At the conclusion the audience rose as one to cheer the bishop's opening remarks which, he said, aimed at equipping Anglicans of all walks for the challenges of leadership, and "to take theology home with them."

The pace with which he delivered his remarks outpaced even this reporter's ability to keep up with him. I will summarize what he said. (NOTE: For some of this I am indebted to Mr. Allan Haley whose copious note taking outdid mine).

Dr. Wright said the Church best handles the secular age not by confronting it head-on, but rather, by being true to the full arc of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It outflanks it, he added.

He singled out two major characteristics of secularism that open it to this strategy:

First, it has revived the ancient philosophy of Epicureanism by treating God, or the gods, as very distant and indifferent to man or what happens on Earth, thus conveniently leaving man to run things on his own. The result (in secularism, as in Epicureanism before it) is to shunt God upstairs: and thereby to divide heaven from earth, religion from man -- and Jesus from His Church. The churches, he said, have made it easy for the secularist.

(The latter happens when the Church all too often allows it, for example, by thinking and preaching that treats heaven as a place we go to when we die, to live the afterlife apart from this Earth. To the contrary: Revelation teaches that heaven -- the new Jerusalem -- will come down to Earth, and the faithful will partake in Jesus' rule here on Earth. Thus, properly read and understood, the arc of Scripture begins and ends with heaven here on Earth, with God at one with His creation, and Jesus at one with His Church.)

Second, the secularist philosophy embraces the notion of progress, by which this latest age is seen as the best of all that came before it. Moreover, it is all man's doing, with no need for any God or gods along the way. But progress on man's yardstick is illusory: what it really measures is our increasing alienation from God.

The Church's strategy in response to secularism has three aspects.

First, in spatial terms, it refuses to separate heaven from earth, or man from God: it celebrates, and models, Christ's union of the two through His incarnation, death and resurrection. It fills in the spatial gap that the Enlightenment philosophers deliberately created, and that secularists have striven to maintain ever since.

Second, the Church unites past and future time, by proclaiming the Kingdom of Heaven symbolized in the resurrection. That kingdom, as Jesus told us, is here on earth now, and while the future may expand and fulfill it, nothing can detract from its reality and significance for today, by showing forth God's glory in His kingdom (akin to God's Shekinah in His tabernacle, or temple). Thus, in a fully temporal sense, the Church completes the arc of the Bible by placing God in His temple again, just as he was in Eden at the beginning of creation. God's glory in His temple is the parallel to Christ's marriage with His Church (just as marriage between a man and a woman signifies that same mystical union).

Third, the Church does not allow the secularists to pick up and exploit the bits and pieces it has left lying about through the years, such as the concepts of justice and equality for all of God's creation. The secularists co-opt these concepts into their victims' rights movements, one after the other (from blacks to women to gays to the trans-gendered to -- who, or what, will be next?). By teaching the union of space (heaven and earth) and time (past, present and future now), which itself embodies the full justice of God on earth, Scripture completely outflanks secularism, and, thereby, leaves it nowhere to call its own.

BISHOP MICHAEL NAZIR-ALI

Dr. Nazir Ali spoke extemporaneously and told the Conference by way of a retrospective talk that answered the questions: "What was it that we had?" and "How did we lose it?" Beginning with Magna Carta -- or even earlier, with the laws of King Alfred the Great -- and continuing with the universal authority of the Ten Commandments, royal power showed respect for the law. On an individual level, the human who is made in God's image, lends legitimacy to the law by consenting to it, and achieves thereby the transition from (royal) subject to free citizen. As Bishop Bartolome de las Casas insisted, all who are made in God's image are worthy of the law's respect and protection -- and this concept, translated to Europe, became what Locke called "natural rights."

This synthesis, in turn, was gradually undermined by the forces of modernism -- by Feuerbach, who subjectivized God, by the materialism of Marx, and by Jung, who psychologized God. Aristotle's teleology was banished; man became a tragedy (Camus) or a comedy (Saroyan), while society's measure was taken by its material wealth, and empirical science focused only on the what and the how, while ignoring the why and the what for. Empirical science does not ask the why and what question about purpose and destiny, noted the bishop.

