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Principled Ideas from the Centennial Institute Volume 5, Number 6 June 2013

Publisher, William L. Armstrong Editor, John Andrews

DO AMERICANS WORSHIP THE STATE?

By Benjamin Wiker
The title of my new book, on which CCU President Bill Armstrong has asked me to speak today, is Worshipping the State: How Liberalism Became Our State Religion. This would seem to make two outlandish claims. First, it implies that liberals worship the state. Second, it claims that liberalism itself has somehow become our established state religion. Here at Colorado Christian University, however, these claims may not seem so outlandish.

I bring in the name of Caesar quite purposely. You are no doubt aware that Christianity was born into a pagan state governed by the imperial will of Caesars, emperors who claimed to be divine. You may not be aware, however, that pagan Rome heartily affirmed contraceptives and abortifacients, as well as infanticide, euthanasia, pedophilia, homosexuality, and yes, even homosexual marriage. Rome persecuted Christians because they refused to bend the knee before the divine emperor, before the imperial state. Christians refused to acknowledge Caesar to be divine, and the states laws as the highest laws. Those same Christians refused to accept pagan sexual morality. In refusing to bow before the states attempt to reimpose a sexual morality strikingly like that of ancient pagan Rome, Colorado Christian University is showing its real pedigree, its real connection to the first Christians.

You were the first evangelical university or college to file Disestablishing Liberal Secularism suit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human But what does it matter if liberalism is, in fact, a religion, Services mandate (under the Patient Protection Act, or or at least, functions entirely like one? Because if Obamacare), which tries to force Christian To whom that is so, then Christians can litigate to disestablish institutions to violate their moral doctrine and it as the state-imposed worldview. provide contraceptives, abortifacients, and must we sterilization in their insurance coverage. This would actually be part of a two-prong kneel? defense and counterattack. First, as CCU has Obamas HHS mandate was saying, You will done, Christians can defend against incursions by the bend the knee before the state. liberal state through the Free Exercise Clause of the First CCU shot back a polite but unyielding reply, We will bend Amendment. the knee before God and God alone. Second, Christians can turn the tables on liberal secularism Caesar vs. Christ itself, by actively bringing cases to disestablish it as the As this university and others resisting the mandate realize, state-imposed worldview in education, in our federal the struggle over religious liberty is not a struggle between agencies, and in the judiciary itself. Christianity and a neutral state. It is a struggle between The success of this second prong will depend on a wellChristianity and an adversarial state that is imposing the developed argument showing that secularism not only liberal worldview by force. functions like a religion, but actually is a religion, and so its In attempting to make Christians bend the knee, liberals are using the federal government to place their own worldview at the center of the culture, thereby displacing Christianity. They are using the power of Caesar against the church of Christ, so that Christians are now experiencing a situation defined, not by the church and the state, but by the secular liberal state against the church. And Caesar is now trying to do the same thing with gay marriage. establishment violates the First Amendment.

Benjamin Wiker (Ph.D., Vanderbilt) the author of Ten Books That Screwed Up the World, has taught philosophy and theology at several universities. He wrote about the academic left for Centennial Review in July 2011. Wiker gave this talk to the CCU faculty on April 5, 2013. Centennial Institute sponsors research, events, and publications to enhance public understanding of the most important issues facing our state and nation. By proclaiming Truth, we aim to foster faith, family, and freedom, teach citizenship, and renew the spirit of 1776.

So how can that be demonstrated? If we look at the work of (among others) Emilio Gentile, Michael Burleigh, and, perhaps most famously, Eric Voegelin on modern political religionsspecifically, the secular political movements of Nazism, Fascism, and Communismwe find that one of the most interesting effects of secularization in the West has been that the secular state itself very soon became the object of worship. I think the great G. K. Chesterton captured this phenomenon most memorably and succinctly: Once abolishGod, and the Government becomes the God. Wherever the people do not believe in something beyond the world, they will worship the world. But, above all, they will worship the strongest thing in the world. That strongest thing in the modern world is the modern secular state. When State Functions as Church We can trace the sacralization of the secular political realm back to the French Revolution, where a purely secular civil religion was self-consciously substituted for Christianity. And it is simply a matter of historical fact that, from the French Revolution forward, the modern secular state has been put forth again and again as a real object of worship. Thats why the term political religion was The coined to describe this recurring phenomenon. The French Revolution, then 19th-century nationalism, and now Nazism, Fascism, and Communism can well be studied as providing examples of political religions where the state is an object of worship and, at the same time, functions as the church in and through which that worship occurs.

