Transcript Humanists The People 1

Humanists
The People
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Humanists
CURTIS W. REESE: STATESMAN OF RELIGIOUS HUMANISM
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Curtis Williford Reese was born September 3, 1887, on a farm in Madison
County, North Carolina which is in the western part of the state in the Blue
Ridge Mountains. The Reeses were very devout Southern Baptists and
many of them had been ministers. Reese once said: "One of my paternal
great-grandfathers was a Baptist preacher, one of my paternal grandfathers
and two of my paternal uncles were Baptist preachers, my father is a Baptist
deacon, two of my brothers are Baptist preachers, and a sister married a
Baptist preacher.“
He entered the Baptist College at Mar’s Hill, North Carolina, and graduated
in May 1908. He was ordained into the Baptist ministry.
It was during his seminary studies that Reese first began to have any
doubts about his religious faith. Since he felt that the Bible was divinely
inspired, it came as quite a shock to encounter "higher criticism" even in a
conservative Southern Baptist context. Also, Reese had a friend, Ralph E.
Bailey, who later made the transition from the Baptist ministry to the
Unitarian.
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Humanists
Children at the Abraham Lincoln Centre,
where Reese was the Dean from 1930-1957
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Graduating from seminary in 1910, Reese took a job as an evangelist in the
Illinois State Baptist Association
In 1911, he obtained a Ph.D. from Ewing College – a Baptist School that
has since gone out of existence.
He said: “I preached twice each Sunday, but following the evening service
my conscience bothered me. I could and did preached what I believed, but
I did not feel free to say what I did not believe…”
He decided to examine more closely the Unitarians because of a work that
he had read by Francis G. Peabody, a Unitarian social reformer.
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Humanists
Reese becomes a Unitarian
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Reese wrote the minister of the Unitarian Church in Toledo, Ohio, and set
up a meeting with him. At this meeting Reese presented a statement of his
faith which consisted of the following: “ (1) a Universal Father, God, (2) a
Universal Brotherhood, mankind, (3) a Universal right, freedom, (4) a
Universal motive, love, and (5) a Universal aim, progress. When Reese
inquired if his faith were consistent with Unitarianism, the minister assured
him that it was.
This move from the Baptist faith to the Unitarian was not taken lightly by
Reese, for it caused him great personal turmoil as well as creating a
problem with his family. He said: "My mother said very sincerely that she
would rather have seen me dead. This is understandable, for had she heard
of my death she would have had the satisfaction of knowing that I was flying
around with angels in heaven. But now she was sure that if and when I died,
I would burn in hellfire and brimstone forever and ever.”
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Humanists
Chronology of Reese’s Career
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Reese then became the minister of the Unitarian church in Des Moines, Iowa in 1915.
He also became involved in a number of social problems. It did not take long for
Reese to be moved by the poor housing conditions The Iowa Housing Bill was drawn
up and, with Reese's intense lobbying, the bill passed without a negative vote.
He accepted the position of Secretary of the Western Unitarian Conference in 1919.
Reese’s new base of operation was Chicago, and in his new administrative position
his main responsibility was to help churches secure the “right,” most capable minister
for their pulpits.
Reese was elected to the Board of Directors of the Meadville Theological School,
which at that time was located at Meadville, Pennsylvania. Reese wanted the school
to be relocated in Chicago.
In January, 1930, Reese gave up his position as Western Conference secretary and
accepted the position as dean at the Abraham Lincoln Centre in Chicago. The Centre
was founded in 1905 by the Unitarian minister, Jenkin Lloyd Jones. Reese lived in an
apartment in the Centre designed by the famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. It
should be stressed that Reese spent the larger part of his professional career as the
dean of the Abraham Lincoln Centre; namely, from the spring of 1923 until February
12, 1957, when he was forced to retire as the result of a severe coronary.
The Centre was so well-known that both the House and the Senate of the State of
Illinois, on separate occasions, passed resolutions commending it for its fine service
to the state. It was from the context of a kind of settlement house and social and
cultural centre that Reese worked and wrote about the world, rather than from a
vantage point such as an academic institution or a church pulpit.
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Humanists
Authority of Evidence
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Traditionally, said Reese, humans have claimed to arrive at truth in four ways:
through revelation, intuition, speculation, and the scientific method.
It was obvious to Reese that revelation cannot be accepted as a source of truth for
“supernatural revelation is itself a product of the human mind. Humans determine
what revelation is.
