Truth Magazine

By Mike Willis

As a philosophy, humanism has several goals. Among some of humanism’s positive goals are: (1) freedom in the realm of civil liberties; (2) world peace; (3) elimination of poverty; (4) world unity; etc. These aspirations may be summarized by saying that humanism hopes to make this world “heaven” on earth. Humanists deny life after death and are concentrating their energies on improving this world.

Promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory and harmful. They distract humans from present concerns, from self-actualization, and from rectifying social injustices.(1)

Man’s most sacred duty, and at the same time his most glorious opportunity, is to promote the maximum fulfilment of the evolutionary process on this earth; and this includes the fullest realization of his own inherent possibilities.(2)

Humanists may be divided into two classes with references to the goals which they hope to achieve in life: (1) egocentric humanists and (2) cultural humanists. The egocentric humanists understand that the greatest goal in life is personal fulfillment and gratification(3); the cultural humanists understand that the greatest goal in life is to improve the society or culture in which we live (in which case the personal whims should be subordinated to the good of society).(4) Cultural humanists look to make earth a utopia.

When death comes, all is over according to humanist philosophy. Man’s personal enjoyments and satisfactions are all behind and there is nothing before him. “Like the little dog Rover,” the humanists teach, “once man is dead, he is dead all over.” If society has not been improved and the utopian life has not been accomplished, man’s chiefest good has failed and his life is ended. There is nothing but the bleakness and darkness of death before him.

However, humanists believe and hope that a utopia can be brought into existence. How is this to be accomplished? Who is going to bring this utopia into existence? Who is man’s “savior”? According to the humanists, man is his own savior.

Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task.(5)

Heaven is, therefore, not a thing of another world, and is to be sought in this life and it is the task of believers to establish this Heaven, the Kingdom of God, here on earth. Just as there is no Heaven in the beyond, there is also no Hell and no damnation. Similarly, there is no devil but man’s evil lusts and greed. Christ was a man as we are, a prophet and a teacher, and his Eucharist is a mere commemoration meal wherein bread and wine are consumed without any mystic garnishing.(6)

If man is going to accomplish his goals, he is going to have to do it himself. He is going to have to “pull himself up by his own bootstraps.” We can have no confidence in a God providentially directing the course of history. He cannot look forward to some ethereal “heaven.” His only life is here and he alone is in control of it.

How is man to accomplish his goals? What instrument must be used to save mankind? The humanist responds, “Science!”

Humanism, having its ultimate faith in man, believes that human beings possess the power or potentiality of solving their own problems, through reliance primarily upon reasons and scientific method applied with courage and vision.(7)

With faith in the scientific method, humanists have elevated “science” above its legitimate sphere. Gordon H. Clark, renowned philosopher, wrote,

Finally, to show the uselessness of science outside of its own restricted sphere, science cannot determine its own value. No doubt, science enables man to dominate nature. By science bombs are made and cancer may soon be cured. Most people think that bombs and medicine are good to have. But there is no experiment that proves their goodness. They are undoubtedly “good for” something; they are effective means to an end. But can experimentation demonstrate that either the destruction of cities or the extension of life is good?(8)

Humanists believe that science has rather unlimited potential as a means of improving life on this earth.

We believe the scientific method, though imperfect, is still the most reliable way of understanding the world. Hence, we look to the natural, biological, social, and behavioral science for knowledge of the universe and man’s place within it . . . . We are thus opposed in principle to any efforts to censor or limit scientific research without an overriding reason to do so.(9)

If scientists want to experiment with genetic engineering to make all white babies, six feet tall, with blond hair and blue eyes, they should be left free to conduct their experiments. This would be a means of enabling man to reach his highest human potential and to establish the greatest society on earth.

A Christian Response To The Hope of Humanism

Because humanists deny the existence of God and life after death, they have missed the greatest goal of human existence: to please God and to so live as to go to heaven when one dies. Solomon wrote, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Eccl. 12:13-14). Jesus asked, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. 16:26). The chief goal in life is to please God, to live in such a way that Jesus will receive us unto Himself after life is over saying, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34).

The goals of humanism, personal self-fulfillment and the improvement of society, are the by-products of faithful obedience to God. By denying the existence of God and disobeying God’s will, humanists make the attainments of their own goals impossible. They imagine that revelation limits man, inhibiting the full exercise of human liberty.

Much of the emphasis in supernaturalist ethics has been negative calling on men continually to deny many of their most wholesome impulses in order to keep their souls pure and undefiled for that life after death which is so very much more important than life before death.(10)

The humanists attitude toward the commandments of God reminds me of the fable of the fish who felt restricted and bound by the banks of the shore. He would look longingly at the green grass on the bank and lament, “If only I was not inhibited and restricted by those banks, I could really be free. ” Soon, he decided that he was going to break out of the restraints imposed on him. He swam round and round the pond, building up his speed, and then darted full speed toward one of the banks. When he flounced out of the water and into the shore, he exclaimed, “Now I am free! ” Of course, he soon discovered that he was not as free as he thought he would be, that he functioned best in water instead of out of it, and that he was only “free” to die outside the water.

In a similar way, God’s restrictions on man are for man’s own good (cf. Deut. 6:24; 10:13). By making our highest goal to fear God and keep His commandments, one finds personal fulfillment and the improvement of society.

Man is personally fulfilled in obeying the commandments of God. Jesus promised to give us life saying, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (Jn. 10:10). He would provide that which would satisfy the longing of men’s souls. “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water -springing up into everlasting life” (Jn. 4:14). When man tries to live while denying this need, he will constantly be searching for something to fill it. Whatever he puts in its place will only be temporarily gratifying. That which provides permanent happiness will continue to elude him until he turns to the worship and service of God. Humanism promises what it cannot live! Humanists are like the false teachers in Peter’s day who “promise liberty” but are “servants of corruption” (2 Pet. 2:19).

