Citations:religious naturalism

The earliest currently verified usages were in 1940 by George Perrigo Conger ( George Perrigo Conger - The Ideologies of Religion, Religion, 1940, page 212 ) and Edgar S. Brightman (Edgar S. Brightman – God as the Tendency of Nature to Support or Produce Values (Religious Naturalism), A Philosophy of Religion, 1940, page 148 ). Shortly thereafter, H.H. Dubs wrote an article entitled Religious Naturalism – an Evaluation (The Journal of Religion, XXIII: 4, October, 1943), which begins Religious naturalism is today one of the outstanding American philosophies of religion…"'' and discusses ideas developed by Henry Nelson Wieman (Henry Nelson Wieman Henry Nelson Wieman)  in books that predate Dubs's article by 20 years. These articles and books draw not only on Wieman, but also on ideas developed by the "Chicago School" of theology, and by at least the 1950s Wieman and Bernard Meland at Chicago were frequently using the term to designate their own views.  In the 1950s one also finds Jack J. Cohen's book "The Case for Religious Naturalism: A Philosophy for the Modern Jew". Other liberal Christian authors such as Paul Tillich were contributing  similar viewpoints in their theology.

In 1991 Jerome A. Stone wrote “The purpose of this book is to explore the possibility of this alternative, to sketch a philosophy of religious naturalism” (Jerome A. Stone - The Minimalist Vision of Transcendence, 1991, page 9 ) Use of the term was expanded in the 1990s by Loyal Rue, who was familiar with the term from Brightman's book.Rue (Religion is not About God, Rutgers University Press (September 25, 2006), ISBN 0813539552) also Ursula Goodenough (The Sacred Depths of Nature, Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (June 15, 2000), ISBN 0195136292 – the defining text)  and  Chet Raymo  When God Is Gone, Everything Is Holy: Making of a Religious Naturalist, Sorin Books (September 2008), ISBN 1933495138)
 * 1986 - Theodore J Hartwig - The Past Speaks for Itself : The ascendancy of religious naturalism, Northwestern Pub. House, 1986, ISBN 0810002507
 * 1990 - Emanuel S Goldsmith - Mordecai M. Kaplan's Synthesis of Judaism and American Religious Naturalism, American Journal of Theology & Philosophy, 1990
 * Lou Reich - Hume's Religious Naturalism, University Press of America, 1997, ISBN 0761809813
 * 2008 - By Donald A. Crosby - Living with Ambiguity: Religious Naturalism and the Menace of Evil, SUNY Press, 2008, ISBN 0791475190
 * 2008-Jerome A. Stone -  Religious Naturalism Today: The Rebirth of a Forgotten Alternative (Hardcover), State University of New York Press (December 18, 2008), ISBN 0791475379