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Finally, true humanism will demolish the iPod society—not the device itself, but the social atomization that it represents. When I was young, people held boomboxes on their shoulders, broadcasting to everyone else in their world. If nothing else, you had to interact with the boombox owner to ask him to turn it down. Now we all live in our own, individually selected, iPod worlds. But true humanism will drive us to rediscover community, where we share with each other our fears, joys, and lives.

I have seen true humanism at work in a friend named Anita, whose life is illuminated by the Incarnation. Many years ago, her son announced that he was homosexual. As a Christian mother, she was devastated. Her efforts to "talk her son straight" were to no avail. Years later, she got an evening job waiting tables at a restaurant. Her boss asked her if she realized the diner was a "gay hangout" at night. Feeling that God had led her to the job, she stuck it out. She applied herself to her work and came to love the men that came in every night.

Years later her son, Tony, now a young adult, moved in with his partner, Rick, an older man. Rick was not kind to Anita, saying things to shock and embarrass her polite Christian sensibilities. Anita also learned that Rick had infected her only son with HIV and that they both had contracted full-blown AIDS. She wrestled with hatred and anger, but then she remembered what she had learned years earlier by working with young gay men. Anita explains, "Rick was not the enemy. He was another lost soul created in the image of God, just like my son."

So Anita committed herself to loving and caring for the man who had given her son a death sentence. In Rick's last months and weeks, Anita fed and cleaned him, tracked his medications, changed his diapers, and just spent time talking and being with him. Rick came to love Anita, and they shared many sweet moments together before his slow death. Rick is gone, and Tony is still alive. But they both witnessed the remarkable, incarnated grace of Christ through Anita.

I'm proud to count Anita as a colaborer with me in the culture war. But I'm even more proud to consider her my fellow humanist.

Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

Previous Christianity Today articles from the Christian Vision Project include:

Loving the Storm-Drenched | We can no more change the culture than we can the weather. Fortunately, we've got more important things to do. By Frederica Mathewes-Green (March 3, 2006)

Habits of Highly Effective Justice Workers | Should we protest the system or invest in a life? Yes. By Rodolpho Carrasco (Feb. 3, 2006)

How the Kingdom Comes | The church becomes countercultural by sinking its roots ever deeper into God's heavenly gifts. By Michael S. Horton (Jan. 13, 2006)

Inside CT
Better Than a Cigar | Introducing the Christian Vision Project. By David Neff (Jan. 13, 2006)

More CVP articles from our sister publications are available on ChristianVisionProject.com. Also check out the Christian Vision Project's new video documentary, Intersect|Culture. The videos take you into the stories of ordinary believers who, by faith, changed their communities. The set includes a DVD with 6 videos and coordinating group curriculum.

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