Pragmatic Theology: Negotiating the Intersections of an American Philosophy of Religion and Public Theology

Victor Anderson

Jan 1998 · State University of New York Press

About this ebook

Pragmatic Theology argues for a vision of religious life that is derived from the tradition of American pragmatism (James, Dewey, Royce); empirical theology (Chicago School, D.C. Macintosh, H. Richard Niebuhr); and American philosophy of religion (Stone, Frankenberry, Corrington). The author argues that there is a divine reality in human experience that when encountered gives meaning and value to a person's need for cultural fulfillment and to his or her religious need for self-transcendence. The book commends the openness of nature, the world, and human experience to creative transformation and growth. It supports the increase of human capacities to create morally livable and fulfilling communities, the enhancement of the free play of interpretation, and a social order where democratic utopian expectations are envisioned and actualized.

About the author

Victor Anderson is Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics, Vanderbilt University, the Divinity School. He is the author of Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Essay in African American Religious and Cultural Criticism.