Hard liberalism gives us the political religions of the French Revolution, Nazism, Communism, and Fascism. Soft liberalism gives us the political religion we see firmly established in the socialist-leaning liberal democracies, such as we find today in Europe and, increasingly, in the United States. Intolerant Political Correctness A sign that Im at least partially right about this is the current controversy I noted earlier: the Lefts use of state power to enact the liberal sexual agenda as the law of the land, thereby establishing the liberal worldview through state power and setting the liberal state against the Christian church. Another sign would be the phenomenon of political correctness: the exceedingly intolerant and dogmatic stifling of any opposition to the liberal worldview wherever it has become firmly established, as in academia or the media. But these instances are just a small part of the deeper establishment of liberalism as the state-defined, official worldview. And here Im using establishment quite purposely, for liberalism is not a narrowly defined political position; it is an entire worldview, every bit as extensive as any religion. Liberalism therefore functions exactly like an established religion, with its own very particular set of dogmas and doctrines (i.e., foundational beliefs held to be sacred and unquestionable, and teachings that follow

official worldview isnt optional.

upon them).

But what I argue in Worshipping the State is that modern liberalism is yet another political religion. In order to understand that claim, weve got to broaden and deepen our understanding of liberalism significantly.
Chesterton: The Government becomes the God.

As to its extensiveness, liberalisms worldview stretches from cosmology to morality, from the creation of the world to the ultimate salvation of humanity. The liberal creed begins with affirmation of a godless universe and dogmatic materialism. Liberals therefore deny the existence of the immaterial soul and declare that human beings were accidentally created by random natural processes. Human beings to them are but one kind of animal, in no way privileged and ultimately not morally distinct from other animals. Materialist doctrine also yields a very particular view of life and death: life is reduced to chemical physical activity, and death means complete extinction. That same materialism also provides the cosmological foundation for liberalisms view of morality and politics.

Liberalism is a centuries-old secularizing movement which splits into two branches, into what might be called hard liberalism and soft liberalism.

CENTENNIAL REVIEW is published monthly by the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University. The authors views are not necessarily those of CCU. Designer, Bethany Applegate. Illustrator, Benjamin Hummel. Subscriptions free upon request. Write to: Centennial Institute, 8787 W. Alameda Ave., Lakewood, CO 80226. Call 800.44.FAITH. Or visit us online at www.CentennialCCU.org. Please join the Centennial Institute today. As a Centennial donor, you can help us restore Americas moral core and prepare tomorrows leaders. Your gift is tax-deductible. Please use the envelope provided. Thank you for your support. - John Andrews, Director
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In regard to morality, good and evil are defined merely by physical pleasure and pain, a kind of hedonistic utilitarianism. A Soulless Politics Dogmatic materialism also yields a particular view of politics that might best be called soulless, that is, based upon the assumption that human beings are defined entirely by their bodies and life in this world. On this view, the highest goal of government is maximizing the comforts and pleasures of its citizens (a goal that requires a fathomless budget, hence the dire fiscal situation of contemporary liberal democracies).

Voi ces of CCU HOW THE CHURCH OF STATE ABSOLVES YOUR SECULAR SINS By Kevin Miller
Some Americans have warned about people of faith desiring a Christian theocracy, where biblical doctrines would rule all citizens behavior. But what actually has been established is a secular theocracy, where Americans virtues are defined and enforced by an intrusive Church of State. So we now have the federal government determining everyday virtues, such as what light bulbs we use and what health services are approved. In my book, Freedom Nationally, Virtue Locallyor Socialism, I identified twelve doctrines of the secular theocracy and its federal playbook. Here are three: The doctrine of federal government as virtue-Caesar, defining and enforcing the nations virtues. Why bother persuading each stubborn citizen about the right path, when Washington can constantly create virtues and then simply require every citizen to then be virtuous (e.g., Obamacare)? The doctrine of original sin. For Christians, there is original sinand the response is the Cross. But for the secular theocrats, every persons carbon footprint is original sin, so each person inherently degrades the environmentin response to which, necessary corrections mandated from Washington change citizens behaviors. The doctrine of indulgences. Borrowing from the preReformation Church in Western Europe, persons in vital agreement with secular theocrats are given a pass when failing at standards set for all of us. For example, prominent environmentalists with a large carbon footprint from huge mansions and private jets can buy credits to absolve themselves of secular sin. Unsurprisingly, secular theocrats support the separation of church and state. Thats because their church is the state, the vehicle by which they improve society according to the latest secular virtues. The state has monopolistic power to make lawsand its so much easier when there is no religious competition to the state requiring every citizens compliance. The right corrective is freedom nationally, virtue locallyreturning to the constitutional limits that should forbid Washington from imposing national virtues on American citizens.
Kevin Miller is Distinguished Professor and Executive in Residence at the Colorado Christian University School of Business, and the author of Freedom Nationally, Virtue Locally or Socialism.

