A critical edition of ten rare pamphlets on science and religion published from 1922–1931 by the University of Chicago Divinity School.
In the years surrounding the Scopes trial in 1925, liberal Protestant scientists, theologians, and clergy sought to diminish opposition to evolution and to persuade American Christians to adopt more positive attitudes toward modern science. With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and many leading scientists, the University of Chicago Divinity School published a series of ten pamphlets on science and religion to counter William Jennings Bryan's efforts to ban evolution in public schools.
In Protestant Modernist Pamphlets, historian Edward B. Davis, who discovered these pamphlets, reprints them with extensive editorial comments, annotations, and introductions to each. Based on unpublished correspondence and internal Divinity School documents, these introductions narrate the origin of the pamphlets, as well as their funding sources and how readers reacted to them. Letters from dozens of top scientists at the time reveal their previously unknown views on God and the relationship between science and religion. Viewed together, the pamphlets and Davis's critical assessment of their historical importance provide an intriguing perspective on Protestant modernist encounters with science in the early twentieth century.
By:
Edward B. Davis
Imprint: Johns Hopkins University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 28mm
Weight: 590g
ISBN: 9781421449821
ISBN 10: 142144982X
Series: Medicine, Science, and Religion in Historical Context
Pages: 336
Publication Date: 08 October 2024
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
"Abbreviations and Archives Cited Preface Part One: Protestant Modernist Responses to Bryan Introduction 1. ""Spiking Bryan's Guns"": Contested Definitions of ""Science"" and ""Religion"" 2. Liberal Protestant Scientists and Clergy Join Forces: The Story of the AISL Pamphlets 3. Science and Religion, Chicago Style: The Protestant Modernist Encounter with Science Part Two: The AISL ""Science and Religion"" Pamphlets, Editorial Introductions and Annotated Texts Evolution and the Bible (1922), by Edwin Grant Conklin Evolution and Mr. Bryan (1922), by Harry Emerson Fosdick How Science Helps Our Faith (1922), by Shailer Mathews A Scientist Confesses His Faith (1923), by Robert Andrews Millikan The Heavens are Telling (1924), by Edwin Brant Frost Through Science to God, The Humming Bird's Story, An Evolutionary Interpretation (1926), by Samuel Christian Schmucker Creative Co-ordination (1928), by Michael Idvorsky Pupin Religion's Debt to Science (1928), by Harry Emerson Fosdick Life After Death (1930), by Arthur Holly Compton, Shailer Mathews, and Charles W. Gilkey The Religion of a Geologist (1931), Kirtley Fletcher Mather Appendices 1. Publication Details for AISL Pamphlet Series ""Science and Religion"" and Related Publications 2. Publication Runs for AISL Pamphlets and the Millikan ""Statement"" 3A. Scientists Who Supported AISL Pamphlets, 1922–1928 3B. Scientists Who Supported AISL Pamphlets, 1928–1934 Notes Index"
Edward B. Davis is professor emeritus of the history of science at Messiah University and a fellow of the International Society for Science & Religion. He is the coeditor of The Works of Robert Boyle and Robert Boyle: A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature.
