Michael Hogue

Michael Hogue, who joined the Meadville Lombard faculty in September 2005, teaches and writes at the intersections of theology, religious ethics, and philosophy of religion. He is influenced by the pragmatist, process, and naturalist lineages in American philosophy of religion, which he refers to as the “left wing of American radical theology.” As a scholar and teacher, he uses these traditions to explore issues related to climate and the environment, ethics, politics, and social justice.

His courses at Meadville Lombard include, among others, Constructive Theology, Process and Liberation Theologies, Ecotheology, Global Religions, and Religious Naturalism.

Dr. Hogue has served in leadership capacities in diverse religious, academic, and activist contexts. He has served on program committees at the American Academy of Religion, as co-founder and past convener of Oikos: The Religion and Environment Initiative, as president of the American Theological Society of the Midwest, as Co-director of the Religion, Vulnerability, and Resilience Project, and as a fellow with the Enhancing Life Project. He is on the Advisory Board for the Religious Naturalist Association and is the past editor of the American Journal of Theology and Philosophy.

He is the author of four books: The Tangled Bank: Toward an Ecotheological Ethics of Responsible Participation (Pickwick, 2008; winner of the Templeton Prize for Theological Promise), The Promise of Religious Naturalism (Rowman and Littlefield, 2010), American Immanence: Democracy for an Uncertain World (Columbia, 2018, listen to a podcast here), and, most recently, he co-authored Interreligious Resilience: Interreligious Leadership for a Pluralistic World (Bloomsbury, 2022), with Dr. Dean Bell. His published articles have appeared in Literature and Theology, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, Crosscurrents, the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and the American Journal of Theology and Philosophy, among others. His current academic and personal writing projects include work on system death and structural grief.

Dr. Hogue grew up in Traverse City, Michigan, and spent his childhood exploring the lakes and landscapes of the north-woods. He is married to Sara and is the proud father of Kincade, Mikaela, and Kamryn. He has always been a “dog person,” but his family recently adopted two kittens, Liv and Maddie—and they are making a convert of him!