The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion by John Hinnells

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My own answer, which is that something quite different from global capitalism must be created if the web of life on this planet is to be preserved, is not really important here. I am, rather, simply indicating that this is a problem which must eventually be confronted by religious environmentalists. Interestingly, as this issue takes its place on the agenda, religious environmentalists will have to turn not to theology or scripture, but to the history of social movements in general and the left in particular for inspiration and example. This is, to say the least, no small irony.

Finally, in some ways at the opposite end of the spectrum from religion’s confrontation with capitalism is its confrontation with the values which govern its own internal functioning. Consider the place of the lay leadership in religious institutions. Virtually every religion has its version of what Jews often call the “big givers,” i.e. wealthy, interested and therefore influential members of the lay religious community who by virtue of their financial contributions end up in positions of leadership. But not just any rich donor can get a leadership position. If a well-known producer of hard-core pornography, no matter what the size of his bankroll was, endeavored to use his money to become a Deacon, a member of the board of Trustees, or a lay leader, chances are pretty good that he would be refused. Such a person, it would be said, is not the kind of leader we want.

But what if the case concerns not the psychic pollution of porn, but the physical pollution of toxic waste? Would a church refuse an important position to a wealthy CEO of a polluting chemical company? Or a lumber company prone to clear cutting? Or the head of a public relations firm that specializes in “greenwashing” dangerous power plants?

This is a particularly thorny problem because all the members of the church in question – no less than myself and virtually everyone quoted in this essay – also bear some responsibility for the environmental crisis. We all plug into the same grid, drive our cars, dispose of our old cell phones, and enjoy the cheap food produced by chemicalized, industrial agriculture.

While this problem has not yet really surfaced as yet, I have no doubt it will, probably reasonably soon. As the confrontation with capitalism raises issues of reform and revolution, so this one leads to a struggle between compassion and judgment, self-criticism and the need to draw moral boundaries, loving the sinner while hating the sin and saying, “No, this is simply not acceptable.” This is a very old religious problem, and in the context of the environmental crisis it will be enormously interesting to see how the world’s vibrant and diverse religious communities try to resolve it.1

Note

Many thanks to John Hinnells for valuable editorial suggestions.

Bibliography

Bartholomew, I. (2004) Address of His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at the Environmental Symposium, Santa Barbara, CA, November 8, 1997 in Gottlieb 2004.

Berry, Thomas (1988) Dream of the Earth, San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.

Cobb, John B., Jr., (2004) “Protestant Theology and Deep Ecology,” in Roger S. Gottlieb, ed., This Sacred Earth, Second Edition, New York: Routledge.

Commission for Racial Justice (1987) Toxic Wastes in the United States, New York: United Church of Christ.

Daneel, Martinus L. (2001) African Earthkeepers: Wholistic Interfaith Mission, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

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Enkhbayar, Narayan n/d “Prime Minister of Mongolia to be first International President of ARC,” Alliance of Religion and Conservation Website: http://www.arcworld.org/news.asp?pageID=6.

Fields, Leslie (2003) Friends of the Earth, Vol. 33, #3, Fall.

Gottlieb, Roger S. (2003) A Spirituality of Resistance: Finding a Peaceful Heart and Protecting the Earth,

Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Gottlieb, Roger S. (2004) This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment, second edition, New York: Routledge.

Gottlieb, Roger S. (2006a) A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and our Planet’s Future, New York: Oxford University Press.

Gottlieb, Roger S. (2006b) The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology, New York: Oxford University Press.

Hadassah (1993) Judaism and Ecology, a Study Guide, New York: Hadassah

Harrison, Peter (1998) The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science, New York: Cambridge University Press.

Hart, John (2004) What are they Saying about Environmental Theology? NY: Paulist Press. Hart, John (2006) “Catholicism,” in Gottlieb (2006b).

John Paul II (2000) “Nature is our Sister,” Catholic Conservation Website, http://conservation.catholic. org/pope_john_paul_ii.htm.

