Natural Theology

There were two articles in this morning's LA Times that caught my eye. Well, other than the articles on the Lakers and Dodgers and Sparks - but those are another story. The two articles were on the Claremont School of Theology and the review of a book entitled, God is Not One. They were widely separated, but each informed the other in ways that most probably missed. First the article on the Claremont School of Theology. The school is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and is approved to train clergy for them. They recently announced that they intend on offering clerical studies - studies designed to created clergy - for Buddhists and Jews. You can imagine the firestorm that is coming. When asked how they could justify it, the President said that we live in a pluralistic world and must learn how to get along and even cooperate. Now, from one perspective, that not only sounds OK, but holds a great deal of promise. From another perspective it is positively deranged. And the perspective that makes all the difference is called naturalism. And that brings me to the second article, in which the author argues that the world's 8 major religions really do not agree on their basics. I won't repeat all he said, but one of his main points is that each of them considers the plight of humanity differently (referred to as Anthropology in Theology) as well as the solution (typically referred to as Soteriology). And yet the politically correct way of looking at things is to say that all religions desire the same thing, at least in this world. So it occurred to me that what we have here is the result of the modern project and the naturalism that is so ubiquitous in our society. Science has been so successful because it has focused on the natural processes of the world and ignored any possible supernatural ones. That has made it very robust and effective in the natural realm. And if you only look at religion or theology from the natural realm - what is the effect of religion in this life and this world, then mashing all the world's religions together around their commonalities makes sense. But once you decide that the main point of any religion is to deal with the eternal and supernatural, then the differences are just too great and cannot be bridged. Perhaps for some the natural approach is sufficient. It certainly seems to be for Claremont School of Theology. But I can't shake one verse from the New Testament: Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. That kingdom overlaps this mortal life, but is primarily about eternal life. I, for one, cannot reconcile being a Biblical Christian with natural theology.

Pastor Ken