Introduction
Humanism is
the prevalent world view that we see today.
It focuses on human values and concerns, attaching prime importance to
self and not to God. It’s not just a
philosophy, a world view or an approach to study, it is a religion and it’s
everywhere in our culture. This thinking
elevates man over God and rejects religion.
Humanism is rooted in pride, elevating humanity over God. In last week’s blog posts (4 parts) I talked about many characteristics
of pride and today we’ll see how pride and humanistic thinking go hand in hand.
Unfortunately,
humanism is prevalent in the Western Church and it’s in many Christian
books. I don’t want to get into the
specifics of what these books teach, I’ll just say that they are filled with
SELF and a HUMANISTIC CHRISTIANITY. I
think it’s only fair that Christians understand that much of the pop culture,
self-help, inspirational Christian literature out there today is laced with
humanistic beliefs. Sometimes it’s
subtle but any time we put religious attainment, education and intellect,
health, healing, prosperity and wealth or even social justice issues ahead of
God, they become idols. Many of these things promote selfish living over godly living.
We must tread
carefully for MOTIVE IS EVERYTHING. God
says HE must be FIRST in our lives and He’s rather picky about this. Yet, humanism is a religion, with man as the
god. It’s subtle but the world uses it
to sell just about everything:
- Because I’m Worth It – L’Oreal
- You Deserve a Break today – McDonald's
- Open Happiness – Coke
- Have it your way – Burger King
This mindset is also used a lot in
the fitness and exercise world:
- Make Your Body. Make Your Life. Make Yourself
- Persistence supersedes talent, genetics and luck. There can be no true success without it.
- YOU are the creator of your own destiny.
Can you see
how these slogans are ALL self-focused? They emphasize YOUR pleasure, YOUR
satisfaction, YOUR comfort, YOUR success, YOUR needs and YOUR feelings. Yet the Bible teaches that we are to live for
the glory of God and not for our own comfort, pleasure, satisfaction, success
and so on.
As Christians we have been sucked into believing secular ideologies
and they are influencing how we are living our lives! Yet we are to be in the world, not of the
world (John 17:11-16; Rom. 12:2). What
are we to do?
Next Blog Post: The Cure for Humanism
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