Truth Magazine

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

By David Pratte

(Editor’s Note: The following is also available in tract form from the author. In addition, the author has written a number of other tracts and booklets that will be of interest to parents regarding topics relating to schools and humanism. For further information, readers may contact David Pratte at the address given above.)

In the Humanist Magazine (Jan/Feb, 1983, p. 26), humanist author John Dunphy says:

. . . a viable alternative to [Christianity] must be sought. That alternative is humanism. I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level . . . . The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new . . .. the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism . . . .

That friends, is a declaration of war. Our children are under attack in the classroom day in and day out, yet many parents do not even know the war has begun! When parents do show concern about this danger, about all they hear from educators is denial and ridicule. Despite the denials, consider the evidence that humanism is indeed the predominant philosophy of modern public education.

* The preface to the humanist book Humanist Ethic says:

. . . a large majority of the educators of America and of the western world are humanist in their outlook. The faculties of American colleges and universities are predominantly humanist, and a majority of the teachers who go out from their studies in the colleges to responsibilities in primary and secondary schools are basically humanist, no matter that many maintain a nominal attachment to church or synagogue for good personal or social or practical reasons.

*John Dewey, who is probably the greatest influence in modern education, was an endorser of the first “Humanist Manifesto.”

*At least 33 of 58 original signers of the “Secular Humanist Declaration” were educators.

*Shirley Hufstetler, first secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, was on the board of directors of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies.

Consider also the following chart that contrasts the views of educators with those of the American public:

View of Education Policy-Makers
View	Public	Educators
Homosexuality is immoral	71%	30%
Abortion is immoral	65%	26%
Smoking marijuana is immoral	57%	30%
Premarital sex is immoral	40%	27%
Divorce should be harder to get	52%	19%
God loves me	73%	40%
via Connecticut Mutual Life Report on American Values in the 80’s.

In this study, we will examine several particular doctrines of humanism. For each doctrine, we will document the humanist view by quoting official statements of the American Humanist Association (primarily the Humanist Manifestos and the Secular Humanist Declaration). We will then quote public school texts and materials to show how the humanist views are propagated in the classroom.

We do not affirm that all classroom teachers are humanists. But when one knows what to look for, he finds humanistic ideas far more widespread in schools than most educators realize or admit. And most parents are totally unaware of this.

Evolution And Materialism

Humanist Doctrine:

. . . 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 and women are free and are 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 . . . . We do not accept as true the literal interpretation of the Old and New Testaments . . . . We have found no convincing evidence that there is a separable “soul” that . . . . survives death. (Declaration, pp. 18,19).

Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created …. Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as the result of a continuous process …. science affirms that the human species is an emergence from natural evolutionary forces (Manifestos, pp. 8,17).

Public School Teachings:

It is widely known that the Bible, God, and prayer have been banned from the public schools, mainly as the result of the efforts of the atheistic/humanistic American Civil Liberties Union and Madalyn Murray O’Hair. Evidence for evolution is regularly presented in public schools, but it is a rare textbook that gives evidence for creation (some teachers present it without aid of a text).

Indiana is typical. We have 7 texts approved for use in public high school biology classes. On the average, they devote 46 pages to evolution, and zero to creation (some mention creation, but say it is religion and not science, so they ignore it). Here are typical quotes.

New species of living plants and animals have come about as the result of changes in the old species . . . . The theory of evolution attempts to answer the question: How did so many different kinds of plants and animals come about? . . . Evolution is therefore being studied as the process by which life not only diversified, but first arose . . . . Of all the theories you may study in biology, the theory of evolution occupies a unique place . . . . It is so much a part of the foundation of biology that science can hardly be understood without it (Biological Science, Heath, pp. 47,74,64).

. . . studies demonstrate that we are much closer to our nearest relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, than was imagined even a decade ago . . . . [In earlier centuries, the] commonly accepted explanation for the origin of species was the one outlined in Genesis, that God created the species during the original six days of creation . . . . The Biblical doctrine of creationism was placed in some doubt as important fossil discoveries were made . . . . The alternative to creationism . . . was transformism, also called evolution . . . . An evolutionary approach orients this book” (Anthropology, Random House, pp. 10,25,26,12).

. . . no major pattern of scientific evidence that conflicts with [Darwin’s] theory has turned up (Biology, Scott-Foresman, p. 222).

Parents, do you know what your children are being taught? Do you care?