Can Humanists Create A Utopia?

The humanists who promise that the world can be improved through humanism are promising what they have not and cannot deliver. We do not have to wonder whether or not humanists are able to create their idealized utopia; we can look and see.

Communism is one kind of humanism. We can judge the fruits of humanism and judge for ourselves whether or not humanism has delivered what it promises. Humanism promises personal freedom. Has it delivered? The most repressive governments in existence are those under the influence of humanism. Humanism promises tolerance for other view points. Has it delivered? The governments which give least opportunity to express divergent points of view are humanistic.(11) Humanists promise free inquiry. What have they delivered? The humanist governments limit inquiry more than most others. Humanists promise better educational institutions. What have they delivered? Under the leadership of humanists such as John Dewey, the American educational system has degenerated below the standards of other nations. In humanists controlled countries such as Russia, education is provided only for a limited few.

Humanists promise mature moral decisions by those who accept the principles of humanism. What have they Jelivered? As humanist morality has become more widely accepted in America, we have seen these results: (1) the murder of 1.5 million infants a year in abortion chambers across our land; (2) the acceptance of homosexual relationships as morally upright; (3) social acceptance of many’ sins(12)

; (4) easy divorce and remarriage; (5) increased numbers of child abuse; (6) development of AIDS disease; (7) increase of crime to such an extent that one fears to walk the streets; etc. Humanism promises a utopian society which it cannot deliver!

Man Has A Savior

All is not hopeless, however. Man has a Savior – a Savior who can redeem one from the guilt of his personal sins, who can give a person fulfillment, and who can save society from disaster. The Savior of Man, Jesus Christ, died on Calvary’s cross to redeem mankind, including humanists, from sin. Whatever sins one might have committed can be forgiven through the precious blood of Christ. The one who turns to Christ can find the peace which passes all understanding (Phil. 4:7).

Christ makes a better man out of His disciple. The man who lives according to Christ’s word will be a model citizen with reference to his government (Rom. 13:1-7); he will not lead revolutions, burn down buildings, and loot shops. He will be the kind of husband who rules his family with love, showing the same kind of love to his wife as he has for himself (Eph. 5:25). He will raise his children to respect God, His word, civil authorities, his parents, his elders (cf. the book of Proverbs). On the job, the Christian will give an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay (Eph. 6:5-6). The Christian employer will pay a fair and honest wage to his employees (Jas. 5:14). As more and more people are converted to Christ, the society will be purified. As righteousness permeates the people, it will exalt the nation (Prov. 14:34). Christianity can produce what humanism promises but has not and cannot produce!

What is more is that Christianity promises life after death with God in heaven! If humanism could produce everything that it promises, it could only produce something as good as Christianity on earth. It has not and cannot produce what it promises, however. Humanism denies the existence of heaven and has nothing in its system that can compare to life with God after death. Christianity’s superiority is seen in that it promises the life which is life indeed here and now and life with God after this life has ended (1 Tim. 4:8).

Let us not be deceived by humanism and its unfounded optimism which promises a utopian society. Experiments in humanism have produced totalitarian governments, reduced human liberties, oppressed divergent views, limited free speech and free press, and produced other social evils. Man’s only hope is in Christ. Paul wrote that Christ “in you” is “the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). That remains true today. There is no other place to turn. Christ has the words of life (Jn. 6:68). He is the way, the truth, and the life (Jn. 14:6). We waste our time in looking elsewhere for life and truth!

Endnotes

1. Humanist Manifesto II, p. 16.

2. Julian Huxley, Religion Without Revelation, p. 194.

3. Ayn Rand expressed this concept by saying that “man – every man – is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose” (quoted by Norman L. Geisler in Is Man The Measure?, p. 70).

4. Marxist humanists fall into this category. Through the years, Communist countries have thought little of eliminating those who retarded social progress or the good of the state.

5. Humanist Manifesto I, p. 10.

6. Friedrich Engels, Marx and Engels On Religion, pp. 111- 112.

7. Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, p. 13.

8. Gordon H. Clark, The Philosophy of Science and Beliefln God, p. 95.

9. A Secular Humanist Declaration, p. 20.

10. Lamont, op. cit., p. 228.

11. American humanists sought to divorce themselves from their Marxist brothers in A Secular Humanist Declaration. They wrote, “This declaration defends only that form of secular humanism which is explicitly committed to democracy” (p. 7). In the document itself, however, the humanists called for an end to religious oaths and prayers in public facilities, a state sponsored education system to teach the system of values of humanism, and the teaching of only evolution as the explanation of the origin of man (pp. 12,16,20). Corliss Lamont’s book, The Philosophy ofHumanism, contained a “Foreword” which was rather intolerant of the Moral Majority and other dissenting voices. Humanism has not shown itself to be tolerant of divergent views.

12. “It is not clear that people today actually behave in a more sinful way than their ancestors did. What is undeniably different, however, is how they think about their sins. A skewed psychology not only recognizes neurotic guilt, which is real and a perversion of genuine moral sense, but equates all sense of sin with such guilt and defines it as sick. There is no longer the possibility of repentance, because the sin itself is rationalized, even proclaimed virtuous. Repentance is ruled out as a product of neurotic guilt which stifles personal growth. Sins of the flesh, traditionally regarded in Christianity as the least serious because mostly the result of weakness rather than pride, have now been turned into sins of pride. The sinner wears his sin as a badge of honor, boasts of his emancipation from all moral authority, and, in effect, dares God to judge him” (James Hitchcock, What Is Secular Humanism, p. 75).

