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Finally, there is the People’s Republic of China, con- stituting almost one-quarter of the human race, which can- not be included in any of the three groups already listed. Here, in the area where the greatest single effort of western missionary expansion was concentrated, and where the Church is nevertheless an extremely small minority, the ancient sacral society has been replaced by a social order founded upon an apocalyptic and militant marxism. All the evidence suggests that the transformation here has been more rapid and more radical than in any other nation. There seems at present to be no evidence that this marxist society is undergoing the kind of ‘de-sacralizing’, the kind of movement towards a genuine secularity, which has been noted in speaking of the marxist societies of Eastern Europe.
This fourfold classification of the present human societies is obviously as rough and incomplete as any such classifica- tion must be. It leaves open the question whether the Latin American republics should be included in the first or the third group. My purpose in offering it is simply to remind the reader that when we embark upon a discussion of the secular state we must remember the great diversity of the human situation. Too much that is written takes the Western European and North American situation as normal, and founds analysis and argument upon a situation which is by no means that of the whole of the human race. Our dis- cussion of the role of the Church in the process of seculariza- tion must be faithful to the total context.
Dr D. L. Munby in his book, The Idea of a Secular Society, argues the case for a positive Christian attitude towards the secular society, in opposition to the views of Mr T. S. Eliot, and lists the following as characteristics of the secular society.
(i)It ‘refuses to commit itself as a whole to any particular view of the nature of the universe and of the place of man in it’. In such a society the views of atheists and of Christians will be equally respected, and will be given equal oppor- tunity to influence education, broadcasting and other aspects of public life. Such a society will not accept the view of A. R. Vidler(following Gladstone)that the state has an obligation to acknowledge religious truth as well as to uphold ethical values, and will therefore not approve any state recognition of religion.
(i)A secular society will be a pluralist society in the sense that it will not enforce (whether by social pressure or by state regulation)’a uniform attitude in important matters of human behaviour and values’. It will thus accept the fact that education will ‘be as much a sphere of divided beliefs and cultures as any other realm of life’.
(i)A secular society will be a tolerant society. It will, certainly, act against beliefs which are in effect a form of activity directed against the accepted policies of society’, but it will not accept the view of Sir Patrick Devlin that a general disgust at, for example, homosexuality is sufficient ground for society to take action against it. It is admitted that the line is very hard to draw here, but a stable secular society will give the benefit of the doubt to deviant belief and conduct.
(iv)The organizations and institutions of a secular society will have strictly limited aims. The aim of economic organi- zation is to provide men with the widest possible variety of goods and services. The aim of political and judicial institu- tions is similarly limited. A secular society deflates the pretensions of politicians and judges to be leaders of society or ‘prophet-priests of the national conscience’.
(v) À secular society will solve its problems by collecting and analysing the relevant facts so that people may be able to take rationally the decisions necessary to enable them to achieve their desires; it will not try to tell people what their desires ought to be.
(vi)A secular society will be a society without official images’. If there are no common aims, there cannot be a common set of images reflecting the common ideals and emotions of everyone. Nor can there be any common ideal types of behaviour for universal application.

Dr Munby, in his book, is not describing any society which actually exists. The background of his discussion is Britain at the end of the Macmillan era. Certain things are therefore assumed which would not be present in a discus- sion in another context. It is a serious question how far these unstated assumptions invalidate the claim which Munby is making that the secular society which he sketches is the one towards which Christians ought to work. We may entirely agree with him in discarding any idea that the ‘Christian Society’ of T. S. Eliot can be established in twentieth-century Britain, but yet question whether he has assumed too easily the stability of society, the rationality and emotional coherence of the people about whom he is writing. Let me press this question briefly in relation to four elements in the life of society.