The preacher needs to understand the dynamics
of secular humanism at work
in the world today and talk to his people about it.

Preaching to secular humanists on Sunday

By John Burke

    The culture of the western world is the culture of secular humanism; American culture is, therefore, also the culture of secular humanism. It has taken about three centuries to evolve to the present state from its European roots in Descartes, Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, Hegel, Marx and others, but evolved it has. This cultural evolution shapes the western world and Americans in particular to be the kind of people we are. Today, no one decides to be or not to be a “secular humanist.” Being children of the Enlightenment, we simply are. Culture is like the air we breathe, the water we drink. It is the environment in which we “live and move and have our being.” Precisely because it is our environment, like the air we do not think about it unless it becomes badly polluted—and, then, we may be so used to it that we don’t even notice the pollution.

    The cultural values inherent in secular humanism are all pervasive, particularly in this day of instant—one might say, constant—communication. The ideas and values are absorbed by all of us from our schools, the movies we enjoy, the television programs we watch, the music we respond to, the ads that motivate us to purchase products. Even the American government irrespective of partisan politics necessarily espouses the values of secular humanism since it is the common heritage of all Americans. As a result, government policies flowing from our American heritage are attached to government aid: the way the states obtain and use federal funding, or even the way foreign countries must conform their policies to our policies. Precisely because secular humanism has shaped American policies, foreign and domestic, we also shape the policies of other countries and bring to them secular humanistic values. Some countries are reacting violently against this imposition, even to the point of using terrorism.

    We are constantly mouthing the little sayings of secular humanism; more to the point, we believe them, so they govern our lives: Don’t get involved; Have fun; Be rich; Be sincere and it doesn’t make any difference what you do, as long as you don’t hurt anyone; Playing is winning; Just do it.

    Secular humanism is a way of looking at reality that denies the impact of God on human affairs. Furthermore, it denies the existence of an absolute and knowable objective truth; it elevates the human mind to the point that it alone is the norm of action. It is this perspective on life that has created the contemporary American culture.

American Catholics are secular humanists

    Because Americans live in a secular humanistic culture, they are secular humanists. And if the Americans are Catholics attending Mass on Sunday, that means that Sunday Mass-goers are also secular humanists. As a result, many conscientious Catholics at Mass are simply not able to hear the preacher, because the preacher, who is as much a secular humanist as his hearers, does not take the contemporary culture into account in his preaching. Much of the criticism directed today against Catholic pulpit preaching is not directed against the message, but the way the message is presented: “The sermons are dull. The homilies do not touch my life. I don’t understand what the priest is talking about. Catholicism is too negative; it’s unreal. Why do they always talk about sex? Why the abortion kick? Preaching lacks compassion. I don’t hear a real person up there like me; I hear someone mouthing the party line. When is the Church going to get with it and come into the modern world?”

    The Church, of course, is in the modern world; it has always been in every “modern world” since the Creator of the world came into “his own.” John 1:10-11: “[The Word] was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him.”

    The Second Vatican Council drew together in a synthesis the ageless wisdom of the Church, and it calls upon modern preachers to proclaim the gospel in a way that even secular humanists can understand and appreciate.

[The Second Vatican Council] longs to set forth the way it understands the presence and function of the Church in the world today . . . so that [the world] might be fashioned anew according to God’s design and brought to its fulfillment. (The Church in the Modern World, No. 2).

Secular Humanism is a religion

    The first practical step in reaching Catholic secular humanists is to appreciate secular humanism’s awesome power. The preacher needs to recognize that secular humanism is a religion. It is an attitude of mind and a way of living that are based on the acceptance of some very clear and basic principles for which no proof is asked or expected. As a matter of fact, the principles of secular humanism can be disproven by logical argument and by the fact that secular humanism results in disastrous effects on individuals and on whole societies. As Jesus said: “By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?” (Matt. 7:16)

    Nevertheless, because secular humanism is a religion evoking a faith commitment, it is as powerful as the paganism of ancient Rome which shaped Roman culture in the time of Jesus and Paul. By understanding secular humanism’s basic tenets and moved by the power of the Holy Spirit, the preacher can so gear his gospel message to today’s Catholics that they will at least be in a frame of mind to reflect on the influence of American culture in their spirituality and in their lives. Jesus promised us, “When he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming” (John 16:13).