Guardian of Truth XXVIII: 14, pp. 418, 432-434
July 19, 1984

By Daniel H. King

Upon first consideration one would think that secular humanism would have very little to do with religion. If both concepts are properly defined they appear to be mortal enemies. In fact, however, they have come to be friends in some cases. How that came to be was not because humanism changed so radically as to befriend religion. Nor has humanism surrendered its atheistic creed. It is the other way around. Religion, in many of its contemporary manifestations, has redefined itself to such an extent as to offer little or no threat to secular humanistic ideals. Humanism on its part has decided to accept this redefinition of itself by a new and secularized “religion” and make peace with this impotent brand of piety.

“Fundamentalism,” “traditionalism,” and “biblical literalism” are now the targets of those onslaughts once aimed at religion per se. It is our goal in the paragraphs below to explain the tie that binds some modern practitioners of religion to secular humanism. The most natural place to begin is with the Unitarian Church.

Unitarian Universalism

Unitarians have been in the forefront of the introduction of secular humanism into modern life. Their apparent connection with religion has given them a cloak of religious piety with which to deceive. It has made of them an ideological bridge over which has traveled, from German and American philosophical “think-tanks” into the mainstream of society, the most avant garde secularism. Where secular humanism is making great strides, whether in the political, social, or religious sphere, you can be sure there are Unitarian figures working either out in the open or behind the scenes to bring about those gains.

Unitarian and universalist tendencies were born long before our present era, but for our purposes it is not necessary to examine the essential roots of either. It will suffice to note that as early as 1553 there was a connection between Unitarian religion and humanism. Michael Servetus, a Neoplatonic Unitarian, i.e. one who denied the Trinity because of the acceptance of the “ineffable One” as the basis of reality, was burned at the stake in 1553. He had fled from the Roman Catholic Inquisition to John Calvin’s Geneva because he had been declared a heretic. His death caused Sebastian Castellio, a liberal humanist, to plead for religious toleration. Unitarianism found a friend in humanism from the outset. They were both based upon human reason rather than biblical revelation. Therefore, they were quite naturally drawn to each other.

In England a scientist and dissenting minister named Joseph Priestley began in the late 1700’s to preach an overt “Unitarian Christianity”: Jesus as man, the primacy of reason and morals, scientific determinism, materialism, and political reform. Out of this new preaching came the British and Foreign Unitarian Association (1825). After a period of division and controversy between warring factions, the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches was formed (1928). They remain an important movement in the British Isles today.

American Unitarianism developed out of the Congregational churches of eastern Massachusetts. Over against the preaching of revivalists of the 18th century, Congregational ministers stressed reason and morals and preached moderation. In 1803 conflict arose between liberals and conservatives over the appointment of a professor of theology at Harvard University, and unwillingly the moderates found themselves labeled Unitarians. Legal battles over church property left the Unitarians in possession of churches founded by their Puritan ancestors in and around Boston. In 1825, on the same day as its British counterpart, the American Unitarian Association was founded, with headquarters in Boston. In the mid 1800’s rationalist, biblical Unitarianism was gradually replaced by institutional religion and social idealism. Christianity and the Bible became obsolete as human aspiration and scientific theory took over. In 1900 the International Association for Liberal Christianity and Religious Freedom was established as this element in Unitarianism came to predominate. During the 1920’s “humanism” – a non-theistic, anti supernatural Unitarianism -arose and moved Unitarians suddenly into their present mode. In 1961 Unitarians merged with the Universalists in a new united church, the American Unitarian Universalist Association.

As Unitarianism became more and more liberal in its thinking, -its leading lights came to see God “not as First Cause prefixed to the scheme of things, but as Indwelling Life pervading it” (Martineau). One result of this view is the Unitarian concept of humanism, which is agnostic about God and emphasizes the human condition and scientific progress. According to the U.S. Unitarian historian E.M. Wilbur, Unitarian history shows a steady drive toward freedom, reason, and tolerance. Unitarians have been especially responsive to the spirit of the age in which they live, and have been leaders and transmitters of current thought.

Religious Liberalism

Modernist thinking pervades most of the larger denominations today. And, wherever religious liberalism has become fashionable, humanism has moved in behind it. James Hitchcock, in his book What is Smular Humanism?, has confirmed this connection. He speaks of the “gradual abandonment of one wall after another,” that is, the giving up of one significant religious principle after another – until all is lost. He describes the progression in liberal religious thinking, beginning with the earliest positions and moving to the present (pp. 121-122):

1. While the Bible as a whole is inspired, certain passages not compatible with modern science, e.g. the creation accounts, are human inventions.

2. While certain miracles central to the Christian faith, especially Christ’s resurrection from the dead, must be believed, other miracle accounts in Scripture are merely expressions of simpler people.

3. Christians must believe that Christ rose from the dead. However, they need not believe that the tomb was empty on the morning of the third day. The Resurrection can be understood as his continuing spiritual presence among his disciples.

4. While Jesus was certainly the only begotten Son of God, secondary beliefs merely meant to reinforce that, e.g. his virgin birth, need not be believed.

5. While God was certainly present in Jesus in a special way, it is not meaningful to speak of him as the Son of God in the traditional sense.

6. What is central to Christianity is the message of salvation brought by Christ and uniquely achieved through him. The circumstances of this redemption are subject to varying interpretations.

7. To speak of man’s being “saved” by Jesus presents problems since many people do not feel a need of being saved. Jesus is better seen as the greatest moral teacher in the history of the world and Christianity as the pinnacle of world religions.

