Religious Integrity for Everyone

About the Book

In the secular culture that is emerging to dominate our world it is important to maintain religious integrity and vitality. Christianity has become one of many religions and only one source of value among others. Therefore this proposal creates a set of functional definitions for religious ideas and concerns.

About the Author

At Earlham college I learned the ability to see and hear, read and understand, wonder and reflect as I earned a B. A. in Philosophy. During four years in the U. S. Navy as a junior officer I learned the differences between honesty and deception, reality and appearance, and a great deal about power and authority, order and discipline. At Meadville Theological School I studied Christian faith and history, small group dynamics and process, and the liberal religious tradition as expressed in Unitarian Universalism. During my first years of ministry I grappled with the challenges to religious faith in secular society. How do caring and loving people meet and live through the experiences of birth and illness, grief and death, doubt and trust, despair and hope. I learned that theology gains its value as it serves pragmatic religion. Gradually I came to realize I was hearing four voices of faith. Each was drawing values and meaning from a different transcendent source. In seeking to meet the spiritual needs of each person I pushed the meaning of religious words beyond their Christian meaning. A set of functional meanings emerged that enabled the four faiths to be expressed positively. People were enabled to accept the other faiths as different yet dealing with our human condition. During several years of interim ministry I tested the applicability and power of the Four Faiths and functional religious language to give expression to the religious concerns of people living in 6 different states. I believe functional religious language gives secular people access to religion and religion access to people embedded in secular culture.