Evangelical Humanism

In his masterful Not-God: the History of Alcoholics Anonymous, Ernest Kurtz identified two sharply contrasting currents in the history of spirituality in America which defined AA and the 12-step approach: the evangelical/pietistic movement with its sense of sin, the holiness of God, need for conversion, and sense of God’s initiative; and the liberal/humanistic viewpoint with its optimism about human initiative and sense of our participation in God’s work on earth. AA, coming out of the evangelical Oxford Group, was fundamentally defined by the former: sense of powerlessness, trust in a Higher Power, “bottom out” experience, and need for surrender. But in a significant if secondary way, it was influenced by the liberal/humanistic tradition, especially through William James: tolerance of pluralism, rejection of identification with religion in favor of spirituality, humility in working one’s own inventory, refusal to judge others, allergy to perfection and absolutes, the “live and let live” attitude, and a most optimistic trust in the workings of the “program” although always through the grace of God. It was then, fundamentally an evangelical movement, although anonymously, with a healthy infusion of liberal humanism. A Catholic will recognize that the polarization and fragmentation into these two competing visions is a development of a Protestantism that ripped Christianity out of its organic setting within an efficacious sacramental economy, an apostolic magisterium, and especially communion with Mary, the mother Jesus shared with us. Mary embodies, perfectly, an evangelical humanism: she is both an absolute aversion to and an antidote to sin; she is God’s workmanship and yet the greatest exercise of human freedom; she is the pinnacle of human liberty as surrender in love; she is the incomparable marriage of the human and the divine. By a most felicitous confluence of grace, human ingenuity, and American culture, Bill Wilson, Doctor Bob and their fellows gave birth to a distinctively catholic, which is to say both evangelical and liberal, spirituality…even if its catholicity was implicit and anonymous. This bipolar model suggested by Kurtz is most promising: any authentic Christianity will wed the two currents into an organic, integral, kind of evangelical liberalism. An authentic Christian humanism, in other words, will always rest itself upon the saving work of God within us sinners. Christianity is always bad news and good news: the bad news is that I am a sinner desperately in need of God’s mercy; the good news is that God’s mercy is offered to me by Christ in his Church. Much of what passes for liberalism today is a flight from the reality of our sin and need for salvation...and therefore an inability to accept that salvation and the renewed humanism that flows from it. By contrast, genuine evangelical humanism flows from the primal, original reality of sin (“hit bottom”), the encounter with The saving Person, and a flourishing humanism and culture as a result. And so, borrowing from the typology of Kurtz, we identify two poles which indwell and inform each other: an (evangelical) awareness of sin and salvation and the (humanistic) affirmation of the dignity of the human. But let us consider, in light of this bipolar model, five current movements within Catholicism: the Way of Kiko Arguello, the charismatic renewal, Communion and Liberation, the Catholic-Evangelical dialogue, and the dual pontificate of John Paul and Benedict. The NeoCatechumenal Way of Kiko is rigorously and starkly evangelical in its insistence that we are, all of us, entrapped by a fear of death, a fear which we are unable to overcome, except through the Gospel of the Risen Lord. Like the 12-steps, these new communities encourage personal stories or witnesses of how one had “bottomed out” before meeting Christ. Discarding any façade of righteous moralism, the emphasis is on how desperate life is prior to entering the Way. In addition, Kiko views modern western culture as dark and futile with few redeeming features. While he is flawlessly loyal to the Church, especially the Pope, and works only with the permission of bishop and pastor, he takes a dim view of the status of the Catholic Church as largely powerless against the dark currents of the broader culture. Interestingly, however, as a brilliant artist and musician, he has singlehandedly created an impressive corpus in both areas. Instinctively, then, he is a kind of a Renaissance man, contributing to a new, revitalized cultural humanism rooted deeply in Christ our redeemer. By contrast, Monsignor Giusanni’s Communion and Liberation movement is a refreshingly optimistic, enthusiastic, and confident humanism even as it is rooted in a classical Catholicism centered in the encounter of the sinner with Christ our savior. The realities of sin, death, fear, and cultural/ecclesial decline are acknowledged but not emphasized as the encounter with Christ releases powerful, contagious currents of joy and hope. This is an Evangelical Humanism with the emphasis on humanism, a humanism bursting with a greater-than-natural exuberance of faith, hope and love. The Charismatic Renewal was largely an infusion of evangelical and Pentecostal practices and sensibilities into Catholic spirituality. It brought a powerful evangelical impulse to a Catholicism that was leaning heavily towards a liberal humanism after Vatican II. At the same time, however, it flourished in an array of exuberant, joyful practices including expressive praise and music. Since that eruption in the late 60s, we have seen the Evangelical-Catholic dialogue and alliance, pioneered by the esteemed and recently departed Father Neuhaus, Cardinal Dulles, and Chuck Colson. Here again we find an evangelical sense of sin and salvation, along with a critical-prophetic perception of modernity, that fructifies in the high culture of First Things. Finally, the double pontificate of John Paul and Benedict can be understood as a profoundly evangelical humanism. Both have asserted the dignity of the human person in the face of Nazism, Communism, secular liberalism, and Islamic terrorism. Both are coldly sober about the reality of human sin on the personal and cultural levels. Both proclaim a genuine humanism rooted in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.