8. To regard Jesus as unique, and his teaching as superior to that of other religious leaders like the Buddha is arrogant cultural chauvinism. God reveals himself in every culture in different ways.

9. Whatever one may think about the various religions of the world, what is crucial is to believe in an all-powerful God who created the universe and sustains it in being.

10. The word “God” is one which men have used throughout history to refer to some ultimate reality which is the deepest dimension of existence. Personalization of God, and talk about his being creator and lord of the universe, are merely means men have used to make that awareness more vivid to themselves.

What has brought contemporary liberalism to this point? What has made liberals so disposed to “give ground” at every attack by modern thought upon Christianity and its most essential foundational principles? Basic presuppositions are the answer. Hitchcock (pp. 129-130) outlines the basic tenets of contemporary religious liberalism and through them explains this willingness to compromise at every juncture:

1. All religious beliefs are the product of developing human experience and inquiry and, as such, have no special authoritative status.

2. All moral principles are of the same nature. Hence there are no moral absolutes. Right and wrong are essentially determined in accordance with the needs and desires of individuals in particular situations.

3. Two thousand years of Christianity are largely irrelevant to the present, and those aspects of that history still relevant can be made so only by radical reinterpretation.

4. Christianity has no claim to superior status among the religions of the world. All the great religions partake of the truth in accordance with their own cultures and historical situations.

5. The history of Christianity is filled with errors and pernicious evils perpetrated by the church. This is true not only of unworthy behavior of individual Christians, or of distortion of Christian teaching, but of the very nature of historical Christianity.

6. Since religion is mostly the result of human searching and experience, men find their surest and most reliable guides not primarily in the church, or in Christian doctrine (the Bible) but in secular intellectual disciplines and human experience generally. The teaching of the church must be endlessly reformulated in accordance with these.

Such presuppositions logically lead liberals to sacrifice whatever element of spiritual truth the god of intellectual respectability demands. They have compromised with skepticism for so long that they have become skeptics themselves. There is little that they can say for sure any more. Everything is relative. Every truth is true only for now. Tomorrow it may be false. At any rate it will need to undergo some revision periodically, to bring it into line with the latest way of expressing what is true.

How is religion possible at all in an environment of this kind? Only through a complete overhaul of what religion once was. Hitchcock (pp. 130-131) offers this further characterization:

1. Authoritative Christian documents, whether the Bible, historic creeds, or other statements, are either ignored as irrelevant or employed only to the degree that they seem to fit with current secular preoccupations.

2. Worship is regarded primarily as a human experience, not as a way of paying homage to God. Worship services (and sermons) are structured in such a way as to create a sense of community and belonging among the worshipers, with little regard for the transcendental dimension of the action.

3. Christians are not encouraged to have a strong personal sense of their dependence of God’s Providence. God is thought not to intervene in the affairs of men, so that human problems are to be solved through human means only.

4. A personal sense of fulfillment or satisfaction is taken as the ultimate criterion of truth. Thus religious doctrines and practices are kept or discarded to the degree that they seem “meaningful” to the individual. The concept of objective religious truth is effectively denied. The purpose of religion is thought to be the achievement of a subjective sense of spiritual well-being by the individual.

5. All morality is provisional only. Many of the past moral teachings of the church, especially with regard to sex, are now seen as pernicious and deforming. Since personal “need” is the ultimate guide to conduct and since personal fulfillment is the chief aim of existence the liberal often leads a life at odds with traditional Christian morality.

Much of liberal religion is now utterly empty, its content having been gradually drained away over the years. This has created a tremendous spiritual vacuum in the hearts of its people. Many members of liberal churches do not know why they belong. Membership is in fact on the decline. Hitchcock suggests that “by the end of this century, many of the liberal churches will no longer call themselves Christian and will make no special effort to keep alive Christian traditions in doctrine, worship, or ethics. Local churches will have allowed themselves to be transformed into all-purpose community centers in which many kinds of presumably beneficial activities go on but in which no special religious claims are made” (p. 138).

Unitarianism and Liberalism

In his book Our Liberalism Movement in Theology, J. H. Allen said: “The liberalizing of theology has been in some sense the work of Unitarianism from the first. That process includes two distinct steps. One of these steps must be taken by the aid of historical criticism, and the other by the aid of natural science” (p. 124). Allen is correct, in spite of the fact that scholars from other religious denominations have contributed to its progress. From the first Unitarians were not hampered by the theory of the verbal infallibility of the Bibles; and they were therefore prepared to advance the critical work of scholars as it came to them from England and Germany, as was no other religious body in this country.

Two men are illustrative of the leadership role of Unitarianism in this respect. The first is Professor Andrews Norton of Harvard. Norton, a Unitarian, was the author of several important theological works (Historical Evidences of the Genuines of the Gospels, 1837-1844; Internal Evidences of the Genuiness of the Gospels, 1855). In his books he discarded the first two chapters of Matthew, regarding them as later additions to the original document. Also, in an extended note in volume 2 of Genuiness of the Gospels, he denied the Mosaic authorship of Genesis and said that it was not to be accepted as genuine history. Statements of this type are commonplace today among biblical scholars, but then they were rare indeed.

Another Unitarian at Harvard who early showed a willingness to depart from the accepted limits of biblical studies was George Rapall Noyes. Noyes was professor of Hebrew and Biblical Literature in the Harvard Divinity School in 1840 when he wrote that the truth of the Christian religion does not in any sense depend upon the literal fulfillment of any predictions of the Old Testament by Jesus as a person. He said that the apostles partook of the errors and prejudices of their age, that the commonly received doctrine of the inspiration of the whole Bible is a millstone about the neck of Christianity, and that the Bible contains much that cannot be regarded as revelation.

