Last week,
published an essay titled “Humanism as the future of religion” on her Substack, , and today I’d like to offer a response to that essay.First, I’d like to be clear that I really admire the thinking and writing that Elle does. As a self-professed utopian she is in a sense the ultimate “anti- cultural critic”—and is one of very few voices committed to putting forward solutions instead of just identifying problems (you can check out an index of the myriad topics she’s written on here). She’s a brilliant thinker and an excellent writer; I unreservedly recommend her Substack to my readers.
Needless to say, it is in the spirit of dialogue and friendship that I want to suggest a few points for consideration regarding her latest essay.
Can Christians be humanists?
Mainstream humanism is explicitly atheist; consider that the American Humanist Association’s tagline is “Good Without a God,” and the home page for Humanists UK reads, “humanists are people who shape their own lives in the…