Dr. Adler preaches what is known in Germany as Humanism, reported the New York DAILY GRAPHIC on January 22, 1877. With that, the word Humanism came to America.
Felix Adler was the founder of Ethical Culture, incorporated the following month. Ethical Culture on August 26, 1952 joined with Humanist and Rationalist bodies to form Humanisms world organization, the International Humanist and Ethical Union. The IHEU, originally based in the Netherlands, has its headquarters today in London.
Adlers Ethical Culture movement was founded with clear objectives:
Improve religious knowledge
Further religious opinion
Lectures to develop principles of ethics
Propagate and advance these principles
Establish schools for the young
Ethical Culture today carries out Adlers plans. An important element in the overall Humanist movement, its schools are well regarded in New York City. For whatever causes, Ethical Culture has not spread so widely as other kinds of Humanism. However, it is well established on the American East Coast, and in England. In Los Angeles, Professor Gerald Larue is a recognized authority in biblical archaeology and scholarship. The Philadelphia Ethical Society, now 120 years old, stands in a sister city relationship with the Humanist Fellowship of San Diego, publisher of FREETHOUGHT FORUM.
Felix Adler on God
Felix Adler was neither a theist nor an atheist. God is but a moral power in the universe, making for righteousness, he said2 Long before Paul Tillich, Adler said there is no reality in any attempted personification of this idea; God is a person only in the same sense that Liberty is a person, and is neither man nor woman3. There is no good being; just good principle4. By his measure of what religion is, Felix Adler denied atheism as well as theism5.
Adler strenuously repudiated traditional theist concepts. Any personal God who could be responsible for the terrible social conditions he witnessed could only be atrocious, he said6 Firmly rejecting the Christian doctrine of Trinity, he perceived the future for Judaism lying in leading society to more enlightened views: a new society of liberty. In that happier future, he predicted, Judaism would then fade away. Predictably, the orthodox Jewish community of New York was outraged. The breach was becoming established. Humanism and mainstream Judaism were incompatible. In February 1877, both the JEWISH MESSENGER and the JEWISH TIMES dismissed the young Felix Adler as a Jew. Dr. Adler preaches Humanism and he is hardly in a position to speak for the Jews of this city pronounced the DAILY GRAPHIC, January 22, 1877.
On Circumcision
A major contribution to Adlers new Ethical Culture was his repudiation of the rite of circumcision. He is unequivocal and outspoken.
For those who still considered the rite to be central to their faith, this was inexcusable. Humanism and conventional religion became separated as surely as Humanism had diverged from orthodox Augustinian Christianity when Pelagius was excommunicated in 325 for teaching human self-responsibility for the attainment of grace, a doctrine revived by Humanist Charles Francis Potter of New York in the 1930s. Taken as a religious usage, it is simply barbarous in itself and utterly barbarous and contemptible in its origin, he says7. It is one of those superstitions which disgrace the very name of religion and if all those who practice it but knew its origin, it surely would not continue.
Felix Adler at the groundbreaking for the Ethical Culture Schools in 1902.
Today, regrettably, the organized Ethical Culture movement seems to have lost sight of its clear divergence from Judaism in this respect. Felix Adler had no such qualms. He knew that he was starting something not just reformed but new, a radical step. No mere kinder, gentler Judaism, Adlers Ethical Culture was to be an entirely new form of religious life.
On Humanism
In the 1920s, thinkers at the University of Chicago gathered to discuss religious convictions liberated from superstitious belief. In May 1933, their thoughts received public expression in A Humanist Manifesto. As with Felix Adler, this represented not a mere reform of older ideas but a new departure. The time has come for widespread recognition of the radical changes in religious beliefs throughout the modern world, they said8. The time is past for mere revision of traditional attitudes."
Humanism, moving forward from that first emergence into public awareness, made its stance known in two further Manifestoes, in 1973 and 20039. A branch known as secular Humanism was formed in 1980.
Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience, the 2003 document affirms. Consider Felix Adler, watching this, nodding his head. I told them, he says. The modern Humanist and Ethical Culture movements are carrying on his work.
1.February 21, 1877. 2.The Religion of Humanity,November 11, 1877 3.The True Conservatism,December 22, 1878 4.Sixth Anniversary Address, May 1882 5.Facts and Fancies in Religion,March 10, 1878 6.The New Religion or the Advance of Liberalism,March 26, 1878 7.The Second Stage of Religion,February 11, 1877 8.Humanist Manifesto 1 9.Humanist Manifesto 3: Humanism and Its Aspirations
For further reading:
The following books are in the San Diego Public Library. Krauts book is the source for much of the above.
Adler, Felix: Our Part in This World: Interpretation. Selections by Horace L. Fleiss. Kings Crown Press, 1946 Kraut, Benny: From Reform Judaism to Ethical Culture: The Religious Evolution of Felix Adler.HebrewUnionCollege Press, 1979 Neumann, Henry. Spokesmen for Ethical Religion. Beacon Press, 1951 Radest, Howard: Toward Common Ground: The Story of the Ethical Societies in the United States. Ungar, 1969
