Living Theological Humanism
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They provide resources for the imagination which can combat the flattening of the world. True, human beings are in the presence of “God” at all moments and in all places. In principle one has access to transcendence in the integ-rity of life in (say) sport, or conversing in intimacy with one’s spouse,
or in listening to symphonies. None of these or other activities, however, intendpower of life in the same way that religious activities do and religious resources allow. The religions make contact with the divine and new life to bring their participants into communion with the divine or the
their central intention.ties of activism on behalf of important social causes. Frequently, the churches or other religious institutions are defenders of the poor or vulnerable; reli-What is more, religious communities should be and are often communi-
gious voices are often critics of unrestrained free-market capitalism and political tyranny. Religious communities oftentimes embody a passion for justice that has no other social outlet. They provide a setting where ethical discourse and education can flourish. In this regard, religious communities
offer a bulwark against the proliferation of technical and purely rhetorical uses of language. They provide the means to articulate and orient the claims of conscience.Religious communities frequently function as reflective spaces in which
the meanings embedded in myth, ritual, and symbol are applied to the chal-lenges and struggles to be human in the current moment. In this way, reli-gious communities become interpretive workshops for the revitalizing of ancient traditions. They combat the despair and emptiness that comes with
trying to live as a human being in a flat world. Carrying the past creatively into the future, religious interpretation practiced wisely and critically makes history a living reality, a past that is not past but that continues to open new possibilities for understanding what it means to be human. However, that is
the case only if those resources are engaged critically with the freedom that is part of theological humanism and similar outlooks.how we have tried to essay human and religious life in this book. They The reasons for being a theological humanist are then part and parcel of
arise from within the goods of life, spring from the dictate of conscience that bespeaks the integrity of life, and are found in the religious resources within which a theological humanist freely and thankfully lives. Of course, these reasons do not somehow “prove” theological humanism or provide
some kind of logare, more simply, indications of the plausibility and truth of living as a theological humanist within particular traditions, religions, and cultures. And that means, we can now say, that one is always living between the ical necessity to adopt this outlook and stance in life. They