Theos Report on Christian Humanism

Angus Ritchie and Nick Spencer, The Case for Christian Humanism: Why Christians should believe in humanism, and humanists in Christianity (London: Theos, 2014).

In the latest report from Theos, Angus Ritchie and Nick Spencer argue that ‘rather than Christianity and humanism being somehow opposed to one another, the two are intimately linked. Indeed, humanism needs Christianity to sustain some of its most fundamental commitments. Contrary to popular opinion, it is atheism, and not “faith”, that saws through the branch on which humanism sits’.

More information is available here, and the full report is available for download here.

The report was profiled in a piece by Giles Fraser in The Guardian last Friday – ‘The whole point of Christianity is to create a deeper form of humanism’ – and has already drawn a response from atheist and Humanist (with a capital H, as he insists) Stephen Law.

Jon Thompson on Christianity as True Humanism

The latest Cambridge Paper from the Jubilee Centre is available online, this one by Jon Thompson:

Jon Thompson, ‘Christianity: The True Humanism’, Cambridge Papers 21, 4 (December 2012).

Here is the summary:

‘This paper argues that Christianity is the most coherent form of humanism. By contrast, secular humanism is historically and philosophically dependent upon Christianity’s view of the human person. In a survey of the origins, emergence and development of secular humanism, this paper explores that historical connection before examining some of the implications which flow from a divorce of human values from Christian belief.’