Understanding Secular Religions

Understanding Secular Religions

In this volume of our series, we present brief discussions of some of the most dynamic secular alternatives to Christianity which are available today. These alternatives are not strictly religious since they have no belief in God or the supernatural, and involve no form of worship or liturgy.  That is why we have labeled them secu1ar. 

However, they are religious in the sense that they are more or less unified comprehensive world views which seek to explain the "why' of existence. Because they have their own creeds, their own "scriptures," their own "clergy," and their own closely knit groups, we have labeled them religions. 

The First Three Volumes

This series, Handbook of Today's Re1igions, has now grown to four volumes.

The first volume, Understanding the Cults, deals with some of the most prominent cults in contemporary society. A "cult" is a religious group that claims to be compatible with historic and biblical Christianity but which denies it in either significant essential doctrinal or methodological points.

The second volume,  Understanding the Occult, deals with that area of religious belief which is primarily in direct opposition to biblical Christianity This religious belief can range from a comprehensive theology such as some forms of Satanism to the deceitful and fraudulent practices of pseudo-mediums. 

Volume three, Understanding Non-Christian Religions,  takes as its topic the major world religions which do not claim to represent biblical Christianity. We discuss the ancient religions, such as Hinduism and Judaism, as well as the newer resurrections of ancient thought, such as Buddhism's Nichiren Shoshu. This fourth volume, Understanding Secular Religions, presents secular alternatives to Christian belief. 

Our Topics

In this volume we do not presume to have exhausted all of the secular alternatives to Christianity. However, we do believe that the four movements we have chosen to discuss are representative of those alternatives. 

Two of our topics are loosely organized and consist primarily of ideas rather than existing as full-blown belief systems. These two, existentialism and atheism (which includes agnosticism and skepticism), are more properly types of philosophical thought rather than comprehensive movements. However, they still challenge the Christian world view and demand an almost religious commitment.  Our other two topics, Marxism and Secular Humanism, appear to be complete world views and belief systems. They are the secular substitutes for Christianity and more nearly fit the traditional definition of religion. 

The Scope of Our Study

Whole libraries are built to the honor of secular religions,  as we have defined them. For instance one could read a different book each day for several years on Marxism alone.  There are those, both within and without the camp of biblical Christianity, who have spent their entire careers studying and commenting upon such subjects. We do not pretend that we have such expertise; rather, we cite those scholars who are recognized generally as authorities.  Neither do we pretend that this one short overview will deal comprehensively with the four secular systems. Our goal in presenting this volume to the Christian public is to provide the Christian with enough background in the subjects under discussion so that he can understand the basic tenets of each system. We have chosen to present, therefore, summaries of the teachings of the relevant philosophies rather than present voluminous quotes from the philosophies themselves. Following the background, we have given ways to think about the subject from a biblical and rational perspective. We are more concerned with principles than with details, with general biblical responses than with meticulous critiques. This book has enough information to give the reader a Christian perspective on humanism, atheism, agnosticism, skepticism, Marxism,  and existentialism. 

We hope that this review will whet the appetite of the reader and encourage him to look to the volumes listed in our extensive bibliographies for further information. 

If we give Christians a biblical perspective on the subject of secular religion, or enable Christians to think in a rational and biblical manner as they respond to the challenges of secular religion, we will consider our task successfully accomplished. 

We especially would like to thank Robert and Gretchen Passantino for their advice, which was actively solicited on all four volumes, and for their considerable help with the chapters on Marxism and atheism in this volume. We would also like to thank our publishers for their close cooperation in this project.