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CURTIS W. REESE:
STATESMAN OF RELIGIOUS HUMANISM
1887-1961
by
Mason Olds, Unitarian Universalist Minister
 Curtis
Williford Reese was born September 3, 1887, on a farm in Madison
County, North Carolina which is in the western part of the state
in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Reeses were very devout Southern
Baptists and many of them had been ministers. Reese once said:
"One of my paternal great-grandfathers was a Baptist preacher,
one of my paternal grandfathers and two of my paternal uncles
were Baptist preachers, my father is a Baptist deacon, two of
my brothers are Baptist preachers, and a sister married a Baptist
preacher."
With so many clergymen in the family, it is understandable that
when Reese earned his first dollar he gave it to the Baptist church
to help pay the minister's salary. Also, it is not surprising
that Reese "accepted Christ as his personal saviour" at age nine
rather than later in life. He had been taught that once a person
reached the age of accountability if he refused to become a Christian
and if he died in this lost condition, he would spend eternity
in hell. Believing that he was capable of making such an important
decision, the nine year old boy stood before the congregation
and confessed that he was a lost sinner and that he had trusted
Christ to save him. Although it was mid-winter, he was baptized
in an outdoor creek with some other converts.
Later Reese decided to enter the ministry, which meant that he
thought that God had given him the "call." He entered the Baptist
College at Mar's Hill, North Carolina, and graduated in May 1908.
He was ordained to the Baptist ministry.
He met Fay Rowlett Walker, whom he later married on February
7, 1913.
It was during his seminary studies that Reese first began to
have any doubts about his religious faith. Since he felt that
the Bible was divinely inspired, it came as quite a shock to encounter
"higher criticism" even in a conservative Southern Baptist context.
Also, Reese had a friend, Ralph E. Bailey, who later made the
transition from the Baptist ministry to the Unitarian. Bailey
has remarked: "In 1908, he and I were students at the Baptist
seminary in Louisville, where I soon shocked him to his knees
by my heresy. Much of his time was devoted, I think, to prayer
that I be corrected in my outspoken apostasy from Baptist truth."
Moreover, it was in Louisville that Reese first came into contact
with Unitarianism. In fact, he took some Baptist tracts over to
the Unitarian church and picked up some of the Unitarian materials.
One pamphlet especially appealed to him; it was entitled, "Salvation
by Character," and it was probably this experience that later
contributed to Reese's move into Unitarianism.
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| Children at the Abraham
Lincoln Centre, where Reese was the Dean from 1930-1957 |
Graduating from seminary in 1910, Reese took a job as state evangelist
in the Illinois State Baptist Association, which was composed
of approximately five hundred churches that had split off from
the Illinois Baptist State Convention. In this position, he also
had time for further study so that he took courses at Ewing College
at Ewing, Illinois, a Baptist school which has since gone out
of existence. In 1911 he received a Ph.D degree from Ewing.
Reese said of this period: "During the year as State Evangelist,
my heresies, which had begun even during my seminary days due
to the impact of Higher Criticism, began to grow apace." In this
same year Reese became the pastor of the First Baptist Church
of Tiffin, Ohio, which he thought was a "liberal" Northern Baptist
Church; but he still felt cramped. He said: "I preached twice
each Sunday, but following the evening service my conscience bothered
me. I could and did say what I believed, but I did not feel free
to say what I did not believe..." Not finding the Northern Baptists
liberal enough, Reese decided he must transfer into a more liberal
ministry. Realizing this, he considered the Unitarians, the Universalists,
and the Christians; and, finally, he decided to examine more closely
the Unitarians because of a work that he had read by Francis G.
Peabody, a Unitarian social gospeler.
 Reese
wrote the minister of the Unitarian Church in Toledo, Ohio, and
set up a meeting with him. At this meeting Reese presented a statement
of his faith which consisted of the following: "(1) a Universal
Father, God, (2) a Universal Brotherhood, mankind, (3) a Universal
right, freedom, (4) a Universal motive, love, and (5) a Universal
aim, progress." When Reese inquired if his faith were consistent
with Unitarianism, the minister assured him that it was. When
Reese returned to Tiffin, he was faced with a decision; after
some serious thought, he decided to transfer from the Baptist
church to the Unitarian. The next move was to set up a conference
between himself and the secretary of the Western Unitarian Conference.
After this meeting Reese was recommended for the ministry of the
Unitarian Church in Alton, Illinois. The Alton church accepted
the recommendation, with Reese beginning his career as a Unitarian
minister in 1913.
This move from the Baptist faith to the Unitarian was not taken
lightly by Reese, for it caused him great personal turmoil as
well as creating a problem with his family. He said: "My mother
said very sincerely that she would rather have seen me dead. This
is understandable, for had she heard of my death she would have
had the satisfaction of knowing that I was flying around with
angels in heaven. But now she was sure that if and when I died,
I would burn in hellfire and brimstone forever and ever."
