30 be referred to as the father of secularization theory.2 He believed that the modernization of society would result in the disappearance of religion. Religious superstition was an adolescent phase through which culture evolved before it could mature. Secularization theory compartmentalizes religion, separating it from the rest of life, such as the family, education, government, and the economy. As such, religion is understood largely to be ritualistic behaviors that people in America perform on Sunday morning. Disconnecting religion from the rest of life is a recent historical development of the modern era. Previously a people’s religious belief system saturated every part of life. We continue to see this today in the Islamic world, but God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture exalts Him as Lord of all, involved with and interested in every aspect of our lives, around the clock, seven days a week. What follows the compartmentalization of religion is the social science definition of religion as “belief in the supernatural.” This is a convenient definition for secularists and atheists who claim that religion operates by faith and faith is irrational or post-rational. The implication is that secularists are rational and operate on the basis of evidence, not faith. As specified earlier, the biblical theist is skeptical of anyone or any system of thought that claims to operate without faith. The sacred-secular dichotomy is built upon the illusion that religion can be disconnected from the rest of life, and in doing so, any kind of faith goes with it. If God is the creator and sustainer of all that exists, then nothing could be further from the truth. The field of cultural anthropology examines cultural variations from the perspective of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is a mixed bag that can be beneficial or detrimental to one’s view of cultural diversity. When multiculturalism is defined as the promotion of understanding cultural differences in society so that we might communicate more effectively across cultural barriers, we would agree. But many social scientists go beyond this definition to insist that all cultural groups are equal within societyand across societies. The truth is that all cultures are tainted by the effects of the Fall and there is plenty of room for improvement in each one of them. 2 Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Free Press, 1965, 39–42, 102–107.
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