This is a church, by church, minister by minister, social action by social action walk through the Western Conference, apparently in an effort to prove that "the creative impulse of free religion had not atrophied". Which of course means that it was close to atrophy, otherwise, why would he have bothered to write this?
Curtis Reese was the secretary, and that's the tie to humanism, but the chapter is more about liberal religion and unitarianism than it seems to be about humanism, short of the references to the social actions taken.
This was an odd read. The first half of it read like a gravestone.
Then, the author describes how Reese moved from the Baptist church to the Unitarian church because he (and later the Conference) had "moved past Christianity and beyond any historic religion". Ok, so this was interesting, but it was another instance of people at that time thinking that what was ancient had less value.
He also mentions how Dietrich, who I just enthusiastically finished reading earlier today transitioned (through excommunication) to Unitarianism, but the picture painted of him here sounded more like the parts of his piece (recently read) that troubled than the ones that excited me.
All of this wraps up in painting a picture of West's humanism (or passive acceptance of it) making East nervous. The release of this discomfort came after time and familiarity in the presidency of Samuel Eliot in 1921-37, who did not stand it its way and later Frederick Eliot who had adopted some of its principles.
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