It’s been more than a century since Friedrich Nietzsche famously declared, “God is dead.” This declaration was Nietzsche’s way of saying that the Enlightenment had eroded the idea of God in western civilization. Three decades after the Enlightenment, we see the rise of another religion in the West – a new religion – the worship of self.
God is dead because man seeks to take his place. This phenomenon is not new. Thousands of years ago, Nimrod attempted to build a civilization in rebellion against God:
“And they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.’” (Genesis Chapter 11, verse 4)
The story of Babel is the story of man’s attempt to get to heaven through his efforts. It is the story of man’s attempt to create a civilization without God, a civilization that blurs out every idea of God to, “make a name for ourselves.”
To replace Judeo-Christian values, the western intellectual seeks to establish his ideologies. For the ungodly man, all that is left is ideologies. Every civilization is built on certain axioms which the people of that civilization generally hold to be true.
What we see in Western society today is that the truths upon which the civilization was founded are being replaced by very subjective ideas – most of which were bred under the tutelage of Marxist intellectuals whose primary objective is the destruction of Capitalism and the building of a Marxist society.
When the idea of God dies, truth also dies because all that is left is man, free to set his own moral laws as he deems fit. Today, we often hear the words, “my truth.” Since God is dead, man is free to make his own truth.
The rise of a new religion
A new religion is rising in the West. The new religion is founded on the exaltation of the self, thus the claim, “my truth.” The things we all knew to be true yesterday are being altered: a boy can be a girl and vice-versa, gender is fluid and a social construct, and someone who was a male can compete in female sports because his truth matters! But what about biology? “Shut up you bigot! Shut up transphobe! Stop being hateful,” they say.
It’s all about the worship of self, the stifling of opposing ideas, and the persecution of those who dare speak against the precepts of the new religion. Some weeks ago, 22-year-old transgender UPenn swimmer, Lia Thomas who of course went through male puberty and possesses the physique of a dominating male athlete won the women’s freestyle swimming at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
Any human with a functioning brain should know that Lia’s victory was unjust and in fact, an assault on the rights of female athletes but who dares speaks against Lia? No one wants to be called a bigot or a transphobe, so we throw common sense away to appease the subjective beliefs of some troubled person.
Almost everyone watching that swimming event must have known that a man was swimming with females, but they have been conditioned to accept two conflicting ideas and still hold both to be true.
Subjectivity rules and if you claim the victim, people will bow their knees in surrender to you – “You matter! Your truth matters! Your feelings matter!” It’s all about self, the glorification of victimhood, and the stifling of opposing ideas.
The leaders of the new religion
The leaders of the new religion are not walking around in regal robes or sitting in a monastery. They are the intellectuals that have formed the post-modernist mind: Hegel, Karl Marx, Engels, Friedrich Nietzsche, Freud, Judith Butler, Derrida, Foucault, Charles Darwin, etc. Since Judeo-Christian beliefs have been repressed, new apostles must begin shaping the western mind.
The builders of Babel have set up their structures of knowledge, but God is not dead, he watches the fool as he toils in his folly all to escape the reality of God, the fool grasps the slightest idea he can find to escape God. Deep down, he knows there is a God, but he cannot come to terms with this reality because he is proud and seeks to be a god to himself, so he clenches his fist in defiance against God, he says, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves.”
Rume Kpadamrophe is a graduate student at the University of South Carolina. Before leaving Nigeria, he mentored several youths in prophetic, intercession, and evangelism. He is a revivalist, a writer, a researcher, and an enthusiastic lover of revival history. He desires to see revival ignited and sustained in the nations of the earth. He currently serves as the president of The Carolina Church, a campus ministry at the University of South Carolina.Rume’s email is [email protected].