Novice hesitating to enter reformed humanist denomination (11)

'denomination' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot see how they can define each other.

'novice hesitating to enter reformed humanist' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'novice' could be 'l' (as in a learner driver with L-plates on their car) and 'l' is located in the answer.
'hesitating' could be 'er' and 'er' is present in the answer.
an anagram of 'humanist' is 'uthanism' which is within the left over letters.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?