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Experiencing the Mystery The Rise and Fall of Humanism Led by Rev. Steven A. Protzman February 16, 2014 Part III of a UU History Series First Reading: "Is UU Humanist Becoming an Oxymoron?" by Mel Lipman1 Second Reading: "A Joyful Humanism" by Rev. W. Edward Harris2 The Rise and Fall of Humanism By Steven A. Protzman © February, 2014 The rise of Humanism in the early twentieth century in America was a response to the perceived failure of the world's historic religions to solve humankind's problems. Is Humanism still relevant as a means of living with purpose and meaning? Was it a trend that Unitarian Universalism has outgrown? This service will explore the history of American Humanism and what it offers our UU movement today. It has been said that the culture of Unitarian Universalism changes as you traverse the country. On the East Coast, there are UU churches and Jesus is optional. In the Midwest, there are UU Societies and God is optional. In California, clothes are optional. On the East Coast, our Unitarian and Universalist roots are in liberal Christianity and their congregational culture didn't stray far from these roots. I can't speak to the UU culture of California, although some future research may be in order. In the Midwest, the pioneer spirit inspired the formation of the Western Unitarian Association and Religious Humanism arose as a modernist world view. While Humanism as an organized philosophy is little more than 100 years old, its roots are ancient. In the East, Confucius had a philosophy that may be considered Humanist and in the west, some Greeks, including Democritus, expressed skepticism about the existence of the gods. Humanism resurfaced during the Renaissance as scholars rediscovered the Greek and Roman classics, artists created great art and architecture, the educational system was restructured, and Humanist thinkers rejected the otherworldliness of medieval Christianity in favor of living this life more fully. Renaissance Humanists believed in using reason as well as faith, interpreting sacred texts using historical and textual criticism, and they sought to break the hundreds of years of religious control of knowledge. But Humanism could not develop into a fully viable world view because there was no alternative story to the Biblical creation of the world. This changed when Charles Darwin wrote On the Origin of the Species in 1859, offering a completely different story for the presence of life on the earth. Humanism was also helped by a number of 19th century men and women, including Frances Wright, "who challenged religion as a tool for keeping women in submission to men, publicly denounced clergy and advocated turning churches into halls of science and clergy into expounders of nature"; poet Walt Whitman, who celebrated the human and excluded God; Ernestine Rose, who used the term atheist to describe her religious perspective; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who believed that the religion of humanity "will 1 teach the dignity of human nature, inspire its worshippers with self respect, and offer freedom from fear and superstition", and Robert G. Ingersoll, who was known as the Great Agnostic. Ingersoll recommended the religion of humanity as the only religion and called other religions superstition. Ingersoll said that the religion of man meant that human beings were to be treated with dignity and respect, and people were responsible for themselves and others. Humankind could not depend on a God for help: "There is no evidence that God ever interfered in the affairs of man. In vain the shipwrecked cry to the heavens but there comes no help, The imprisoned ask for liberty and light- the world moves on, and the heavens are deaf, dumb and blind."3 William Murry tells us that in spite of these well known people espousing the ideals of Humanism, it took liberal religion to develop and articulate the Humanist world view. The earliest Unitarians who identified themselves as Humanists were John Dietrich and Curtis Reese. Dietrich was originally a Reformed Church minister who became a Unitarian and began referring to his religion as humanism. In 1916 he became minister of the First Unitarian Society in Minneapolis, where he continued to develop and promote his idea of humanism as the 'other religion', a religion that promotes a firm reliance on ourselves, rather than a childish dependence on God. Dietrich wrote that: "The kind of world we live in depends not upon some God outside of man, but upon man himself, or, as some of us would put it, upon the God that dwells in humanity. It matters not which way you put it, the responsibility clearly rests upon man.”4 Curtis Reese was originally a Southern Baptist minister but became a Unitarian minister in 1913. Reese affirmed his humanism as a "democratic religion", in which people are the rulers of their own affairs instead of the autocracy of theistic religion, in which God is a ruler who must be obeyed.5 Within Unitarianism, Humanism continued to develop as the Western Unitarian Conference built on the ideas of Dietrich's and Reese's modernist worldview. The Conference, which