Humanist Sermons

Humanist Sernjpns Edited by CURTIS W. REESE Sermon by JOHN HAYNES HOLMES CHARLES H. LYTTLE CURTIS W. REESE E. STANTON HODGIN E. BURDETTE BACKUS A. WAKEFIELD SLATEN JOHN H. DIETRICH EARL F. COOK EUGENE MILNE COSGROVE L. M. BIRKHEAD E. CALDECOTT SIDNEY S. ROBINS FREDERICK M. ELIOT JAMES H. HART FRANK S. C. WICKS FRANK C. DOAN ARTHUR L. WEATHERLY A. EUSTACE HAYDON CHICAGO LONDON Clje Zpen Court wblfstyfng Company 1927 COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO. CHICAGO the liberal churches of America there is a religious movement which has come to be known as Humanism. The ideology of this movement I attempted to sketch in Humanism 5 issued last year. The present volume is a collection of sermons which have been used in the regular course of parish preach ing. Each minister was asked to make his own selection. Consequently, the wide range and supplementary char acter of the subjects are purely accidental. It is not my function to analyze or evaluate the ser mons. Each minister has spoken his own mind in his own way, and is alone responsible for his utterance. My aim is to introduce the Humanist point of view in a way that will assist in the proper interpretation of the sermons that follow. Humanism has been used to designate certain thought movements which in varying degrees have centered at tention on the study, the worth, and the enhancement of human life. Sophist Humanism, in the fifth century B. C., turned attention from cosmological speculation to the study of man. Renaissance Humanism, beginning in the four teenth century, flooded the dark ages with the light of classical learning, thus assisting mightily in transform ing the medieval into the modern world. EncyclopedicHumanism, in the second half of the eighteenth cen tury, fought error, fostered enlightenment, and magni fied human desires and aspirations. In current history, VI Preface philosophical Humanism puts human nature at the cen ter of the knowledge process and defines values in terms of the relation of things to human living scientific Hu manism investigates cosmic behavior with view to using and controlling it for human ends educational Hu manism relates the power of knowledge to the needs of life and religious Humanism grounds spirituality in human living, thus contrasting sharply with super human, supernatural, and absolutistic value-schemes. Throughout its history Humanism has centered at tention on the study, the worth, and the enhancement of human life. NEGATIVELY STATED 1 Humanism is not Materialism. Materialism is the doctrine that the happenings of nature are to be explained in terms of the locomotion of material It is properly contrasted with Animism. It is mechanistic, not spiritistic. It belongs to the pre-electron period. While the mechanistic hypothesis of Materialism has served a useful purpose in scientific experimentation, it is now regarded by competent physicists as an inade quate hypothesis and in the realm of psychology and sociology Materialism breaks down utterly. Humanism holds the organic, not the mechanistic or materialistic view of life. 2 Humanism is not Positivism. Positivism as a re ligion is an artificial system which substitutes the wor ship of Humanity past, present, and future for the worship of God, the immortality of influence for the immortality of the soul, etc. Humanism, on the other hand, holds that the Hu manity of Positivism is an abstraction havingno con crete counterpart in objective reality, and that most in Preface vu fluence far from being immortal is highly transitory. To Humanism worship means the reverential atti tude towards all that is wonderful in persons and throughout all of life a wistful, hopeful, expectant at titude of mind not abject homage to either Humani ty or God. As to immortality, the Humanist shifts the emphasis from longevity to quality. But Humanism encourages research in the realm of the spirit...