The Promise of Religious Naturalism explores religious naturalism as a distinctly promising form of contemporary religious ethics. Examining how religious naturalism responds to the challenges of recent religious transformations and ecological peril worldwide, author Michael Hogue argues that religious naturalism is emerging as an increasingly plausible and potentially rewarding form of religious moral life. Beginning with an introduction of religious naturalism in the larger context of religious and ethical theories, the book undertakes the first extended study of the works of religious naturalists Loyal Rue, Donald Crosby, Jerome Stone, and Ursula Goodenough. Hogue pays particular attention to the ethical components of religious naturalism in relation to religious pluralism and ecological issues.

"The Promise of Religious Naturalism has binocular vision: (1) it offers readers a searching comparative study of several of the leading contemporary exponents of religious naturalism, and (2) it tests the very notion of religious naturalism for its ability to support religious inclinations and moral imperatives in a time of social and ecological disarray." - American Journal of Theology and Philosophy

"Hogue takes important steps in [the various concepts of transcendence] here." - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion

"Michael Hogue promises and delivers an appreciative yet critical reading of this movement....It is extraordinary to behold this combination of academic rigor and existential vibrancy. In the end, this may be the lasting contribution of this book: it consistently unites measured passion with scholarly expertise and refuses to subordi- nate one to the other—and that is truly rare." - The Journal Of Religion

"Michael Hogue’s assessment of The Promise of Religious Naturalism is especially valuable because it embodies a “critical appreciation” of various responses. His book invites further consideration of various concepts of transcendence, as well as of the many possible “worlds”—some deeply mysterious—that naturalists can discern within this one natural reality. I am intrigued by his brilliantly suggestive rendering of “religion” as an attentive and transactive “reading again and again”. It resonates with Goodenough’s portrayal of the practice of mindfulness as a semiotic exercise, that is, as a development of our awareness that things in nature can mean “something more” than what a narrowly scientistic view would reduce them to being. Workable solutions to the ethical questions that Hogue raises in this book may require the glimpse of transcendence that such a reading can provide, not a window onto the supernatural, but a penetrating vision of this Jamesian “more” that shapes our deepest human experience of the natural world." - Springer

"Michael S. Hogue, who is now an Associate Professor of Theology at the dominantly Unitarian Universalist Meadville Lombard Theological School, published [a] valuable book in the broad area of science, ethics, and religion. . . . The Promise of Religious Naturalism in 2010." - Tradition & Discovery

"Michael Hogue's The Promise of Religious Naturalism is an ambitious attempt to defend a naturalistic approach to religion. ... Hogue is. . . successful in describing the content of religious naturalism in his analysis. ... The book is very strong in exhibiting the promise of a religiously naturalistic viewpoint, both in the depth of Hogue's own exposition of the points of view of his four thinkers and in the articulation of his own naturalistic viewpoint. ... He skillfully shows that rich forms of religious naturalism are being developed today. His work demonstrates that there truly is a promise of religious naturalism today that goes well beyond nineteenth- and twentieth-century versions. The reason is that these positions, including Hogue's, bring a depth of philosophical and theological sophistication to bear on religiously naturalistic viewpoints that was largely lacking in the earlier period. This is a very good book, and Michael Hogue is to be commended for it." - Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science