The Religious Character of Ethical Culture as a Humanist Movement -- Tony Hileman

“I look back with dread to that time when everything seemed sinking around me, when the cherished faith which seemed at one time dearer than life itself was going to pieces under me, and it seemed to me that I could save nothing out of the wreck of all that seemed holiest to me.” – Felix Adler [1]

But salvage from that wreck he did, and with what he salvaged he founded Ethical Culture [2]—a progressive religious movement that espouses our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives dedicated to the betterment of each other and the world of which we are a part, the supreme end of which is nothing less than to transform humankind’s understanding of the meaning of life.

True to that aim, Tony Hileman [2] explains, notions of progress and naturalism—the realization that our understandings are not absolute and that if anything exists beyond our ability to perceive it is unknown and unknowable—have led Ethical Culture to Ethical Humanism. Just as Ethical Culture was essentially Humanist in its purpose and values long before the identification gained currency, so too has Ethical Humanism retained the essentially religious character embodied in Ethical Culture since its founding.