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.

Religion is Good for Self-Control

Based on a report published in the upcoming issue of the Psychological Bulletin, religious belief and piety promote self-control (see For Good Self-Control, Try Getting Religious About It in the NY Times, as well as the original study).

So self-proclaimed heathen and non-believer NY Times science columnist John Tierney wonders whether he should start going to church. The article's authors are careful to point out that faking it probably won't result in the desired effect. Studies have found that true believers gain benefits from attending services but non-believers who follow the same practice do not. However, researcher Michael McCullough suggests that public involvement with an organization that has strong ideals can provide secularists with a similar result. "People can have sacred values that aren’t religious values,” he said. “Self-reliance might be a sacred value to you that’s relevant to saving money. Concern for others might be a sacred value that’s relevant to taking time to do volunteer work."

Here's a place that provides that opportunity: The Ethical Culture Society. And guess what? It's religious about it.

Winter Festival Covered by the Bergen Record

Here's a nice article in the Record about yesterday's solstice festival:

Winter solstice 'a time of great hope'

By Ashley Kindergan

Christmas and Hanukkah get the lion's share of holiday attention in December.

But for a group of humanists who gathered at the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County on Sunday afternoon to mark the winter solstice, a sense of community and the symbolic turning point of the shortest day of the year were cause enough for celebration. The actual solstice, the shortest day of the year, occurred on Dec. 21, but the celebration was postponed because of inclement weather.

"This is a way a humanist movement like Ethical Culture can plug itself into the celebration of the season," said Joseph Chuman, the center's leader.

The Ethical Culture Society bills itself as a religious movement focused on the welfare of human beings rather than the existence of a deity or transcendental force guiding the universe. Collecting money to build homes for unwed mothers and working for asylum seekers in the Elizabeth Detention Center are among the congregation's principal causes, for example.

More here…

Ethical Progeny

Rebecca Gopoian and husband David Heatley collaborated on this cartoon (click here) published recently in The New York Times. Rebecca is a graduate of the ECS/Bergen Sunday school and the daughter of members Bea and Steve Gopoian. This will resonate with you if you're in, or the product of, a mixed marriage.

See if you can find Bea and Steve in the strip!

Rebecca Gopoian: Godless & Penniless

This blogger is a little late in the posting, but check out the NY Times cartoon editorial from Rebecca Gopoian and husband David Heatley. Rebecca is the daughter of long-time ECS members Steve and Bea ("Pine Cone Necklace") Gopoian.

The cartooning couple had a piece published in The Times the previous holiday season.