Kaza, Stephanie (2000) “To Save all Beings: Buddhist Environmental Activism,” in Christopher S. Queen ed. Engaged Buddhism in the West, Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications.

Kaza, Stephanie (2003) Hooked! Buddhist Writings on Greed, Desire, and the Urge to Consume, Boston: Shambala.

Kaza, Stephanie and Kraft, Kenneth (2000) Dharma Rain: Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism, Boston: Shambala.

McFague, Sallie (2001) Life Abundant: Rethinking Theology and Economy for a Planet in Peril, Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Macy, Joanna (1991) World as Lover, World as Self, Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press.

Miller, Vincent (2003) Consuming Religion: Christian Faith in a Consumer Culture, London: Continuum. Murphy, Charles (1989) At Home on Earth: Foundations for a Catholic Ethic of the Environment, NY:

Crossroad.

Palmer, Martin (2003) Faith in Conservation: New Approaches to Religion and the Environment,

Washington, DC: The World Bank.

Schorsch, Ismar (1991) “Tending to our Cosmic Oasis,” Luminaries website: http://learn.jtsa.edu/ topics/luminaries/monograph/tendingto.shtml.

Sorrell, Roger (1988) St. Francis of Assisi and Nature: Tradition and Innovation in Western Christian Attitudes Toward the Environment, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Steger, Manfred B. (2001) Globalism: The New Market Ideology, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Stiglitz, Joseph E. (2002) Globalization and Its Discontents, New York: Norton.

Taylor, Sarah MacFarland (2006) Sisters of Earth, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Troster, Lawrence (2001) “Created in the Image of God,” in Martin Yaffe, ed. Judaism and Environmental Ethics” A Reader, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

World Council of Churches (2003): http://www(2.wcc-coe.org/pressReleasesen.nsf/09c9d(2(2d54ad7a 37c1(256d0a004ebd7d/c0cc4cb160ebf5b6c1(256da40051b7(2f?OpenDocument.

Suggested reading

Berry, Thomas (1987) Dream of the Earth, San Francisco: Sierra Books. Perhaps the single most influential work of ecotheology.

Gottlieb, Roger S. ed. (2004) This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment, second edition, New York: Routledge.

Updated version of first comprehensive collection on the topic, includes scripture, essays, institutional pronouncements, news articles, prayers, poetry.

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Gottlieb, Roger S. ed. (2006) The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology, New York: Oxford University Press.

Large collection with essays by leading scholars on every aspect of religious environmentalism.

Gottlieb, Roger S. (2006) A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and our Planet’s Future, New York: Oxford University Press.

Study of theological, institutional, political, and social aspects of religious environmentalism.

Grim, John ed. (2001) Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmos and Community,

Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Excellent collection of articles.

Hart, John (2006) Sacramental Commons, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Short, focused book from Catholic viewpoint by important scholar and writer for the church.

Izzi Dien, Mawil W. (2000) The Environmental Dimensions of Islam, Cambridge: Lutterworth. Study of Islam on this topic by leading commentator.

Kaza, Stephanie ed. (2000) Hooked! Buddhist Writings on Greed, Desire, and the Urge to Consume, Boston: Shambala.

Using Buddhism to help understand and overcome consumerism.

Palmer, Martin (2003) Faith in Conservation: New Approaches to Religion and Environment, Washington, DC: World Bank.

Filled with wonderful accounts of practical connections between religion and environmental activism.

Tirosh-Samuelson, Havah (2002) Judaism and Ecology: Created World and Revealed Word, Cambridge: Harvard Divinity School.

Wide-ranging collection on Jewish theology and history on the topic.

Wallace, Mark (2001) Fragments of the Spirit: Nature, Violence, and the Renewal of Creation, New York: Trinity Press.

Evocative and poetic Christian ecotheology.