had long resented Boston's power and influence as the 'Vatican' of Unitarianism, pressed the Unitarian Association to remove its theistic set of principles and allow the growing number of nontheists freedom of conscience. This became known as the theist-humanist controversy. Incidentally, if someone asks you about the Unitarian Controversy, you'll come off as quite knowledgeable if you respond with: "Which controversy did you have in mind and what century?" The theist-humanist controversy came to a head in 1921 when John Dietrich expressed his conviction that religion must be brought into harmony with modern thought, belief in the supernatural must be given up, and humanity must assume responsibility for solving the world's problems. Dietrich said that the power of Christianity was not in the story of Jesus but in its faith that the world can be changed. Theist Unitarians fought back by submitting a resolution at the Unitarian National Conference that Unitarianism was based on faith in God and Jesus' teachings. They feared that if some Unitarian ministers were preaching atheism while others were preaching Christianity, the denomination would tear apart. The theists failed to pass a resolution limiting Unitarianism to its liberal Christian beliefs, Unitarianism remained non-creedal and Religious Humanism became a vital part of our living tradition. 2 In 1933 some of the members of the Humanist Fellowship, a recently organized group of University of Chicago and Meadville students felt a written statement of religious humanism was needed. The result was the First Humanist Manifesto, written by philosopher Roy Wood Sellars and Unitarian ministers Ray Bragg and Edwin H. Wilson. The manifesto was signed by fifteen Unitarians, one Universalist minister and John Dewey. The Manifesto was written because its writers felt that civilization was in serious trouble. With the First World War, the Great Depression, and other urgent social issues, writers of the Manifesto believed traditional religion could no longer solve human problems. The introduction to the First Manifesto says: "The time has come for widespread recognition of the radical changes in religious beliefs throughout the modern world. The time is past for mere revision of traditional attitudes. Science and economic change have disrupted the old beliefs. There is great danger of a final, and we believe fatal, identification of the word religion with doctrines and methods which have lost their significance and which are powerless to solve the problem of human living in the Twentieth Century." The Manifesto goes on to state the urgent need for a religion that can respond to the needs of the present: "While this age does owe a vast debt to the traditional religions, it is none the less obvious that any religion that can hope to be a synthesizing and dynamic force for today must be shaped for the needs of this age. To establish such a religion is a major necessity of the present. It is a responsibility which rests upon this generation." The Manifesto has fifteen statements that seek to define Religious Humanism. The seventh says that: "Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant. Nothing human is alien to the religious. It includes labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, recreation--all that is in its degree expressive of intelligently satisfying human living."6 Such was the noble goal of Religious Humanism but like any other religion or philosophy, a creation of human beings, it had its flaws. It did not address some of the fundamental concerns we have as human beings. William Murray writes: "Humanism was highly individualistic. The independent, autonomous individual was the ideal. It lacked an emphasis on community and said nothing about the church. The First Manifesto also showed no awareness of the extent and depth of evil in the world."7 It was simply too optimistic. In 1973 the Second Manifesto was written to correct some of these flaws. While it reaffirmed the rejection of supernaturalism and offered humanism as a hopeful vision for the future, the Second Manifesto also warned of the potential for science to be used for evil as well as good, and insisted that reason must be tempered with compassion. In 2003, leaders of the American Humanist Association, recognizing the need to restate and update humanist principles, wrote the Third Manifesto. In this short document of six theses plus a prologue and epilogue, Humanism is identified as a progressive philosophy of life. It emphasizes the importance of service to humane ideals, promotes working to benefit society as the means to happiness, and encourages a commitment to protect nature. 3 With these grand goals and a vision for human happiness, why isn't Humanism the defining philosophy of Unitarian Universalism? Why instead, as Mel Lipman claims in the first reading, is Humanism on the defensive and only 30% of UUs call themselves Humanists? The fall of Humanism is due in part to the stereotype of Humanists as cranky old white men with more PhDs than God and no tolerance for anything that even slightly smacks of mysticism or emotion.
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