Responding to Humanist Yard Signs

In this house, we believe:

Black Lives Matter
Women’s Rights are Human Rights
No Human Is Illegal
Science Is Real
Love Is Love
Kindness Is Everything

In the past few years, these words have been displayed on yard signs and in the windows of homes on virtually every block of every neighborhood in my town and the areas where I work. Perhaps this is not the case in less “progressive” areas of the United States (I live near San Francisco), but I suspect we are all at least familiar with the statements held within the sign, as many of them are ubiquitous in American culture. 

For Christians, this sign reminds us of Joshua 24:15: “And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” It is also reminiscent of early statements of faith like the Apostle’s Creed, which says:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.

Being fashioned as something resembling a creed, the message is clear: these are the values held dear in this household. Considering that the sign neglects to acknowledge any Creator God or supernatural authority, it is safe to assume that what is valued in the household within reflects those of humanism: a secular values driven philosophy. The American Humanist Association defines humanism as: “…a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism or other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good.” The Humanist Magazine states: “Humanism is a rational philosophy informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by compassion. Affirming the dignity of each human being, it supports the maximization of individual liberty and opportunity consonant with social and planetary responsibility. It advocates the extension of participatory democracy and the expansion of the open society, standing for human rights and social justice. Free of supernaturalism, it recognizes human beings as a part of nature and holds that values-be they religious, ethical, social, or political-have their source in human experience and culture. Humanism thus derives the goals of life from human need and interest rather than from theological or ideological abstractions, and asserts that humanity must take responsibility for its own destiny.”

A common thread through all definitions of humanism is that morality is sourced within humanity, and is not to be given or discovered from anything or anyone (God) outside of ourselves. While humanism is often seen as the moral philosophy of atheism, there are many spiritually-minded people who also ascribe to it, whether or not they are familiar with the term. I thought I would take this opportunity to examine the 6 statements on this popular yard sign from a humanistic perspective, and provide a Christian response to each. 

Black Lives Matter

As with most of these statements, there is nothing controversial in the words themselves. There are very few Americans who would deny that the lives of black people matter. However, there are substantial differences in what we mean by these three words. For the humanist, “Black Lives Matter” could be an endorsement of a social justice movement with political aspirations for the restructuring of Western society, or it could simply be a statement of support for those who have suffered hardship and racial prejudice throughout American history up to the present. Leaving politics aside, when a humanist speaks of life as something that “matters,” they cannot mean that it matters in the same sense as the Christian. 

For Christians, any and every individual human life matters because it is created “in the image of God.” Therefore value is God-given, and no human or any institution of society can affect that value. By contrast, the humanist has ruled out God as the source of value, and must source any human’s value in other humans. The weakness becomes apparent. Human value is made contingent on whether it is valued by other humans, whose values are collectively in a constant state of evolution. Since “the greater good” is the greatest value to society at any given time, circumstances may change to make the lives of particular individuals not “matter” to those of society as a whole. Wherever human value is detached from the Creator, this inevitably follows, as the interests of the many outweigh those of the few. 

The clearest example in America today is abortion. Christians agree that God’s image resides in every human being, no matter how small or how little they contribute to society. Yet our secular world has decided that value is dependent on the mother (or whoever who has coercive power to make the choice for the mother) granting value to that life. Since the preborn child hasn’t contributed anything to society, its life does not yet “matter.”
Many Christians got themselves in hot water by countering “Black Lives Matter” with the saying, “All Lives Matter.” To avoid charges of being dismissive of the positive affirmation of value in the lives of black Americans, we would be wiser to reply, “All Black Lives Matter.” The humanist cannot genuinely affirm this and abortion, of which about 30% of its American victims are black. The Christian can boldly declare that we affirm the value and dignity of all black people, as each and every one is made in the image of God. 

Women’s Rights are Human Rights

This statement is formed as an equation. In other words, women’s rights equal the rights of humans in general. This is not controversial in most corners of the world, and Christians absolutely agree! The question I have is whether the equation works both ways. Do human rights equal women’s rights? If women’s rights are as good as any human’s rights, then we can affirm this so long as any human’s rights are as good as any woman’s rights. Problem is, the vast majority of humanists cannot affirm this. Once again, the abortion issue makes this clear. We know as scientific fact that children in the womb of their mothers are human beings from the moment of conception. Secularists can no longer hide behind the myth that the child is not alive or is a fish or some other creature going through the stages of evolution to reach humanity at the time of birth. DNA analysis shows that we have a unique human being at every stage. So, by the logic of humanism, this statement doesn’t say much for human rights, since we know that being a human does not grant someone any rights in our society. The humanists who have actually thought this through will appeal instead to the rights of a “person” instead of a human being. Arguing that preborn children are not persons is necessary to justify the brutal killing of the defenseless human. While such a claim is a statement of faith in itself (you cannot prove that a human being can lack personhood), the sign should say: “Women’s Rights are Person’s Rights” in order to be consistent. 

No Human Is Illegal

Here we have another statement whose very existence implies a controversy where none is to be found. Certainly this is in reference to the term “illegal immigrant.” However, nobody who uses that term believes that the human who illegally crosses a border is a human illegally. To imply such is to either completely misunderstand the term, or to intentionally mislead so as to demonize those who believe that national borders should be legally enforced. The irony of calling a preborn child a “parasite” is not lost here.

