Secular Humanism and Popular Culture

Do you remember when, as a child, it first struck you that television ads are largely full of lies? Or certainly that the claims made are founded on little more than thin air? Were you as repulsed by this revelation as I was?

As children, we seek knowledge, we looks for facts. We want to know if something is true or not, and we look to our parents for answers. We set sail on the endless stream of information called media. We are engaged by television and confronted with advertising. We are told “its just a commercial.”

Over the years we have become desensitized to The Big Lie to the point where we celebrate good lies, watching re-runs of the “top ten all-time” Super Bowl Ads. The Mean Joe Green coca-cola ad is ranked number one. I remember watching it the first year it ran. The ending disappointed me. It posed a nice sentiment for football fans, but it left me feeling empty.

I believe the empty feeling I got from television ads resulted from my Christian grounding. I was raised in the Christian faith, and as an altar boy in the Episcopal Church for seven years; I absorbed the Liturgy of the Word and came to love our Lord deeply. Somehow I got it in my heart that true satisfaction in life would only be achieved through Him.

Along with most of my generation, my grounding in faith eroded as I ventured away from home, to college, and into adulthood. I watched our world change quickly in a few short decades. “One Nation Under God” transmogrified into a culture of self, celebrity, and self-celebrity. We allowed our discipline and strength of character to resist temptation to fade into the mist. We were successfully seduced by money, pleasure, power, fame, and the gentrification of infantilism, as the lines between advertising, self-promotion, and reality melted away.

Our culture of convenience and instant gratification has twisted our thinking. We are inclined to think of discipline as manipulation, an easy conclusion to reach because it justifies our distaste for moral authority and our lack of spiritual effort. Fallen away Christians cry “Oh, the guilt it gave me” while they drive their children around town on an endless tour of non-stop entertainment. No one has time for peace, reflection, or worship. We are too busy for discipline.

While we were scurrying around, the prevailing culture endorsed the primacy of the individual, authorized minimal contribution to the whole, and blessed the assertion that pleasure is the ultimate good. The individual has won the right to put out minimal effort for maximum pleasure. Freedom has become the right to do whatever you want. The power of the beautiful yet horrible adolescent temper tantrum has overcome patience and wisdom. It happened oh so fast.

The questions “What’s in it for me?” and “What is the least I can do to get to heaven?” snuck onto the spiritual agenda. Religious affiliation choices are filtered through the field of secular perception, resulting in a world where families shop for “user friendly” churches.

To be honest, I wasn’t overly concerned about all this until I discovered that my life had re-invented itself while I was busy being overwhelmed. My long, strange trip ran out of time.

I rediscovered my Christian grounding buried under a heap of confusion. As a consequence, I am getting headaches from The Big Lie again, and the emptiness of a story that doesn’t show me salvation, or at least redemption, leaves me dissatisfied. My conscience no longer allows me to accept “whatever” as a viable reaction to ugly social trends and the perpetuation of false promises.

Popular culture has evolved to where it is in blatant, direct conflict with Christian philosophy, and Secular Humanism has infected spirituality and the practice of religion on a global basis. The ugly truth is that popular western culture has become a carrier of this virus. Though we are still spiritually vital, the media portrays Christians as knee jerks who threaten the triumph of science and social progress. A large public segment views the Church through secular eyes, unwittingly desiring to cut it off from heaven.

Fortunately, I have learned to let worldly pain wash through me without clotting in my veins, and I want the same for my brothers and sisters. I feel compelled to join the battlefield of right and wrong because I want to get it right and finish strong.

I believe we are created by God, for God. We need to give thanks for the Grace we have been given and for the profound Love of the Holy Trinity--thereby regaining our essential purpose. Secular Humanism has been resisted before. Popular Culture can be changed.

"Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called."

1 Timothy 6:12