Philip Clayton

Philip Clayton holds the Ingraham Chair of Theology at Claremont School of Theology and is affiliated faculty at the Claremont Graduate University. Clayton earned a joint Ph.D. in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Yale University and has held visiting appointments at Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Munich. He has published over 20 books and hundreds of academic and popular articles.

Over the course of 25 years of teaching and researching, Clayton’s interests migrated gradually from philosophy through the science-religion debate to constructive theology. Explanation from Physics to Theology: An Essay in Rationality and Religion (Yale 1989) and several dozen articles explored similarities and differences in how knowledge and explanations function across the disciplines. The Problem of God in Modern Thought (Eerdmans 2000) and a series of accompanying articles explored the fall and rise of theistic metaphysics in the modern era. Clayton then moved into a variety of leadership positions in the international debate on the science-religion relationship, including Principal Investigator of the Science and the Spiritual Quest program. He has been an outspoken advocate for multicultural and multi-religious approaches to the field. Clayton has written or edited over a dozen books in this field and spoken on the topic on almost every continent. Recent works include Adventures in the Spirit (Fortress 2009), In Quest of Freedom (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2009), The Predicament of Belief (Oxford 2012, with Steven Knapp), and Religion and Science: The Basics (Routledge 2012).

A series of events precipitated the most recent turn: leading the Ford Foundation grant “Rekindling Theological Imagination” with Marjorie Suchocki; lecturing around the country on emergent Christianity; organizing the “Theology After Google” event; and launching the “Big Tent Christianity” movement with Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Tripp Fuller, and others. Transforming Christian Theology: For Church and Society (Fortress 2009) argued that seminaries should help prepare Christian leaders for an unheralded transformation in the church, which has already begun in our culture.