Long Live Salvation by Works: A Humanist Manifesto

The idea of salvation by faith is a dangerous proposition directly traceable to St. Paul and the legacy he left for a later writer to expound: For by grace are you saved through faith . . . not by works, lest anyone should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9). That proposition has convinced generations of Christians that, if they only had a little faith, things would get better and wrongs would be righted by and by. This book proposes that salvation is a here-and-now initiative by which human beings may act to save their planet from the killing scourge of degradation and their societies from violence-producing economic and social injustice. The state of salvation is what the New Testament calls the rule or domain of God. The Gospel of Luke quotes Jesus as saying that God s rule is right there in your presence, suggesting that human beings have at hand the wherewithal to save themselves and their environment. Salvation is then a do-it-yourself project.