Thus Unitarians, from the first oriented in the direction of humanism, were at the head of the movement which plunged contemporary theology into the mainstream of liberal thought.

Humanism and Religion

In the 1933 Humanist Manifesto I the authors of that document did not deny the existence of God. But the whole thrust of the document was to deny that belief in God could, or ought to have any practical effect. Whether or not God is thought to exist, man must live as if he did not exist. The Manifesto contained affirmations that pertained to religion. For example, there are the following:

1. Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.

5. Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values . . . . Religion must formulate its hopes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method.

6. We are convinced that the time has passed for theism, deism, modernism, and the several varieties of “new thought.”

7. 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. The distinction between the sacred and the secular can no ionger be maintained.

9. In place of the old attitudes in worship and prayer the humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life and in a cooperative effort to promote social well-being.

One may note that under point number seven the word “religion” is redefined so as to make of it no religion at all (which is the only way secular humanism can coexist peacefully with any sort of religion). Yet “religion” is, by definition, “the personal commitment to and serving of God or a god with worshipful devotion . . . ” (Webster’s Third). It is only from this meaning that others derive. In the vocabulary of humanists, however, it has become a term with which to deceive. Humanistic “ministers” go about putting on a facade of piety’, utilizing the vocabulary of religion, and denying the very existence of the One whom religion itself is supposed to honor. They are the most transparent case of “wolves in sheep’s clothing” in religion today (Matt. 7:15).

About the only religions with which secular humanism can feel comfortable are those that have been emptied of their content by rationalism and modernism. The Unitarians, Universalists, and a few others are among the few that qualify. Other large denominations, especially those associated with the World Council of Churches, are already so completely humanistic in their orientation that there is little real “religion” left in them.

The most recent of the humanist declarations, published in 1980, is A Secular Humanist Declaration. Among its signers are: Khoren Arisian, Paul Beattie, minister of All Souls Unitarian Church and president of the Fellowship of Religious Humanists; Joseph L. Blau, professor emeritus of religion, Columbia University; Joseph Fletcher, theologian, University of Virginia Medical School; Herbert Schneider of the Freedom from Religion Foundation; and Sherwin Wine, rabbi for the Birmingham Temple and founder of the Society for Humanistic Judaism. These names certainly illustrate the close affinity that exists between some religion and Secular Humanism. These men signed their names to a document that expressed “religious skepticism” in the following words:

As secular humanists we are generally skeptical about supernatural claims. We recognize the importance of religious experience: that experience that redirects and gives meaning to the lives of human beings. We deny, however, that such experiences have anything to do with the supernatural. We are doubtful of traditional views of God and divinity. Symbolic and mythological interpretations of religion often serve as rationalizations for a sophisticated minority, leaving the bulk of mankind to flounder in theological confusion. We consider the universe to be a dynamic scene of natural forces that are most effectively understood by scientific inquiry. We arc always open to the discovery of new possibilities and phenomena in nature. However, we find that traditional views of the existence of God either are meaningless, have not yet been demonstrated to be true, or are tyrannically exploitative. Secular humanists may be agnostics, atheists, rationalists, or skeptics, but they find insufficient evidence for the claim that some divine purpose exists for the universe. They reject the idea that God has intervened miraculously in history or revealed himself to a chosen few, or that he can save or redeem sinners. They believe that men are free and responsible for their own destinies and that they cannot look toward some transcendent Being for salvation. We reject the divinity of Jesus, the divine mission of Moses, Mohammed, and other latter day prophets and saints of the various sects and denominations. We do not accept as true the literal interpretation of the Old and New Testaments, the Koran, or other allegedly sacred religious documents . . . (pp. 17-18).

Two other brief points of current news are noteworthy in connection with what we have said above:

Walter Mondale’s brother Lester is a Unitarian minister, Ethical Culture leader, and current Chairman of the Fellowship of Religious Humanists. Walter Mondale, in a speech given to the Fifth Congress of the International Humanist and Ethical Union in 1971, said: “Although I have never formally joined a humanist society, I think I am a member by inheritance. My preacher father was a humanist … and I grew up on a very rich diet of humanism from him.” His father’s name appears on the list of those who signed Humanist Manifesto I in 1933. One can be assured that if Mr. Mondale is elected president he will throw his weight behind every liberal cause around and will return us to the days of the Jimmy Carter presidency, a time when Secular Humanism reigned supreme in government.

The North American Man/Boy Love Association, the organization which feels that it should not be illegal to have homosexual relations with children of any age, recently held its seventh annual meeting in Boston. Charley Shively, a leader in the Boston area, speaking to the conference said he wished to attack a presupposition . . . that parents have a hereditary right to their children, that parents have a right to their children that we do not have.” The National Coalition of Gay Organizations has officially supported the Man-Boy Love group since 1972. The International Gay Association recently voted the group into its membership. And the New York City Community Council of Lesbian-Gay Organizations also has admitted the Man-Boy group. Special note should be taken at the fact that the meeting of the homosexual group was held at the Arlington Street Unitarian Church in Boston.

Guardian of Truth XXVIII: 14, pp. 419-422
July 19, 1984

By Wilson Adams

Humanism is the most fraudulently displayed and dangerous religion in America today. And it is a religion. Please don’t be deceived into believing that humanism is just a philosophy. That is the masquerade humanists have utilized for years to mislead millions. And, too, don’t be conned into thinking that because religious people believe in God, those who do not believe in God are not religious. That constitutes another mass deception the humanists have used to their advantage for years. Humanism is unmistakably and demonstrably a religion; an evangelistic religion that seeks to win converts and produce change in the moral fiber of this nation.

