Courtesy of the Hultink Family Foundation, the Cántaro Institute is now the new home for the Reformational Digital Library (formerly known as the Reformational Publishing Project). All rights reserved.
Document: H. Evan Runner, Christianity and Humanism (n.d.).
Excerpt: In our own country, we are hearing a great deal about the tension that is frequently thought to be felt between states’ rights and human rights, and between existing civil rights and human rights. These are polar tensions that arise from the peculiarly humanistic way of thinking. But we live in a society that has been largely shaped by humanism and we have inherited the problems. In keeping with the international celebration and anticipated discussion, President Johnson on January 30 established the President’s Commission for the Observance of Human Rights Year. The discussion of human existence in terms of human rights has been very much in the foreground of our life since the eighteenth century Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and in the political and socio-economic revolutions that have characterized the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Especially since the second World War the further question of the relation of humanism to Christianity, and particularly with reference to the points mentioned, has forced itself into the central focus of men’s attention and interest. But for still much broader and deeper reasons than any I have yet enumerated I believe that no more important or fundamental subject could possibly engage our attention here this afternoon.
Download the Document:
Christianity and Humanism – H.E. Runner.pdf