Secular theology

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Secular theology is a term applied to theological positions influenced by humanism and secularism, rejecting supernatural metaphysical positions related to the nature of God. Secular theology can accommodate a belief in God, like many nature religions, but as residing in this world and not separately from it.

Aristotle's conception of God as the Soul of the World was such a secular concept.[citation needed] Historians such as Charles Freeman hold that the AD 325 Council of Nicaea did much to establish dualism in Christian thought. Dualism has greatly influenced religion and science as well. By desacralizing the natural world, dualism has left it vulnerable to exploitation and damage.

20th-century Christianity

Lutheran and sociologist

John A. T. Robinson's Honest to God "marked the rather loud inauguration of what came to be known as secular theology on the Anglo-American scene". Berger further states that Ogden advocates a "secular interpretation of the Christian faith", which, "while rejecting secularism, will also reject supernaturalistic theism", and "distinguishes between secularism and secularity".[1]

The field of secular theology, a subfield of

Death of God Theology propagated by Thomas J. J. Altizer or the philosophical existentialism of Tillich and eased the introduction of such ideas into the theological mainstream and made constructive evaluations, as well as contributions, to them.[2][additional citation(s) needed
]

Jesus Christ, Christology and Christian eschatology as Christian mythology without basis in historical events.[4][5]

The movement chiefly came about as a response to general dissatisfaction with the Christian establishment's tendency to lapse into "

holy outside the church itself. Thereby it suggests that the church did not have exclusive rights to divine inspiration. In a sense, this incorporated a strong sense of continuous revelation in which truth of the religious sort was sought out in poetry, music, art, or even the pub and in the street.[citation needed
]

Other religions

Certain other religions besides Christianity have developed secular theologies and applied these to core concepts of their own traditions. Notable among such movements has been the Reconstructionist Judaism of Mordecai Kaplan, which understands God and the universe in a manner concordant with Deweyan naturalism.[9]

In

Advaita school of theology is generally regarded as non-theistic as it accepts all interpretations of God or Ishvara
.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Peter L. Berger. "SECULAR THEOLOGY AND THE REJECTION OF THE SUPERNATURAL: REFLECTIONS ON RECENT TRENDS" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 April 2022.
  2. ISBN 0-664-22422-9
    .
  3. ISBN 0-06-067518-7
    .
  4. ISBN 0-06-067546-2
    .
  5. ISBN 0-06-067523-3
    .
  6. ^ "THE PRESENT FRONTIERS OF WESLEYAN THEOLOGY". Archived from the original on September 3, 2006. Retrieved 2007-09-14.
  7. ISBN 0-664-22355-9
    .
  8. ISBN 0-7546-3827-8
    .
  9. ^ "Mordecai Kaplan's Pragmatic Religion". Retrieved 2008-02-16.

References

  • Harvey Cox, The Secular City (1965).
  • Harvey Cox, Religion in the Secular City: Toward a Postmodern Theology (1984).
  • Clayton Crockett (ed.), Secular Theology: American Radical Theological Thought (2001),
    ISBN 0-415-25052-8
  • Amos Funkenstein, "Secular Theology" in the Modern Age (1986)
  • John Warwick Montgomery, The shape of the past: A Christian response to secular philosophies of history (1975)
  • Wolfhart Pannenberg, Christianity in a Secularized World, (1989).
  • John A. T. Robinson
    , Exploration into God (1967).
  • ISBN 0-06-076207-1
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