The Secular World ...Privatization

By Eric Hoffman

"We must separate Church and State!!"
How many of you have heard this statement made countless times by Americans? What few know is that this little phrase is not written anywhere in our Constitution, as believed by many. But the fact is that the world today, has a great passion to keep anything theological out of the public sector. I personally feel that many people in this world today have been good at understanding “bad ideas” and dangerous philosophies.
For example, the "Pledge of Allegiance" was under major attack for the phrase "One Nation Under God." Americans were taking a stand to remove that part of the pledge. The idea of a God being influenced into the minds of children in schools by their pledging to their country was and is considered to be quite indoctrinating. But those same individuals who fought hard to remove God from the pledge seem to have forgotten that children were still being requested, if not forced to place their hand over their hearts and give their allegiance to this great country we live in.
So how did we get this way? Why has this happened? Our great forefathers who founded this nation, definitely had a greater power in mind that they called God. And further study would show that their idea of God was a biblical one. Now, how solid of Christians these men were is besides the point. It’s the fact that theological beliefs were intermixed with our countries laws and rules that established this great land that so many desire to live in. The fact is, many people including some who claim to be Christians have let God take a back seat when it comes to our secular world. We have somewhat decided to compromise the importance of God in order to please mankind. We have rendered our sacred beliefs to be kept to ourselves. This is privatization. We have been told to come to work and leave our religious views at home. We have been free to have our churches but requested to keep God out of them if it is going to be in a public arena. We are doing this to our own damage. How can you privatize your most valuable belief?
People must understand that theology is not an amputation of the brain. Therefore we must not fear it.
Ravi Zacharias put it in these terms...

"Secularization = no shame. Relativism = no reason. Privatization = no meaning. [All three have occurred to varying degrees in Westernized civilizations.]"