Situation Ethics

Humanist Doctrine:

Thus secularists deny that morality needs to be deduced from religious belief . . . . For secular humanists, ethical conduct is, or should be, judged by critical reason, and their goal is to develop autonomous and responsible individuals, capable of making their own choices in life . . . . As secular humanists we believe in the central importance of the value of human happiness here and now. We are opposed to Absolutist morality …. Secular humanism places trust in human intelligence rather than in divine guidance (Declaration, pp. 15,24).

We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational, needing no theological or ideological sanction. Ethics stems from human need and interest . . . . We strive for the good life, here and now. The goal is to pursue life’s enrichment . . . . (Manifestos, p. 17).

Public School Teachings:

Students in public schools regularly face exercises designed to modify values and attitudes, often called “values clarification,” “values education,” “morals education,” etc. This is especially common in sex education, social studies, psychology, sociology, etc., but can be found in any subject at any grade level.

These exercises involve questionnaires, role-playing, and group discussions of challenging and often controversial moral and personal issues. Students are often assured that “there are no right or wrong answers.” Conclusions are reached, not on the basis of research to accumulate and evaluate evidence, but on personal feelings and opinions along with peer pressure (hence, “pooled ignorance”). Appeals to authorities, like the Bible and parents, are disallowed. If a student appeals to the Bible as his proof, for example, he is asked, “But how do you think it should be?” Difficult hypothetical situations are invented to make it appear that traditional absolute values will not work.

A typical example, used in nearly every school, is a lifeboat (or bomb shelter) with too many people in it. Students must consider the people and decide who to kill so the others can live.

An English teacher in our local high school gave students a questionnaire in which they had to express opinions regarding these and other questions:

How do you feel about a school doctor who gives out birth control pills to high school students on request? . . . . How would you feel if your son brought a girl friend home for the weekend and shared his bedroom with her? How do you feel about a decision to permit an unmarried faculty member of a university to continue to teach after she has become pregnant? . . . How do you feel about a wife who is 6 weeks pregnant with her first child who has an abortion without consulting her husband?

The high school text Person to Person, published by Bennett (teacher’s edition, p. 52), suggests the following statements to which students are to say if they agree or disagree. But they are first assured that, “There are no right or wrong answers”:

To find out if they are sexually suited for each other, a couple should have intercourse before marriage . . . . if a couple is in love, it is all right to have sexual relations before marriage . . . One way to tell a date “I like you” is to have intercourse with him or her . . . . If people have a safe birth control method, it is all right to have intercourse before marriage.

An exercise on page 308 of the student edition of this book tells students to choose another student as partner, pretend they are married, and role-play making arrangements for their divorce!

We found the following example in our daughter’s third grade social studies text, Windows On Our World, published by Houghton-Mifflin (p. 135). Students were to state agreement or disagreement with statements including the following, and compare their views to others in the class:

It is wrong to eat meat on certain days . . . . It is wrong to work on Sunday . . . . It is wrong to work on Saturday . . . . After I die, I will be born again as someone else . . . . After I die, I will live in another place.

Examples could be multiplied a thousand times. Remember, all these issues are to be discussed without reference to the Bible (which has been effectively banned from the school), and with any attempt to appeal to authority being disallowed, and in the face of strong peer pressure.

Defenders of these techniques say they simply help students decide what they believe. But the real effect is to teach kids to ignore all authority and objective evidence, and reach conclusions on the basis of subjective personal feelings, opinion, and peer pressure. Situation ethics is the fundamental tenet, and humanism is the big winner.

Are these exercises in your child’s school? Have you investigated? No example we can give would compare to the shock value that comes from seeing these things in your own child’s schoolwork!

Marriage And Sexual Morality

Humanist Doctrine:

In the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized . . . neither do we wish to prohibit, by law of social sanction, sexual behavior between consenting adults. The many varieties of sexual exploration should not in themselves be considered “evil” . . . individuals should be permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their life-styles as they desire” (Manifestos, p. 18).

Public School Teaching!

These subjects come up in health class, family living, parenting, social studies, psychology, sociology, etc. Much of it falls in the heading of “sex education,” though educators often disguise it with terms that are less likely to alert parents. As such, it can be found in almost any class.

