Christianity in Action

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Surrogate Father-Mentor Needed

​Humanist Perspectives on the Abortion Debate

Sexual Abuse and Pornography

​Is the United States a Christian Nation? Since When?

Celibacy is the Church’s Problem

Torture and Ethics: Defusing the Ticking Time Bomb

Planned Parenthood is the Wrong Target

Be Afraid—The Imminent Danger of Socialism

Homophobic Christians Attack Lutheran Ministers

Anti-abortion Terrorists and the Absurdity of the Roeder Argument

On Good Friday The Church Crucifies Itself!

The Privilege of Paying Taxes

Forgiveness For Priests And Other Child Molesters?



Tax Day—Renewing The Case For Fairness

The Unbelievers: Ministers Who Conclude There Is No God

Liberal Disenchantment With Israel's Policies

The Enigma of the Tea Party

Conflict of Values: Patriot, Traitor or Scoundrel?

The National Day of Prayer – A Day of Political Posturing

Christian Humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience,  rational inquiry, and a commitment to the values taught by Jesus as a guide to the ethical life  are not only compatible with Christianity, they are fundamental to a proper understanding and interpretation of Christian belief.  Being a Christian means at the least feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, healing the sick, supporting the poor, comforting the lonely, seeking peace and standing with the powerless against the mighty. 

Just Published:   The Gospel of Christian Humanism – Christianity without God will appeal to skeptics, agnostics, non-theists, liberal Christians or former Christians who have difficulty with the mythology and the concept of god in traditional Christian theology but find the life and ethical teachings of Jesus compelling as a way of life and a basis for ethics. The author argues that Christian Humanism is essentially Christian, is justified on historical grounds, and is consistent with the teachings of Jesus and the early Church Fathers so far as we can determine with reasonable historical and literary accuracy.  He argues for an approach to Christianity based on rational inquiry, human freedom, individual conscience,  and a commitment to the values taught by Jesus as a guide to ethical decision-making; and further that these values are not only compatible with Christianity, they are fundamental to a proper understanding and interpretation of it.  

Available on Amazon Kindle as an E-book or Paperback [$4.95].  Also available in Amazon Kindle Lending Library.

Essays in Christian Humanism 

An Essay on the history of Christian Humanism

Christian Humanism is not new.  It has been around since the late Middle Ages in one form or another, but was most notably a movement in Catholicism in the Renaissance and through the Enlightenment, as these periods are understood in the history of the West.  It has become a an insistent but minor theme among the variants of Christian belief that have emerged in the last half of the Twentieth Century, from Liberation Theology to the emergence of Fundamentalism, Liberalism and the Social Gospel. The view that we describe and expound here is a Christianity that has dispensed with the mythological framework in which Christianity has been past down to us and is therefore a non-theistic religionless Christianity that emphasizes the humanity of Jesus and is guided by a belief in human freedom, individual conscience and rational inquiry. 

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Religionless Christianity

“Put another way, once we have worked our way through the mythological and theological baggage that has accumulated through the ages, we are left with a fundamentally important truth—those who had met this itinerant teacher and who heard his teaching were sufficiently captivated by his personality and engaged by his message that they were compelled to take up the cause for which he had been killed and to continue his teaching….”

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Confession of a 21st Century Christian

“…. When we have questions about our physical world we rely on the principles of science for what we can know and how we know it, whether the subject is matter, forces, energy or the universe.  Whatever we mean by the “truth” of the creation story, we accept the premise that it is not intended to be a process description of an event in time….” 

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Diary of a Religious Pilgrim

“….The object of this struggle, so far as I was concerned at least, was to figure out what was essential in Christian faith and what was not, and to see if the pieces I was left with at the end of this phase of the struggle for faith were enough to feel comfortable that I was still within the boundaries of what could reasonably be called Christian faith….”

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Frustration and Disillusionment

“I believed fervently that Christianity would become increasingly irrelevant to many in our world unless we found a way to communicate what was essential in it and learned to separate out that essential core truth of Christianity from the mythical trappings in which it was entangled and the historical baggage that it carried from earlier times ….”

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The Peculiar Character of Religious Language

“….The languages of myth and poetry are similar in their structure and function.  When we say of a story that it is a myth, at least as the term is used in history and theology, it does not mean that the story is not in some sense true but rather that the truth of myth is not literal….”

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The Death of God

“….At its most basic level ‘god is dead’ means that we as modern persons live in a secular rather than a religious world, the teachings of the Church no longer have the power to convince or persuade us, we have lost interest in religious ideas, or we no longer feel the need to use ‘god’ as an explanation for what we do not know or understand….”

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The Futility of Arguing our Way to God 

“….You cannot prove God.  You cannot conclude God at the end of a syllogism.  You cannot argue your way to God.  There is no verification principle to substantiate that the term "god" has a referent. With a few rare exceptions, theologians and philosophers agree on these observations….”

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Christian Humanism is a Viable Option

“….To put this another way and to continue the thesis argued earlier, what is valid and important in Christianity needs to be reinterpreted and translated into the language and conceptual forms of our generation or it will not make any sense to us and we will have lost what is vital, valid and important about Christian faith that is relevant for our world and in our time….”

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Jesus -- The Place to Begin

“….To say that ‘god was in Christ’ means that in Jesus we see the realization of authentic humanity, the model as it were toward which we are to strive, the highest and best that we know, the actuality of authentic human life that demonstrates our possibility….”

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A Basis for Christian Ethics

“….When we refer to Christian ethics we mean the core values that have been extrapolated from the life and teachings of Jesus that form the foundation of the moral life of the Christian and that provide guidelines for his behavior and decision-making and a basis for self-examination and judgment.   The claim to be a Christian implies an invitation to others to evaluate the behavior, the value commitments and the personal conduct of those who define themselves as Christians….”

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The Kingdom of God and the Duty of Man

“….From the collected sayings we get a pretty good picture of the sort of world Jesus envisioned, the type of behavior he championed to bring about a better world, and what he expected of those who claimed to be his followers….”

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Arthur G Broadhurst

The writer/editor of this website is Arthur G Broadhurst, a graduate of  the University of Richmond and Colgate Rochester Divinity School with degrees  in ancient history and the philosophy of religion. He is a Unitarian Universalist minister and has  taught at college preparatory schools and at public and private colleges. 

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We have published a collection of folk tales and legends from the bible.   These stories have influenced our literature, our art, our drama, our music, our traditions, our politics, our sense of values and our culture.  Familiarity with these stories is important for children and adults not because they are literally true but because they are important culturally to those of us who are the inheritors and beneficiaries of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. 

Humanist societies as well as some of the more liberal Christian churches may find these a good resource for discussion. The stories have been rewritten for accuracy and comments have been added at the end to put each story in cultural context and clarify references that may not be clear.  Warning—as in other myths and legends of the ancient world, there is violence, rape, incest and murder in these stories.  The target audience is high school and adults.  For a link to this book, and other books by the author, click <here>.  For more about the book click <here>.   To obtain an E-book version on Amazon, click <here>.  To see samples of the stories, click <here> or go to the link at the top of this page.

The Possibility of Christian Humanism argues for a form of Christianity that does not depend on god. Christian Humanism is religionless Christianity that begins and ends with the teachings of Jesus as a guide to ethical behavior.  It is available from the publisher in both paperback and in Ebook format.  Click <here> to obtain a copy.