Humanism Is A Religion

Humanism has been a religion since its inception. However, only in the last few years have its advocates admitted it. Nine times, the Humanist Manifesto I (the humanist bible) clearly calls its beliefs a religion and concludes with the words, “So stand the theses of religious humanism.”(1) Lloyd Morain, former president of the American Humanist Association, stated:

Down through the ages men have been seeking a universal religion or way of life . . . . Humanism . . . . shows promise of becoming a great world faith.

Humanists are content with fixing their attention on this life and on this earth. Theirs is a religion without a God . . . . (emphasis added).(2)

The United States Supreme court calls humanism a religion. In the 1961 Torcasso v. Watkins case, Justice Hugo L. Black noted: “Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others” (emphasis added.)(3)

We tend to think that belief in God is a religion, and therefore disbelief is not a religion (and that is what humanists want us to think!). By using our faulty thinking against us, they have called their doctrine secular humanism, ours religion. Then by claiming that morals originated with the Bible, they, too, are labeled as religious. Thus, both religion and morality are excluded from our schools while secular humanism and amorality are advanced daily.

Thomas Jefferson, American statesman, author of the Declaration of Independence and instigator of much discussion over separation of church and state which finally led to the First Amendment, understood the problem and defined the term religion to include “all believers or unbelievers of the Bible If his definition is correct, and I believe it is, then if belief and its biblical moral values are expelled from our public schools, so also must we remove humanist unbelief and its resultant amorality. After all, our Constitution forbids that the government do anything to establish or advance religion. And secular humanism is a religion!

The Ten Religious Characteristics of Secular Humanism

1. They have a Bible. Humanist Manifesto I authored by John Deway in 193 3; and Humanist Manifesto II authored by Paul Kurtz in 1973 are the sacred scriptures to the humanist and serve as the basis for the principles being taught regularly in our schools. These two brief volumes are shocking to any godly individual and even more so when one discovers that they were signed by some of the most influential people in education today.

2. They have a stated dogma. All religions are based on doctrinal teachings. Humanism is no different. It has a well-defined theology centering around five areas:

* Atheism – disbelief in God.

* Evolution – belief in evolution.

* Amorality – rejection of absolute morals.

* Autonomous Man – deification of man as supreme.

*Socialist One World View – belief that man should build a one world community.

Tim LaHaye, in his book, The Battle for the Mind (pp. 130-131), states, “The theological position of humanism is so well-defined and established that if it were expelled from our public schools and its disciples were retired from government service through the ballot box, they would immediately declare themselves officially a religion and file as a tax exempt religious organization. They cannot do so now because they receive over 140 billion dollars annually to operate their vast network of churches, called schools, colleges, and universities. Why should they collect donations to support the propagation of their religion when, through our taxes, we pay for their services? Parents are compelled to send their impressionable children to schools where in the name of academic freedom, only the religion of humanism can be taught.”

3. They have an object of worship. The humanist god is man himself.

4. They have a priesthood. Every religion has a priesthood, no matter what it is officially called. Since the religion of humanism chose public education as its main method to influence the thinking of future generations we should not be alarmed to observe that the signers of the Humanist Manifesto I and II appear to be the Who’s Who list of American education. Here is a priesthood that earns its living communicating the religion of humanism in our public schools.

5. They have missionaries. Every religious body has its missionaries who preach and proselyte. Humanism is no different.

Before the religion of humanism became the official dogma of our public schools, teachers were trusted educators of our young, who took seriously their responsibility of teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, and the other necessary skills of life. That is no longer the case. Today’s teachers, according to some educators, are “change agents” – that is, agents of social change. As incredible as it may seem to you, their objective is to change our nation’s generation of children from their commitment to traditional moral values and the values of their parents to the new humanist values (which in my studied opinion are no values at all).(4)

Yes, under the disguise of academic freedom, these humanistic missionaries are free to teach their atheistic, amoral beliefs while ridiculing the Judeo-Christian ethic at every opportunity. One humanistic educator said, “If education is to meet the current and future needs of our society, humanistic objectives and humanistic thought must operate at the heart of every school and classroom in the nation.”(5) Sadly to say, in many places it does.

6. They have seminaries. The majority of graduate schools in the United States have been completely taken over by humanist thought, particularly is this true in the educational field. Today it is virtually impossible to get a PhD degree from any university that is not overwhelmingly humanistic in its teaching. Present-day teachers seminaries are called teachers colleges.(6)

7. They have their own temples. Humanists never need to raise money for the buildings to teach their religious doctrine. Their temples are called schools; their churches are called colleges; their cathedrals are called universities – and we pay for and provide them!

8. Humanism is rooted in eastern religions.

Humanism is a philosophical, religious, and moral point of view as old as human civilization itself. It has its roots in classical China, Greece and Rome; it is expressed in the Renaissance and the Enlightment, in the scientific revolution, and in the twentieth century.(7)

Such may explain why a relatively new course entitled, “Comparative Religions” is infiltrating our high schools. It is a humanistic affront to Christianity in which 90% of classroom time is spent exposing students to eastern religions of Buddhism, Taoism, Mohammedanism, and Hare Krishna. This course is a thinly opportunity to teach the mystical religions of the East to our children and at our expense. And why? Because humanists know what few Christians realize: humanism is the outgrowth of those Eastern religions.

9. They have a view of death. Science cannot prove or disprove life after death, but humanists teach as fact that it does not exist. How can they be so dogmatic? By faith, of course. Consequently their view of death and eternity is part of their religious propaganda. Such may once again explain why the course Death and Dying is now being offered to many high school students. It serves as an excellent way to attack the traditional beliefs in God,salvation, life after death, and other truths taught in the Bible.

