Secular Humanism in the United States

In the last third of the twentieth century, American humanism went through a variety of transitions, and the movement diversified and grew, although still remaining quite small in absolute terms. It was in this period that the term secular humanism came into currency, popularized by conservative Christians who saw humanism as a nascent secular religion. These religious conservatives argued that the extensive secularization of America in the second half of the century was largely a result of the influence of secular humanists in control of American social and cultural institutions.

They portrayed the issue as a constitutional problem. Since the late 1940s the federal judiciary had issued a series of landmark rulings strictly enforcing church-state separation and removing traditional religious influence on public institutions. This was especially true for public schools, where morning prayer and religious instruction were banned. At the same time, secular modernity strongly influenced those same institutions, and ideas opposed to traditional religious tenets were introduced. Evolution and sex education, for example, were integrated into the school curriculum. These changes seemed to many Christian critics to be tantamount to the establishment of a competing religion, which they identified with humanism.

The existence of the American Humanist Association (AHA), which was founded by Unitarian and Ethical Culture ministers, gave fodder to the critics' charges that humanism was a religion in its own right. A 1933 document, "A Humanist Manifesto," published by some of these early humanists and signed by such notable scholars as John Dewey, was frequently cited as evidence of the religious dogma of humanism. By tying this "religion without God" to secularization in general, the conservative Christians argued that the government was in many ways abetting the establishment of a humanist religion in flagrant violation of the First Amendment. And indeed, similar arguments underlay court challenges to the teaching of evolution in the public schools in this same period. This argument proved ineffective in Supreme Court battles in the United States, but it was effective in marshaling grassroots political support among conservative religious activists. Humanists for their part attacked the rise of Christian fundamentalism and defended their stance as truly secular; in fact, many humanists in the 1970s and 1980s explicitly rejected the "religious humanist" label as misleading.

In contrast to the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, the decades after 1970 were not a comfortable time for humanists, who found their ideas under attack not only by conservative Christians but also in other areas of popular and elite culture. Humanists declaimed against the irrationality of superstitions and paranormal beliefs such as UFOs, haunted houses, and many alternative medical practices. Furthermore, they worried about growing irrationalism in the academy as postmodern philosophy gained popularity. In all of these arenas, it appeared to humanists that rational thought and scientific authority were endangered. Because of their long-held views that democracy and fundamental human rights were inseparable from modern, rational, scientific thought, humanists also worried about growing authoritarian tendencies and the decline of political liberalism.

The philosophy of humanism at the beginning of the twenty-first century is fostered by several membership organizations in North America, many of which publish nationally circulated magazines and newsletters; there is a successful publishing house directed by a major humanist leader; and the various organizations collaborate to support an institute for training humanist leaders. The movement is small but has established a stable and influential presence in American culture.