Alternatively, the "Sudden Death" thesis traces the triumph of secularism to the social (but not political) revolution of the 60s. Women's revolution -- feminism -- drove out the fathers, and the combined effect was to create a moral and spiritual vacuum that needed to be filled by something; hence we have secularism rampant. (And this is also the real danger of radical Islamism.) A human's "inalienable rights" mutate into autonomy, which leaves out the person-in-relationship of our previous tradition. But in reality, human beings are equal because they have a common origin, and not because their lifestyles are all equal. Without teleology, we have "progress" without a purpose -- which is to say, random evolution.

Bishop Nazir-Ali then posed the question: "Are we going to turn our backs on what has brought us to where we are, or are we going to avail ourselves of our Biblical heritage?" What we need is for young people to take the faith into their professions, a strengthening of the family, a goal for the migration that is happening through our churches: we have to become more mission-minded.

Modern education does not answer the question of purpose, so young people don't know what life's purpose is, so human purpose creates either a tragic figure or a comic figure.

Christian faith gives us a sense of purpose, it says there is a rational universe, life is not absurd, that the universe has a rational origin. He said radical Islam would not ultimately fill the moral vacuum in the West. "We need first principles to guide us if we are a politician or even a judiciary.

"We have an answer for secularism," Bishop Nazir-Ali concluded. "Secularism does not have an answer for us."

ROSS DOUTHART

Ross Douthat is a former editor of The Atlantic, and the youngest op-ed columnist for The New York Times. He is the author of the best-selling book Bad Religion: How we became a Nation of Heretics. His message to conferees was "secularism is not as strong as it looks and cracks are everywhere."

He opened his speech by recounting his childhood. He revealed that his religious experiences were largely formed and mediated through his mother's need for healing which drove her to sample a number of Protestant denominations that included Episcopalianism to Pentecostalism. She and her son finally ended up in the Roman Catholic Church where Douthart and his wife and family remain to this day.

He took as his main theme: "The Return of the 1970s: the New Christian Civil War." He drew from his book what led up to what was going in the polarized 70s. He also identified four current trends from his perspective as a journalist:

Political polarization. The divisions between political parties threaten to swamp Christianity. It is essential to its nature that Christianity stand above politics and parties. The Gospel is more encompassing than the platforms of Republicans or Democrats.

The sexual revolution. This has opened a gap between the middle class's former moral common sense, and Biblical ethics. At least there used to be an acknowledgment in society that the Bible's moral prescriptions made sense; now we lack even that.

The impact of money and wealth. The gradual accumulation of wealth beyond one's wildest dreams has tended to blur moral boundaries. This drift into prosperity has given rise to a theology of prosperity, whereas what we need (but don't want to hear) is a theology of renunciation.

Decolonization, globalization, and the huge expansion of information technology - these all work together to make it more difficult to believe that religion has the one Truth. The pluralists and multiculturalists all maintain that "the world is just too big and complicated for Christianity to contain the complete truth." Their growth in numbers has opened the door for heresy to creep in.

Since writing his book five years ago, Douthat has seen new change. He thinks conservative religion has run its course and we are back to the 70s' habit of questioning everything. This development threatens to reopen the civil wars between liberal and conservative Christianity, involving a religious push-back to the increasingly secular judiciary; a "liberal Christianity" whose all-inclusiveness is actually one-sided and polarizing; and "therapeutic faith" - a search for the version of religion that makes you feel better about yourself (e.g., as in the book Eat, Pray, Love), without regard for Biblical truth.

On the positive side, there has been a return to orthodox theology from within, and a fresh outlook stemming from the election of Pope Francis. The flashpoint is same-sex marriage, with its related attack on religious beliefs as embodied in Obamacare.

Douthat offered three ways to look at the current situation:

A challenge: how to respond to "friendly pressure", such as from those who view the Bible's sexual mores today the way that Christians a century ago viewed Mormon polygamy -- as an embarrassment that needs to change.

