New Religious Thought - Lecture by Prof Wayne Hudson

The possibility of a new religious thought

According to one of Australian’s greatest intellectual historians, Prof Wayne Hudson, religion does have a future, but that future will need to be radically different from what has gone before.

At the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture on Tuesday, 27 June 2023, Prof Wayne Hudson gave a lecture on ‘New Religious Thought’, applying methodology used in his latest book Beyond Religion and the Secular: Creative Spiritual Movements and their Relevance to Political, Social and Cultural Reform.

Prof Hudson contended that the modern world is ending and we need a new religious thought that responds to that.

He argued that if Christianity is to survive, it will need to move past governing concepts of modern religious thought, such as:

1. The concept that there is religion in an essentialist sense
2. The idea that religion is about true or false beliefs
3. The concept that there is a dualism between religion and the secular
4. The concept that divinity is about a metaperson
5. The idea that organisational forms are purely instrumental.

Instead of leading to a vague agnosticism or some version of ‘radical theology’ Prof Hudson claimed that moving beyond these concepts open the way for a new religious thought with more contemporary features.

You can watch a video of Prof Hudson's lecture on YouTube.

Prof Wayne Hudson’s latest book is: Hudson, W. (2022). Beyond Religion and the Secular: Creative Spiritual Movements and their Relevance to Political, Social and Cultural Reform. Bloomsbury Academic.