Christian humanism in this situation has to activate its purifying or critical
side. Accepting secularity and the connection between nature and grace does
not imply affirming all its factual aspects, among which is sin. Sin does not
form part of secularity; rather, it destroys secularity. The world needs a
redeemer and grace in order to be a world. Grace is not an alienation of
nature but its preserver, healer, and restorer. Christians are more at home in
the world as their own than those who seem to lord over it and make use of all
its riches, treading on human dignity, sacrificing life to the idols of their own
vices, and destroying creation in their wake. Resisting the culture of death and
exorcising its demonic elements is a good way of showing our love to the
culture we live in. H. Richard Niebuhr has correctly affirmed that the funda-
mental human problem is sometimes stated as the relationship between grace
and nature. In reality it is between grace and culture, because theNaturmensch
does not exist.^41 We are all embedded in culture, and even qualities and
capabilities we would call‘natural’, such as speaking, eating, or walking
upright, are results of cultivation in human society. In this sense, Francis
George has correctly said that the institutional relationship between church
and state has become a relationship between faith and culture.^42
NEW EVANGELIZATION AS A PROGRAMME
OF CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONJohn Paul II’s programme of cultural transformation is closely linked to his
notion of Christian humanism. John Paul II also called it‘new evangelization’,
a concept initially used in a rather offhand manner that later became central to
his and Pope Benedict XVI’s missionary programme.^43 Also Pope Francis uses
the expression and has made Christian humanism one of his central concepts.^44
John Paul II attributed great importance to culture and its evangelization and
transformation through Christ. In Gen. 1:28 John Paul II discovered‘the earliest
and most complete definition of human culture. To subdue and have dominion
over the earthmeans todiscover and confirmthe truthabout being human,about
(^41) H. Richard Niebuhr,Christ and Culture(London: Faber & Faber, 1952), 52.
(^42) Francis Cardinal George,The Difference God Makes: A Catholic Vision of Faith, Commu-
nion, and Culture(New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2009), 23.
(^43) For an official version of the history of this term see Sinodo dei Vescovi, XIII Assemblea
Generale Ordinaria,La Nuova Evangelizzazione per la trasmissione della fede cristiana. Line-
amenta(Rome, Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2011), 21–8.
(^44) See Francis, Apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium §§16–18; Francis, Address in
Florence on 10 November 2015 to the Fifth Convention of the Italian Church, http://w2.vatican.
va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/november/documents/papa-francesco_20151110_firenze-
convegno-chiesa-italiana.html.
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