Islam, Secularism and the Gospel – Part II

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080930/islam-secularism-and-the-gospel-part-ii.htm

[The Christian Post] 30 Sep 2008--In last week’s article, I pointed out how Great Britain, through incremental concessions to Muslim demands, is sowing the seeds of its own subjugation. As to the cause of this civilizational suicide, Europe rendered itself impotent long ago when it traded its Christian philosophical foundations for that of secularism.

The roots of modern secularism began in the Renaissance, which marked the transition from the medieval to modern era. From the fourteenth to sixteenth century, Renaissance scholars and artists began to oppose the ever more oppressive church-state hegemony that Rome had come to represent. In reaction, old and new ideas alike were kindled, ideas that sought to “liberate” humanity from the oppressive bonds of ecclesiastical authority and religious dogma. (How unfortunate that the church was largely responsible for its own removal from public life.) The Renaissance purposed to elevate man and eliminate God.

Faithful Christians also reacted to the corrupt and hegemonic church leading to the sixteenth century Reformation, recovering old ideas in the form of historic orthodoxy and producing new ideas that would positively shape much of Western cultural and social life, including everything from politics and philosophy to science and the arts.