Intuition is also invalid for arriving at truth. While people may “intuit” certain truths,
their validity must be checked by experience. Consequently, the truth derives not
from intuition but from the test of experience. At most, intuition provides the
possibility of truth.
Humans speculate because they have highly developed minds. If speculation is to be
trustworthy, it must be premised upon the facts blasted from the quarry of reality by
the power of human investigation. Hence, there is both true and false speculation.
The scientific method is the only way to establish truth, said Reese, and the specific
method was the “source of authority.” Although Reese cautioned that the scientific
method cannot always separate truth from falsehood, he thought it was the best
method for arbitrating conflicting claims to truth. Reese wanted to extend the method
beyond the limited domains of the hard sciences.
Reese frequently quoted Thomas Huxley: “The deepest sin against the human mind
is to believe things without evidence.”
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Humanists
Reese on Ethics
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For Reese, the responsibility for morality resides in humans, for they initiate
morality and experiment in ethics. One aim of humanistic ethics is to
develop individual freedom. Moral living is possible only to people who
have the freedom to initiate behavior and who operate in a universe where
nothing is ultimate and fixed.
To act from passion or prejudice always causes suffering.
Reese held human life to be of “supreme worth.” He did not believe its
value derives from our creation by a Supreme Being, but life is inherently
good.
This view led Reese to take verbal swats at both traditional Christianity and
Marxism – Christianity for holding that people were created to glorify God,
and Marxism for holding that people are an instrument for establishing the
social order.
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Humanists
Religion Without God
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In his theological writings, Reese did not use the concept of God to account
for the existence of the universe, for humans, for ethics, for the church, or
for religion. He ignored the subject of immortality.
Reese did not declare himself among those who held to a pantheistic view
of God. After 1920, the nearest that Reese came to affirming a belief in a
God was a statement in his book on Humanism:
“… the liberal recognizes and zealously proclaims the fact purposive and
powerful cosmic processes are operative, and that increasingly man is able
to cooperate with them and in a measure control them.”
Liberalism is building a religion that would not be shaken even the thought
of God were outgrown.
Reese was a pioneer of religious humanism. His type of humanism was
undoubtedly a religion without God.
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Humanists
JOHN H. DIETRICH: THE FATHER OF RELIGIOUS HUMANISM
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John H. Dietrich was born on January 14, 1878, on a farm near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. His family had
descended from some German-Swiss who had emigrated to Franklin County, Pennsylvania, in 1710 from the
vicinity of Berne, Switzerland. Dietrich's parents were simple, uneducated farm people, his father being a fairly
successful sharecropper. His family professed the Reformed faith, which had originated with Ulrich Zwingli, the
Zurich reformer in the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation. It was a rural minister who suggested that young
John, who was a good student, become a minister.
In 1893 the Dietrich's moved to the village of Marks, Pennsylvania, and John entered Mercersburg Academy. He
managed to crowd four years work into three, while walking eight miles a day to and from the Academy and doing
farm chores; yet, he graduated as valedictorian of his class in 1896. In 1900 he graduated from Franklin and
Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and returned to Mercersburg as a teacher
Dietrich entered the Eastern Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church which was affiliated with his alma
mater. Immediately after his graduation from seminary in 1905, Dietrich became the minister of St. Mark’s
Memorial Church in Pittsburgh. A certain professional jealousy had developed among the Reformed clergy against
Dietrich, for he had been too successful. During his relatively short tenure at St. Mark's the membership had
doubled and attendance at the Sunday services had tripled; even members of other Reformed churches often
came to hear the popular young minister.
Dietrich did not believe in the infallibility of the Bible, nor in the virgin birth and deity of Jesus, nor in the
traditional understanding of the atonement. He accepted the theory of evolution and revised the worship
service so that the Apostles Creed was delineated and secular readings were incorporated.
The heresy trial was set for July 10, 1911. At first Dietrich thought that he would give a well prepared defense, but
in time decided that such a move would not accomplish anything of a positive nature; hence, he refused to defend
himself and was "defrocked." This occurred in spite of the continuous support of his board of trustees and the
members, generally, at St. Mark's. After his last Sunday as minister, St. Mark's was closed and the next service
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was not held until a year later.
