This Sunday’s familiar story of the Prodigal Son focuses
on the mercy and forgiveness of God. The
wisdom of Jesus’ parables is that there are many lessons to be learned from the
various elements of the story. One that
is easily overlooked in this parable, is the fact that the errant son rejects
the faith of his father and chooses to ignore God’s law. He forsakes his religion in favor of selfish
pursuits. In effect, he chose a secular,
materialistic lifestyle and the consequences lead to his ruin.
This term “secular”
is being used a lot these days in the discussion about religious freedom. Recent legal arguments to enforce the HHS
mandates have been based on the notion that corporations are secular legal entities and therefore not
capable of having a religious conviction.
This is the case made against a woodworking company that employs 950
people, and is owned by Mennonites.
Attorneys for the government argued that the corporation is secular, not religious, and therefore
not protected by the First Amendment. Circuit
Judge Robert Cowen found in favor of the state, as follows: “We simply cannot
understand how a for-profit secular
corporation can exercise religion.” He
went on to say that the corporation could not impose its religious conviction
on its employees. But what exactly does it mean to say that an entity is secular?
The Judge and the federal government imply that secular means something like “entirely neutral and just.” But this is not the case. Secularism is a very specific worldview with
its own beliefs about the nature of the world and what is good for humanity. There are two aspects to the secular
worldview: the rejection of Christianity
and the affirmation of materialism.
Materialism denies the existence of the spiritual realm and regards the
human body as merely physical. According
to the secular worldview, happiness is attained by maximizing physical
pleasure, comfort, and convenience. Secularism
regards Christianity as an obstacle to attaining happiness because it puts constraints
on absolute freedom. The Secularist
views an unborn baby as nothing more than a bundle of cells, which, if
inconvenient, can be disposed of without consequence. This is considered a progressive viewpoint and one rejects the moral values held by
Christianity, which it considers to be antiquated, outmoded, and an obstacle to
human freedom and the pursuit of happiness.
Like the Prodigal son, the secularist seeks the freedom
to pursue happiness by grasping at physical comforts, without regard to the
moral consequences. In Jesus’ parable, the
Prodigal Son represents all people who deny Our Father’s moral truths in favor
of seeking happiness through the exercise of absolute freedom, and it points to
the disastrous consequences. By imposing
his worldview on others, the Secularist does exactly what he accuses Christians
of doing: compelling his worldview on others.
Not satisfied with giving homosexual couples the right to marry, the secularist
now insists on teaching all children that homosexual marriage and premarital
sex are perfectly normal and acceptable, as long as one is properly vaccinated
and takes precautions to avoid pregnancy.
Not only is this worldview communicated through the media, movies, and
television programming, it is now becoming the law of the land. Anyone who denies this version of the secular
truth is accused of violating the civil rights of others. The religious beliefs of business owners are
being completely disregarded and held to be a violation of the law if they
infringe on the secular definition of the pursuit of happiness. If a Mennonite business owner, Christian
Hospital, University or Catholic social service agency incorporates, must it
then comply with the secular dictate that it pay for birth control, abortion-inducing
drugs and sterilization? And if so, why
not require payment for abortion and euthanasia as well? This is exactly the kind of interference the
founding fathers meant to avoid by writing the First Amendment. They were adamantly opposed to the State
imposing its moral views on any citizen by suppressing religious belief or
requiring any person to be complicit in violating their religious beliefs.
One question about the parable of the Prodigal Son still
gnaws at me. Did the wayward son return
to his father simply because he ran out of money and was hungry? Or did he see the error of his ways and
finally come to realize that his father’s worldview was the true path to the
common good and lasting happiness? I
would like to believe it is the latter because the father says, “Your brother
was dead, and now he is alive.” This
coming back to life is possible only because of the father’s mercy, but it also
requires a change of heart in the son.
The European Union has intentionally adopted a secular worldview and
codified it in their new constitution.
Now they are beginning to suffer the consequences: their population is
declining; their economies are faltering as they have begun to run out of money
to fund their social welfare programs; and they’re borrowing mountains of debt
with no conceivable idea how their dwindling future generations will pay for
it. Like the Prodigal son, will they
come to their senses, or will they continue down this path until they are
completely out of options? Will our own
country do the same by abandoning its moral heritage and imposing a secular
worldview on every citizen and corporation?
Religious freedom lies at the heart of our great nation. It fosters personal accountability, promotes
population growth which has enabled our economy to become the strongest in the
world, and recognizes the rewards of leading a virtuous, moral life. Let’s all pray that our great nation
preserves religious freedom and avoids the pitfalls of imposing a secular worldview on everyone.
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