Christopher Hitchens v. Jerry Falwell

                                      By David A. Noebel

          The body of Jerry Falwell was barely room temperature before Free Inquiry’s Christopher Hitchens pounced on it like a roaring lion and used language on national television (primarily Anderson Cooper’s CNN show) that I have never heard before on television.  In fact, there were hardly enough derogatory words in Hitchens’ thesaurus to describe Brother Jerry.

          Why such animosity and hatred for Rev. Jerry Falwell?

          Well, one has to go back in history to find the answer.  In fact, as far back as 1893 when Thomas Huxley declared war on God and determined to “overthrow the cultural dominance of Christianity.”  Huxley stated his goal as the replacement of the Christian worldview with what he termed “the church scientific.”  Huxley’s science was Darwin’s theory of evolution via natural selection.

          A generation or so later Thomas Huxley’s grandson, Julian Huxley, former president of the British Humanist Association, took up the task to “develop a scientific religion” which he termed “evolutionary humanism.”  It was to be a secular religion to replace the Christian religion (the goal of Secular Humanism from its inception) and it was to be a religion without divine revelation.  Julian Huxley was an atheist like his grandfather.

          About the same time John Dewey, another atheist (and socialist), wrote his groundbreaking work entitled A Common Faith published by Yale University Press in 1934.  Dewey openly declares that Secular Humanism is “a religious faith that shall not be confined to sect, class, or race. Such a faith,” says Dewey, “has always been implicitly the common faith of mankind.  It remains to make it explicit and militant.”

          Dewey understood the importance of destroying one faith (Christianity) by another faith (Secular Humanism).  And Dewey put his humanistic faith on the line by signing off on the Humanist Manifesto that emerged in 1933. Although written by Roy Wood Sellars, Dewey accepted its religious dogma as his own.  Dewey was also responsible for inculcating its teachings into America’s public schools.  A task that most would now admit has been nearly completed.  Only a Secular Humanist curriculum would include The King and King, What’s A Family, Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy’s Roommate for elementary school children.

          “Advocates of Secular Humanism,” says Thomas Sowell, “have been quite clear and explicit as to the crucial importance of promoting their philosophy [worldview] in the schools, to counter or undermine religious [Judeo-Christian] values among the next generation.”

          And so the undermining of Judeo-Christian values, ideas, and indeed worldview was seriously underway from the 1930s to the present.

          Looking back over the success of the Secular Humanists to indoctrinate at least two generations into their religious dogma, Irving Kristol noted that simply because humanists incorporate the word “secular” into their title doesn’t mean that it cannot be “seriously viewed as a competitive religion.”  Kristol says that Secular Humanists make all types of statement that are both metaphysical and theological.  In fact, says Kristol, “it is Secular Humanism that is the orthodox-metaphysical-theological basis of the two modern political philosophies—socialism and liberalism.”

          But the guessing game over whether or not Secular Humanism is a religion can now stop because Secular Humanism’s canon, Free Inquiry magazine, edited by Paul Kurtz, has now admitted that the 1933 Humanist Manifesto was written “for the explicit purpose of proclaiming humanism as a new religion.” (February/March 2007, p. 65)

          Of course, if that is true, and it most certainly is, then Humanist Manifestos (1973 and 2000) are likewise “religious” because all three proclaim the same religious dogma including atheism, naturalism, evolutionism, ethical relativism, etc.  In fact, when Paul Kurtz wrote the preface to Humanist Manifesto I and II (Prometheus Books) he stated, “Humanism is a philosophical, religious, and moral point of view.”

          Enter Jerry Falwell!

          When Falwell looked about him and saw what was happening in the educational sphere (Christianity was slowly but surely being replaced by another religious worldview in the classroom,  and yet America’s millions of Christian taxpayers were called upon to fund their own demise), the cultural sphere (abortion, homosexuality and the war against the traditional family) and even the religious sphere (liberal churches were siding with the humanists and even the communists) he said “enough is enough” and hence the founding of the Moral Majority in 1979.  And to play safe he also founded Liberty University where hopefully his students can figure out the lay of the land and be able to discern a Christian worldview from a Secular Humanist worldview at the minimum.

          Enter Christopher Hitchens. 

