Is Ethical Culture a Religion?

“We want not religion as a duty, but duty as a religion.”
 —Felix Adler, Creed and Deed, 1877

The Ethical Culture Movement is defined as a religion for purposes of tax exemption, but does this status with the Internal Revenue Service translate into a sensibility for members of the movement? When someone asks an Ethical Culture member about his or her religious affiliation, is it be an appropriate reply to say, “I’m an Ethical Culturalist”? — and would most of our members be willing to identify themselves that way, accepting the “religious” label? Many Ethical Culture members are atheists or agnostics. Notwithstanding their standards of inclusivity and diversity within BSEC, they are uncomfortable thinking of themselves as religious, which they identify as requiring some kind of faith in a supernatural deity and devotion to a particular dogma. Yet within the world of humanistic movements, it is, arguably, those groups that adopt the trappings, if not the name, of “religion” — a congregational structure, trained leaders, a calendar of ritual observance, a way to mark life passages — that have most thrived and grown beyond the status of an intellectual or political salon into living communities. Should people who have no faith in a supernatural deity nevertheless place themselves and their institutions outside the boundaries of “religion”? Do we give “aid and comfort” to religious fundamentalism by speaking the language of religion, however radical or nontheistic our interpretations? To me, “religion” is a word that we should, indeed, claim as our own. “Religion” is the zone in which we come together to celebrate and cultivate our sense of interconnection (i.e., to experience spirituality), to discuss issues of meaning, morality, and ethics, and to take on the discipline of shaping our lives to reflect our values. In an era in which human power now truly rivals nature as the monumental, earth-shaping (and possibly earth-destroying) power because of our sheer numbers and our outrageously sophisticated technological capacities, these issues — which boil down to What should we do with our power? and How can we live together most successfully? — are of enormous significance. Who else is there to lead such discussions? Governments? The United Nations? Corporate boards? NGOs? Universities? The mass media? Each of these bodies has a significant role to play (and few are playing it well) in helping us discuss not only what we can do with our power, but what we should do — but each is also seriously compromised by self-interest, corruption, bureaucracy, and other limiting factors. Religious institutions therefore remain among the few places in which ethical inquiries are regularly made about the way we want to live our lives. Of course, religion commodified as dogma can be as harmful or useless as any other unrecyclable product. In particular, religion concerned more with the after-life than with the world in which we live can actually distract us from the conversations we need to be having. Humanistic religion, however — which places “God” to the side and is worldly rather than other-worldly — is vital today. Rather than surrendering the label “religion” to the forces of religious reaction, I think the Ethical Culture society should proudly and loudly call itself a “religion” — while explaining to whoever is listening that “religious” is shorthand for the conscious exploration of issues of meaning, aspiration, dignity, and social responsibility. What do you think?

 Lawrence Bush is the editor of Jewish Currents
and was a Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culure fellow for 2009-2010.