Reese, who had been close with one of his sisters, was proud
when she named her son, Curtis Williford, but when he became a
Unitarian, she renamed him "Bruner Truett" for two well-known
and solid Southern Baptist ministers. Later, the family did come
to accept Reese in spite of the change, and even the sister attended
a Unitarian Fellowship for a while and might have become member
if it had not been for her husband, who was a Baptist deacon.
Although Reese was in Alton for only two years, he did have a
number of significant experiences. First of all, he became a very
strong anti-vice crusader. He mobilized the ministers so that
an active campaign was launched to rid the city of "gaming houses"
and "brothels." He raised money and hired a private detective
to gain substantial evidence about vice, with the result being
that the crusaders ran a man for mayor on a clean-up ticket and
won. However, Reese was so zealous in his efforts that the underworld
had him shot at several times, and one time it was necessary for
him to hide in a parishioner's attic. Once he was attacked at
a railroad depot, but was only slightly injured. These episodes
received newspaper coverage; therefore, they provided fuel for
the election campaign. While Reese and his wife escaped to a parishioner's
home on the night of the election, a mob gathered in front of
his home and lit several fires.
 Two
other experiences merit mention. One summer Reese returned to
Gratz, Kentucky, where he had been a pastor while in seminary.
He rented an auditorium and conducted a week of lectures on Unitarianism.
People came to hear Reese for various reasons, with some coming
because they had never heard of a Baptist becoming a Unitarian.
Some descendants of the old village doctor came because their
father had been a Unitarian, and they wanted to learn about this
faith. Unlike his days as a Baptist, Reese took no offering nor
asked for anyone to join; his lectures were simply for the enlightenment
of the people. The second experience deals with Reese's commitment
to run a summer camp at Lithia Springs, Illinois, with a guarantee
that all expenses would be paid. The camp lasted for only three
weeks and since it rained for nearly the whole time, the attendance
dropped, with the expenses running into the red. To honor his
commitment Reese paid the expenses out of his own pocket; and
it is believed that it was this sort of integrity that enabled
him to be elected secretary of the Western Unitarian Conference
four years later.
In spite of an increasing membership in Alton, Reese went on
to become the minister of the Unitarian church in Des Moines,
Iowa in 1915. Again, he became involved in a number of social
problems. It did not take long for Reese to be moved by the poor
housing conditions The Iowa Housing Bill was drawn up and, with
Reese's intense lobbying, the bill passed without a negative vote.
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| One of the crumbling
buildings in the area served by the Abraham Lincoln Centre |
Following the passage of the bill, Reese gained much publicity.
In effect, he was asked to run for mayor of Des Moines with the
promised backing of organized labor, and he was offered a lucrative
position as a stock and bond salesman; but he declined both offers
to accept the position of Secretary of the Western Unitarian Conference
in 1919. Reese's new base of operation was Chicago, and in this
new administrative position his main responsibility was to help
churches secure the "right," most capable minister for their pulpits.
Although this position was potentially a controversial one, Reese
had the ability to retain the respect of both the conservatives
and the radicals.
It was during this period that Reese was elected to the Board
of Directors of the Meadville Theological School, which at that
time was located at Meadville, Pennsylvania. Reese wanted the
school to be relocated in Chicago; he therefore contacted Morton
D. Hull, a wealthy businessman and an active Unitarian, and secured
a pledge from him of $100,000 if the school should come to Chicago.
At the next meeting of the Board of Directors in February, 1926,
Reese told of the pledge and it was decided that Meadville would
relocate in Chicago. Reese also worked out with Shailer Mathews
"an associated relationship" between Meadville and the University
of Chicago, as well as negotiating the purchase of the President's
House and Channing House.
Along with his position as secretary to the Western Unitarian
Conference, Reese was appointed president of Lombard College,
a Universalist school located in Galesburg, Illinois. Apparently
his appointment was an attempt to bring the Unitarians to the
aid of the Universalists in saving the school from financial collapse.
Carl Sandburg is perhaps the most distinguished alumnus of the
school. However, Reese was president for only a little over a
year; and with the depression the financial situation became impossible,
so that the school became a part of the Meadville Theological
School in 1933.
In January, 1930, Reese gave up his position
as Western Conference secretary and accepted the position as dean
at the Abraham Lincoln Centre in Chicago. The Centre was founded
in 1905 by the Unitarian minister, Jenkin Lloyd Jones. Reese lived
in an apartment in the Centre designed by the famous architect,
Frank Lloyd Wright. The programs for the Centre were many and varied;
it had a Friday morning forum, where outstanding speakers with all
varieties of opinion were provided a platform from which to be heard.
Also, the Centre published a journal, Unity, which for many years
had John Haynes Holmes as the editor, with Reese as an associate.
