Ethical Culture...have not heard much from them lately

When I was eight years old I knew a boy named Ricky Martinez whose father was Hispanic and whose mother was Jewish. They belonged to something called the Ethical Culture movement, which I had never heard of but which sounded both weird and very interesting.

Ricky had a hard time explaining what it was all about...later I gathered it was for people who wanted their kids to have some kind of ethical upbringing but not a traditional religious one (The UU's are much the same now).

Just a bit from the internet in case you have never heard of Ethical Culture, which is likely unless you are from the Upper West Side of Manhattan or just happen to meet someone who is involved in it....( their classy building is on classy Central Park West. Back to Central Park West a little later, but we have to get back to Central Park first!)

Anyway, Ethical Culture--just enough so you get the idea...


The Ethical movement, also referred to as the Ethical Culture movement or simply Ethical Culture, is an ethical, educational, and religious movement that is usually traced back to Felix Adler.^[1] Individual chapter organizations are generically referred to as "Ethical Societies", though their names may include "Ethical Society," "Ethical Culture Society," "Society for Ethical Culture," "Ethical Humanist Society," or other variations on the theme of "Ethical."
Ethical Culture is premised on the idea that honoring and living in accordance with ethical principles is central to what it takes to live meaningful and fulfilling lives, and to creating a world that is good for all. Practitioners of Ethical Culture focus on supporting one another in becoming better people, and on doing good in the world.^[2][3]
The American Ethical Union is a federation of about 25 Ethical Societies in the United States, representing the Ethical Culture movement. It is one of the founding member organizations of the International Humanist and Ethical Union.

Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture building on Prospect Park West, originally designed by architect William Tubby as a home for William H. Childs (inventor of Bon Ami Cleaning Powder)

Contents

History

United States

In his youth Felix Adler was being groomed to be a rabbi like his father, Samuel Adler, the rabbi of the Reform Jewish Temple Emanu-El in New York. As part of his education he enrolled at University of Heidelberg where he was influenced by Neo-Kantian philosophy. He was especially drawn to the Kantian ideas that one could not prove the existence or non-existence of deities or immortality and that morality could be established independently of theology.^[4] During this time he was also exposed to the moral problems caused by the exploitation of women and labor. These experiences laid the intellectual groundwork for the ethical movement. Upon his return from Germany, in 1873, he shared his ethical vision with his father's congregation in the form of a sermon. Due to the negative reaction he elicited it became his first and last sermon as a rabbi in training.^[5] Instead he took up a professorship at Cornell University and in 1876 gave a follow up sermon that led to the 1877 founding of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, which was the first of its kind.^[4] By 1886, similar societies had sprouted up in Philadelphia, Chicago and St. Louis.^[5]
These societies all adopted the same statement of principles:

• The belief that morality is independent of theology;
• The affirmation that new moral problems have arisen in modern industrial society which have not been adequately dealt with by the world's religions;
• The duty to engage in philanthropy in the advancement of morality;
• The belief that self-reform should go in lock step with social reform;
• The establishment of republican rather than monarchical governance of Ethical societies
• The agreement that educating the young is the most important aim.

In effect, the movement responded to the religious crisis of the time by replacing theology with unadulterated morality. It aimed to "disentangle moral ideas from religious doctrines, metaphysical systems, and ethical theories, and to make them an independent force in personal life and social relations."^[5] Adler was also particularly critical of the religious emphasis on creed, believing it to be the source of sectarian bigotry. He therefore attempted to provide a universal fellowship devoid of ritual and ceremony, for those who would otherwise be divided by creeds. For the same reasons the movement also adopted a neutral position on religious beliefs, advocating neither atheism nor theism, agnosticism nor deism.^[5]