Chapter 30

Religion and science

Thomas Dixon

Introduction: the two books

From one point of view, religion and science simply have nothing to do with each other. Religions are concerned with scriptural traditions and rituals, with which all members of a community engage, in order to give themselves a sense of identity, history, moral values and spirituality; they are practised by billions of people worldwide, from the most to the least educated, richest to poorest. Science, in contrast, is an elite, educated, professional activity involving expensive high-tech instruments and complex mathematics; it is engaged in by a group of intellectual, expert researchers and theoreticians who push back the frontiers of human knowledge and discover the true nature of the universe. On this view, studying ‘religion and science’ might seem like studying ‘football chants and electronic engineering’ or ‘modern dance and nuclear physics’ – an absurd attempt to bring together and compare two totally unrelated subjects.

In fact, of course, religion and science have much more in common than this initial caricature suggests. Specifically, religion and science share an interest in the same fundamental questions about the origins and nature of the physical universe in general, and of human beings in particular. It is when religion and science have found themselves giving different answers to these questions, whether in Renaissance Italy or in modern-day America, that conflicts have arisen. Since modern science was born into a European culture in which the Christian Church and its teachings held considerable political and intellectual influence, it has largely been in Christian countries that conflicts between scripture and science have been keenly felt and contested. As a result, in this section and the one that follows, although I talk about ‘religion’ and science, the examples I use are cases of interaction specifically between Christian religion and science; I will discuss the problems this raises in the third section, on criticisms of the ‘dialogue’ project.

For some, the whole history of modern thought can be summarised as a battle between religion and science, which science has won. One of the most famous proponents of this idea was Thomas Huxley. Huxley was the archetypical Victorian agnostic and man of science. His determined assaults on Christian theology in the name of evolution earned him the nickname ‘Darwin’s bulldog’. In his review of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), Huxley wrote:

Extinguished theologians lie about the cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules; and history records that whenever science and orthodoxy have

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been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire from the lists, bleeding and crushed if not annihilated; scotched, if not slain.

(Huxley 1893: 52)

It is not difficult to think of examples that seem to substantiate this idea of the history of religion and science as a perpetual battleground. We might think of Galileo’s condemnation by the Roman Catholic Church in the seventeenth century. In this case, the Bible taught that the earth was stationary and the sun orbited around it. For example, the book of Joshua (10: 12–14) stated that God made the sun stand still in the middle of the sky until Joshua and his troops were victorious in battle against the Amorites. This seemed to contradict the claim of the new Copernican astronomy, that the sun was static at the centre of the cosmos, while the earth and the other planets orbited around it. If the scriptures were the word of an omniscient God, and it was true that the earth orbited round the sun, then surely the book of Joshua should have stated that God had made the earth stand still to prolong the day, rather than that he had made the sun stand still. Either the religious text or the scientific theory must be wrong.

Or we might think about a conflict that has been hotly contested in modern America, namely that between the Bible and the theory of evolution. The first chapter of Genesis says that God made all the creatures of the sea, the birds, the wild animals, the livestock and the creatures that move along the ground, each ‘according to their kinds’, and that he created human beings in his own likeness to rule over them. This picture of the separate creation of many distinct kinds is directly contradicted by the Darwinian claim that all living things, including we humans, are descended from a common ancestor, only gradually evolving into the myriad species we now see around us.

Studying ‘religion and science’, then, could seem to involve thinking about a long list of conflicts: Galileo versus the Church; Darwinism versus Creationism; Bible versus science; superstition versus rationality; dogma versus empirical evidence; and so on. Certainly, any serious attempt to think about this subject must involve some account of the true nature and causes of these apparent conflicts. However, equally, any such attempt would not rest content with such a simplistically polarised account. Historical studies reveal that more complicated issues were at stake, often to do not only with the interpretation of scripture, but also with the question of the relative authority of Church and state over science and education. Struggles over the relationship between religion and science have often been political, as well as intellectual. Knowledge is a form of power, and there is much at stake, for both Church and state, in settling what sorts of knowledge should be taught in schools and universities, and by whom.