As Jones and Holmes had been dedicated pacifists, this was the official
policy of the journal; but, later, during the Second World War,
Reese gave up his pacifism and convinced the directors of the journal
to support him; so that a rift came about between Holmes and Reese,
with Holmes relinquishing his leadership of the journal and Reese
taking over as editor. The Centre had a counseling center and ran
a clinic for "optional parenthood." It sponsored "study classes,
social service, a boys' and girls' camp, a public library, domestic
science classes, instruction in music with glee clubs and an orchestra,
various special activities for boys and girls, and dramatics." Non-Jews,
Jews, and Negroes were on the staff, and Reese maintained in the
early days a fifty percent balance of whites and blacks in all programs;
later as the neighborhood changed they ministered to an even larger
percentage of blacks.
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| The Abraham Lincoln
Centre |
Being connected with Unity as contributing editor, managing
editor, and editor over a period of nearly forty years, Reese
wrote numerous articles ranging from a sophisticated level of
scholarship to simple editorials. He also published in several
other liberal journals. In 1926 he published his first book, Humanism,
followed in 1931 with Humanist Religion and in 1945 with
The Meaning of Humanism. He also edited in 1927 Humanist
Sermons, and in 1931 he edited a book entitled, Friedrich
Nietzsche, which was the lectures of the late George Burman
Foster, professor of comparative religion at the University of
Chicago. Reese also wrote an autobiography entitled, My Life
Among the Unitarians, which was submitted to Beacon Press,
but it was never published. Generally, Reese's books are short,
contain insight, but are somewhat thin in the development of problems;
however, they do document his interest in the movement of religious
humanism and add greatly to an understanding of it.
Retiring as dean of the Abraham Lincoln Centre in 1957, Reese
and his wife moved to Kissimmee, Florida. On May 22, 1959, he
was presented the Holmes-Weatherly Award for service to liberal
religion by the American Unitarian Association. On June 5, 1961,
while attending a Board of Directors' meeting of the Meadville
Theological School and the commencement exercises, Reese died
of a coronary attack; and with his passing another pioneer of
religious humanism faded from the religious scene.
It should be stressed that Reese spent the larger part of his
professional career as the dean of the Abraham Lincoln Centre;
namely, from the spring of 1923 until February 12, 1957, when
he was forced to retire as the result of a severe coronary. This
Centre had distinguished members on its Board of Trustees such
as Paul Douglas who later became a United States Senator from
Illinois. The Centre was so well-known that both the House and
the Senate of the State of Illinois, on separate occasions, passed
resolutions commending it for its fine service to the state. It
was from the context of a kind of settlement house and social
and cultural centre that Reese worked and wrote about the world,
rather than from a vantage point such as an academic institution
or a church pulpit.
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| Celebrating 90 years
of service: 1905-1995 |
Ernest W. Kuebler at the time of Reese's retirement delivered
an address to the Western Unitarian Conference meeting in Ann
Arbor, Michigan, entitled, "Curtis W. Reese — Liberal Statesman."
Reese's statesmanship was obvious in his running of the Abraham
Lincoln Centre; in his working out an acceptance of "A Humanist
Manifesto" by men with independent minds and diverse backgrounds,
as well as his contribution to the humanist movement generally;
in the Adult Education movement; in his influence in the Western
Unitarian Conference; in his sermons and addresses; in influencing
the Meadville Theological School to become a part of the Federated
Theological Faculty of the University of Chicago; and in helping
prepare the way for the merger of the Unitarians with the Universalists.
Reese was one of the founders and was president of the American
Humanist Association for fourteen years, being acknowledged as
a "humanist pioneer" in 1956. We follow Kuebler's lead and refer
to him as "the statesman of religious humanism."
Was Reese's religion a religion without God? During the heat
of the humanist-theist controversy Reese objected to the theists
referring to humanists as atheists. He said: "The radical Unitarian
Humanist is inclined to say, 'Very well, if Humanism be Atheistic,
so be it.' But in point of fact, there is not the slightest ground
for calling Humanists Atheistic. The Unitarian discussion might
be summed up as 'Theism or no Theism,' but not as 'God or no God,'
since most of the Humanists hold some one of the several non-Theistic
theories of God."
In his book entitled, Humanism, he said: "The liberal
recognizes and zealously proclaims the fact that purposive and
powerful cosmic processes are operative, and that increasingly
man is able to cooperate with them and in a measure control them.
What these processes be styled is of but little importance. Some
call them cosmic processes, others call them God."
Abridged from Religious Humanism in America: Dietrich,
Reese, and Potter; Mason Olds, Editor (University Press of
America, 1978); revised edition, American Religious Humanism
(Minneapolis: Fellowship of Religious Humanists, 1996).
Recommended Reading
The Meaning of Humanis,
Curtis W. Reese (Boston: Beacon Press, 1945).
Freedom Moves West,
Charles Lyttle (Boston: Beacon Press, 1952).
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