Humanism: Blessing or Heresy?

Jasper National Park, August 2010

I generally listen to a TED talk or two while doing my walking-for-health thing, my phone in my pocket connected to my brain through ear buds and wire. Yesterday, a Nigerian man held forth for 11 minutes on “Why I choose humanism over faith,” that is, as opposed to a religious person who chooses to hope for intervention from the “empty sky.” His definition of humanism—as clearly as I can remember it—was that it places its confidence in people’s ability to reach the goals for which they long, that it is neither providence nor the influence of gods or a god that is relied upon.

By this definition, we are most of us inclined in different proportions to be humanistic. We do, after all, encourage our children to think that they get things by working for them and that the sky’s the limit in the area of achievement. Anyone can become president if he puts in the effort. Human achievement through human effort gets a nod from even the most devout spiritualist. We also help them develop a wholesome self-concept, a consciousness of their worthiness. Don't we?"

What bears some thought is whether or not the separation between religious faith and humanism implied in the Nigerian man’s TED talk is necessary. Jesus was, arguably, a humanist insofar as he urged us to feed, comfort, clothe and, in general, be kind to one another, even to our enemies. This approach to the world requires human choice, human action, a very human determination to make the world better for people.

There was a time when humanism was seen by the Christian church as the opposite of Deism, that much like the New Age movement it had the capacity to undermine our confidence in the benevolent, omnipotent, creative God. Perhaps it was the ism part that raised our suspicions; isms tend to frighten Christians. I know, they can easily get my back up: communism, bolshevism, capitalism, authoritarianism, populism. Isms have the ring of belligerence, of menacing, anti-everything-else conviction. Isms and ists. If one says he’s a socialist, or a capitalist, is he then saying that he holds to that single or predominant worldview? It can certainly leave that impression!

I remember vaguely a line in a pop song: “a little bit country, a little bit rock ‘N’ roll.” A thing that humanist thinking can add to faith, certainly, is the acknowledgment that we are all a little bit spiritual, a little bit humanist, a little bit materialist; we are all a little bit believing and a little bit agnostic; we are all a little bit socialist and a little bit capitalist, a little bit liberal and a little bit conservative. The proportions vary, of course, but in all honesty, isms and ists never do the real YOU and ME justice.

A complication is that the proof of our commitments, our faith if you will, lies in the way we live, not in what we say about ourselves. We’re all a little bit honest, a little bit delusional, a little bit prone to bend the facts in our favour.

If you somewhat agree with this, but consider it a minor point, also please think about this: the gospels and epistles that are fundamental to Christian faith are full of the hope that the new covenant with God in Christ could signal the beginning of a glorious, unified kingdom of peace and joy. The hope at Pentecost rested firmly on the charismatic, a confidence in the enabling of this new kingdom by a Holy Spirit, what the Nigerian humanist might well see as “intervention from an empty sky.” The discouraging divisiveness railed against in Paul’s letters to the churches makes clear that the human element can’t be taken for granted; a bit of humanistic understanding might have gone a long way in withstanding the winds of controversy blowing through the church not 100 years after its founding.

I wouldn’t go as far as some others would in blaming religion for the conflict, violence and absence of a strategy-for-the-common-good in our world. But I would agree entirely with those who assert that it’s dogmatism (another ism) that has been the most divisive feature in human relationship breakdown. Mostly, we call dogmatism by another name: fundamentalism. Fundamentalism probably comes closest to being humanism’s opposite; it’s a brand of dogmatism that tends to face change with a brittleness, a rigidity that ends up making cooperation and common cause--and even wholesome debate--difficult. Seen in a more positive light, orthodoxy might be a preferred appellation, the simple insistence that “I won’t deviate from what I hold to be true until I find a really good, incontrovertible reason to do so.” But it’s more than that in the case of the Western Christian church, for instance, where fundamentalism has become a strident, exclusive viewpoint akin to the very dogmatic religious structures against which Jesus railed.

“Humanism is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism and empiricism) over acceptance of dogma or superstition." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism)

How would nurturing and educating our children in the precepts of humanism affect our world? The goals of Sunday Schools, for instance, needn’t change, but methods would have to. Our common wish, after all, is that humans are able to live peacefully, healthfully, prosperously and without fear. In reaching these goals, the “value and agency of human beings” should be critical even for those whose primary allegiance is to a religious community. The best teaching for life has always included critical thinking, reasoning, along with a healthy suspicion of dogma and superstition. In other words, a grounding in the imperatives of humanism can make an invaluable contribution to the process by which we learn to live cooperatively, creatively and respectfully of others.

The theology of original sin and human unworthiness needs a rethinking in the light of social sciences and the humanist impulse, especially in regards to children’s formative years. “Would He devote that sacred head/for such a worm as as I?” was the text of an Isaac Watts hymn with which I sang along as a youth. “Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee; I crucified thee” has long been a Good Friday standard. Is it more important that growing, learning children establish a self-concept of personal sinfulness and unworthiness, or that they think of themselves as accepted and acceptable? When Jesus gathered children around him, was it for literal or implied judgment? Or did his words, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven,” (Matthew 19:14, KJV) serve to validate them?

The Nigerian speaker grew up in Africa, a decidedly different context from mine. His concerns (as I understand them) raised the thought for me that the remnants of superstitions historically endemic to Africa may have formed a growing-bed for fundamentalist, charismatic religions, and that that in turn could tend toward new tribalisms, new conflict, new violence. Nigeria’s recent history surely provides enough support for at least some of these fears; Boko Haram terrorism probably illustrates best the extremist possibilities of religious fundamentalism gone berserk. 

A healthy dash of humanism instead—or alongside—might well be what Africans really need and want. It might also do us Westerners a lot of good.