If Diversity Is King

By Rick Pearcey

"Diversity" is one of secularized America's favorite pretended absolutes. God has been declared dead to public life, including learning, so something has to take His place. Human beings and human societies, atheist or otherwise, cannot operate without a center of gravity.

"Diversity" is making a go of it. A host of freethinking worshippers have bowed the knee, in the name of education, the group, "my truth," tolerance, and humility. Some apparently do not realize that diversity without unity leads to chaos. It is anything but a strength.

For one thing, it ontologizes evil in all its multiplicity. Moral categories disappear in the diversity of bare existence with its impersonal particles, compounds, heat, cold, solar systems, and galaxies. As such, it is impossible, on the basis of sheer diversity, to make morally humane discriminations that protect civilization from barbarism and destruction.

The PR for this approach offers comforting words about "tolerance." Enlightened people, it is said, can relax in "safe" places where differences can be explored. We can live at peace knowing that what's true for "my morality" may not be true for yours. There is no judgment in the bliss of ethical humility.

Except that if diversity is king, there is no way to discern morally sporting activity from terror activity; football or soccer from abortion and dogfighting; Vince Lombardi from Saddam Hussein. The moral element of crime also disappears. Every loophole in court is technical only.

In such a setting, who are we to impose our diversity of feelings on the private inter-species canine entertainment activities of Michael Vick and company? Diversity is a weak god. It protects neither Man nor Man's Best Friend.

This brings us to "Multiculturalism's War on Education," an article that appears in today's Frontpage magazine.

The article begins: "Back to school nowadays means back to classrooms, lessons and textbooks permeated by multiculturalism and its championing of 'diversity.' Many parents and teachers regard multiculturalism as an indispensable educational supplement, a salutary influence that 'enriches' the curriculum. But is it?"

Education should be about questioning, including questions regarding the pedestal upon which multiculturalism now rests in the public schools and elsewhere. The article makes several good points, and I am happy to recommend it.

But it stumbles, it seems to me, when it asserts: "The American republic, with an elected government limited by individual rights, was born not of stone-age peoples, but primarily of the European Enlightenment."

It is true that the American republic was not born of stone-age peoples. But it was born of peoples rooted in the concept of the Judeo-Christian Creator, not in the secular Enlightenment per se, which rejected the Creator for a naturalism that founded human rights in, among other things, the secular state. (Put differently, there is a continuity from Reformation freedoms and the English Revolution of 1688 to the American colonies of 1776, but a real difference in worldview between the French and American Revolutions.)

I touch on this here: "On one side of the culture war are people who understand that this nation is founded upon the governing principle of independence under God. This position is clearly set forth in the Declaration of Independence, which is based on a framework in which there is a Creator from whom all human beings, by virtue of creation, are endowed with inalienable rights. This particular worldview orientation is what dramatically sets the American experiment apart from ancient Greece, classical Rome, the French Revolution, National Socialism, Marxism, and the anti-Christian secularism that rose up in America in the 1960s.

"On the other side of the culture war are people who reject this founding framework in favor of a concept of independence apart from God. This view emerged on the Western political landscape during the French Revolution. Instead of a Creator God as the basis for human rights, people on this side of the struggle have come to see humanity as the product of an impersonal nature that has produced autonomous human beings who look to themselves (their choice, power, genes) or their groups (race, class, gender, party) or the impersonal natural order itself as the final reference point for human rights and identity."

The entire Frontpage article by Elan Journo is here.

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (archives).

British Airways: Secularism Takes Hit in England

By Rick Pearcey

Secularists tell us that God and religion relate to private matters that have no place in public life or polite society. This is not a convincing view, but it is a commonly held view, so much so that many bright people may affirm it without really having thought it through.

It's not at all difficult to imagine the head-shaking that might be going on in some circles upon hearing that British Airways is backing down on its policy of banning employees, such as Nadia Eweida, from wearing a Christian necklace or other symbol at work, in full view of staff and customers.

But no one should be shocked. Not really. If you understand the concept of "worldview," you shouldn't be shocked. And if you understand Christianity, you shouldn't be shocked.

This suggests two sets of comments.

1. Everyone has a worldview (some have elements of many). A "worldview" is your "view" of the "world," that is, your basic philosophy of life, the set of principles and assumptions about reality that you rely on to navigate existence in all its wonder and all its challenge.

In this sense, Nadia Eweida has a worldview and so does the CEO of British Airways. As does every customer and baggage-handler. Even the scientist in the lab has a worldview and so does the village pragmatist. Having a worldview is part of what it means to be a human being.

Worldviews will not be denied. This is because people seek to externalize these their most deeply held convictions (even if they are not aware of them). People regard these convictions as reliable guides to life, as truths and principles to live by. Over time they become "common sense."

People try to live consistently with their worldview. This is understandably an attempt to avoid a schizophrenic way of life. You don't have to a saint to prefer unity and integrity in behavior instead of a kind of hypocrisy (or harm) that results when one's worldview is denied an honest expression.

2. Some religious worldviews are private, but Christianity is not one of them. It's personal, yes, but not private.

It's personal because it involves the whole person. It treats human beings holistically and does not burden individuals with one set of ideals for public life and then a different set of ideals for private life.

The God of the Bible is a public figure. The truth-claims regarding his character and existence can be rationally discussed and empirically investigated. This is the emphasis in the history of Moses, Joshua, Gideon, and then of Jesus engaging his disciples in discussion, and so on.

Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem are points on the globe. Enemies or honest doubters could examine the empty tomb to corroborate (or try to destroy) eye-witness claims about a resurrection. Miracles can be observed by the same kinds of eyes that behold a Manhattan sunset.

Faith in this setting is primarily a matter of trust. It is the trust of the whole person on the basis of what Francis Schaeffer would call "good and sufficient reasons."

"Faith" can disclose new horizons of knowledge, "the evidence of things not see" (Heb. 11). But that faith is first grounded in knowledge. "Faith" is not an epistemological magic wand that turns something false into something true. "Faith" does not transmogrify an idol into God no matter how passionate the "believer" or how deep the "spirituality."

Given the modern defition of "faith" as belief in something for which one lacks evidence, Christianity may not even qualify as a religion.

The Christian worldview is reality-oriented. This means if the Christian truth-claims are false, they should not be believed. Thus, if Jesus of Nazareth did not really rise from the dead, says Paul in 1 Cor.15, "your faith is in vain."

But if the Christian propositions are true, they can be relied upon, and acted upon, as a solid foundation for life and culture, not only in the old days of ancient paganism but also in the flashy twilight of modern secularism.

So, you see, the surprize, the shock even, should go in the other direction. Because of the nature of Christianity as a humane worldview, our expection should be that healthy-functioning human beings will behave as though its information and principles apply beyond the closet door into the entirety of their lives.

The truncated "believer" singing hymns while sitting in a closet nailed shut should be the surprize. A secularist may be in the way. Someone needs to open that door.