    Underlying everything else, secular humanism positively excludes God as a significant factor in human life and happiness. It tries to explain everything in terms of what can be perceived through the senses alone. According to secular humanism, science can plumb the depths of the mysteries of the universe without having to posit the existence of God for either creation or governance. In fact, it thinks that the proper application of the scientific method when utilized by psychology and sociology adequately explains human behavior as well as the physical world. What is key is the idea that there is no dependence on or relation to the world of the spirit. For the secular humanist, the world of angels, devils and, above all, God simply does not exist, or if God does exist, he is irrelevant in the practical order of life-decisions.

    Since, for secular humanism, “Man is the measure of man,” man has no relation of dependency to any being outside himself; therefore, there can be no “original sin” that has disordered man in his relationship to God, the world and to other human beings. On the contrary, for secular humanism the human person is of its very nature good and capable of doing all good. If there is any disorder in a person’s actions or relations, it is because there is some extrinsic factor that is blocking the person from fulfilling his or her true potential. Remove the blocks, the good pops out. Hence, secular humanism stresses the need for a favorable environment for human development: Get rid of poverty, provide a good education, make sure that everybody has a good job. And so the popular and oft-repeated statements: that poverty breeds crime; a poor family life is the reason for criminal behavior; actual evil is the result of the deranged mind needing psychiatric treatment. The correction of environment, however, is not enough to build a utopia on earth, as evidenced by the fact that many criminals come from none of these poor environmental or mental conditions and many, if not most, who do are not criminals.

    There is a fundamental dilemma, moreover, facing the secular humanist as he or she strives to perfect herself or himself and society. How to do it? There is no clear path because for the secular humanist all truth is relative. He admits no absolute truth which is the result of the human mind conformed to external reality and to which all must assent by the very evidence of the truth itself. Rather, for him there are only competing ideas, each one of which must be carefully weighed and judged by the individual. Each individual must decide for himself what is true. And everyone’s opinion is as good as anyone else’s. No one can really say what’s true for one is true for another.

    Now it follows that if there is no absolute truth, there can be no universal moral laws applying equally to all. On the contrary, secular humanism holds as a fundamental dogma that only the individual can determine what is right or wrong for himself or herself; everyone must make their own choice about what is good for them.

The Christian world view is opposed to Secular Humanism

    Given these subconscious or, better, preconscious and, therefore, pre-moral understandings regarding reality and human life, the preacher preaching out of a totally different world view—a Christian world view—faces an awesome, but not insurmountable, challenge to communicate the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. Christian preaching presupposes the existence of the world of the spirit; it presupposes the existence of God who is knowable as an absolute truth. “Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made” (Rom. 1:20).

    Not only does God exist, but God communicates with his creatures out of an infinite love for them. “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). It also presupposes that all mankind is fundamentally disordered by original sin. As a result, the human condition is one of weakness and sinfulness that requires not just the assistance of God but actually requires that God take a saving action to rescue the creatures he created and his loves from the effects of their own sinfulness and the evil of the devil. So Joseph was instructed by an angel: “You are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21).

    Finally, Christian preaching presupposes that failure to honor this knowable and lovable God results in the conditions of the world today: “They have no excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or thank him. Instead, they became stupid in their reasoning, and their empty minds were darkened. While claiming to be wise, they became fools” (cf. Rom. 1:18-23).

    The opposition, then, between Catholicism, the revealed word of God, and secular humanism is manifestly clear when articulated in this way; unfortunately for the Sunday listeners, the preacher seldom brings out explicitly the distinction between the two views of reality. Instead, more often the preacher simply attacks abortion, consumerism and materialism without explaining that these evils are the evil offspring of an even more pervasive evil—secular humanism. Not understanding this, even good-willed Catholics simply “tune out” as anyone does to confusing conversation. Consequently they become convinced, “Homilies are boring.”

Preaching requires relating the message to the listeners

    When the sensitive preacher understands the cultural dynamic at work, he will be able to adapt his message in a way that will bridge the enormous cultural gap between Christianity and secular humanism. The possibilities are endless, and the creative preacher has the entire Bible and Catholic tradition to draw on to proclaim the absolute and everlasting truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. More than that, the Holy Spirit has already been at work in the hearts of his listeners, even among those who do not have explicit faith in Jesus Christ; the Spirit makes conversion possible. Paul writes to the Romans:

When the Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature observe the prescriptions of the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law. They show that the demands of the law are written in their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even defend them on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge people’s hidden works through Christ Jesus (Rom. 2:12-16).

The Cross is the proof of God’s love

    Perhaps there is no place where the truth of the Christian gospel is more persuasive than in the relationship of suffering and the Cross. The cross is the central message of the gospel: it is the unmistakable proof of God’s love for his children.

While we were still helpless then, at the appointed time, Christ died for sinners. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us (Rom. 5:6-8).