The main focus of any book or university course on ‘religion and science’ is likely to be the modern period (from around the seventeenth century onwards), since it is that period that saw the birth of the institutions, methods and theories that are representative of modern ‘science’. However, the fundamental questions at issue are ancient and enduring. Perhaps the most fundamental of all is the question of the relationship between the observable and the unobservable. The Nicene Creed states that God made ‘all that is, seen and unseen’. The Apostle Paul wrote, in his letter to the Romans, that ‘since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made’ (Romans 1: 20). But what exactly can the observable world tell us about the unobservable? The desire to answer this question motivates the whole immense variety of enterprises that might come under the umbrella of ‘religion and science’.

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A second ancient question is about the relative authority of the different sources of human knowledge: our senses, our reason, the testimony of others and the testimony of scripture. This problem has surfaced in a number of different guises. Philosophers and theologians have written about the relationship between faith and reason, whether these are opposed routes to knowledge, and which should be given priority. Another way that this epistemological question has been discussed is to think about God’s two books – the book of nature and the book of scripture. Do these books tell the same story? Do you need to be an expert to be able to read them properly, or can anyone understand them? Can they be read in the same way? Historians of science have shown that the way these two books were read, and by whom, underwent significant changes as the modern period unfolded, and that this was one of the central factors in developing relationships between religion and science.

The emergence of ‘religion and science’ as an academic field

Considerations of the ways to relate knowledge of nature and knowledge of God, prior to the nineteenth century, were frequently undertaken in works of ‘natural theology’. Authors of such works, echoing the opening lines of Psalm 19, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands’, reassured their readers that new scientific experiments, theories and technologies were supports and not hindrances to religious faith (see Brooke 1991; Brooke and Cantor 1998). Such writers agreed with Galileo, who had said that the book of nature and the book of scripture, since they had the same divine author, could not contain contradictory truths. Any apparent contradiction must result from faulty reading. William Paley’s celebrated work, entitled simply Natural Theology (2006; first published 1802), was the classic expression of the view that the study of natural contrivances confirmed what was already known through revelation, namely that the world was the product of a divine contriver. As the nineteenth century wore on, however, discussions about the relationship between religion and science became more urgent and agonised. Works of natural theology continued to be written, arguing that the scientific study of all aspects of nature revealed it to be the handiwork of a wise, powerful and benevolent God. But the tone was becoming increasingly defensive. Theologians confronted a bewildering array of perceived threats

–to biblical chronology, to mind–body dualism, to the possibility of miracles – posed by developments in the sciences of geology, physiology, neurology, psychology, sociology and evolutionary biology. ‘Religion and science’ was emerging as a lively intellectual arena in which a variety of different contests could be played out.

The first half of the twentieth century saw a steady stream of books on the relationship between religion and science, produced by scientists, historians, philosophers and theologians. Dominating themes included philosophical and scientific interpretations of evolution, including Henri Bergson’s influential Creative Evolution (first published in French in 1907) as well as debates specifically about Darwinism, and about new developments in physics and cosmology (Bowler 2001). However, it was only in the second half of the century that ‘religion and science’ became organised as a distinct and recognisable academic field, with its own university courses and textbooks, and a specialist journal. One year in particular – 1966

–might be considered the watershed. That was the year that saw both the foundation, in Chicago, of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, the first academic journal in the area, and also the publication of British physicist-theologian Ian Barbour’s important and substantial book, Issues in Science and Religion.

