Those following the obituaries know well that this weekend brought the death of Tammy Faye Messner, previously Tammy Faye Baker, of PTL fame. But there was another religious death in the news…
The Washington Post is reporting the death of Rabbi Sherwin Wine, founder of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, in an auto accident at the age of 79. SHJ is a very controversial movement in Judaism (almost as controversial as Chabad :-)), for SHJ is a Jewish movement that doesn’t believe in God. At all. Wine saw the religion as a culture instead of a faith — in this aspect, it was similar to Reconstructionist Judaism, but the latter does hold with God. Wine established SHJ in 1969, and it now numbers over 40,000 members. In 1998, SHJ leaders were invited to participate in the United Jewish Community, a move that SHJ believes validated their movement as Judaism’s fifth sect, joining Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox.
So here’s to Sherwin Wine, founder of SHJ. May God… (oh right).
