...When a worldview exchanges the Creator for something in creation, it will also exchange a high view of humans made in God’s image for a lower view of humans made in the image of something in creation. We could say that every concept of humanity is created in the image of ‘some’ god...

Culture is the root of politics,

and religion is the root of culture.”

— Richard John Neuhaus

"The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overreaches ruler and ruled alike. Subjectivism about values is eternally incompatible with democracy . . . if there is no Law of Nature, the ethos of any society is the creation of its rulers, educators, and conditioners."

C.S. Lewis

"An idol is anything in the created order that is put in the place of God. This definition not only gives us tools to identify our personal idols, it also gives insight into the world of ideas. Philosophies and worldviews can also function as counterfeit gods. Think of it this way: As a matter of sheer logic, any explanation of life must have a starting point. It must trace the universe back to something that functions as the primal reality, the self-existent cause of everything else. As Paul says in Romans, if you reject the biblical God, you will deify something within the created order. Those who do not honor the transcendent God beyond the cosmos must make a divinity out of some power or principle immanent within the cosmos....

In the Old Testament, Ezekiel calls them idols of the heart (Ezek. 14:3). Today when we speak of the heart, we mean the emotions. But in Hebrew the word means your innermost self, including the will, mind, moral character, and spiritual commitment. “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7)....

...When a worldview exchanges the Creator for something in creation, it will also exchange a high view of humans made in God’s image for a lower view of humans made in the image of something in creation. We could say that every concept of humanity is created in the image of ‘some’ god...

L

The lesson is that idol-based ideologies are invariably dehumanizing, and if unchecked they lead to repression, coercion, oppression, war, and violence. In the twentieth century alone, they have taken far more lives and created more havoc than all the religiously motivated witch hunts, inquisitions, and wars of the previous centuries. “Materialists are ready to worship their own jerry-built creations as though they were the Absolute,” writes Aldous Huxley. This “makes it possible for them to indulge their ugliest passions with a clear conscience and in the certainty that they are working for the Highest Good.” The bloodshed and death camps produced by idolatrous ideologies were not a violation of their principles (as religious wars were violations of Christian principles); they were logically consistent outworkings of the worldview. Philosopher John Gray, though himself an atheist, writes that “when atheism becomes a political project, the invariable result is an ersatz religion that can only be maintained by tyrannical means” - by secret police and death camps. From Liberators to Despots"

Nancy Pearcey, Finding Truth

ISAIAH 61 

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,    

because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; 

he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,    

and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 

to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor,    

and the day of vengeance of our God;    

to comfort all who mourn; 

to grant to those who mourn in Zion—    

to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, 

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,    

the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; 

that they may be called oaks of righteousness,    

the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. 

They shall build up the ancient ruins;    

they shall raise up the former devastations;

Roger Scruton (1944-2020)

 ...it raises the real questions of our times, which are these: can we reject the idea of a benevolent God and still hold on to our inherited morality, founded on respect for the other and the absolute authority of truth? Can we adopt the posture of forgiveness that Murray is so keen to advocate, without turning to the supreme example that was once given to us?

Can we re-learn the habits of polite disagreement, and address each other as rational beings, capable of forming real communities in which differences are respected and decencies honoured? I want to answer yes to those questions. But as someone who has suffered more than most from the prevailing madness I have my doubts.

My own solution — which is to ignore social media and to address, in my writings, only the interest in the true and the false, rather than in the permitted and the offensive — confines me within a circle that is considerably narrower than the Twittersphere. But here and there in this circle, there are people who do not merely see the point of truthful discourse, but who are also eager to engage with it. And I cling to the view that that is enough, as it was for the Irish monks who kept the lamp of learning alight during the Dark Ages. They may have thought they were losing, but they won in the end.