10. They are religiously intolerant to any view but their own. “Academicfreedom ” is only an American dream. It means freedom for homosexuals, lesbians, feminists, abortionists, Marxists, and almost every other conceivable anti-moral, anti-American teaching, except the recognition of God the Creator of the traditional moral values that Christians and others share. In essence, “academic freedom” is religious intolerance.

Humanistic Educational Intolerance (chart by Tim LaHaye)
They Freely Teach	They Totally Forbid Teaching
Atheism	God the creator
Evolution as fact	Creation as scientific
Situation ethics	Moral absolutes
Explicit sex education	Biblical view of sexuality
Perversion as acceptable	Homosexuality as wrong
No life after death	Eternal life, heaven and hell, judgment
These concepts can be taught freely during school hours to captive children.	These concepts cannot be taught on school premises – even after school hours end.

There can be no doubt that humanism is a religion. Mel and Norma Gabler of Garland, Texas, who are acknowledged to be the most informed individuals in the country on the context of public school textbooks, state unhesitatingly, “Humanism is a no-God religion and as much a religion as Christianity. This no-God religion is being passed on to our children through public education, in a subtle but effective manner.”(8) Yes, when a Unitarian Sunday school teacher can promote over 90016 of his religious beliefs in the public schools by labeling them “education” or “scientific humanism,” and get paid for it – that has to be the religious sham of the century!

Humanism Inspires Evangelistic Zeal

Leading humanists are filled with an evangelistic fervor to preach their humanistic gospel. With their hold on government, education and the media, 275,000 humanists are able to determine the direction of 216 million people. Consider that issues such as abortion on demand, legalization of homosexuality, ERA, government deficit spending, the size of government, elimination of capital punishment, national disarmament, increased taxes, women in combat, unnecessary school busing, etc., would all be overwhelmingly rejected if voted upon by the American people, but, our politicians continue to enact such legislation that is against the will of the populous. Why? Simply, we are being controlled by a small but extremely influential army of committed humanists who feel duty bound to turn traditionally moral-minded America into an amoral, humanistic country.

We must understand that our enemy is not the Soviet Union or Red China; it is the American humanists in government, in education, and in the media. And until we realize that humanism is a religion, and an evangelistic one at that, the humanists will continue to mentally brainwash and poison our young. I am against the religion of humanism for two basic reasons: I am a committed Christian, and I am a committed American. Humanism is vigoriously opposed to both. It is the most dangerous religion in America.

Endnotes

1. Humanist Manifestos I & II (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 15.

2. Clare Chambers, The SIECUS Circle (Belmont, HA: Western Islands, 1977), p. 92.

3. Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism (New York: Frederick Ungar Pub. Co., 1977), p. 24.

4. Tim LaHaye, The Battle for the Public Schools (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell Co., 1983), p. 83.

5. Arthur W. Combs, “Humanism, Education, and the Future,” Educational Leadership 35 (January 1978), p. 303.

6. LaHaye, p. 84.

7. Humanist Manifesto I & II, p. 15.

8. LaHaye, p. 81.

Guardian of Truth XXVIII: 13, pp. 401-403
July 5, 1984

By Steve Wolfgang

A problem encountered by many who have attempted to discuss “humanism” is agreement upon a definition of exactly what it is. Is it simply interest in (or devotion to) a study of “humanities”? A concept of inherent dignity of humans? A distinction between “man” as opposed to animals and/or “nature”? Or a “secular” humanism which seeks to enthrone man and his will at the expense of faith in God? Is it membership in some “organization”? Or something quite different?

Due to constraints of space, and for the limited purposes of this article, it shall be necessary for us to confine our discussion to those who endorse the concepts of Humanist Manifestos I and II; or, even more specifically, those who are “card-carrying” humanists, that is, those with some affiliation with the American Humanist Association. Thus, while it is possible to identify as “humanists” a wide variety of thinkers (Darwin and Marx, Nietsche and Sartre, Freud, Fromm, and Skinner, Bultmann and Kung, as well as others), we are concerned here with a more specific set of individuals.

As we shall see, however, these individuals span the whole scope of human thought – not only philosophy, religion, and ethics, but history, psychology, sociology, political science, literature, music, and other art forms, to say nothing of the natural sciences. Thus, this humanistic way of seeing the world has seeped into every area of study and thought.

Beginning with Humanist Manifesto I, it is logical to begin with John Dewey, reputed to be a major author of the document. Partly due to his long tenure at Columbia University’s School of Education, Dewey had as much or more influence as anyone on the course of American educational philosophy. James, Hitchcock, history professor at St. Louis University and author of What Is Secular Humanism? (an excellent book) notes that “the manifesto certainly represented Dewey’s personal beliefs, and through it he was able to disseminate them widely and strategically.”(1)

Also a signatory of Manifesto I was Harry Elmer Barnes, an historian who also taught for many years at Columbia University in New York City. In his History of Historical Writing, Barnes applauds “a notable and healthy secularization of supernaturalism enormously declined,” but that “the findings of modern have . . . undermined the older dogmatics and apologetics,” making it “woefully apparent how inadequate are the orthodox conceptions of the extent, nature, and control of the cosmos.”(2)

