6. Challenges

Secularisation

The Challenge of Secularism

Content

• The rise of secularism and secularisation, and the views that:

  • God is an illusion and the result of wish fulfilment

  • Christianity should play no part in public life

Key Knowledge

• the views of Freud and Dawkins that society would be happier without Christianity as it is infantile, repressive and causes conflict

• the views of secular humanists that Christian belief is personal and should play no part in public life, including:

  • education and schools

  • government and the state

Alienation and Dehumanisation

Liberation Theology and Marx

Content

• The relationship of liberation theology and Marx, including:

  • Marx’s teaching on alienation and exploitation

  • liberation theology’s use of Marx to analyse social sin

  • liberation theology’s teaching on the ‘preferential option for the poor’

Key Knowledge

• alienation occurs when humans are dehumanised and unable to live fulfilling lives

• exploitation occurs when humans are treated as objects and used as a means to an end

• liberation theology’s use of Marxist analysis to analyse the deeper or ‘structural’ causes of social sin that have resulted in poverty, violence and injustice, including:

  • capitalism

  • institutions (for example schools, churches, the state)

• the view that the Gospel demands that Christians must give priority to the poor and act in solidarity with them, including implications of this:

  • placing right action (orthopraxis) before official Church teaching (orthodoxy)