Ronald Numbers is one of the best known scholars of the relationship between science and religion. In this volume he collects seven of his published papers focusing on Christianity and science. The essays address broad topics such as the popularization of scientific ideas, secularization, and the development of the naturalistic worldview. One essay considers the writings of Charles Hodge, the most influential American Protestant theologian of the 19th century, revealing for the first time the central role that science played in his theology. Another deals with the demise of Bishop Ussher's "young earth" cosmology, especially among evangelical Christians. Taken together, these accessible and authoritative essays form a perfect introduction to Christian attitudes towards science since the 17th century.
Once again Ronald Numbers opens the story of evolutionary thought in America to a wide audience. He has the capacity to lead readers to unexpected conclusions and to demonstrate that many of our most cherished assumptions about the debate over science and religion, the reception of evolution, and the reading of the Bible in the light of science and science in the light of the Bible must be re-examined and rethought. In this volume he is especially sensitive to the thinking of figures who have long remained unexamined. To read Numbers's scholarship is to come to the most welcome if unexpected experiences of historical enlightenment.