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Barbour’s work set the agenda, the tone and the standard for much subsequent writing on the subject. Issues in Science and Religion was divided into three sections: ‘Religion and the History of Science’, covering Galileo, Newton, Enlightenment rationalism, Darwinian debates and twentieth-century ‘process’ thought; ‘Religion and the Methods of Science’, which looked at the roles of empirical evidence and authority in constructing and choosing between theories in both science and religion; and ‘Religion and the Theories of Science’, focusing on theological issues raised by developments in particular scientific areas including quantum physics, genetics and artificial intelligence. More recent books on religion and science (and, indeed, the rest of this chapter too) still tend to be organised along much the same lines. In his more recent work, Barbour (1997) has developed an analysis of four different possible ways of relating science and religion: conflict, independence, dialogue and integration. He argues in favour of ‘dialogue’ and ‘integration’ as his own preferred models. Like most writers in the field, Barbour’s ethos is pluralist yet apologetic, rejecting the idea of an essential conflict between religion and science and seeking a more conciliatory and constructive interaction. Many authors have developed this approach further in the forty years since Barbour’s seminal book. In Britain, John Polkinghorne (1994) and Arthur Peacocke (1984, 1993) have produced notable work in this tradition, as have Nancey Murphy (1990) and Robert J. Russell et al. (1999) in the United States. In recent years, very substantial financial and institutional support for work seeking creative ‘dialogue’ and ‘integration’ between science and religion has been provided by the John Templeton Foundation, and by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) in Berkeley, California, which, in 2003, launched the journal Theology and Science.

Criticisms of the ‘dialogue’ project

While recognising the importance, for many practical, ethical and political reasons, of encouraging constructive dialogue between scientists and representatives of religious traditions, there are nonetheless several important criticisms that have been made of this ‘dialogue’ project. I should say at the outset that advocates of such dialogue would be the first to acknowledge the weight of these criticisms, and have certainly recognised and responded to them. It will be useful to articulate them nonetheless. Perhaps the three most important are: that the supposed ‘dialogue’ is one-sided; that it neglects the plurality of both science and religion; and that it does not acknowledge the fact that it is largely just about Christianity.

The first concern challenges the idea that there is really a balanced ‘dialogue’ between religion and science, or that work on religion and science has built a two-way ‘bridge’, allowing traffic to cross between theological and scientific communities. The reality seems much less balanced than either of these metaphors suggests. If it is a conversation, it is one in which science does all the talking and theology all the listening; if it is a bridge, the traffic across it seems to go just one way (compare Russell (2003), who favours the ‘bridge’ metaphor, with Drees (2003) who is more critical). It is generally scientific theories, and the philosophy of scientific method, that set the terms of the interaction, and religion and theology that are required to fit in with the theories, and to mimic the methods. Professional theologians write books and organise conferences about how their work should be shaped and constrained by the latest developments in the sciences. Professional scientists, even those with a religious commitment and a sympathy for the ‘dialogue’ project, only rarely seem to find their decisions about experimental and theoretical work being affected by theological or religious considerations. And, following on from this, some might ask whether religious

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traditions should not, in any case, be seeking to take a more critical stance and speak in a more ‘prophetic’ voice when commenting on science and technology, rather than always seeking harmonious dialogue. It goes without saying that prominent scientific atheists, such as Richard Dawkins (2006), are also adamant for their own reasons that good-natured dialogue between science and religion is impossible (for the opposite point of view, see Ward 2008).

The second criticism – that the ‘religion and science’ project overlooks plurality – is a particularly important one. Too frequently in the pages of books about religion and science one encounters statements about ‘the relationship’ between two ‘disciplines’ called ‘science’ and ‘religion’, or, indeed, about building a bridge between ‘the religious community’ and ‘the scientific community’, as if these were all singular items. In reality, of course, there are, and have been historically, an almost infinitely wide array of different sciences and different religions. It is, further, virtually impossible to reach definitive answers to questions about what counts as ‘science’ and what as ‘religion’. Although we can all agree that physics, chemistry and biology are sciences, what about psychology and sociology? Even if we agree about those, what about economics, history, psychoanalysis, philosophy, theology? Are any or all of these scientific disciplines? What about ‘creation science’ and ‘Intelligent Design’? Similarly with ‘religion’: perhaps, from a Western perspective, the monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are what we have in mind when we talk about ‘religion’. But what about Eastern traditions such as Buddhism and Confucianism? Is it accurate to put them into the same category? And what about New Age movements; or cults surrounding dead celebrities; or humanistic and atheistic traditions; or political ideologies such as Socialism or Nazism; or popular protest groups such as the anti-globalisation movement? Do any or all of these count as religions? Perhaps, for some people, science itself, or some form of scientific naturalism, can fulfil religious functions (Dixon 2002; Drees 1996; Midgley 2002). Not only is it difficult to know how far the boundaries of ‘science’ and ‘religion’ extend, but also some enterprises and individuals have been simultaneously religious and scientific. How, in these cases, can we construe the idea of a ‘dialogue’? Finally, we must remember that ‘science’ and ‘religion’ are, in any case, not real things or agents that can literally engage in a dialogue. They are abstractions that stand for a plurality of individuals, communities, institutions and practices, as well as ideas and theories. Which of these are being brought together in a ‘dialogue’ or ‘integration’? Although (as this chapter itself amply demonstrates) it is difficult to eliminate general statements about ‘science’ or ‘religion’ from one’s writing altogether, more specific statements, and ones that replace singulars with plurals, will often be more accurate and informative.