Humanists
Dietrich Becomes a Unitarian
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The minister of the First Unitarian Church in Pittsburgh, Dr. Walter L. Mason, was much impressed
with Dietrich; he recommended that Dietrich be invited into ministerial fellowship with the
American Unitarian Association, and Dietrich accepted the invitation. Mason even went so far as
to invite Dietrich to become his associate with the idea that in time he would take over as senior
minister of the church, but Dietrich refused the generous offer because he was not sure that it
would be honorable to locate so near his old church.
On September 1, 1911, Dietrich became the minister of the First Unitarian Society of Spokane,
Washington. When he arrived he had a congregation of about sixty which met in a run-down
frame building. He left Spokane in 1916, and at that time he had a congregation of over fifteen
hundred, which met in the newly completed Clemmer Theater.
During his Spokane ministry, Dietrich lectured on comparative religions in 1913-1914, and as a
result, he began to question even his liberal view of Jesus as the greatest spiritual leader of all
history. He came to believe that the world owed a great debt to Buddha, Confucius, the Hebrew
prophets, and the Greek philosophers. He also accepted the "scientific method" as the most
effective means for arriving at truth. He began to refer to prayer as "aspiration" and used secular
readings in his worship service. In a sense, he saw the church as a kind of continuing education
center for adults, and his sermons became well prepared lectures.
Crowds came in 1914 to hear him lecture on the various countries involved in the First World War,
and in 1915, he came out strongly for family planning in a sermon entitled, "The Right to Be Well
Born." As a result of his sermon topics and his views about them, he was constantly being
attacked by fundamentalists. It was also during his Spokane ministry that Dietrich began to refer
to his “faith” as being “humanistic.”
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Humanists
Dietrich Moves to Minneapolis
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On November 1, 1916, Dietrich became the minister of the First Unitarian Society of
Minneapolis: a church which Professor Zueblin of the University of Chicago would
later describe as "an organization in whose nest had been hatched most of the liberal
and reform legislation of the state of Minnesota." Again Dietrich took a church, which,
although it had seen better days, was currently in a depleted condition, and built it
into a large, vibrant, and effective institution. As his congregation progressively
swelled, in December, 1925, it was necessary for the First Unitarian Society to move
to the Garrick Theater which could accommodate the large crowds.
In 1933, he was awarded a Doctor of Divinity Degree by the Meadville Theological
School. In 1935 Dietrich announced to his congregation that the time had come for
him to resign from his pulpit and to retire from the active ministry. Although he was
only fifty-seven at the time, he felt that many ministers held onto their churches long
after their usefulness, with the result being a decline in the effectiveness of the
church.
Hence, he wished to retire while his church was strong. He helped secure a
successor, who took over more and more of the responsibilities until Dietrich was able
to fade completely from the picture. Dietrich, then, was minister of the Unitarian
Society of Minneapolis from 1916-1936, senior minister from 1936-1938, and minister
emeritus, 1938-1957.
After retirement, Dietrich continued to deliver occasional lectures.
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Humanists
Dietrich’s Main Concern
Dietrich's main concern was to develop a religion which
was not dependent upon the existence of God for its
basic premise. Traditionally, religion in the West, whether
orthodox or liberal, has been so closely identified with
belief in the existence of God that, at least one of the
criteria is, if one believes in God, he is religious, and if he
does not believe in God, he is not religious. Dietrich and
the other religious humanists were challenging this view.
Dietrich was maintaining that it is possible in the best
sense of the word to be religious without belief in God.
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Humanists
Dietrich’s Thoughts and Quotes
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Dietrich said, “I seek not so much to persuade you to my way of thinking as
to stir you up and stimulate you in your attempt to solve the vital questions
of life for yourself.”
Dietrich asserted that what people need is not a theological doctrine about
the unity of God as advocated by the early Unitarians; they need a human
doctrine stressing the unity of all people.
Morality is not imposed from without, but is based on human experience of
what brings about individual and social welfare; specifically, “right action is
that action which leads to the preservation and enrichment of both the
individual and the social life, and wrong action is that which tends to the
destruction and impoverishment of life.”
Dietrich maintained that wrong is wrong, not because some god forbids it,
but because it is wrong.
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Humanists
CHARLES F. POTTER: THE REBEL OF RELIGIOUS HUMANISM
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Charles Francis Potter (1885-1962) was a Unitarian minister, theologian and author who changed,
over half a century, from an evangelical Baptist to a radical Humanist. Such a transformation
reflects remarkable openness to new ideas, flexibility of personality, and capacity for intellectual
and theological growth. As an innovative and energetic Unitarian and Humanist, he significantly
impacted both traditions.
