Have you ever found yourself visiting a church and telling yourself, “Wow — look how great this church is. I wish I had someplace I could send my kids that would be this caring — but I don’t know if I want them learning about all this God stuff. Whatever am I to do?”Well fear not, my frustrated faith-queasy friends. There’s a new trend emerging that may be right for you.An emerging humanist “congregation” has developed at the Harvard campus in Boston, according to The Washington Post.   Humanism, like most religious phenomena, is hard to precisely define. The term generally applies to a belief system that places a high importance on rationality and reason and espouses an ethical philosophy that holds the dignity and worth of all human beings to be paramount.Pinning down an exact definition of humanism in terms of religious beliefs is especially dicey. Though religious humanists — those that apply humanist philosophical principles to an existing faith — do exist, humanism generally lacks any significant form of belief in a higher power. Humanism generally disdains using so-called “transcendental truths”, or supernatural explanations for physical or moral phenomena. It is important to note that humanism is separate from atheism and agnosticism; humanists can be said to be “ignostic”— indifferent to the existence of gods. Atheism, the belief that no god or gods exist, and agnosticism, the belief that humanity cannot know whether god or gods exist, are both strictly religious phenomena because they are rooted in a belief (or lack thereof) about spiritual beings.Humanism, in comparison, doesn’t necessarily define its philosophies in terms of gods. Though humanists disapprove of trying to use spiritual or supernatural forces to explain the world, the forces that act upon it or the moral and ethical interactions that impact humanity, most do not outright reject the possibility of a god. In their view, the existence — or non-existence — of God is largely irrelevant.Many humanists are young intellectuals who have broken from the religious traditions of their childhood during their college careers.Now that these young adults are emerging from their educations and becoming adults with real responsibilities, they find themselves in a major dilemma, especially when it comes to raising their children.  As humanists, they do not attend church and do not wish to send their children. They are wary of placing their kids in an environment they perceive to be largely irrational, specifically when it comes to the creationism vs. evolution debate. In addition, they believe children should come to a decision on their religious beliefs based on their own thinking and rationality, and a church — in their opinion — is not conducive to such a process.Yet these new humanist parents still feel impelled to fill the church-shaped hole in their lives. They long to find a community of like-minded people, with whom they can bond and share their beliefs. They long to find an environment where their kids can do the same, in a place that will help them come to their own decisions on how they view the world around them.In other words, they are looking for a church with no God.The phenomenon is not really a significant one — yet. But there is great potential for the movement to spread rapidly because it is perfectly suited for the demographic that least attends traditional services — college students.Countless studies have indicated that church attendance plummets in the college-age demographic for a multitude of reasons — from the mind-opening, doubt-inducing nature of a collegiate education to the simple freedom to break from a tradition they were likely unwilling participants in.These same studies all point to another, connected trend: church attendance rises just as sharply at precisely the age when participants start trying to raise kids. It seems new parents, searching desperately for stability for themselves and their kids, tend to turn back to the nest once practical concerns outweigh intellectual ideals.A humanist congregation provides an alternative. Instead of returning like the prodigal son to the fold, young graduates might find an alternative.That assumes, of course, the phenomenon spreads. Though the conditions for the spread might be right, a humanist church — and humanism in general — is rooted in a kind of intellectualism usually found only on a college campus.  It seems unlikely that anywhere except for the most academic of environments will be a fertile breeding ground for the movement.Still, Christian churches need to keep an eye on it. If the humanist church starts to blossom, mainstream Christianity can either find a way to retain its college-age students or start working on a mind-control machine.–Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]