Christopher Hitchens is a leading columnist for Paul Kurtz’ Free Inquiry magazine.  Free Inquiry, and their stable of writers including Richard Dawkins, does not like Christianity.  Christianity, with its rigid moral code, is a drag on society—especially its pronouncements on same sex relations and adultery (both are listed as sinful behavior in the Bible).  Christianity with its emphasis on God and Jesus Christ is, by Hitchens’ definition, unscientific because modern, naturalistic science has written God’s obituary.  Christianity, and in Hitchens case, all religions, must be eradicated from the face of the earth so the secular brethren can launch a Secular Humanist heaven on earth (see Richard Carrier’s Sense & Goodness Without God, Part VII, chap. 6 entitled “The Secular Humanist’s Heaven”).

Why would Hitchens launch his attack on Jerry Falwell?  Because Falwell and his followers were getting ever closer and closer to catching on to what was happening to the United States of America.  America was being subverted.  America was cashing in its Christian meal ticket of God, Christ, creation, morality, traditional families (father, mother, child), national sovereignty, strong armed forces, etc. for a humanistic stew of atheism, naturalism, Darwinism, moral relativism, denial of soul and spirit, untraditional family structure including shacking-up, hooking-up, same-sex marriage, socialism, world government, etc. etc.

In fact, the Hitchens of the world, along with the whole editorial board of Free Inquiry magazine, are fearful of one explosive issue, and one can sense it in the title of Hitchens’ latest book—God Is Not Great:  How Religion Poisons Everything.

The issue:  Secular Humanism is just as religious as Christianity!  Both have a fish as their religious symbol and yet this is one point the Humanists continue to deny else they too will be eradicated from the public schools, and their agenda to indoctrinate the next generation into The King and King will come to a crashing halt. The Secular Humanist’s sex education, pro-homosexual programs have been a big-bertha weapon in their quiver to destroy Christian morality.  Their other major weapon has been Darwinian evolution, which agrees with Stephen Hawking that the human race is “a chemical scum on a moderate-size planet.”

          A number of years ago Paul Kurtz was asked the question about whether or not Secular Humanism was a religion.  His answer:  “The organized humanist movement in America is put in a quandary, for the Fellowship of Religious Humanists, the American Ethical Union, and the Society of Humanistic Judaism consider themselves to be religious.  Even the American Humanist Association has a religious tax exemption.”

          What Kurtz failed to mention was the American Humanist Association was founded “as a church.”  One can verify that fact by simply calling the Internal Revenue Service U. S. Department of the Treasury (1-877-829-5500) and ask the staff for the current status and background of the American Humanist Association located at 1777 T Street in Washington, D. C.

          Hitchens does not want anyone to come close to such a telling revelation or the title of his latest book goes into the dustbin of history. And because Falwell and his associates are churning out students with a Christian worldview to infiltrate back into the American society and challenge the Secular Humanists like they challenged the Christians earlier, well, Falwell has to be demonized.

          Of course, Christians also have another vantage point, which consists of the fact that the world will hate us because it also hated the Creator of the world. The verse reads, “If the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.” (John 15:18)  Jesus Christ came unto his own Jewish nation and they said “no.” (John 1: 11) Jesus Christ sent Paul the apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 13:47) and they have been more receptive over the centuries until He has been replaced in the classroom and churches by Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud and Dewey.

Over 10,000 churches in America, for example, recently celebrated Charles Darwin’s birthday!  I wonder how many pastors read from Darwin’s book The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection Or The Preservation of Favored Races In The Struggle For Life.  Because the full title of his book is never mentioned in the biology textbooks anymore because of its “racial” and “eugenics” implications, I’m sure few of Darwin’s congregations have ever been told the full title of his work.  But then haven’t Christians been labeled stupid, ignorant, silly, and easily led!

On the last page of Darwin’s book I am reading about “the war of nature,” “a Struggle for Life,” and the “Extinction of less-improved forms.”  I’m sure that Christopher Hitchens believes that certainly includes Jerry Falwell and all his followers.

          Anyway, may Jerry Falwell, pastor, husband, father, and president of Liberty University rest in peace and enjoy His Lord whom he worshipped, served and proclaimed.

          Amen!!

By David Noebel Email: Noebel@Summit.org Click here for bio and archived articles