Science Is Real

Who denies that science is real? I have yet to find such a person. What I suspect they are trying to say is that man-caused climate change is real, or possibly that Darwinian evolution is real. These positions remain controversial with the public, though they reflect the general consensus of scientists. However, there are dissenters in the relevant fields, and science itself deals in the realm of fact, not opinion. If the humanist wants to lend their support to the majority of scientists, they could perhaps rephrase this as “scientific consensus is fact.” This would avoid creating a strawman of opponents of the strong majority views. The downside though, is that this might undermine other values they want to affirm. Scientific consensus supports that human life begins at conception. Science itself (apart from opinion) confirms that male and female are biological realities, and that both are necessary for human reproduction. To affirm that “science is real,” the humanist who wants to deny these facts must then appeal to a yet unknown “science” that will overrule them someday, thus making today’s science in these areas unreal. Perhaps they should reconsider the broadness of this statement and simply state an affirmation of climate change and/or Darwinism. 

Love Is Love

Finally we have a statement that can be disagreed with on its face. What we are talking about here are different kinds of love being of equal value; specifically different kinds of romantic love. We’re not concerned with equating the love of a mother for her child with the love of a soldier for his fellow countrymen, or the love of Christ for His Church and vice versa. Those different kinds of love possess unique qualities that are certainly not equal in value. For example, an American soldier may be willing to die for the freedom of other Americans, but if given the choice to save the life of his daughter or the lives of two strangers, we wouldn’t fault him for choosing his daughter’s life because we understand that his love for her is of greater value than for the average American. The humanist would probably agree. The loves they are comparing then are specifically those of heterosexual couples and those of individuals in the LGBTQ+ community. 
For the humanist, no combination of consensual individuals is better than another… well, with the exceptions of incest and pedophilia (at least for now). These exceptions are dismissed as irrelevant by the affirming, but they are worth exploring because they reveal how this statement is ultimately self-defeating. You cannot say, “love is love, except those kinds of love.” These three words must be all-encompassing if they are to mean anything at all. If there are exceptions, then some kinds of love are better than others. If this is so, on what basis can we conclude that there is no value differentiation between those kinds of love our society has decided are acceptable? Why not say that some kinds of love are good and others are a little better? Why is it only some are good and those others are not good at all? We have no basis to judge the value of one against the other if we are simply appealing to things like personal happiness and the consent of those involved. There is nothing about incest or pedophilia that requires a lack of consent (not discounting that this will often be the case). It is certainly possible that individuals who are in those kinds of relationships are there by their own choice. They might be quite happy and feel that they are being unfairly maligned by society. Shouldn’t we affirm and fight for their free expressions of love?

For the Christian, we have a different standard to measure what is good. We have God’s design for human sexuality (teleology). We can objectively see that the human body was designed for the unity of man and woman. We can see that only this physical union is capable of creating a new human being. From a purely scientific view, we can see that only heterosexual unions can propagate the species. Heterosexual unions on the whole are good for procreation, while others are not. In addition, we have the written commands for a man and a woman to join together in marriage, therefore defining sexual unions outside of marriage as less than good. Scripture specifically calls them out as sins of “fornication” and “adultery.” Scripture also calls us to “submit to one another” and to “love your neighbor as you love yourself,” which leaves no room for violations of consent. 

Kindness Is Everything

Kindness is important, that’s for sure. What does it mean for kindness to be everything? Well, it could be a reference to how we handle conflicts or debates with those who disagree with our views. It could also be a call to be an “ally,” someone who lends support to those who belong to minority or marginalized groups. In general, it seems to be a call to be friendly and welcoming of others. That is, for the most part, a good thing. However, it becomes meaningless and contradictory to the 5 statements before it when it is said to be “everything.” Certainly truth matters. These “belief statements” must themselves matter or we could scrap them all and simply display a “Kindness is Everything” sign. No need for anything else because “everything” is already covered. Perhaps a simple change to “kindness is essential” would do. 

For Christians, kindness is an outworking of love. 1 Corinthians 13:4 tells us that “love is kind.” This heavily quoted chapter is centered on love, which is the quality from which kindness flows. Verse 13 says, “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” It is important then to distinguish kindness from love itself, as kindness is merely one aspect of love. Verses 4-7 give a definition: “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Taking the whole of what love entails, it must take a stand for right and wrong, and sometimes that looks unkind to the world. It may be withholding support from those who are practicing sin. It may be challenging the lies of the culture. To be loving is to be in alignment with what is good and what is true. Scripture tells us that God is love. Jesus says that He is the truth. Love and truth converge in God, who is the source of all that exists. To truly love is to be in alignment with Him. 

Conclusion

What is noticeably missing from the humanist’s yard sign is an acknowledgement of the source of all that gives us value. There is no love apart from God. Consequently, there can be no genuine kindness in a godless world, and there is no grounding for the value of human life. The “real” world and everything in it ultimately doesn’t matter. That house is built on sand. As Christians, we must stand in stark contrast by building our homes on the solid rock of Jesus Christ.

“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” (Matthew‬ ‭7:24-27‬)