God’s Humanism
On the Matter of Christian Proclamation
About the author: Jason Oliver Evans (he/him/his) is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Virginia, with research interests in modern and contemporary Christian thought with special focus on race, gender, and sexuality. He is finishing a dissertation on the person and work of Jesus Christ through critical engagement with key texts by Karl Barth, James H. Cone, Delores S. Williams, and JoAnne Terrell. Drawing upon these authors, Evans renders overall a constructive Black queer theology of atonement and Christian life.
I have a confession to make: as an ordained Baptist minister and theologian, I struggle to adequately answer the question, “what is the core of Christian faith and proclamation?” When I took my ordination vows over five years ago, I declared before both God and the gathered community, “I have been called of God in Christ Jesus to engage in the ministry of reconciliation and liberation.” The acceptance of the call readily presupposes that I am fully aware that the ministry of reconciliation and liberation is founded upon the Christian proclamation. I understood then, as I do now, that the call to Christian ministry involves the responsibility of adequately speaking about the God of the gospel. Nevertheless, this responsibility has not been devoid of daily struggle. This struggle does not necessarily indicate a lack of faith per se. Rather, this struggle indicates the inherent challenge of Christians speaking adequately about God in light of both our human limitations and the inexhaustibly rich, incomprehensible mystery that is God.
Additionally, this daily struggle of mine seems to be heightened or intensified by the times in which we live, especially in the wake of growing unrest about the global climate crisis, wars, genocide, the displacement of millions in Gaza and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the spread of right-wing nationalism across continents, among others. In the United States, the rise in the cost of living, threatened Social Security funds for future generations, the rolling back of legal protections for racial and ethnic minorities, women, and LGBTIQA+ [WS1] [JE2] people, and the growing distrust of religious institutions present real challenges to the flourishing of many Americans, let alone the faith of many American Christians. Considering these challenges, Christians, especially preachers and theologians, are charged with the task of reflecting upon and adequately speak of the meaning of Christian faith and proclamation.1
To put it another way, Christian theologians must adequately account for the Sache or ratio of the Christian faith and proclamation. I return to Karl Barth’s God Here and Now, specifically his opening essay, “The Christian Proclamation Here and Now,” because, although written nearly seventy-five years ago, Barth’s reflections on the matter prove to be a boon for Christian preachers and theologians in these critical times. For Barth, Christian proclamation is the proclamation of the God revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ. As Barth cleverly puts another way, Christian proclamation is the proclamation of God’s humanism:
The Christian proclamation, to come to our subject, is the proclamation of God’s humanism. The content of the Christian proclamation could also be put in other words, for it has many facets and can be spoken in many languages. But it can also be said with these two words: the Christian proclamation deals with God’s humanism. These two words alone express the idea which is decisive for the Christian understanding of man: the idea of the Incarnation. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). According to the Christian perspective, that is the work and revelation of God—the ontological and noological premise—in the light of which man is to be seen. For the Christian proclamation is the proclamation of Jesus Christ. He is the Word which became flesh, and therefore He is also the Word about man. From the Christian perspective, man is no higher, no lower, no other than what this Word declares him to be. He is the being which is made visible in the mirror of Jesus Christ [sic].2
Barth explains this thesis on Christian proclamation with three key insights. First, inherent in the doctrine of the Incarnation is a specific understanding of God. Christians do not reflect upon divine reality in abstracto. Rather, the Christian understanding of God depends upon the event of divine revelation, which is to say, Christian accounts of God and all things in relation to God rely upon God’s own self-communication definitively expressed in Jesus Christ to humankind. Barth writes, “God is He whom He wills to be in His work and revelation to men [sic].”3 In other words, the God revealed in the incarnate Word is One who eternally wills to be the God who turns Godself toward human beings in free, loving, and gracious action. Alongside this, this God is eternally triune—God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thus, the triune God of grace who reveals Godself in the person of Jesus Christ forms the basis upon which Christians reflect and speak about both God and humankind.
Second, God’s relationship with humankind as attested in the event of the Incarnation is one established by God’s free, electing grace. This is to say that, in Jesus Christ, God has revealed Godself to be the God for humankind (deus pro nobis) as an act not intrinsic to the divine nature nor a matter of an external necessity that impinges upon God. Rather, this act is grounded in God’s free, sovereign, creative, and merciful will. On the human side of this relationship, human creatures respond to God’s gracious action with faithful obedience, thanksgiving, and praise. This response to God’s gracious action does not result from an inherent capacity within humankind. Truly, this response is human creatures’ grateful acknowledgement of their creaturely and sinful condition alongside the truth of God’s free, electing grace. This relationship between God and humankind is decisively and fully expressed and sustained in the God-human, Jesus Christ. “In this sovereign act of God,” Barth insists,
“In this divine speaking and giving, in this free, electing grace, God and man are one in Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is true God and true man. This is the place from which we must come to our understanding of man…If we would speak as Christians of both God and man, then we must hold constantly before us the free, electing grace of God.”4
Third, to speak of God’s humanism is to declare that the event of the Incarnation has occurred once and for all time. The Christian theologian and preacher who speaks of Jesus Christ speaks of the One who stands in place for all humankind. Unflinchingly, Barth insists that the Incarnation is a particular, historical, and unrepeatable event of God’s gracious action, which is of eternal, soteriological significance for all humankind. In the whole course of Jesus Christ’s history—his life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension—God has come into the world and confronts humankind “in His sovereign grace to make known to us the glad news that we belong to Him [sic].”5 Upon the basis of this unique, decisive event of God’s free electing grace, Christian preachers and theologians may understand the universal significance of the origin and destiny of humankind. Moreover, the Christian proclamation that is God’s humanism is the basis upon which Christians, rendered simul iustus et peccator, respond joyously not only by offering thanksgiving and praise but also by living lives that demonstrate both love for God and neighbor.
To adequately speak of God’s humanism then is the struggle to faithfully proclaim God’s free, electing grace in Jesus Christ to humankind, especially in urgent times. Christians in every generation are challenged to both speak adequately of God’s humanism and to seriously examine their speech—and themselves—in light of the gospel. This is our struggle. And yet this struggle is not without glimpses of joy which the content of Christian proclamation exudes. [WS3] [JE4] As Barth remind us: “The Christian proclamation at its decisive center is gospel, a joyous proclamation of good news.”6 May I be ever so reminded that my daily struggle at its heart is a happy one.
Selected and Suggested Readings
Barth, Karl. Evangelical Theology: An Introduction. Translated by Grover Foley. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1963.
Barth. God Here and Now. Translated by Paul M. van Buren. New York: Routledge Classics, 2003. First published 1949.
Barth. The Göttingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion, Volume I. Edited by Hannelotte Reiffen. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991.
Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology. 4th ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2023.
Webster, John, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
See Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology, 4th ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2023), 1–10.
Karl Barth, God Here and Now, trans. Paul M. van Buren (1964; reis., New York: Routledge Classics, 2003), 3–4 (emphasis in the original).
Ibid, 4.
Ibid, 5.
Ibid, 6.
Ibid, 10.
Excellent short essay, Jason! During challenging and difficult times I think we’re tempted to abandon ‘Christ the Center’ (Bonhoeffer) and pick up something more “useful.” You are right to call this out. The challenge, I suggest, is to think even more radically and ‘mindfully’ of the significance of God in Christ, and the relevance of the Incarnation to everything.