THE SECULAR CREED:
Engaging Five Contemporary Claims
By Rebecca McLaughlin
The Gospel Coalition. 109 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978 0 999 284 308
Rebecca McLaughlin obviously used lockdown well; publishing three of her own books last year and writing a chapter in another. All this after her breakout year as an author in 2019 when her first book Confronting Christianity came out and won Christianity Today’s 2020 Book of the Year.
The Secular Creed burnishes her burgeoning reputation as a foremost popular Christian apologist for our day. Written since the eruption of the Black Lives Matter Movement, she looks, in five short but heavily packed chapters, at slogans that had been appearing in some US neighbourhoods. Such as: In this house we believe that Black Lives Matter, Love is Love, Gay Rights are Civil Rights, Women’s Rights are Human Rights and Transgender Women are Women. These, slogans, McLaughlin believes, form the basis of a secular creed which is sweeping across (at least) the Western world today.
On a second reading one of the things that I really appreciated was the way McLaughlin uses language. The benefits of her being a postgraduate literature student are clearly seen in how deftly she crafts her writing for our enjoyment. Each chapter feels like a polished tale; beginning with a powerful image taken from films, books or personal stories. She uses clever and clear illustrations that often pack an emotional punch that get behind one’s defences even whilst unpicking difficult and controversial subjects.
She undermines secular ideas gently – often asserting that without a creator God, there are no objective rights at all – as her favoured phrase from the gay atheist Yuval Noah Harari indicates: ‘Homo Sapiens have no natural rights, just as spiders, hyenas and chimpanzees have no natural rights’. She then introduces Christian ideas, Biblical passages or theological concepts to contrast them with the secular viewpoint. All before finally wrapping up with another good illustration that pulls all the threads together.
This is not to say that there isn’t considerable depth in what is a short book, at just over a hundred pages. Though the footnotes are unobtrusive they quote cutting-edge research from scientific journals, contemporary historians, popular bestsellers to mainstream newspapers, many of which, if not most, are non-Christian. There is also depth in her Biblical and theological reflections which are woven seamlessly into her narrative.
McLaughlin doesn’t spare the mistakes of Christians in the past or present but constantly asserts that the correction of our prejudices is with more Biblical fidelity rather than less. For example: ‘We might have a gay friend who is faithful to his husband and a straight friend who is not faithful to his wife. If this surprises us, we might need to repent of our prejudice. But we shouldn’t repent of our theology’ (p.55).
In all the discussion of these controversial issues in today’s society there can be a tendency to go to extremes. Some focus on grace and say the Bible teaching needs to be upgraded for today’s society so as to have a truly inclusive church. Others highlight the importance of sticking by Biblical truth but find it difficult to empathise with those with secular views in these areas. Rebecca McLaughlin follows brilliantly in Jesus’ footsteps and manages to hold grace and truth together in a way that allows us to understand some of the core values of our secular society and apply Biblical truth in a compassionate way to them. Warmly recommended.
