Secularism is most succinctly defined as the explicit denial of the sacred. [Quote p.79]
Niebuhr claims that secularism is itself a religion -- along with some other other religions such as self-worship worship of one's family and worship of one's nation (nationalism)."The avowedly secular culture of today turns out upon close examination to be either a pantheistic religion which identifies existence in its totality with holiness or a rationalistic humanism for which human reason is essentially god or a vitalistic humanism which worships some unique or vital force in the individual or the community. ... The civilisation and culture in which we are called upon to preach the Christian gospel is in other wrds not irreligious but a devotee of a very old religion dressed in a new form. It is the old religion of self-glorifcation." [Quote p.80]
Niebuhr distances himself from what he calls 'Christian pessimism' which denies responsibility toward the world's social brokenness -"The Christian gospel which transcends all particular and contemporary social situations can be preached with power only by a church which bears its share of the burdens of immediate situations in which men are involved burdens of establishing peace of acieving justice and of preferring justice in thespirit of love. Thus is the Kingdom of God which is not of this world made relevant to every problem of the world." [Quote p.86]
It is quite obvious that no Christian church has a right to preach to a
so-called secula age without a contrite recognition of the shortcomings of
historic Christianity which tempted the modern age to disavow its Christian
faith.
Secularism is, on one hand, the expression of man's sinful self-sufficiency. It
may be, on the other hand, a reaction to profanity. ... A profane Christianity
falsely identifies the church with the Kingdom of God.
[Quote p.87]
Modern secularism was forced to resist a profanisation of the holiness of Gd bth in the realm of the truth and in the realm of the good in both culture and ethics. ... No Christian theology worthy of the name can therefore be without gratitude to the forces of modern secularism inasfar as their passion for truth was a passon for God. [Quote pp 88-89]
The secularism of our modern bourgeous civilisation and of the more proletarian civilisations which threaten to replace it is therefore something more than the religion of self-glorificaton. It combines sin with a passion for justice which frequently puts the historic church to shame. If the Christian church is to preach its gospel effectively to men of such a culture it must understand the baffling mixture of a new profanity and resistance to an old profanity which is comprehended in this culture. [Quote p.91]