An opportunity: secularism is not as strong as it looks; there are cracks in it everywhere. The culture is fundamentally religious.

It is a necessity that we prove wrong the views of our friendly underminers.

MARY EBERSTADT

Mary Eberstadt is currently Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and most recently author of How the West Really Lost God: a New Theory of Secularism. She is also a Roman Catholic,

She labeled her talk, echoing Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon, "Christians in the Hands of an Angry New Intolerance."

She called it the Borscht Belt meets Billy Graham in the food aisle.

She opened her speech citing the suppression of a debate on abortion at Christ Church College in Oxford last November, following threats of violence from "pro-choice" supporters. She went on to assert that there was almost daily rage directed at Christians throughout the world,p which she said was "unprecedented" in degree. She called Christianity's detractors its "cultured despisers." Anything snapping at Christianity was a new lower water mark. "Look what is happening out there," she cried.

She presented seven objective facts about the current persecution of Christians and their religion:

First, she cited the shutdown of the debate at Christ Church College and said it was nothing less than our right to free speech at stake. "Words matter; they are not just window dressing." Free speech is fundamental to a society's functioning.

Second, she said anger has given rise to a new double standard: Christians are "fair game" for the New Atheists and others, while those who hurl their accusations are not held to account. "We need to play offense, not defense, against those who slander us."

Third, the anger is hurting real people in their livelihoods and worship, from Jews in Europe, to the British Airways stewardess who was forbidden from wearing to work a necklace with a simple cross, to the Mozilla CEO forced to resign on account of a donation he made to same-sex marriage opponents in California (the supporters of Prop. 8). She cited the New atheism for its "rhetorical viciousness."

Fourth was the unprecedented rage to protect, at all costs, the gains won in the recent sexual revolution. At stake are the quiet, domestic moments which Humanae Vitae cites as bringing us closer to God. She cited Whittaker Chambers who related how he felt the finger of God touching him as he marveled at the intricacy of his infant daughter's ear. "The family is the human symphony through which the voice of God is heard." Quoting Yeats's The Second Coming ("The falcon cannot hear the falconer ... the center cannot hold"), she noted that the creature can no longer hear the creator, and rages because it is incapable of creating on its own.

Fifth, the sheer rage against Christianity adds to the secularization of the age, as those on the margin are swept off into the secular seas. Intimidation leads to censorship, which eventually produces self-censorship -- and Christianity diminishes for lack of witness.

Sixth, the new intolerance cloaks itself in the mantle of civil rights. Unlike the earlier righteous anger against discrimination and injustice, however, the anger of today's secularists is driven by malice, for the reasons given earlier, and so the claim to be on the side of Martin Luther King is false.

Seventh, Christianity is not without resources. Although it is ironic that it is the non-believers who cite the Pope's recent pronouncements as if to show that the Catholic Church "is saying goodbye to all that old stuff", their own intolerance to traditional religion may help to unify Christianity. Christianity has an invincible asset which intolerance cannot touch: its God-given moral code.

OS GUINNESS

Dr. Os Guinness, author of some 30 books and first order social critic, was born in China to missionaries. Educated in London and Oxford where he obtained his doctorate, he is a member of The Falls Church (Anglican), in Virginia. He titled his talk: "Life with No Amen: Atheism and the global 'war of the spirits'."

He drew on the contrast between Kant's vision of "Perpetual Peace" and Friedrich Nietzsche's "War of the spirits" (Ger. Geisterkrieg, from his Ecce Homo), and picking up on the "Yes and Amen" song in Thus Spake Zarathustra.

He began with an in-depth examination of the modern phenomenon of atheism -- whose stepchild, "irrational, implacable secularism" has been "the incubator of totalitarianism." It is a philosophy whose essence is its anti-Christianity, and its expression today poses three major questions for the West:

1. Will Islam modernize peacefully?
2. What will replace Marxism in China?
3. Will the West sever from, or recover, its roots?

