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 Based on unpublished correspondence and internal Divinity School documents, these introductions narrate the origin of the pamphlets, as well as their funding sources and how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.
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
Height:229
Width:152
Spine:30
Weight:0.00