The idea of Christian utility expressed by people like Richard Dawkins, Tom Holland, and Douglas Murray has been talked about by many Christian apologists and leaders. Most recently Bishop Robert Barron spoke about it on his podcast/YouTube channel "The Word on Fire Show."
I am somewhat fascinated by this phenomenon and also definitely annoyed by it. For those that do not know what secular Christian utility is, it is what atheists and religious nones like Dawkins and Holland describe as adopting Christian values because they are viewed as valuable, but not embracing a belief in God or the divine nature of Christ.
I am fascinated by this movement because it is a glaring example of how human beings swing from one extreme to another with no regard for nuanced thought or even common sense. In politics we go from a well-mannered and articulate liar in Barrack Obama, to an ego maniac acting as a bull in a China shop in Donald Trump. in ethics we go from saying religion is responsible for all the bad that happens in the world to Christians have it right when it
comes to the social order. We swing between these extremes because it is Human history built into our very nature, just read the Old Testament and the cyclical existence of sin, repentance, forgiveness and repeat that the ancient Israelites embodied.
I am annoyed by this movement because of the brain-dead reasoning behind it. Bishop Barron said it nicely in his podcast, which I
encourage all to go listen to!! But I will reiterate here in my own words. If something has utility it means that something is able to get us, eventually, to some ultimate good. In the secular sense there is no such thing as an ultimate good. Sure, some humanists will say the most human flourishing possible is the ultimate good but after two or three probing questions with more than one humanist you will realize that there is no uniformity behind their highest good idea and that they are not
even sure what ultimate human flourishing even looks like.
So, what very smart and articulate people like Holland and Murray are really saying is that Christian morals produce more of what they want to see in the world. It is a completely subjective and ego driven position. Perhaps Tom Holland would prefer for people to actually believe in God (I think he may have recently talked
himself into a possible belief in the Almighty) and that is something I can get behind.
The fear is that if people only embrace Christian Virtue without embracing Jesus Christ is the same fear G.K. Chesterton so articulately laid out in his book Orthodoxy back in 1908. - "The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted
virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad..."
Chesterton was talking about Wokeism over 100 years before the term was even coined. Cannot Dawkins and the like see that what they are railing against by saying we need to embrace Christian virtue without embracing Christ is the core problem in of itself?!?!
This all has been my typical roundabout way of getting at a financial matter. This embrace
of certain Christian virtues like giving to the poor have been looked at in solitude, divorced from other virtues. This is why we so eagerly accept things like the secondary market or predatory lending. We see one potential or perceived good that it does but cannot think in a nuanced way about the sprawling affect it will have. The secular Christian utility idea is nothing new. It has been prevalent in so many ways for hundreds of years, especially in economics. We must never divorce Christ from
his teachings, nor should we isolate virtues. Christianity is an all or nothing deal, take it or leave it. Buffet style Christianity is just dressed up secularism that will leave you miserable.
