Easter and Secularism: Our Call to Action
That our nation is becoming more secular is clear. The evidence is all around us. One example is the rise of the “nones” (those who claim no religious affiliation). Another is how our culture is increasingly defining “justice” in human-centered ways, where each brand of justice tends to reflect the individual identities of its proponents. We could say something similar for those seeking to redefine human sexuality and personhood (including a recently-confirmed Supreme Court justice who thinks only a biologist can tell the difference between males and females).
One of the clearest examples of the growing problems of secularism has to do with our culture’s basic religious illiteracy, especially regarding Christianity. We can see examples of that in how media organizations define Easter, which for some is one of the most important religious holidays of the year. In 2018, NPR issued a news article that described Easter as “The day celebrating the idea that Jesus did not die and go to Hell or Purgatory or anywhere at all, but rather arose into Heaven.” The error was caught and corrected shortly after its publication, and NPR published a slightly defensive article three days later titled, “NPR Catches Hell Over Easter Mistake.” The author blamed the mistake on a lack of “editing oversight.”
This wasn’t the first time Easter had been improperly defined. The New York Times made a similar mistake back in 2013 when an article identified the holiday as the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection into heaven. A correction quickly appeared, defining it as “the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.”
It should be worrying that authors graduating from journalism programs at respectable schools can get jobs at the premiere institutions in the United States and not know what Christians (who comprise a significant percentage of their readers) believe. This includes both the authors and the editors who proofed the articles before publication.
We should point out that these mistakes were not made about some specialized doctrinal point, like explaining the precise details of Roman Catholic belief in transubstantiation or the difference between infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism in Reformed theology. This was the basic definition of Easter, which anyone can find in a 15-second Google search.
The misunderstanding of Easter is not just a problem in itself—it’s a symptom of our world’s much larger spiritual condition. It’s most obvious when you stop to consider the types of things that make the headlines, like war, riots and looting, the growth of militant atheism, and the radical redefinition of essential aspects of human identity. But the little details matter, too. And that is why you and I are needed more than ever to bring spiritual clarity to a world gone mad.
At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples (and us), “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” These words are no less authoritative now than they were then.
In some ways, they’re needed now more than ever.