    Only the sufferings of Christ give meaning to human suffering, since suffering in and of itself has no intrinsic meaning. All the concepts and values of secular humanism prove worthless when confronting the reality that each person in the world dies. There is no escaping death; there is no escaping the pains that accompany death, except death itself. For the secular humanist, death is the ultimate absurdity; it makes no sense since it ends the life of even the most beautiful and wonderful people. And the pain of disease makes no sense either, to such an extent that some prefer death to suffering; hence the recent phenomenon of assisted suicide as a growing cultural option, soon to be followed by euthanasia.

    Perhaps the greatest sign of our cultural blindness to the value of the cross and human suffering is the incredible amount of money devoted to health care as a whole and pain-management in particular. It may be bankrupting the country, or at least Medicaid. The vocal advocacy on the part of AIDS activists is another major indication of frustration over suffering and death. But since people do suffer and die, secular humanism cannot answer the most important question: why? Only the cross does that. In fact, for the Apostle Paul, the cross is the central mystery of the good news:

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and that not with the wisdom of human eloquence, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning. The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Cor. 1:17-18).

The secular humanist is forced to choose

    The second area where the preacher can insert the gospel message in a way which will strike a responsive cord in the secular humanist Catholic who comes to Mass on Sunday is in the experience of choosing. Since there are no absolutes but only options according to secular humanism, to be free to choose is a fundamental principle of secular humanism. To be fully human, I must be free to choose whatever I want; and much of the quest of secular humanism for personal fulfillment is the search for escape from all repressive authorities who force choices on me: family, Church, society, employer. (Parents of teen-agers probably understand this better than anyone.)

    In other words, to be fully human, I cannot be dominated by anybody; that means that in order to keep myself from being dominated, I must dominate everybody else. One example of this is how, in order to be on top, employees today have to compete with one another to get ahead of everyone else, sometimes aggressively, no matter what the cost to the worker’s family or the worker’s personal integrity. The drive to be in charge is the slavery of the modern work-place. As a result, many workers experience great inner anger and hostility towards their fellow workers, especially their bosses. The experience is one of being under constant pressure to succeed. And if a job should be lost—for whatever reason—the result is devastating to the self-identity of the worker. Even if one does not lose the job, but reaches the highest position he or she is capable of, there can be a tremendous feeling of failure because one has not gone even higher.

    Another poignant example is the misguided use of freedom to choose in marriage, divorce and remarriage. If I make a mistake in my first choice, I need only choose again.

    These pressured people are the harassed crowds, the sheep without a shepherd that Jesus was speaking about. “At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36). And it is precisely to these people under the stress of secular humanism that the saving message of the gospel is directed. Jesus says:

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light (Matt. 11:28-30).

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life

    Catholics do not have to labor under the burden of choosing, because the gospel reveals that God has already chosen us and in that divine choice has given us the power to follow Jesus’ way to happiness. It is precisely for that reason that Paul praises God:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him (Eph. 1:3-4).

    The proof of God’s choosing us is that the Catholics who are at Mass—for whatever reason—in fact are in Church and listening to the Gospel and being nourished by the Bread of Life. Why else are they there? This free choice on the part of God is a reality that can be drawn out of every Catholic’s personal experience by the creative preacher as he stimulates them to reflect on why they have come to Mass. In so doing, they will discover within themselves the proof of the Holy Spirit.

As proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child, then also an heir, through God (Gal. 4:6-7).

    The most relevant thing we can do as preachers of the gospel, then, is to preach the good news of what God is doing for us now. Preach the reality that God loves all his human creatures—even if no one else does (and that, sadly, may be true). Catholics who are secular humanists don’t need the added burden of more laws, attacks, judgments; they already know they have failed, religiously and otherwise. The grace of God already at work within them blesses them with a profound hunger for hope, and the ministry of the preacher is to nourish that hope with the gospel message. “May the eyes of (your) hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones” (Eph. 1:18).

    To reach all those wonderful Catholics in Church today the preacher needs to understand the dynamics of secular humanism at work in the world today and talk to his people about it. Help them to recognize its effects on their own lives; they will see for themselves the harm it does. Contemplate Scripture’s recognition of human suffering and preach that. Present the saving power of Jesus to overcome all evil or weakness; the power of Jesus Christ overcomes it all. Jesus says; “I have came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

Reverend John Burke, O.P., is the director of the National Institute for the Word of God, which promotes good preaching. Currently he teaches homiletics at the Pontifical Faculty at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. Fr. Burke has written many articles and books on preaching, and he is the editor of The Sunday Homily.

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