Theological Humanism? A solution to the divide?3 min read

OK, so I was reading a post on Prop 8 Trial Tracker where the following quote was rendered which spawned the creation of this post:

There’s two lenses here. One’s a biblical world view and the other is basically more of a secular humanist world view and that’s why there never seems to be agreement” said the Rev. Pastor Brad Cranston, of Burlington’s Heritage Baptist Church. “They’re not going to be reconciled with one another.”

Iowa – One Year Later (Proposition 8 Trial Tracker)

Now, my recent post A problem with conservative religions is that Dogma and tradition is more important than People really touched upon this, but having read that quote I realized that I realistically could take this a step further. I have stated before quite a bit, perhaps not specifically on this BLog, that modern (fundamentalist and Conservative) Christianity is not really “Christian”. They have lost their way. Jesus’ teachings were about love, compassion, mercy, and acceptance and many of the contemporary Christian teachings, especially fundamentalist and conservative Christian teachings, have nothing to do with these ideals, and in some way are antithetical to them, which saddens me greatly. In that post I also state flatly that for them dogma is more important that humans which is something that they need to move on from, especially if they are to remain relevant and not part of the problem.

Now, the above thought brought me to the create the idea of Biblical Humanism. Fortunately, I am not the only one to ever have considered this possibility. It was first (as far as my currently limited research shows) was thought up in the late 1400’s with Erasmus of Rotterdam’s’ writings. Erasmus was a monastic Catholic priest of sorts and was heralded in his time for his enlightenment and writings. He was, shall we say, the father of contemporary Biblical/Christian/Theological Humanism.

A more humanistic approach to religious practice and teachings less zealous, blind, irrational, and tyrannical. The heaven hell model and the extreme religious tyranny are why Christianity is slowly dying and why people for many years have been defecting from Catholicism and other orthodox religions to other more humanistic faiths. These conservative or fundamentalist faiths enforce their dogma with fear – fear of going to hell, fear of sinning, fear of not getting presents on Christmas, fear of not being saved. This sort of fear based propaganda stresses the psyche and emotions and eventually there is going to be a break down, and we are seeing that, especially in Europe an Asia, and also here in the United States. These religions are killing themselves and they are too proud and arrogant to see it. Historically they have changed only when they see that they have had no real choice, but perhaps this time… they may not be able to fully recover, unless they embrace a more humanistic view of Christianity – a view that is more “Christian” than what is being taught in many churches today. A Humanism Theology may be the only way to save contemporary Christianity.

Resources

• Why bother with the Bible? … Interpret, or others will do it for you (by John Buehrens @ UU World, April 2003 )
• Protestantism and Christian Humanism – Fundamental Differences Between the Two Movements of the Reformation
• Society for Humanistic Judaism
• Biblical Humanism: The Tacit Grounding of James Clerk Maxwell’s Creativity (The American Scientific Affiliation)
• Humanism in Scripture and Culture – Recovering a Balance (by Dennis Bratcher @ The Voice)
• Humanism
• Christian Humanism
• The Christian Humanist
• Some Reasons Why Humanists Reject the Bible (by Joseph C. Sommer)
• The Rennaisance Bible: Rewriting the Vulgate (University of California E-Books Collection)
• Humanist Theology