Without worship, we literally shrink. Indeed, fully a quarter of America's self-proclaimed atheists, according to the Pew Survey, consider themselves "religious" -- and 14 % even say they "believe in God"! Atheists can get away with these absurdities because our current weak culture, having no core beliefs of its own, goes out of its way to accommodate the whole spectrum of beliefs.

Atheism, in fact, is the reaction to centuries of oppression by corrupt State churches, so that Christians themselves, acting in their own selfish interests, and offering their own distortions of the faith, have furnished the fuel for the atheists' case (such as it is). Atheism becomes the replacement for "unnecessary" religion, whereby man can get along just fine on his own.

But secularism has its own problems: it cannot deal with the fact that life points beyond itself; or that modern science contradicts its own premises [see the account of Alvin Plantinga's talk at last year's Conference], and is thus false. It holds that the tendency towards the transcendent must be steadfastly resisted. Secularism has "no givens, no rules, and no limits." As a consequence, it is woefully lacking, and hence vulnerable.

America has to halt the process towards negative freedom: all of today's freedoms are freedom from this and that, and we are losing our traditional freedom to do, to believe, and to speak. Putting equality above liberty results in the French, not the American, Revolution (witness the reaction to the Charlie Hebdo massacre: there is no real freedom of speech in France, but only license to besmirch, insult and sink to the gutter -- so long as religion is your target, and secularism your philosophy).

Some, echoing Nietzsche, call for a "post-human" world, because of a post-liberal nihilism. The challenge for our Church is to answer that call with an unstinting affirmation of Christianity, as it has been handed down to us. Can the Church be warmed again by the spirit of the living God? (Dr. Guinness' latest book, Renaissance: the Power of the Gospel However Dark the Times, is a much fuller treatment of the themes in his talk.

ALISTER MCGRATH

The final talk was given by the Rev. Prof. Alister McGrath, who holds the chair in science and religion at Oxford University. His lecture was titled: "Capturing the Cultural Imagination: How C.S. Lewis Can Help Us Engage Secularism." He is the author of a recent new biography of C.S. Lewis.

He asked as Lewis might: "What can we do to change the story that dominates our culture? Tell a better story -- capture the imagination."

As a starting point for understanding the age we live in, he recommended philosopher Charles Taylor's definitive work, A Secular Age (2007). There Taylor carefully traces the "shift in master narratives" which has taken place since the 1500's: then it was difficult not to believe in God, while today people find it difficult to believe in God.

Taylor draws a sharp distinction between natural and supernatural. While the latter used to be regarded as not impossible, the concept was undermined beginning with the modern philosophies of Descartes and Spinoza, which were amplified by the post-moderns Heidegger and Wittgenstein. But post-modernism asks us to accept things which cannot be proved, based wholly on assumptions. (Philosophy, like theology, is fiduciary in that it asks us to trust the philosophy that is expressed. Yet philosophy will not accept or trust in the existence of God, which likewise cannot be proved.)

C.S. Lewis, said McGrath, is neither modern nor post-modern. He bridges both camps -- he mingles reason with imagination. This insight will help us break the power of today's master narratives ("metanarratives") over the popular imagination.

As an example, consider the following quotation from Lewis' lecture, "Is Theology Poetry?":
I believe in Christianity, as I believe the sun has risen; not only do I see it, but by it, I see everything else.

This shows reason and imagination as collaborative. As Austin Farrer noted, Lewis' vision carries with it its own conviction: first make people wish that Christianity were true, then show them that it is true. "Reason without imagination is dull; imagination without reason is escapism." We ourselves are as if spellbound, thinking that our destiny, and all that is good, lies in this world. But listen to Lewis himself again, from Mere Christianity, sketching "an argument from desire": If I find in myself a desire which no experience can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

McGrath noted that we need to present our faith in a way that opens (ignites) the imagination and shows how our faith works -- in other words, how it is true. The joy and luminosity of our faith will draw people to it precisely because secularism has none of those things to offer to them.

