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 Based on unpublished correspondence and internal Divinity School documents, these introductions narrate the origin of the pamphlets, as well as their funding sources and how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.

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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

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Protestant Modernist Pamphlets offer readers a window into the early twentieth century American mind as faith in God and the Bible battled with the new truths of evolutionary biology and quantum physics. While some Americans turned right, others left and cultural wars ensued, these pamphlets showed a middle way.
—Edward J. Larson, author of Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion
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A critical edition of ten rare pamphlets on science and religion published from 1922–1931 by the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781421449821
Publisert
2024-10-08
Utgiver
Johns Hopkins University Press; Johns Hopkins University Press
Vekt
590 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Dybde
28 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
336

Forfatter

Om bidragsyterne

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.