A Religious History of American Secularism

FAIN: FEL-262523-19

Leigh Eric Schmidt
Washington University (St. Louis, MO 63130-4862)

Writing a history of church-like communities established by American secularists.

In the face of innumerable religious critics, freethinkers, humanists, and avowed secularists long sought to prove that their unbelief could sustain community, social solidarity, and virtuous citizenship. They labored time and again to construct a viable religion of humanity--and the temples, rituals, churches, and monuments to materialize, in various guises, that secular faith. This project offers the first full history of these community-building labors within American freethinking circles from the Enlightenment forward--from Elihu Palmer's deistic society and Ernestine Rose's moral philanthropists to Felix Adler's Ethical Culture and Katie Kehm Smith's First Secular Church to Theodore Abell's Hollywood Humanist Society and Sherwin Wine's humanistic/agnostic Judaism.

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