Consider, he asked, all of the stories Lewis tells in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first volume in his Chronicles of Narnia series: which of the six or so stories (each character has his or her own to tell) is the best story? How does each story match up with what we ourselves observe? How trustworthy is the storyteller? How does our own individual story match up or link with the main story of the book? The larger story makes our own individual one more meaningful.

The secular world has neither hope, nor transcendence (though it has a tendency toward escapism, (as Dr. Guinness noted). Our destiny, and all that secularism calls good, lies only in this world (which has banished God "far upstairs", as Prof. Wright pointed out).

Lewis' remedies for dealing with the secular age contain both strategies and resources for renewal:

Reaffirm the traditional doctrinal formulations of our faith -- go back to the sources that inspired generations before and recapture the imagination of our culture - by "out-narrating the metanarratives of our culture", by telling a better story.

Use the ideas and inspirations of the theologians Lewis admired: John Donne, George Herbert, Thomas Traherne -- doctrine is important, but what is significant is what you do with it. We don't need to make our faith attractive; it already is. How does my life reflect the attractiveness of my faith? Our own stories have meaning and value when they become part of the larger story that is faith, and our letting that happen advances faith on its trajectory. Meanwhile, take comfort in the sheer dullness of atheism, the existential shallowness of secularism. People love stories, and they need a better one! Prof. McGrath concluded: We have that story.

PANEL DISCUSSION

Following that presentation, the Conference speakers returned on stage to form a panel to answer audience questions. Bishop Mark Lawrence moderated the session, and opened with a brief summary of what he had taken from each speaker's presentation.

Then he asked them: "How do we tell the story of the Gospel when it is increasingly banished from the public sphere?" This unleashed a plethora of responses, most of which stressed the importance of always setting a Christian example in public. We cannot go back to the sacred public square, but we can at least show civility and respect as we give witness to our faith, and do not let rudeness pass for intellectual sophistication.

Guinness reminded us of the founding father's notion of the free marketplace of ideas, and then said: "E pluribus unum [out of many, one] is at risk. This country is rampant with diversity that threatens its unity."

Mary Eberstadt observed that identity politics is boxing people in (i.e., "I was born that way"), and that showing people their victimhood leads nowhere is a key to freeing them.

She noted that Gendercide, the war on baby girls, has yet to hit the West. When it does, it will have a profound effect on the women's movement and women's rights. More girls are being aborted than boys and that will create a furor, she added.

A question about the preservation of traditional marriage also provoked a wide-ranging discussion. Douthat, the Catholic, reminded the panel that defense of the celibate life must go hand-in-hand with defense of the family and traditional marriage. Bishop Nazir-Ali added that "the Bible never speaks of individuals, but of persons-in-relationship," applicable to married and celibate alike. Marriage, as Vatican II recognized, is rooted in our creation, but it is not just about the spouses; it is even more about the children, whose needs today are being woefully neglected as parents pursue their own goals. Prof. Wright noted, as he had in his talk, that marriage between a man and a woman is a sign of new creation, of heaven joining with earth to make all things new. Celibacy symbolizes the "not yet" in the Bible's arc, while marriage symbolizes the "already."

There was a final question: how does one respond to a professional person -- a psychiatrist, teacher, or scientist who is told that joining a Church will bar him or her from advancement in their career? The panel had no easy answer; the gist of its response was the need to fight back against all such attempts to exclude religion from the public square. (The First Amendment guarantees the freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion.) Guinness pointed out the hypocrisy, indeed -- illiberality, of liberals trying to exclude religious voices from the public sphere. Prof. Wright noted that we have lost the art of civilized debate, and what passes for dialogue is more like the lobbing of hand grenades. Douthat reminded everyone that as Christians, we are supposed to be uncomfortable in today's world: to be at home with it is to compromise one's beliefs.

Mere Anglican leaders said that MP3 recordings of the talks will be made available in March, with videos to follow later.

It was announced that the theme of next year's Mere Anglican Conference (January 21-23, 2016) will be the Christian response to (militant) Islam.