Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 28:2 (Summer 2024)
Article: The Failures Of Secularism And The Biblical Alternative
Author: Levi J. Secord

The Failures Of Secularism And The Biblical Alternative1

Levi J. Secord

Levi J. Secord is Lead Pastor of Christ Bible Church, St. Paul, Minnesota. He earned his MDiv and DEdMin from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. Levi has written numerous publications with the Front Porch Republic, SBJT, Christ Over All, and World Opinions. He contributed the chapter “Bits and Pieces of Our Wasteland,” in Failed Church: Restoring a Vision for Ecclesial Victory (Center for Cultural Leadership, 2022) and a chapter on politics and theology in Virtuous Liberty (Center for Cultural Leadership, 2023). Dr. Secord is married to Emily, and they have four children.

Ideas have consequences that set the course for individuals and societies alike.2 The West did not arrive at our present insanity quickly. A culture does not deny basic realities—like a woman is a woman—without believing more foundational lies first. Ultimately, truth or error begins with our beliefs about God. The beginning of wisdom and knowledge is the fear of the Lord (Prov 1:7). Conversely, the beginning of folly is rejecting the Lord. Such rejection sets a nation on a path toward insanity because every idea has a logical direction.

By rejecting the Christian God, the West has become a cut flower society. It was a beautiful flower, growing in the soil of a Christianized culture (it was called Christendom for a reason). Tremendous work has been done demonstrating how Christianity turned the West into the most free and just society this world has ever seen.3 Sadly, the flower that is the West has been pulled out of its Christian soil and is withering. To be fair, there were other poisonous elements present in that soil, and the West never perfectly lived up to its Christian ideals, yet the rise of limited government, God-given rights, and equality are part of the West’s Christian inheritance. These cultural goods are not the byproduct of the Enlightenment.

SBJT 28:2 (Summer 2024) 21

Tom Holland, an atheist historian, elaborates on how Christianity changed the world for the better as he writes:

That every human being possessed an equal dignity was not remotely self-evident a truth. A Roman would have laughed at it.4

The Greeks, when they captured a city, had licensed rape as a reward for valour. The Romans stocked their households with young boys and girls, and used them as they pleased. Everyone in antiquity had taken for grante...