The most influential sex education organizations are Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and Sex Information & Education Council of the US (SIECUS). They are totally dominated by humanists. The American Humanist Association gave the honorary title of “Humanist of the Year” to SIECUS executive director Mary Calderone and PPFA’s founder Margaret Sanger. Other prominent sex educators who are affiliated with humanist organizations or have endorsed humanist documents are: Albert Ellis, Alan Guttmacher, Sol Gordon, Lester Kirkendall, John Money, Deryk Calderwood, Ira Reiss, etc., etc.

SIECUS Study Guides are used to tell classroom sex education teachers what to teach. Study Guide #5, for example, says on page 25:

We must examine the potential impact of the [premarital sexual] relationship upon ourselves and the others who are involved. It is just such an examination that has led to the popularity of situational ethics, for it is abundantly clear that for some people having premarital coitus can contribute to the development of responsibility . . . to a sense of integrity and self-realization.

The official “SIECUS Position Statement” says regarding pornography: “It is the position of SIECUS that: The use of explicit sexual materials (sometimes referred to as pornography) can serve a variety of important needs in the lives of countless individuals.”

In 1973 Alan Guttmacher, who was then the head of PPFA, said: “. . . the only avenue the International Planned Parenthood Federation and its allies could travel to win the battle for abortion on demand is through sex education . . . .”

Locally, efforts to get sex education in schools usually come through local “planned parenthood,” “family planning,” or abortion clinics. In Indiana, like other states, federal tax dollars are used to support these clinics. Girls at any age can go to get contraceptives and abortions without their parents’ knowledge or consent. “Educational materials” and speakers are also offered to local schools. The Indiana Family Health Council is a federally-funded source of materials to teach sex education. Its catalog describes the film Vir Amat, which is used to teach sex educators proper attitudes:

Two young men, who have lived together for over a year, share their relationship and sexual pattern. The film begins showing them preparing dinner while enjoying kissing, joking, and flirting. After dinner, they move to the living room where they stimulate each other manually and orally to orgasm. Post-orgasmic play continues the element of fun and affection, which is shown throughout the film. The film de-mythologizes homosexual relationships, showing two ordinary men in a warm, loving relationship.

In discussions of parenting, the value of spanking is almost invariably undermined. Page 315 of Child Growth and Development, published by McGraw-Hill, for example, lists “unsatisfactory” forms of punishment, and the first two items listed are: “Spanking because it puts too much stress on the child as a ‘bad child’ and too little on the wrong act . . . . Other physical punishments . . . . All physical punishment has the danger of turning into child abuse or causing injury when the adult is really angry. For this reason alone, it should be avoided.”

Easy divorce is also advocated. Your Marriage and Family Life, published by McGraw-Hill, says on page 430; “If happiness is the goal of marriage, some marriages must be dissolved . . . . These results confirm the view that having happy marriages and happy children means we must allow some marriages to break up.” This text was used in our local high school.

Again, examples could be multiplied. We do not affirm that all these objectionable ideas are found in every school. But all of them have been found in some schools, and most of them are found in most school districts.

Conclusion

What should parents do? Do not take our word for anything. Do your own investigating.

1. Accept the fact that the primary responsibility for your child’s education rests on you the parent, not on the government (Eph. 6:4; Deut. 6:49; Prov. 22:6). You must be responsible, even when they are at school. If your child is lost because of the influence of the schools, while you did little or nothing about it, God will hold you accountable.

2. Inform yourself about the kinds of humanistic teachings that are in the schools (we will give good sources of information later).

3. Get to know the teachers in your children’s school. Be a classroom assistant, etc. Work with the administrators to influence what teachers your children have.

4. Read textbooks, sit in on classes, review films, etc. Especially insist on seeing teachers’ manuals. (Established parents organizations affiliated with the schools are usually no help in this. They are dominated by the educators.)

5. Diligently teach your children the truth at home to arm them against false teaching.

6. Tell your children’s teachers exactly the kind of teaching you will not allow to be given to your child, or at least that you want the teacher to inform you and ask your permission before the teaching is given. Write a letter to the schools about this and have it put in your child’s permanent record.

7. You may try to work with other parents to modify school district policy regarding areas that are of concern. Good luck! Lots of us have tried and failed, but others have succeeded.

8. If your schools will not respect your parents rights and your children are being harmed spiritually, take them out of the public schools and put them in a private school (but check it out carefully – many of them are also objectionable), or else teach them at home yourself (this is legal in most states – we know because we’re doing it).

Guardian of Truth XXVIII: 13, pp. 396-397, 410-411
July 5, 1984