Religious humanism

In the 21st century, religious humanists commonly unite under the umbrella of Ethical Culture or Ethical Humanism. This phenomenon is primarily centered in the United States. While a British Ethical movement was notably active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it had gradually distanced itself from its "religious" aspects by the 1960s. Instead, it emphasized humanism less as a religious identity and more as a practical label describing rational and non-religious perspectives on morality and ethics. Ethical Culture and religious humanist groups first formed in the United States from Unitarian ministers who, not believing in God, sought to build a secular religion influenced by the thinking of French philosopher Auguste Comte.

Discussion of terminology[edit]

People writing about religious humanism are careful to distinguish religious humanism from Jewish humanism (nonreligious Jews who are humanists), Christian humanism (religious Christians asserting the humanitarian aspects of their religion), and secular humanism (often simply "humanism", a non-religious approach to life), but confusion inevitably arises.^[17] Another such term is Secular Buddhism, which refers to an atheistic practice of Buddhist rituals.


Some experts on humanism, including Andrew Copson, argue that there have been deliberate attempts to "muddy the conceptual water... of a complicatedly imprecise philosophical term" by adding the slew of qualifying adjectives to humanism. He asserts that the term "Christian humanism" was first used in 1944, and argues that it has largely been used by Christians "as a way of co‐opting the (to them) amenable aspects of humanism for their religion.^[18]