A Dialectical Treatment of Hebrews 11

What is often difficult in getting a perspective on socio-political perspectives is to get past the popular rhetoric and get into the heads of the secular philosopher. So I took Hebrews 11 and reframed it in materialistic terms that would convey the ideas of today’s progressive. This experiment looked like it might be valuable if I could at all express the principles of secularism in a manner that would be more than just clear, but clarify the movement’s desired outcomes.

(Think of this as The Jim Wallis Translation.)

Now faith is the assurance of things worked for, the conviction of all that we can see.

For by it both men and women may gain the approval of the populace.

For by it we know that the universe is all that there is, and all that is visible is the essence of reality.

No sacrifice is adequate for personal redemption, except as one sacrifices, not just the ownership of goods, but also ownership of the right of ownership. Even so you will not be remembered because nobody can own history.

There is no god who will take you into eternity. That only happens at the will of the state, the only real authority that exists. There is no one to please besides yourself and your state.

If you are called by your state to serve, you have no cause to object. Your rights are not yours, but with your state as your God, your inheritance is the property of those who govern. You are a foreigner in any land. No land is yours. You have nothing to look forward to.

Your children will be wards of the state for the causes of the state. For their education and nourishment the state takes ultimate responsibility.

You may seek a land which is your own, but you will not find it. World governance is at hand.

There are no nations exempt from this authority. Even many of the Moslem fundamentalist nations practice our same core materialism. They enjoy their cell phones. And this propensity to cling to the material world will be their downfall as well.

Forget Moses, Jesus, God, Abraham, and Sarah. Forget Jeremiah. Forget Deborah and Barak. And Isaac and Jacob and Esau. And Paul and Augustine and Aquinas. And Calvin and Luther. These people brought us the evils of capitalism and personal freedom and moral responsibility. If they were stoned or shipwrecked or cut in to, they deserved it. They deserve to be forgotten. They are not worthy of the world.

The state’s sense of progress is all that matters. It is here that we will discover the resolution to humanity’s problems: The resolution of all inequality will end both war and suffering. That will be our perfect world.

As we confront the problem of dialectical materialism we observe that it diverges greatly from the Judeo-Christian world view. Materialism has its ends. Today’s secularist materialism denies God’s existence and renounces the place of God in history. History is reinterpreted in such a away as to place material class conflict in the place of history’s driver — the providential work of God is thus removed.

In today’s terms, the Resurrection stands in opposition to materialism. That makes Frank Turk’s proper citation of the danger of Christianity (and Judaism) to the secular world a serious one. We are not only different, but we are often viewed as enemies of today’s world. Just listen to Andrew Sullivan or any of today’s modern atheists.