William Dean - American Religious Empiricism

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title	:	American Religious Empiricism SUNY Series in Religious Studies
author	:	Dean, William D.
publisher	:	State University of New York Press
isbn10 | asin	:	0887062814
print isbn13	:	9780887062810
ebook isbn13	:	9780585063133
language	:	English
subject	Empirical theology, Theology, Doctrinal--United States--History--20th century, Chicago school of theology.
publication date	:	1986
lcc	:	BT83.53.D43 1986eb
ddc	:	230
subject	:	Empirical theology, Theology, Doctrinal--United States--History--20th century, Chicago school of theology.

Page i American Religious Empiricism

Page ii SUNY Series in Religious Studies Robert C. Neville, Editor

Page iii American Religious Empiricism William Dean State University of New York Press

Page iv Published by State University of New York Press, Albany 1986 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dean, William. American religious empiricism. (SUNY series in religious studies) Includes index. 1. Empirical theologyAddresses, essays, lectures. 2. Theology, DoctrinalUnited StatesHistory20th centuryAddresses, essays, lectures. 3. Chicago School of theology Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Title. II. Series. BT83.53.D43 1986 230 85-27769 ISBN 0-88706-280-6 ISBN 0-88706-281-4 (pbk.)

Page v To the theologians of the Chicago School To make a start, out of particulars William Carlos Williams, Paterson

Page vii Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xv Introduction: The Context of American Religious Empiricism 1 1. An Empirical Interpretation: An American Theology 19 2. An Historicist Interpretation: The Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Religious Knowledge 41 3. A Pragmatic Interpretation: The Tragedy of the Liberals 67 4. An Aesthetic Interpretation: The Elusive "It" 87 5. A Formal Interpretation: The Fate of an American Theology 101 Notes 119 Index 143

Page ix Preface Sydney Ahlstrom could properly begin his Theology in America by saying that American theology was "like a conversation being continued by people as they walk into another room."1 In the new room, however, the conversation took a new twist. It is on this, on what is novel in the American room, that I focus, rather than on the continuities in the house of Western religious thought. I write out of the conviction that this novelty fits America, that something about American experience once evoked it and still needs it. This distinctively American approach, American religious empiricism, was implicit in the work of Jonathan Edwards, it was theologically extended by the more empirical of the eighteenth and nineteenth century "Enlightenment Christians," and it was carried on by certain liberal religious thinkers around the turn of the nineteenth century. American religious empiricism was philosophically extended first by William James, then by John Dewey and Alfred North Whitehead, and theologically elaborated by members of the Chicago School of theology, as well as by several twentieth century theologians at Yale and elsewhere in the nation. Today's process theology and a few other theological writings could be treated as participants in the tradition of American religious empiricism. Further, much postmodern thought can be seen as an unknowing revival of America's own almost forgotten empirical tradition. Postmodernism in much of the arts (beginning with William Carlos Williams) echoes the themes of

Page x American religious empiricism, as does postmodernism in literary theory (particularly deconstructionism), in philosophy (particularly Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty), and in the sciences (particularly John Wheeler). The following "Introduction" and chapters each use the postmodern standpoint to show American religious empiricism's distinct implication: that history constructs reality, that history is simply a chain of interpretations, and that whatever might lie outside history lies outside religion, empirically considered. The postmodernists and the founders of American religious empiricism agree that history is important, in the broadest sense of the term, religiously. Together, they believe that when a people reinterprets its history it becomes a new people, just as the ancient Hebrews and Christians had believed that when they reinterpreted their former covenant with God they assumed a new covenent with God and became a new people. Equally, the postmodernists and American religious empiricists believe that when history reinterprets a people a new people is created, just as the Hebrews and Christians had believed that when God reinterpreted them, they became new.

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