Loyal Rue | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | June 7, 1944 (1944-06-07) (age 81) |
| Education | B.A.,University of Minnesota M.Div.,Luther Theological Seminary Ph.D.,Hartford Seminary |
| Known for | Naturalisttheory of religion |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Philosophy of religion |
| Institutions | Luther College |
Loyal D. Rue (born June 7, 1944) is an Americanphilosopher of religion. He is a professor emeritus of religion and philosophy atLuther College ofDecorah, Iowa.[1] He focuses onnaturalistic theories of religion and has been awarded twoJohn Templeton Foundation fellowships. He has held fellowships at Harvard University and at Durham University (UK). He has been for many years a member and lecturer at theInstitute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS).[citation needed]
Rue in his writings and teaching has been a proponent ofreligious naturalism and environmentalism:
Religious naturalists will then be known for their reverence and awe before Nature, their love for Nature and natural forms, their sympathy for all living things, their guilt for enlarging ecological footprints, their pride in reducing them, their sense of gratitude directed toward the matrix of life, their contempt for those who abstract themselves from natural values, and their solidarity with those who link their self-esteem to sustainable living.[2]
InReligion Is Not About God, Rue proposed that at the heart of almost all religions and cultures is a story – amyth. This is due to humans being emotional, narrative beings. Religions use what Rue called "ancillary strategies" to promote and make flourish their doctrines. He named five strategies: intellectual, experiential, ritual, aesthetic, and institutional (pages 128–142). To these may be added participants, practices, teachings, and social behavior.
In the Epilogue ofEverybody's Story, Rue wrote:
There is nothing in the substance of everybody's story to rule out belief in the reality of a personal deity. At the same time, such a belief is not an essentialpart of everybody's story. There will be theistic versions of the story, and there will be nontheistic versions as well. Those who take the theistic option will have at their disposal a range of images that may be used to arouse motivational systems. But I have confidence that everybody's story, unadorned by theological imagery, has the potential to arouse us to serve its imperatives. Let us see.[3]
Edward O. Wilson said of Rue'sReligion Is Not About God: "This book is an important step towards the naturalistic, hence truly generaltheory of religion. It harmonizes contemporary scientific understanding of the origin of human nature with a positive view of the centrality of religious culture."[4]
The individual perspectives on religious naturalism ofDonald A. Crosby,Jerome A. Stone,Ursula Goodenough and Rue are discussed by Michael Hogue in his 2010 bookThe Promise of Religious Naturalism.[5]
Rue also served as co-editor of the volumeContemporary Classics in Philosophy of Religion, Open Court Pub. Co., 1991,ISBN 0812691687
