Secularism not only teaches us to base
our lives and thinking on the findings of critical scholarship in
both the sciences and the humanities, but it also persuades us to
apply critical investigative tools in every field of academic
endeavor. My lifelong study of the Christian religion illustrates
both of these principles.
Theology is a scholarly discipline when
it observes the intellectual protocols of the modern university and
bids farewell to deductive epistemological principles of any
kind—including revealed truth and any privileged knowledge of God.
Theology becomes a valid academic discipline insofar as it employs
the historical-critical method’s three presuppositions of
causality, the potential validity of analogies, and the reciprocal
relationship between historical phenomena. But this adoption of the
atheistic methodology of secularism demands that traditional religion
undergo a Copernican revolution.
However it may disenchant the world,
true objectivity means relinquishing the canonicity or sacredness of
particular writings, any claims to a revelation, and all distinctions
between orthodoxy and heresy, except those found in historical
discourse. This same evenhandedness outlaws dogmatic and theological
judgments unsupported by empirical evidence and refuses to deal with
questions of religious truth except to compare different truth
claims. The scholar of religion must steer clear of ideologies, but
he or she is obliged to use the methods and insights of the sciences
and humanities, including those derived from such neighboring
disciplines as sociology, psychology, and ethnology, for their
illumination of historical phenomena is often decisive. Its
assumptions and conclusions must remain open to peer review and
revision on the sole basis of best evidence.
Therefore, petitionary prayer by
academic theologians amounts to self-betrayal. As Huck Finn says,
“You can’t pray a lie.” Still, though excluded from the ranks
of true believers, we can be religious spirits without religion,
hoping by critical secularism to make the world a better place.
Gerd Lüdemann is a member of the
theological faculty at the University of Göttingen, Germany.
After making public his loss of faith, he was removed from the
curricula, which has made it impossible for him to teach students for
credit. He is the first Protestant theologian to suffer this type of
institutionalized punishment.
CFI SUMMIT
OCTOBER 24-27 2013
TACOMA, WASHINGTON
Joint Conference of the Council for Secular Humanism, Center for Inquiry, and Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
The transnational secular humanist magazine
Renew your FREE INQUIRY subscription