A CHRISTIAN HUMANISM
Christianity in the Emerging Post-Modern, Post-Secular, Post-Christian Age
Exploring a Christian theology capable of constructive engagement with the post-modern, post-Christian, post-secular culture of today and beyond.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A CHRISTIAN HUMANISM – The Project
1. The Cultural Context – The Post-Christian, Post-Secular, Post-Modern Age
2. The Contours of Rapprochement
3. Why Christianity?
4. The Need for Deep Theology – Toward a Theological Method
5. Oran Mor
6. Jesus – The Subversive Nazarene
7. The Human Condition – A Christian Anthropology
8. The Kingdom of God – The Imperium of Love
9. Christian Practice – A Post-Secular Proposal
Reading List
TOWARD A CHRISTIAN HUMANISM – A THEOLOGICAL PROJECT
For Christianity to regain vibrancy in the contemporary, post-Christian, post-secular age, I am convinced that a (re)visioning of aspects of Christian theology and praxis is necessary:
1. Present an orthodox, vibrant Christianity that offers an inviting cultural metanarrative of interwoven themes of normativity, personalist anthropology, and communal meaning. In the spirit of the Christian-Secular rapprochement (Habermas), Christianity must rely on an evidence-based theological approach that balances mythopoetic, metaphorical thinking, understanding of allegory, symbol, and ritual with solid scholarship of all kinds. This is a broad call for the Christian religious imagination to be renewed by a courageous encounter with reason and learning.
2. Following the advice of von Balthasar’s theological aesthetics, this same Christianity must strive to be captivatingly beautiful in it’s theology, symbolism, ritual, and liturgy – but most of all in the lives of Christians embodying love, goodness, and hospitality. This will require beautiful, yet realistic reformulations of orthodox Christian thinking, including:
3. A renewed understanding of the nature of divinity which aligns with the best of human understanding and science, as well as the best of human religious imagination, myth, and poetry.
4. A vigorous proclamation and defense of human dignity that opposes the dehumanizing forces of empire, reductionisms, and nihilism.
5. Continued refinement of our understanding of Jesus of Nazareth, applying insights from Historical Jesus scholarship, hermeneutics, and cutting edge textual scholarship. Most especially, moving beyond problematic notions of original sin and substitutionary atonement that reduce Jesus to a human sacrifice.
6. Making Jesus’ rejection of moralism, legalism, and literalism – all of which tempt us to build walls, control others, and establish abusive power structures – central to our understanding of Christian practice and communal organization.
7. A deemphasis on institutional structures, denominational identity, clericalism, and American-style, 20th Century “church”, instead favoring organic community, sacramental living, and local transformation.
