Secularism Causes Pleasure to be Our Measure

Sometimes you read something, and although the subject is nothing new, maybe the author puts a different light on it, and makes the issue yet a little clearer. The book I was reading to my children this morning had nothing to do with the issue of children and birth control, and yet had everything to do with it.

I’m always pondering why it is that we are so opposed to accepting children. (Once again, this weekend, I ran into an old friend…an older Christian woman who looked at my belly and said, “Kelly! You’re pregnant again? My word!”

Now those words weren’t particularly hateful or ugly, but still indicated her general thoughts about “more than two children.” I wanted to say, “why are you looking at me like I did something? God is the Creator of my body, and the Creator of life. Just because I didn’t intervene in the natural process of creation, why does that make me weird?” Of course I didn’t say that, I just smiled and said “Yes, I am…the Lord has blessed us beyond what we deserve.”)

But back to the insightful reading this morning…ponder the author’s following words (from the book The Beauty of Modesty) explaining that our culture’s actions have followed its thoughts (“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”) Following the “religion” of secularism, or humanism, every realm of our culture is affected by its foundational tenets. (Ideas have consequences.)

And while the author’s conclusion can relate to every area of living, I thought is was just as poignant in explaining why we, even Christians, have such an aversion to large families. Bottom line? The church has been poisoned by the world’s anti-God philosophies. Secularism has crept into our churches, homes and hearts. Consider the author’s words:

Secularism emphasizes the worldly or temporal over the spiritual or eternal. It focuses on the ‘here and now’–this world–and neglects the spiritual and eternal world. The secular world believes that God is irrelevant to everyday life and that man is the measure of all things…..Thus, secularism is profoundly hedonistic, where everything becomes relative to ‘my wishes.’ Pleasure becomes the measure.”

Doesn’t that really get at the root of why we “don’t want any more children”? Think of the reasons people give for “not being able to handle any more”…it can often be traced back to a selfish cause, even though we try to mask it with a heroic, self-sacrificing excuse. Raising up children for the glory of God is hard sometimes, in the moment. But we are not called to live for the moment! We are called to “set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth”. Living souls are “things above”.

As I have stated so many times before, even if you don’t agree with giving the Lord sovereignty over your body, AT LEAST don’t persecute those who do! We need Christians, rising up everywhere, whether they have small families or large ones, heralding the truth about children…echoing our Father and exclaiming,

“Lo, children are an heritage from the Lord! The fruit of the womb is His reward! As arrows are in the hands of a mighty man, so are the children of the youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them!”