RECLAIMING THE HIGH GROUND

RECLAIMING THE HIGH GROUND

Also by Hugh Montefiore A WKWARD QUESTIONS ON CHRISTIAN LOVE BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT CAN MAN SURVIVE? CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS: The Drummond Lectures 1989 COMMUNICATING THE GOSPEL IN A SCIENTIFIC AGE CONFIRMA TION NOTEBOOK EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS: A Commentary GOD, SEX AND LOVE (with lack Dominian) JESUS ACROSS THE CENTURIES PAUL: The Apostle THE PROB ABILITY OF GOD THE QUESTION MARK SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR TAKING OUR PAST INTO OUR FUTURE TRUTH TO TELL

Reclaiming the High Ground A Christian Response to Secularism Hugh Montefiore Palgrave Macmillan

ISBN 978-0-333-53468-7 ISBN 978-1-349-20992-7 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20992-7 Hugh Montefiore, 1990 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1990 All rights reserved. For information, write: Scholarly and Reference Division, St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, NewYork,N.Y.1001O First published in the United States of America in 1990 ISBN 978-0-312-04247-9 Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Montefiore, Hugh. Reclaiming the high ground: a Christi an response to secularisml Hugh Montefiore. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-312-04247-9 1. Apologetics-20th century. 2. Secularism-Controversial literature. 1. Title. BTll02.M648 1990 239'.9-dc20 89-48399 CIP

Contents Introduction Vll 1 Religious Experience 1 2 Love and Marriage 11 3 Technological Society 29 4 The Environment 46 5 Freedom 65 6 The Evolution of Life 84 7 The Origin of Species 100 8 The Premature Demise of the Soul 113 9 Claiming the High Ground 134 Notes 142 Index 150 v

Introduction This book has been written as a contribution to the reinstatement of the Christian religion on the high ground of intellectual debate. So often the Christi an or even the theistic option is ignored today. The media, whether in print, in broadcasting or on the television screen, portray an almost entirely secularised society which does not accord with the actual facts of the situation. Serious writers and commentators take little or no account of the religious dimension of life, or, if they do mention it, they often imply that there is nothing much to choose between one religion and another. The Christian religion has become a private religious option for individual choice rather than a matter of objective truth wh ich should be publicly debated. Our culture, which is founded on the Christi an religion, is becoming more and more unchristian in its presuppositions. It is high time that this situation was exposed. At almost every point the Christi an religion has a very high claim to truth, and an even higher claim to the high ground of intellectual debate. I fear that the Churches are partly to blame for this state of affairs. On the one hand they have been very inward looking, concerned with their own survival and locked in internal strife over battles which, it seems to outsiders, should have been settled long ago, such as attitudes to divorce and remarriage or the ordination of women to the priesthood. On the other hand, many church leaders seem to have become preoccupied with the political dimension of Christian life, 'which, important as it is, seems at times to engulf the general claims of the Christi an religion to truth. There are many deep-thinking Christian lay people who are expert in different areas of secular thought and life, but, such is the climate of opinion, they are shy, or even frightened for their careers, of making themselves heard in relation to the relevance of their Christian faith to their secular subjects. I have written this book not because I even pretend to be an expert on the secular matters with which it mostly deals, but because the subject matter of the following chapters happens to have been an enduring interest of mine. The substance of most of the book has been taken from a number of lectures that I have given in the last year or two since my retirement from the see of Birmingham in 1987. The chapters on the Evolution of Life and the Origin of Species are vii

viii Introduction based on a lecture given at the Ramsey Centre at St Cross College, Oxford; the chapter on Technology derives from the Leggett Lecture at Surrey University, while the chapter on Freedom has it origins in the First Annual Lecture given at Froebel College, Roehampton. The chapter on Love and Marriage is taken from an address given to clergy in the Salisbury Diocese, while the substance of the chapter on the Environment comes from the annuallecture given to the YMCA. 'The Premature Demise of the Soul' was the subject of a paper read to the London Society for the Study of Religion. Perhaps I should make it clear that this book, for which I alone am responsible, has no direct connection with the book which I am editing on The Gospel and Dur Culture, which is being published in 1991 in advance of anational Consultation at Swanwick Conference Centre in 1992. Nonetheless I hope that there is sufficient convergencein the underlying theme of this book to make it a contribution towards "The 'Gospel and Our Culture' Movement" as a whole. HUGH MONTEFIORE