The third criticism follows on from this point. One of the ways in which discussions of science and religion are in danger of talking in misleadingly general terms rather than attending to particularities is when the terms ‘religion’ or ‘theology’ are used when what is actually being discussed is exclusively Christian religion or Christian theology. The overwhelming majority of academic contributions to the area of ‘religion and science’ in the last forty years or so have been written by individuals who profess some form of Christian faith (and of these, many are members or ministers of Protestant churches, whether Anglican, Reformed or Lutheran). The problem is not that most discussions of ‘religion and science’ are parts of specifically Christian, often Protestant, theological projects. The problem arises only when it seems that this particular context is being obscured or hidden by the use of very general language. Although talking about ‘religion’ and ‘theology’ in general terms might help to foster inclusiveness and pluralism in academic discussions, it could also have quite

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the opposite effect. Non-Christian readers might feel that the usage implies not an openness to plurality, but rather an arrogant assumption that ‘religion’ and ‘theology’ are synonymous with a particular kind of Christianity. And, looking at it from the other direction, members of particular religious traditions might feel that the distinctive values and beliefs of their traditions are being obliterated in general statements about an all-purpose, lowest-common- denominator modern category of ‘religion’ (Harrison 2006). For these reasons, some would say that, if the subject at hand is essentially the relationship between modern physics and Anglican theology, or between evolutionary theory and American evangelicalism, it would be best simply to say so, rather than conducting a more general discussion about ‘religion’, or ‘theology’, and ‘science’.

There is awareness in the academic field of ‘religion and science’ that non-Christian religions have generally been excluded. Members of the ‘Abrahamic’, monotheistic traditions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), by virtue of having in common certain prophets, teachings, historical contexts and basic theological assumptions about the Creator and his creation, can engage in a degree of shared discussion about relationships between science and religion. The very general questions alluded to in the introduction to this chapter, for instance, about relationships between the book of nature and the book of scripture; between faith and reason; and between the seen and the unseen, would make some sense to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. The answers given to those questions would differ widely, not only between these faiths, but also within each tradition, but the questions could be discussed with some integrity nonetheless. But can the dialogue be extended even further? Robert Russell, in the editorial of the first issue of Theology and Science, expresses the hope that it can. He envisages the bridge-building project being extended to connect ‘cosmology, physics, biology, and genetics and other religious traditions, such as Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism’ (Russell 2003: 3). However, it is hard to imagine that the preoccupations of writers in the field of ‘religion and science’ will be very easily exported beyond the pale of Western monotheism. As historians have shown, those preoccupations have arisen from a very particular set of intellectual, social and political circumstances in Western Europe and North America, especially from the seventeenth century onwards. It might be better for proponents of science–religion dialogue to focus on articulating more precisely their own particular political agendas and theological commitments, rather than trying to stretch the boundaries and the senses of ‘science’ and ‘religion’ yet further in an attempt to create a universal dialogue.

