Jerome A. Stone
Jerome A. Stone is an American author, philosopher, and theologian. He is best known for helping to develop the religious movement of
Biography
Stone grew up in Connecticut and Rhode Island, the son of a Protestant pastor. Though his family was of modest means he had access to a broad range of books. His father taught him respect for other religions early on. He was educated in the aesthetic and moral dimensions of church life. Instead of oppressive moralism, he was given a vision of moral integrity, service and a sense of the numinous.
At the age of sixteen he left home, an early entrant to the
He went on to teach religion, philosophy, ethics and racism in America at Kendall College, William Rainey Harper College and later at the Meadville Theological School. Over these years he developed a strong environmentalism. In 2002, Stone wrote:
- Lets get religious for a minute. What if the earth and its creatures were sacred? The sacred we treat with overriding care. What if the earth and our sibling creatures were sacred, either inherently sacred, or because they have a derivative sacredness as creatures of God... I would say that my enlightenment involves finding out that I am of the earth, earthly. The continuing task is to find out what this means and to live by it.[2]
Stone has moved from liberal Protestantism through a flirtation with neo-orthodoxy to a more serious wrestling with Paul Tillich and finally to a Religious Naturalism shaped by Henry Nelson Wieman, Bernard Meland and John Dewey.
Religious naturalism
Stone's latest work, Religious Naturalism Today: The Rebirth of a Forgotten Alternative, looks at the history and revival of Religious Naturalism, a 1940s option in religious thinking. It seeks to explore, develop and encourage spiritual ways of responding to the world on a completely naturalistic basis without a supreme supernatural being.
Stone traces its history and analyzes some of the issues dividing Religious Naturalists. He includes analysis of nearly fifty distinguished philosophers, theologians, scientists, and figures in art and literature, both living and dead. They range from
This is a timely contribution to contemporary theology. I know of no other book that provides such a clear yet nuanced account of the origins, development, and contemporary forms of religious naturalism. Stone's achievement ensures that religious naturalism will again be a major contender in theological debates
The individual perspectives on Religious Naturalism of Loyal Rue, Donald A. Crosby, Ursula Goodenough and Stone are discussed by Michael Hogue in his 2010 book The Promise of Religious Naturalism.[3]
Works
Major publications
- Religious Naturalism Today: The Rebirth of a Forgotten Alternative, State University of New York Press, December 2008 [2]
- The Chicago School of Theology, 2 Vols, The Edwin Mellen Press, 1996, co-edited and wrote Preface.
- The Minimalist Vision of Transcendence: A Naturalist Philosophy of Religion, SUNY Press, 1992.
- "Broadening Care, Discerning Worth: The Environmental Contributions of Minimalist Religious Naturalism". Process Studies. XXII: 194–203. Winter 1993. Retrieved 31 March 2011.
Major articles
- Stone, Jerome A. (2003). "Is Nature Enough? Yes". .
- Stone, Jerome A. (2004). "Philip Hefner and the Modernist/Postmodernist Divide". Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. 39 (4): 755–772. .
- Stone, Jerome A. (2004). "Power and Goodness of the Object of the Religious Attitude: Axiological Determinacy and Ambiguity in Recent Religious Naturalism". American Journal of Theology and Philosophy. 25 (3): 225–246.
- Stone, Jerome A. (2006). "Five Controversies in Early Religious Naturalism" (PDF). Journal of Liberal Religion. 7 (1).
References
- ^ "Highlands Institute for American Religious and Philosophical Thought". Archived from the original on 1 April 2018. Retrieved 31 December 2008.
- JSTOR 27944265
- ISBN 0-7425-6261-1