The Secular City

 https://thesimplepastor.co.uk/book-review-the-secular-city/

The book was originally published in 1965, and it's predictions have somewhat proven unsound ... even more unsound lately as people flee the city (hopefully they remember they are refugees and not missionaries).

As I've pointed out too many times and the reviewer does as well:

Secularism, on the other hand, is the name for an ideology, a new closed worldview which functions very much like a new religion. (p21)

 To come closer to understanding why this is so critical, "Moral Believing Animals" ought to be required reading. "Everyone has to believe in something, I believe I'll have another beer" may be funny, and is also true ... unless you are an alcoholic, the "another beer" belief is pretty harmless. If you believe that National Socialism is a good idea however, the the belief may be less harmless. 

On page 168, the thing I was wondering about as I moved through the book was confirmed: 

",,,TWO was formed with the assistance of Saul Alinsky", author of "Rules for Radicals" from which I'll give you this quote ...

"One can see children yelling at their parents, "Mommy I've got to go", and desperate mothers surrendering, "All right then, Do it right here". O'Hare would soon become a shambles."

This  wonderful state of affairs would be the result of a "shit in" which Alinsky proudly proclaims as a legitimate idea in the pursuit of "social justice". Alinsky is also "quietly famous" as a major founder of "Community Organizing" and a mentor to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. 

Cox considers the move to the Secular City as inevitable.

Cox outlines three stages in human development, the age of the tribe, the age of the town and the age of the technopolis. We live in the age of the secular city.

In our day the secular metropolis stands as both the pattern of our life together and the symbol of our view of the world. (p1)

The book is quite eschatological (assuming a direction to history toward some "end time")  as are  Christianity and Marxism. Primarily Cox wants to convince us that God wants us to "progress" to a "social gospel" that is very much inline with the "progressive" idea of the utopia proffered in Lennon's "Imagine".

As Lennon, (and Lenin believed), man is good -- to the extent there is "original sin", it is culture, religion, family, and morals that mess up the goodness. Get rid of all that "junk" and return to a state approximating "the noble savage" (albeit with internet and cell phones developed without the evil of corporations and technologists), and we have perpetual nirvana! Heaven on earth! We would all be ultimately "Woke". 

Cox sees the church as the logical avant garde (leading edge) of this inevitable "progress" toward this bright and beautiful future. 

On page 43 he states:

"The thesis of the Secular City is that God is just as present in the secular as in the religious realms of life, and we unduly cramp the divine presence by confining it to some specially delineated spiritual or ecclesiastical realm". 

It is true that God is "present" because he is "omnipresent", however the Holy Spirit is only present in the lives of baptized practicing believers. It is the Holy Spirit that guides Christians that are living in the Kingdom (city) of God as Augustine explained. 

You are going to serve somebody -- it may be the devil or it may be the Lord. Allow the Lord to make that decision for you.