Welcome to hedonistic Eden.

Since this world is the only world, then if there is to be heaven, it must be on earth and since the government is the most powerful entity on earth, the government becomes the means and guarantor of salvation for entry into that heaven. It should be obvious that liberalism as a worldview is not only as extensive as any religionmaking claims about the ultimate nature of reality, about human nature, the human good, the proper human political goals, and what constitutes salvationbut in its essence is defined against Christianity. Liberalism is, in essence, the return to this world as the highest good, this material world as our ultimate and only home, and that means the embrace of the natural and the rejection of the supernatural. Liberalism is the source of the ongoing secularization of the West, and secularization means de-Christianization. Butwe ask againdoes soft liberalism really qualify as a political religion? Yes. Historically, soft liberalism became a religion by focusing worship on humanity itself through socialism, through the technological-political creation of a kind of hedonistic Eden. To Transform Humanity and History As with the other political religions, we find in socialism the same secular shift away from Christianity and to humanity itself as the object of worship. But the goal becomes the collective, or we might say democratic, transformation or regeneration of humanity and human history through the fusion of technological and political power in state socialism. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Christian imagery, symbols, doctrines, and institutions were purposely taken over by socialism for purely secular ends. The notion behind this was that, in the past, humanity had been confused, worshipping in God what they should have worshipped in themselves. And it is precisely by turning our religious

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Centennial Review
June 2013

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Do Americans Worship The State?

By Benjamin Wiker

Liberals are using the government to establish their own secular worldview and displace Christianity. We are taught to worship ourselves through the state, which substitutes for the church. Christians should work to disestablish this menacing political religion.

devotion to ourselves, socialism asserts, that we can harness all that religious energy for secular purposes. And so, in the mid-19th century, socialism becomes a real religion, largely inspired by Auguste Comte and his religion of humanity. According to Comte, history moves from the infantile stage where people believe in gods, to the so-called scientific or positivist stage where people believe in themselves as gods-in-the-making. His science of remaking or remolding humanity is called sociology, or social physics. By it the state, through a small cadre of experts, manipulates its citizenry for the sake of ushering in the utopian culmination of history. Progress is both defined and carried out by the liberal elite, and imposed by bureaucratic experts using state power. We All Worship Something

Or we might say, echoing the imagery of Scripture, a utopia that will wipe away every tear, cure all the blind, lame, and deaf, right every wrong, lift up the poor and throw down the rich, and provide a new techno-political Eden. Claiming Unlimited Power The liberal state gathers so much power to itself precisely because its aim is to replace Christianity and provide in this life what Christianity only promised in the next. That takes a lot of power and a lot of money. Socialist democratic liberalism is very expensive: youve got to lay claim to all the unlimited power of the very God you are trying to replaceand the unlimited budget to go with it.

But I must emphasize: this was an essentially religious movement. Comte believed that we all need to worship something. Thus religion cant simply be left behind; it must be transformed into worship of ourselves. In Comtes religion of humanity, we worship ourselves through the state, which substitutes for the church. Socialism followed a Comtean pattern throughout the rest of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and became the foundation of early 20th-century liberal progressivism. The real religious fervor and devotion that we have seen lavished on Barack Obama has its roots in this liberal progressivism, which runs from Woodrow Wilson through FDR and LBJ to Obama himself. It is a vision, an essentially religious vision, of an elitegoverned statethe elite being the liberal expert class that is bent on bringing in a secular, materialist political utopia, which will maximize physical comforts and pleasure and minimize physical pain.

This, then, is a primer on a much more extensive argument that youll find spelled out in my book, Worshipping the State. There I demonstrate that liberalism is in fact a It aims religion, a religion that has been established as to replace our state-defined and imposed worldview. It is menacing religion that Christians should Christianity. this work mightily to disestablish.
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