What is Secularism?

Dr. Michael F. Bird (Ridley College) interviews Prof. Jacques Berlinerblau (Georgetown University) about his book Secularism: The Basics.

They discuss:

Why did Prof. Berlinerblau write the book?
Is "Secularism" out to get me?
How is Secularism rooted in the Bible?
What are some of the different types of secularism?
Examples of Bad and Good secularism.
What do you wish American evangelicals knew about secularism?
What do you wish American atheists knew about secularism?

Please leave a question or comment.

If you enjoyoyed the interview then please like, share, and subscribe to the channel.

Books mentioned are:

Jacques Berlinerblau, Secularism: The Basics (New York: Routledge, 2022).

Michael F. Bird, Religious Freedom in a Secular Age (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2022).

Otherwise, follow Mike on
@mbird12

#Secularism #Religion #Atheism

[gpie_]

Your guest’s command of the English language is spectacular. France, I would not have guessed. Good questions posed by the host,

[gazelle]

Good day/night Dr Bird. I've enjoyed reading your book responding to Dr Erhman and i've recently subscribed to this

channel. To start off i'll say that I really enjoyed this video, I admit though that I pretty much disagree with the

premise that Prof Jacques laid out and i'm just weary of secularism in general. I would have really liked a chance

to ask Prof Jacques some questions. I don't buy the 'evangelical theocratic bogeyman' that Prof Jacques and those

who agree with him are selling and I don't believe that there are 'acceptable Christian targets' as a lot of establishment Christians have tended to believe and secularism has many forms and the most dangerous of these are specifically antiChristian in nature. With regards to activism, it's not Christianity's fault that adherents are driven to action over it and it's not as though nonChristians don't agitate and act in accordance to their beliefs, i'm thinking LGBT activism and abortion. With regards to the claim that evangelicals(which i'm not by the way but acknowledge as my spiritual brethren) are 'scared' of losing their majority status, this is such a double standard that I wished you'd pushed back on because if we were to ask Prof Jacques if he had a problem with the Jewish population of Israel losing their majority or the Muslim population of Indonesia, the

Hindu population of India, the secularists of Sweden, the Shinto of Japan or the Confucians Of China if they were 'scared' of losing their majorities. He would claim that that would be discriminatory, which leads me to think that it might be that Prof Jacques and those who think like him believe that Christians should be in a lesser position in society, their customs and dreams and aspirations should be no more while everybody else should be in a better position than them.
Prof Jacques certainly sold a glowing view secularism and praised it's imposition on Christian spirituality and only had criticism when it overreached on Muslim spirituality in France for example but had nothing to say about the recent acts of secular overreach in Finland where a Christian has had to stand trial to answer for her religious beliefs.
I recall in 2017, secularists were protesting the fact that some states prioritized Christian and Yazidi refugees

over Muslims considering it as bigotry while conveniently 'forgeting' the fact that these peoples were

actively being persecuted by Daesh at the time at a much greater level than the general Muslim population.
I also recall the same secularists like Ariel Ricker guided Muslims to lie about being Christians so as to game the

system.
Those same secularists pinned the culpability of the Christchurch massacre on to Christianity even though the attacker

was an ecofascist non christian which incidentally inspired the Sri Lankan reprisal attacks on innocent Christians.
Those same secularists tried to portray Devon Patrick Kelley as a Christian in the wake of the Sutherland springs

massacre only for it to be revealed that he was a rabid antitheist.
At the start of the recent pandemic, a secularist activist named Katherine Stewart who is an antiChristian who is known to infiltrate churches placed culpability for the pandemic onto Christians, a slanderous lie that had it been foisted onto any other community would have had her face consequences.
I could literally go on but I could be here all day. Secularists are no friends of Christians and I believe we should be wary of this ideology.

[SpyderInsyder]

Thank you Dr. Bird for the interview. In reference to the interaction, it causes me to think of the words spoken by our Lord in Matthew 28 when he says that all authority is given to him over heaven and earth. Any thoughts?

[americanliberal]

And, some people really need to understand that there are plenty of "non-religious theists" who do exist, because most of the time people will always conflate non-religious with atheism.

So i really have no idea where do some people get this weird idea that non-religious has anything to do with atheism. It really doesn't.