Besides Lester Mondale, whole half-brother became vice-President in 1977, other signatories included men such as Charles Francis Potter, author of The Lost Years of Jesus Revisited, a book that attempted to portray Christ as a sort of re-made mythical desert Essene.(3) Attempting to capitalize on the furor over the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it has been described by a respected bibliographer of the Scrolls as a book that “from front cover to last word was clearly sensationalism” and whose author was characterized as a “pulp writer” without “the slightest degree of Qumran scholarship.” This same scholar further remarked that Potter wrote “with one obvious purpose: to attack historic Christianity.”(4)

Also signing Manifesto I was Edwin Arthur Burtt, sage Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University. In a lengthy and informative chapter on “Humanism” in his book, Types of Religious Philosophy, Burtt identifies at least one strain of humanism as “a further development of modernism.”(5) The chapter contains a number of revealing statements such as: “Jesus had no appreciation of the value of intelligence as the most dependable human faculty for analyzing the perplexities into which men fall . . . His theory of the world . . . is squarely opposed to the scientific naturalism that a frank assessment of experience increasingly compels modern man to accept.”(6)

Also affixing his signature to Manifesto I (and II as well) was John Herman Randall, Jr., philosophy professor at Columbia University. In his book, The Making of the Modern Mind (published not long after Humanist Manifesto I was distributed), he includes a chapter on “The Religion of Reason: The Spread of the Humanistic Spirit.” Included in that chapter are the following comments: “a careful examination of [Old Testament] prophecy, taken in a literal and not a highly figurative sense, makes it quite impossible to believe that Jesus ever fulfilled a single one.”(7) Furthermore, “the great philosopher Hume” in Randall’s opinion “so demolished [the value of miracles] that to this day apologists have had their greatest difficulties, not in proving Christianity by miracles, but in explaining how such impossible ideas ever crept into the record.”(8)

Thirty years later, not long before signing Humanist Manifesto II, Randall wrote that although it is “an unacceptable conclusion” that Jesus never actually existed, he allowed that critics had “thrown doubts on all the positive evidence for his existence” and that even so elementary a belief “that Jesus of Nazareth did live on earth” is something that “seems to rest on . . . faith rather than on any evidence.”(9) Furthermore, according to Randall, “Christianity, at the hands of Paul, became a mystical system of redemption, much like the cult of Isis, and the other . . . mystery religions of the day.”(10)

Other signers of Manifesto I included David Rhys Williams (minister of First Unitarian Church of Rochester, NY for more than thirty years), Rabbi Joseph Jacob Weinstein, and Roy Wood Sellars, philosophy professor at the University of Michigan for more than fifty years.

Humanist Manifesto II

The number of individuals signing Humanist Manifesto II is much greater than for the first Manifesto. Many of the signees are “humanist counselors” or individuals connected in some official capacity with various humanist organizations. Several are psychologists or medical doctors, and there are a significant number of Unitarians on the list. One of the most numerically significant groups, as might be expected, are college professors. These professors come from various universities on several continents, and span the range of disciplines from philosophy to anthropology, mathematics to education, religion to psychology, and others.

An overview of some of the better-known individuals endorsing Manifesto II is provided by Hitchcock:

The list of signers for the second manifesto was considerably longer than for the first, indicating that Humanism had become more respectable in the intervening forty years. It included:

– influential philosophers Brand Blanshard, Antony Flew, Sidney Hook, John Herman Randall, Jr., and Sir Alfred Ayer;

– authors Isaac Asimov and John Ciardi;

– Paul Blanshard, for many years the most prominent anti-Catholic writer in the United States;

– prominent scientists Francis Crick, Andrei Sakharov’ Zhores Medvedev, and Herbert Muller (Sakharov and Medvedev are Soviet dissidents);

– Edd Doerr, director of the organization Americans United For Separation of Church and State (formerly Protestants and Other Americans United), which played a major role in the secularizing of public education in the United States after World War II;

– leading “sexologists” Albert Ellis, Lester A. Kirkendall, and Sol Gordon;

– influential psychologists H.J. Eysenck and B.F. Skinner;

– Allen F. Guttmacher, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America;

– Lawrence Lader, chairman of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws;

– Joseph Fletcher, an Episcopal clergyman and the leading proponent of “situation ethics” in the United States;

– Betty Friedan, founder of the National Organization of Women; – Gunnar Myrdal, a Swedish economist with worldwide influence;

– A. Philip Randolph, a long-time leader in both the labor and civil-rights movements in the United States.(11)

Those perhaps most readily recognized by readers of this journal might be Joseph Fletcher, of 1960’s “situation ethics” fame, Antony Flew (whose 1975 debate with Thomas B. Warren on the existence of God is still in print), and rabid anti-creationist writer Isaac Asimov.

With the number and diversity of those openly advocating the views explicitly stated in these documents (as well as the less obvious “hidden agendas” implicit in the writings of many of these individuals), is it any wonder that our society is heading so rapidly toward an open hostility to anything remotely resembling Christianity? Unless this trend is reversed by believers bravely and willingly standing up and speaking out, we may see in our lifetime the sort of open hostility that was present in the first century. Of course, the Christianity will survive, even as it did then, but it may prove to be a time of trial beyond the wildest imaginations of twentieth-century American Christians. Truly it is a time to watch and pray.

Endnotes

1. (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Books, 1982), p. 13.

2. (New York: Dover Publications, 1937, 1962), p. 292.

3. (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Books, 1958).

4. William S. LaSor, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972), p. 18.

5. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939), p. 352.

6. Ibid., p. 359.

7. (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1940), pp. 282, 292.

8. Ibid.

9. Hellenistic Ways of Deliverance and the Making of the Christian Synthesis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), pp. 145-146.

10. Ibid., p. 154.

11. Hitchcock, pp. 14-15.

Guardian of Truth XXVIII: 14, pp. 417, 434-435
July 19, 1984