The Committee for the Scientific Examination
of Religion (CSER) was based at the Center
for Inquiry in Amherst, New York.
According to its mission statement, CSER was
a research consultation devoted "to the study
of religion and ethics from the standpoint
of philosophical naturalism and to the critical,
nonparochial, and humanistic study of religious
truth claims."
The Committee professed to serve both a "watchdog"
function in relation to church-state and educational
issues, and the academic community through
generating original research and promoting
religious literacy.
The CSER was disbanded in 2010.
CSER was described as a nonprofit educational
organization which "locates its values in
the humanistic principles of the American
and European Enlightenment and the liberal
critical traditions of post-Enlightenment
culture."
The Committee consisted of approximately one
hundred elected fellows chosen from academe
and the professions.
Past fellows included Van Harvey, Joseph L.
Blau, Carol Meyers, Morton Smith, Karen Armstrong,
Vern Bullough, Joseph Fletcher, Lewis Feuer,
Theodor Gaster, Gerd Luedemann, Antony Flew,
John Hick, David Noel Freedman, John Dominic
Crossan, Alan Ryan, Don Cupitt, Margaret Chatterjee,
Richard Taylor, Susan Blackmore, Robert Carroll,
Arthur Peacocke, Clinton Bennett and Peter
Atkins.
== History ==
The Committee was formed in 1985 as an expansion
of the Religion and Biblical Criticism Research
Project founded by Free Inquiry magazine in
1982.
The former group promoted a number of projects
that scrutinized conservative and fundamentalist
religious beliefs and institutions.
The two men primarily responsible for organizing
this group were the philosopher Paul Kurtz
and the professor of archaeology and Biblical
history at the University of Southern California
Gerald A. Larue.
One early project of this group was a national
conference in Washington, DC.
The conference, sponsored by the Council for
Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH),
was in response to President Ronald Reagan’s
signing of the Congressional Resolution J-5018,
which declared 1983 the "Year of the Bible."
The conference included presentations by academics,
politicians, and religious leaders who were
concerned that the passage of the Resolution
constituted a violation of the constitutional
protection of freedom of conscience in religious
matters and a circumvention of the principle
of separation of church and state, as defined
in the First Amendment.
The participants included Senators Sam Ervin
(D-North Carolina), Lowell Weicker (R-Connecticut),
Professor James Robinson, Henry Steele Commager,
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Michael Novak, Paul
Kurtz, and Gerald A. Larue.
The founding members of CSER represented a
wide variety of secular and religious viewpoints.
Its "manifesto" was crafted in broadly humanistic
language which pointed to public ignorance
of Constitutional axioms, deficiencies in
the public understanding of religion, science,
and political history, and particular weaknesses
in the American educational system in teaching
about religion.
Since 1983, CSER's conferences have presented
religious studies scholarship to the public
as well as to the academic community.
The Committee has widened its scope and membership
base through the years to reflect its interest
in the critical examination of religious traditions
in a global context.
CSER has sponsored educational programs and
conferences in America, Europe, Asia, Africa,
and Latin America.
Professor Larue was elected the first Chair
of CSER in 1983.
Professor R. Joseph Hoffmann (History of Religion,
Center for Inquiry, Amherst, NY), formerly
chair of the Oxford Centre for Critical Studies
in Religion was elected CSER Chairperson in
2003.
The Committee published its own monograph
series and a journal, CSER Quarterly
