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WORLDVIEW

Are Your Kids Intellectually Naked

By David A. Noebel, Ph.D.
Guest Writer

CBN.com - Summit Ministries - Too many Christian young people are ill-prepared to lead. The vast majority have no concept of the components of their worldview and stand intellectually naked before left-wing professors.

Throughout this study, it should become clear that Marxism and Secular Humanism are similar in a number of ways. The body of this work will demonstrate that this relationship is not casual or peripheral. The two are family. Secular Humanism is the mother (Humanists trace their heritage to the Greeks four hundred years before Christ), and Marxism is the daughter. Secular Humanism is the root, Marxism the branch.

At the heart of both worldviews are atheism, materialism, spontaneous generation, evolution, and moral relativism. From a comprehensive point of view, their differences are minor. Both Karl Marx and Humanist Paul Kurtz recognize the truth of these assertions. Marx said it like this: Communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism. (1) And Kurtz says Marx is a humanist because he rejects theistic religion and defends  atheism. (2)


While we watch Marxism crumble in Eastern Europe, and while men and women in India suffer horribly because of their society's acceptance of a version of Cosmic Humanism, America's public schools are immersed in these same values, under a different name and with a slight change in emphasis.


 Further, Cosmic Humanism and Secular Humanism are close kin. The New Age movement is little more than spiritualized Secular Humanism. Take the Secular Humanist's exaltation of self and hatred for Christ, sprinkle in some meditation, reincarnation, and anti-rationalism, and Presto! You've created another worldview. Cosmic Humanism claims to meet man's spiritual needs something Marxism and Secular Humanism cannot claim but it is stuck with an impersonal, unjust god (there is little difference between claiming no god exists and claiming everything is god). At bottom, the New Age movement is as bankrupt as all other anti-Christian worldviews.

The significance of the similarities between these three anti-Christian views cannot be overstated. While we watch Marxism crumble in Eastern Europe, and while men and women in India suffer horribly because of their society's acceptance of a version of Cosmic Humanism, America's public schools are immersed in these same values, under a different name and with a slight change in emphasis. Only when the emphasis has completely shifted to a Christian perspective can young people flourish in light of the true worldview. And this dramatic shift in emphasis can be brought about best through the leadership of a few well-grounded, confident Christian students.

This, then, is our fundamental reason for preparing Understanding the Times -- too many Christian young people are ill-prepared to lead. The vast majority have no concept of the components of their worldview and stand intellectually naked before left-wing professors. Henry says that evangelical students know more about God than their secular counterparts, but with some few gratifying exceptions, neither home nor church has shaped a comprehensive and consistent faith that stands noon-bright amid the dim shadows of spiritual rebellion and moral profligacy. (3)

Christ's teachings impart just such a noon-bright faith to all Christians who master their worldview, who understand the times. This book's foundational verse, 1 Chronicles 12:32, announces that just two hundred individuals who understood the times provided the leadership for an entire nation. We believe that a comprehensive knowledge of the Christian worldview and its rivals will provide today's young people with the understanding necessary to become Christian leaders.

Paul Kurtz, The Fullness of Life (New York: Horizon Press, 1974), p. 36.

Carl F.H. Henry, Twilight of a Great Civilization (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1988), p. 94.




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