Review of Nancy Pearcey's "Saving Leonardo", Part 1

This personal quest for the spiritual in art has brought me to a unique aesthetic. It's a blend of content and context with the supernatural, which is becoming my biblical worldview of art and life. I'm finding that the parts cannot stand alone. For example, spirituality without  morality is demonic. And good design, even genius, without the spirit (the spark of humanity) is lifeless.

Earlier, I had promised to share some from Pearcey's book, which has been instrumental in helping me through a part of this quest. I hope that you find this summary valuable.

Part 1: The Threat of Global Secularism

A powerful exposé on how post-modern (or, as Alan Kirby calls it: pseudo-modern) humanistic relativism has been adopted by and is destroying our current culture and has co-opted Christian culture as well. The author uses several dualistic comparisons between modes of thinking to show how this digression has occurred over the past couple of centuries.

            The 1^st dichotomy is the manufactured difference between Values (private, subjective, relative) and Fact (public, objective, universal). The 2^nd is Postmodern (religion and morality) and Modernism (science and industry).

“Morality is a way of stating what humans are designed to do – their purpose for living.” (p.42)

“The church is the training ground to equip individuals with a biblical worldview and to send them out to the front lines to think and act creatively on the basis of biblical truth. This result is not oppression but a wonderful liberation of their creative powers.” (p.45)

The 3^rd dichotomy that has been imposed on culture is the liberal ontology: Person - an autonomous self (postmodernism) and Body – a biochemical machine (modernism). This presumes an exclusive jurisdiction (a Cartesian dualism): scientists are in charge of matter and the laws of physics, while theologians are in charge of soul and spiritual issues. This dualism also leads to a desire to control the physical nature for the benefit of the self. The greatest controversies identifying this goal are in the area of marriage, euthanasia, and abortion (ie, when does a fetus become a human?). This personhood theory is illustrated with another dichotomy: Person – (Person) has freedom, while the Body – (human) is a disposable machine. Therefore, non-persons cannot be offended, hurt, or deprived of anything, given that they can’t value such things. Pearcey poses the question, “Which abilities or functions count in deciding whether a person has moral worth? And how developed do they have to be in order to count? Every liberal ethicist draws the line at a different place, depending on his or her own personal choice or value.” (p.55)

            Liberals are nearsighted when it comes to analyzing their own positions. There is nothing objective or neutral about them. In fact, if followed to the end, humanism reaches the end game of genetic engineering; the offspring of Hitler’s Arian Race.

            The next dualism is a relational one: Personal (mental and emotional relationship) above the Physical (sexual).  The postmodern, multi-gender smorgasbord, called pomosexual, characterizes this. Physical identity is irrelevant and sexuality is open ended. Gender becomes a psychological identity determined by sexual drive. This concept is elevated above the biological, or physical identity, which is a simple matter of anatomy. For liberals, it doesn’t matter what you do or with whom you do it…as long as you love each other.

            The correct Christian response to all of this is summed up with the following quote: Christians should speak out on moral issues not because the feel “offended” or because their “cherished beliefs” are threatened, but because they have compassion for those who are trapped by destructive ideas. Their motivation should be that they are compelled by the love of Christ (2 Cor. 5:14). (p.68)

        Using shrill rhetoric or activist type tactics to combat the advancing immoral worldviews does not gain any headway and tends to disillusion our young people, who end up leaving the church upon adulthood.