Religion and the history of science

Some of the most interesting academic work of recent years on relationships between religion and science has been produced by historians. Their work has often highlighted the sorts of concerns about the ‘dialogue’ project mentioned earlier. They have particularly warned against the tendency to over-general, essentialist and schematic treatments of religion and science (Brooke 1991; Brooke and Cantor 1998; Cantor and Kenny 2001; Harrison 2006). ‘Serious scholarship in the history of science’, John Hedley Brooke wrote, in his 1991 book, Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives, ‘has revealed so extraordinarily rich and complex a relationship between science and religion in the past that general theses are difficult to sustain’ (Brooke 1991: 5). Brooke is one of many historians who have used historical examples to falsify generalisations about science and religion. Simple overarching stories about either war or peace, about either the building of walls or the building of bridges,

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are no longer tenable. Historians have taught us to ask, when confronted with a statement about relations between science and religion, to whose religion, which science, and what time and place, the statement refers (or belongs). The conclusion we must draw, according to Brooke, is that there is ‘no such thing as the relationship between science and religion. It is what different individuals and communities have made of it in a plethora of different contexts’ (Brooke 1991: 321). Jews, Christians and Muslims at different times and in different places, have all contributed to the development of modern science, and have reacted to that development in particular ways (Brooke and Numbers 2009; Clayton and Simpson 2006: Part I; Ferngren 2000: Part IV). Pre-modern and early-modern Islamic culture, for example, provided a particularly fertile environment for the growth of the sciences of mathematics and astronomy, which were used, among other things, to calculate the correct times of prayer and the direction of Mecca from different locations. The experience of Jews in relation to modern science was different again. Excluded from the leading European universities in the early-modern period, Jews still developed a strong connection with the science and practice of medicine, and, once exclusions from academic institutions were finally removed, subsequently were able to contribute significantly in all areas of the sciences.

Complexity has become the key note of recent histories of science–religion engagements. Grand narratives are to be replaced with local histories; sweeping generalisations are to be falsified by way of thorough and historically sensitive case studies (Dixon 2003). The last twenty-five years have seen the production of an impressive array of studies, which together provide those interested in religion and science with the materials to throw doubt on almost any generalisation with a well-chosen counterexample (for a flavour of these, see Brooke 1991; Brooke and Cantor 1998; Dixon, Cantor and Pumfrey 2009; Ferngren 2000; Lindberg and Numbers 2003; Moore 1979).

Celebrated episodes that had previously been cited, by writers sympathetic to Huxley’s ‘extinguished theologians’ history of science, as examples of a conflict between religion and science, have now been reappraised. The Galileo affair, for example, can be understood as comprising several different conflicts. There was a theological conflict: between those who thought that only bishops and church councils had the authority to reinterpret the scriptures, and those who, like Galileo, thought that an individual layman could decide that a particular passage, which seemed to conflict with scientific knowledge, should be read figuratively. This was a particularly sensitive issue in the wake of the Reformation. There was a scientific conflict: between believers in the old Aristotelian world-view and the Ptolemaic astronomy and defenders of the new Copernican system. There was a philosophical conflict: between those who thought that the Copernican system was merely a useful device for making astronomical calculations and predictions and those who thought that it actually described the true arrangement of the planets. There was a political conflict: between Galileo’s friends, patrons and supporters and those who felt he was an arrogant and untrustworthy character whose influence needed to be curbed. Historians have thus looked for deeper causes of tension and conflict in the politics and theology of the seventeenth-century Roman Catholic Church. The Galileo affair, from this perspective, looks less like a conflict between a man of science on the one hand and church leaders on the other, and more like a tense and politically charged discussion among Catholics about biblical interpretation, Aristotelian science, and the relationship between individual believers and the church hierarchy (Brooke and Cantor 1998: Chapter 4; Lindberg 2003).

More recent conflicts about evolution have also been reinterpreted. Victorian confrontations between Darwinians and Anglicans have become legendary. At a packed