Is Human Flourishing truly possible without Divine Intervention?
Or Is Human Flourishing the Gospel?
Recently I’ve been reading a new book by Amanda Udis-Kessler, Abundant Lives: A Progressive Christian Ethic of Flourishing. In the book, Udis-Kessler “provokes rich conversation so that we might understand—and enact—the Kindom of God as a realm of human and planetary flourishing.” I’m about halfway through the book at the time of this writing.
Also recently, I came across a Threads post by the progressive pastor Josh Scott, who in his post, suggested that human flourishing is the Gospel. While I heartily disagreed with his assertion (and replied accordingly), that post, along with Udis-Kessler’s book, has me thinking about the topic. One thing I certainly appreciate about Udis-Kessler is the intelligent and academic nature she brings to the topic in her book. And, while I have yet to come to her ultimate conclusions in the book, through reading the first half it is abundantly clear that she has built a rigorous and solid foundation from which to state her case.
In the first half of the book, she describes human beings as having several dimensions, such as being meaning-making beings, spiritual beings, moral (and immoral) beings, etc. She then concludes each section topic with a summary such as this; “We are meaning-making beings who need to make sense of our experiences and our lives. Telling stories is a key way in which we make meaning.”1 Udis-Kessler’s sociologist chops really shine through in these sections.
While I am again only halfway through the book, it seems clear that the impetus of her effort is to affirm that the work of (progressive) Christians should be to promote human flourishing. In the introduction she writes, “We should commit ourselves to living out an ethic of flourishing in which our values, actions, and social institutions are centered on helping all people to have good lives and on minimizing the avoidable suffering that makes people’s lives harder.”2 I whole-heatedly agree. And more, I think such an ethic would (could?) be shared by even most (many?) Evangelicals.3
But, this is where I come back to Scott’s post, in which he equates the Gospel with human flourishing. Such a perspective of the Gospel inherently “flattens” the Gospel to be simply being a social welfare initiative. To copy what I said in a response post, the Gospel is not LBJ’s “Great Society” or a hippie commune. Do I believe the Gospel has social implications or effects? Absolutely. But I do not believe that human flourishing is, in and of itself, the whole of the Gospel.
Having been thoroughly influenced by Andrew Root’s work (see previous posts), it is readily apparent how much progressive Christianity has taken the supernatural or otherworldly out of the Christian faith and essentially reduced Christianity to a morality framework.4 Simply put, Christianity becomes simply about how we treat one another.
Yet, as I read Udis-Kessler’s work and resonate with her goals of human flourishing, I can’t help but wonder if these aims are even possible, outside of divine intervention. Meaning, as much as I would love to see human beings treat one another with kindness and justice, as much as I would love to see human beings create institutions and contexts in which we could all thrive and flourish, since we humans are sometimes immoral beings as Udis-Kessler points out5, they key question for me is whether we humans have, of our own capacity, the ability to overcome such immoral tendencies within ourselves to act exclusively for good? In my mind, she’s already answered the question; no.
So, this leads me back to the centrality of the Gospel and the importance of divine intervention. And, I don’t mean this simply in an eschatological concept like some Evangelicals and Fundamentalists where '“the world is going to hell in a handbasket” and the only hope is God returning and fixing everything. I do believe that the Gospel is not simply about new life after death, but also about new life in this life. And more, I think Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God suggests we can taste elements of the kingdom (at least in part) in this life and not only the next.
Simply put, I believe in the necessity of the Gospel power of Jesus to change hearts and lives, to change institutions and systems, in the here and now, to overcome corruption and injustice, and the immorality of the human heart. This is something (I believe) we humans cannot do on our own, as the result of our own efforts and initiatives.
Event still, does that mean we take the approach of some conservatives and simply throw up our hands and wait for God to return and fix everything? I don’t think so. I still broadly concur with Udis-Kessler’s overarching themes—that human flourishing is an ethic we can and should work towards as Christians. More, I would argue theologically that God has given us a part to play in God’s work on earth—but it’s only a part.
I recognize this does create a sort of weird tension or paradox, where it takes great care and awareness to not pull towards a sort of Calvinistic, God is pulling all the strings and we are just robots approach or conversely on the other side to which Josh Scott seems to have swung to where everything is dependent on our own human efforts. But, I think such a balanced, nuanced approach is indeed possible and ultimately faithful and biblical.
To summarize, I believe those of us who have been transformed by the Gospel of Christ must seek to bring about the flourishing of other humans, even as we recognize that true and ultimate human flourishing will only come about by the power of the Gospel transforming hearts and lives and institutions, and God’s kingdom will come to earth.
Udis-Kessler, Abundant Lives, 34.
Udis-Kessler, Abundant Lives, 3.
In my experience doing post-grad work at an Evangelical institution, human flourishing was often centered as an important goal.
One could argue this is the legacy of Progressive Christianity’s roots in Liberal Christianity, but that is another blog in itself.
I did appreciate Udis-Kessler’s more nuanced approach to this topic.