Living Proof that Family Values Without Religion Build Character

Ethical Culture is a religion, but not in the popularly held theistic sense. To put it another way, we are a nontheistic religion. We don't address theological topics or subscribe to or against supernatural belief. Our members include atheists, agnostics, theists, deists and probably others. Rather than dogma or ideology, it is, among other things, our congregational and social character that binds us together into a community.

That said (that is, that we are a religion) the title of this post is may not appeal to some of our members. We in EC teach family values to our children in part by bringing them together in a Sunday school. So the following quote from President Obama's autobiographical book The Audacity of Hope would not necessarily serve as an accurate depiction of the experience of most EC families:

"I was not raised in a religious household. . . . Without the help of religious texts or outside authorities, [my mother] worked mightily to instill in me the values that many Americans learn in Sunday school: honesty, empathy, discipline, delayed gratification, and hard work. She raged at poverty and injustice. Most of all, she possessed an abiding sense of wonder, a reverence for life and its precious, transitory nature. …”
“Given the increasing diversity of America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”

The quote is used in this ad from the American Humanist Association. Although the ad is not a perfect match for EC sensibilities, it resonates. It builds a case that nontheism works and that religious texts, dogma and ideology are not required to build moral character. The most visible recent example of this? President Obama.

Rockland Society in the news

Alan Berger of the Ethical Culture Society of Rockland County was cited in this article on LoHud.com. Alan continues to work diligently to grow this nascent Society, which is located just across Bergen County's northern border.

This I Believe: Ed Gross

As delivered to the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County on Sunday, January 25, 2009:

Since Ethical Culture advocates deed before creed, it may seem unusual, but I believe in the power of words. It takes words to express and communicate the ideas and feelings that motivate our actions. Not surprisingly, many of the words I’ve found most inspiring I heard delivered from this very platform. Joe Chuman’s addresses, in particular, have inspired me to try to be a better person and to put my beliefs into action.
Among the countless writers whose words I’ve cherished over the years, novelists Philip Roth, Kurt Vonnegut, and the under-appreciated John Barth made me laugh as they revealed facets of the human condition. My favorite among non-fiction writers is Lewis Lapham, the former editor of Harpers Magazine. If you’ve never experienced the incredibly interesting ways he uses language to construct arguments -- frequently both surprising and convincing, -- you owe yourself the experience.

I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly spiritual person, but several years ago. Kate Lovelady now the leader in St. Louis, opened my eyes from our platform. She said that, for her, spirituality takes the form of communication with others. Words are, to a great extent, the way we get to know each other. And words are how we try to change each other’s minds. Kate’s are among those that have changed mine.

Ethical Culture on NPR's The Takeaway

NPR's The Takeaway ran a brief piece on the reference to non-believers in President Obama's inaugural address. In it, Professor Randall Balmer cites the Ethical Culture Society as an example of an organization of non-believers. I don't know about you, but this blogger is starting to feel the bubbling warmth of inclusion.

Click here for The Takeaway's story page.

Click here to go straight to the podcast.

Peace rally in Teaneck

At least three Ethical Culturists can be spotted in this NY1 video, including Leader Joseph Chuman. Although not verbalized in the video, the phrase Ethical Culture Society appears, most appropriately, under Joe's name (snapshot shown to the right).

Click here for NY1 video.

Lori Lipman Brown steps down as SCA Director

See this article. Best of luck to Lori Lipman Brown, who has gotten America's first lobby for nontheists off to a flying start.

Can't wait to see the new Executive Director!

Obama and Non-Believers

Nine years after vice-presidential candidate, Joseph Lieberman, proclaimed that the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion, President Barack Obama, with no doubt deliberate forethought, stated in his inaugural address yesterday that in addition to Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus, the American mosaic is comprised of "non-believers."

It was more than a sociological observation. It was a definite statement of inclusion in the public square of those who do not hold to a faith in God, and an acknowledgment of them as fully enfranchised citizens and civic actors. Of course, this is something that we have always argued for, but for which there has been scant official acknowledgment. Indeed, those not holding to theistic confession have been marginalized in American life. Being validated by the highest authority in the land is a matter of great significance to this constituency.

In part, it is a product of the spate of atheism books, which at a minimum, have opened space for non-believers, and have engaged a widespread public debate. But there are other factors as well.

In "Dreams From My Father," Obama describes his mother as possessing the values of a "secular humanist." Her father had been a member of a Unitarian Church. This throw light on Obama's own religious identity. He recalls that as a community organizer on the Chicago's South Side he was encouraged to join a church, in part to give him legitimacy with the community on whose behalf he was working. Is this another case of pragmatism trumping ideology? Also, descriptions of his own Christian beliefs reveal a very liberal type of Christianity, where personal autonomy seem to supersede doctrine, even to the point of Obama claiming agnosticism about the afterlife.

Finally, perceptive politician that he is, Obama must be aware that non-believers comprise a significant and growing percentage of the voting public, to the point wherein their numbers cannot be ignored.

But whatever the case, we need be thankful that Obama has widened the circle of inclusion at a moment that could not have been more dramatic.

SCA on NPR

Lori Lipman Brown, Director of the Secular Coalition for America and past speaker at ECS/Bergen, was interviewed on NPR radio on (of all days) December 25, 2008. Check it out here (Lori is at 9 min, 20 sec).

This I Believe: Diana Weber Gross

As delivered to the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County on Sunday, January 4, 2009:

Ethical Culture teaches that in eliciting the best in others we can find the best in ourselves.

We Ethical Culturists have faith that people can grow and change.

Felix Adler taught that any place people meet to seek the highest can become as holy ground.

I am a teacher and I live these principles each day.Tomorrow I begin again - a new year, a new term with the same 450 plus young children whom I will see for a brief span of 45 minutes once each week. My classroom is our holy ground, sanctified again by the happy singing, chanting, clapping, dancing and playing of my charges doing their best. Freely creating musical responses that, I fervently hope, take them above and beyond the present day lives they lead, lives of promise or, perhaps, of poverty and pain, lives filled with nurturance or neediness. Through times of self confidence or self doubt, whether enjoying rich lives or enduring barren ones, I believe the music we make together, if they claim it as their own, can carry on in them, informing their choices and in a small, but not insignificant way, helping them shape a life that without their own music singing inside, would be barren indeed.

This is what I offer my students. A gift of ambitious potential, I think. But the greater gift is mine, because among the patient explanations, false starts and do overs, laughter, crashes, and yes, frustrations, I can at times see my best self, best teacher but even more, best human being I can be, peeking out from behind the piano or conga, over the music stand or a child’s bobbing head and I thank Ethical Culture for teaching me that my work is an expression of my religious life.