Liberal Protestantism And Science

Many students and members of the public who follow news reports on science and religion may think that Protestantism and science are in conflict. But while evangelical attacks on evolution may make the headlines, many mainstream Protestant groups have long embraced science and the scientific worldview. This volume in the Greenwood Guides to Science and Religion covers those Protestant thinkers who seek to use the insights of science to further their understanding of religion and faith. In addition, the volume will also discuss such trends at the liberal protestant acceptance of evolution, the advent of ecotheology, and the Social Gospel. The volume includes a selection of primary source documents, a glossary and a timeline, and an annotated bibliography of the most useful resources for further research.

The story of the “conflict thesis” between science and religion—the notion of perennial conflict or warfare between the two—is part of our modern self-understanding. As the story goes, John William Draper (1811–1882) and Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) constructed dramatic narratives in the nineteenth century that cast religion as the relentless enemy of scientific progress. And yet, despite its resilience in popular culture, historians today have largely debunked the conflict thesis. Unravelling its origins, James Ungureanu argues that Draper and White actually hoped their narratives would preserve religious belief. For them, science was ultimately a scapegoat for a much larger and more important argument dating back to the Protestant Reformation, where one theological tradition was pitted against another—a more progressive, liberal, and diffusive Christianity against a more traditional, conservative, and orthodox Christianity. By the mid-nineteenth century, narratives of conflict between “science and religion” were largely deployed between contending theological schools of thought. However, these narratives were later appropriated by secularists, freethinkers, and atheists as weapons against all religion. By revisiting its origins, development, and popularization, Ungureanu ultimately reveals that the “conflict thesis” was just one of the many unintended consequences of the Protestant Reformation.

“Klassen’s book is much more than a first-rate study of how two churches in Canada positioned themselves within the ostensibly parallel worlds of biomedicine and spiritual healing. It is, at its core, an insightful meditation on the relationship between liberal Protestantism and the project of modernity. A must read not only for students of Christianity, but all those interested in the legacies of secularism and enchantment." —Matthew Engelke, London School of Economics

Spirits of Protestantism reveals how liberal Protestants went from being early-twentieth-century medical missionaries seeking to convert others through science and scripture, to becoming vocal critics of missionary arrogance who experimented with non-western healing modes such as Yoga and Reiki. Drawing on archival and ethnographic sources, Pamela E. Klassen shows how and why the very notion of healing within North America has been infused with a Protestant "supernatural liberalism." In the course of coming to their changing vision of healing, liberal Protestants became pioneers three times over: in the struggle against the cultural and medical pathologizing of homosexuality; in the critique of Christian missionary triumphalism; and in the diffusion of an ever-more ubiquitous anthropology of "body, mind, and spirit." At a time when the political and anthropological significance of Christianity is being hotly debated, Spirits of Protestantism forcefully argues for a reconsideration of the historical legacies and cultural effects of liberal Protestantism, even for the anthropology of religion itself.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Christians carried on an intense debate concerning the doctrine of prayer. This ideological revolution affected not only the ways that they interpreted the Bible but also how they prayed. In this book, Rick Ostrander explores the attempts of American Christians to articulate a convincing and satisfying ethic of prayer amidst these changing circumstances.

How do we react to the claim that physics must now be regarded as one of the liberal arts, for in its description of the universe it sets the stage for the drama of human life? If modern science has now become the dominant culture, how does Christianity look within it? What difference does the Christian idea of the contingence of nature make to science today? What difference does it make for Christian thought and culture to move away from the old idea of the world as a closed mechanical system of cause and effect into the new idea of the world as an open dynamic system configured by the behavior of light, the fastest messenger in the universe? These are some of the questions discussed in the light of James Clerk Maxwell's discoveries of the mathematical properties of light, and of Albert Einstein's generalization of the new understanding of light for a radically new and exciting view of nature that has made space travel possible and enabled us to trace the expansion of the universe back to conditions near its beginning. This is not a defensive book about science and religion in the usual vein. It is concerned rather with the deep mutual relation and respect of Christian and scientific thought for each other, and shows how this relationship throws new light upon basic Christian doctrines. This volume also warns against the dangers of a reactionary retreat from the rigors of scientific thought into fuzzy mythological interpretations of the incarnation, and calls for a deeper appreciation of the Nicene Creed upon which all Christendom rests.