion. Meanwhile, we loyal U.S. Baptists, lulled by past successes, sit passively and watch it happen.

I write not as a Baptist minister, nor as a representative of my church or my denomination. I write as a Christian, a Baptist, and an American. If what I say is just alarmist claptrap, ignore it. But if it is right, then as Christians, as Baptists, and as Americans, let us commit ourselves to fight to keep the freedoms our Baptist forefathers bought for us – often at the price of their own blood.

[Comment: The above is just as written by Chris Gudmundsson. My view is that he does not appreciate the extent to which the BJCPA and Americans United are active and intentional actors fostering the pantheistic humanism he so excellently describes. For example, one of AU's earliest and most influential staff members was Paul Blanshard. In 1973 he signed Humanist Manifesto II and wrote in The Humanist, "...humanism is not a religion but a philosophy and a social movement opposed to all the supernatural claims of religion. We have an obligation to expose and attack the world of religious miracles, magic, Bible-worship, salvationism, heaven, hell, and all the mythical deities. We should be particularly specific and energetic in attacking such quack millenialists as Billy Graham and such embattled reactionaries as Pope Paul VI because they represent the two greatest anti-humanist aggregates in our society. Second, our movement should stand for an action program in defense of the constitutional separation of church and state."

In 1966 Ed Doerr came to the AU staff where he served for 16 years until 1982. During this entire time he also wrote for the Humanist magazine. In 1973 he also signed Humanist Manifesto II. During the late 1970's two more signers of Humanist Manifesto II also served on the staff of AU: Robert W. Lawson and Robert E. Jones. In 1986-87 Humanist Manifesto II signers James F. Hornback of the St. Louis Ethical Union, William F. Schultz, President of the Unitarian-Universalist Association, and James T. McCollum were elected to the Americans United National Advisory Council. Both the St. Louis Ethical Union and the Unitarian-Universalist Association are humanist organizations. In 1990 Dr. Norman J. Bauer, who also signed Humanist Manifesto II, was elected to serve on the AU-NAC board.

An American Humanist Association statement of 1956 reads, in part: "Our humanist convictions should lead us into active participation in specialized organizations devoted to kindred causes. Without neglecting their primary loyalty, humanists and humanist groups should relate to and strengthen such organizations as, for example, the American Civil Liberties Union ... the Planned Parenthood Federation ... and Americans United for Separation of Church and State."

It is widely known that James Dunn, director of the BJCPA, was also on the board of the ultra liberal People for the American Way.

In short; there is much incontrovertible evidence that Americans United is an intentional participant in the pantheistic humanism so well described in the above article. There is some but less overwhelming evidence regarding BJCPA. We should not see conspiracies where there are none, but neither should we ignore them when they exist. TCP]