Where Were the Humanists?

Not long after the December 2012 Newtown shootings, and all the speeches by civic leaders, memorial services, and funerals were over, Samuel G. Freedman wrote a column in The New York Times titled “In a Crisis, Humanists Seem Absent.” Freedman observed the heavy use of explicit religious vocabulary and symbolism in all public ceremonies and by both political leaders and sufferers. Connecticut is hardly the center of the U.S. Bible Belt, yet every single family in Newtown who lost a child chose to hold religious services, which took place in Catholic, Congregational, Mormon, and Methodist churches, as well as in a Protestant mega-church and a Jewish cemetery.

A black Christian youth group journeyed from the Deep South to sing “Amazing Grace.” President Obama delivered a eulogy that was essentially a sermon, speaking of God “calling the children home.” He quoted extensively from 2 Corinthians 4 and 5 and used its hope for a world and life beyond this one to console and make bearable the losses we experience here and now. Freedman was one of many who found it startling that in an increasingly secular society, where now some twenty percent of the population told pollsters they had “no religious preference,” our society turned so visibly to God and faith to communally face the tragedy. Freedman said that it all “has left behind one prickly question: where were the humanists?