Potter was born in Marlboro, Massachusetts, the son of Charles Henry Potter, a shoe factory
worker, and Flora Ellen Lincoln. Raised in a pious evangelical Baptist family, Potter was a
precocious boy who by the age of three was able to recite entire Bible passages from memory.
Ordained at the age of 17, Potter began preaching in rural Baptist churches while attending
Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1907. Potter accepted a Baptist
pastorate in Dover, New Hampshire, in 1908 and another in Mattapan, Massachusetts, in 1910.
During Potter's years as a Baptist preacher he began to question many of the orthodox Christian
tenets with which he had been raised. He was increasingly influenced by liberal theological ideas,
especially the "higher criticism" of the Bible. In 1914 frustration with Baptist church leaders
who questioned his theological views led to his resignation from the Baptist ministry and
conversion to Unitarianism.
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Humanists
Potter’s Unitarian Ministry
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After his conversion Potter moved with his family to Edmonton, Alberta, to found a
Unitarian church and served there as minister from 1914-16.
He found a new interest in the humanist ideas of Unitarians John H. Dietrich and
Curtis W. Reese. From 1916-19 Potter was the minister of Unitarian churches in
Marlboro and Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts.
In 1919 he was called to be minister of the West Side Unitarian Church in New York
City, where he served from 1920-25.
Potter came to national attention in 1923-24 when he participated in a series of radio
debates with the formidable fundamentalist Baptist pastor, Rev. John Roach Straton
of the Calvary Baptist Church in Manhattan. The debates at Carnegie Hall stirred
public interest in the fundamentalist-modernist doctrinal questions that were
circulating at the time.
In 1925 Potter resigned as minister of the West Side Unitarian Church and took a
two-year sabbatical to study the varieties of religious thought in American culture.
During this period he was a fundraiser and professor of comparative religion at
Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and traveled widely throughout the United
States. In another encounter with national fame, Potter acted as the librarian and
Bible expert for Clarence Darrow and the defense during the Scopes evolution trial in
Dayton, Tennessee.
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Humanists
Potter Leaves Unitarian Ministry
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Reflecting the continual development of his personal religious thought away from
orthodoxy toward more liberalism, Potter founded the First Humanist Society of New
York in 1929. The organization stated as its philosophy a "faith in the supreme value
and self-perfectibility of human personality, conceived socially as well as individually."
The First Humanist Society, whose advisory board included such notables as Julian
Huxley, John Dewey, Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann, served as a model and
catalyst for other humanist organizations and for the humanist movement in general.
In founding the Humanist Society, Potter left the Unitarian ministry behind and
declared that the Society would have no creed, clergy, baptisms or prayers. "I
had given up my fast dwindling belief in the deity of Jesus and the doctrine of
the Trinity," he wrote. "Now, fifteen years later, I was leaving not only
Christianity—if Unitarianism is Christianity—but Theism as well.“
In his later years Potter lectured, wrote and was active in the liberal theological
movement. He was almost 77 when he died of stomach cancer in New York City.
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Humanists
Potter’s Thoughts
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"The ideal humanist" Potter once observed, "is a well-rounded person, intellectually
informed, keenly intelligent, intuitively developed, and emotionally sensitive. He is
well-balanced, appreciative of beauty in poetry, music and art; that is, responsive to
sound and harmony, form and color, and to the infinite inspirations of nature—sunsets
and stars, mountain-tops and flowers—but, most of all, appreciative of the marvelous
depths and heights and infinite possibilities of human personality.“
Generally speaking, Potter thought that science should be the source of authority in
religious humanism. Potter disagreed with the ways religious thinkers have
traditionally sought to establish the truth of their statements.
Theism said Potter, originates in the unknown. The existence and attributes of God
are founded on superstition, and “to start with God is to beg the whole question.”
Goodness, said Potter, exists only in humans; logically, then, to define God as an
impersonal cosmic force is to deny his goodness.
What is good and bad must be determined by humans; simply stated, whatever limits
and cramps the human personality is bad, and whatever contributes to the
development of the creative personality is good.
“God gets credit for what man has done for himself.”
Potter thought religion and gods were created by people, and “religion itself is but a
means to an end, the improvement of man. It fails if it does not further that purpose.
Obviously Potter thought religion can exist without God.
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