Obituaries : Edwin H. Wilson; A Founder of American Humanism Movement

Edwin H. Wilson, 94, a founder of American humanism and a prominent Unitarian Universalist minister. Wilson was the first editor in 1928 of New Humanist magazine and the first editor in 1941 of the Humanist. He was also a primary author of “A Humanist Manifesto” in 1933 and “Humanist Manifesto II” in 1973. Wilson was pastor of a number of Unitarian churches, including the First Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City from 1946 to 1949. In 1941, Wilson, along with philosopher John Dewey and others, formed the American Humanist Assn. In 1964, he founded the Fellowship of Religious Humanists, an independent affiliate of the Unitarian Universalist Assn. He was named humanist of the year in 1979 by the American Humanist Assn. Other recipients of the award have included Carl Sagan, Margaret Sanger, Jonas Salk, Isaac Asimov, Margaret Atwood, Ted Turner and Kurt Vonnegut. The humanist manifestoes characterize the universe as “self-existing” and define religion as the actions, purposes and experiences that are humanly significant, said the Rev. Barbara Hamilton-Holway of the Unitarian Universalist Society. In Salt Lake City on March 26.