Leaders in the Ethical Culture movement have been creating a new statement of identity -- another of a series of attempts in our history to describe the core of Ethical Culture -- and the statement is now finished, and online.  Our Leader Intern, Hugh Taft-Morales, was one of the people who helped create the statement and bring it through the process.

Here are the first paragraphs, plus a link (below) to the full statement:

Dedicated to cultivating moral development in personal life and moral reform in society, Ethical Culture seeks to nurture relationships in which we act so as to elicit the best in others and thereby in ourselves, to provide inspiration and guidance for moral living, and to transform the way humanity views the meaning of life.

Our faith is inspired and animated by the deliberate and reasoned choice of attributing worth and dignity to all. Imbued with a profound sense of interrelatedness, we recognize that we are both dependent and independent—each a unique end unto ourselves. We understand that if any one of us were different life itself would be different. It is through this sense of ourselves as members of an organic whole that we reinforce the attribution of moral worth to every individual.

Ethical Culture is a religion of ethical relationships, a Humanist2 movement in which ethics is central. We organize congregationally in order to live out our values in community with others, inspired by the ideal of perfected living that always lies beyond our reach. Together we direct our efforts toward assuring a just and abundant life for all.

continued: Ethical Culture Statement, National Leaders Council, November 2008