April 2019
volume 31 (1)

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Articles

Editorial

Keith Fox
Pages: 3-3

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Darwin among the Pagans: Secularisation and the Reception of the Theory of Evolution in Buenos Aires

MIGUEL DE ASÚA
Pages: 4-25

Abstract

The study of the long-term reception of the theory of evolution in Argentina can be of assistance in the broader understanding of interactions between the dynamics of secularisation in a given society and the relationship between science and religion. Two stages can be discerned in this process. In the first, in 1884, Darwin and evolutionary theory were a rhetorical resource at the service of a political and ideological secularisation project identified with progress and modernity. At the height of positivism, around 1918, many meanings associated with evolutionism coalesced around the figure of the Argentinian palaeontologist Florentino Ameghino, whose anthropological theories about the origin of Tertiary human beings were debated as part of broader questions involving the relationship between science, religion and secularisation. As a whole, the story warns against any attempt at interpreting the reception of Darwin’s ideas in Iberian America (and elsewhere for that matter) as a triumphal march of reason against religious obscurantism. It also shows how issues of belief and unbelief determined the way evolutionism was received in a country in which church-state relationships were shaped after the French model of laïcité.

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Soteriology, Eschatology and Cosmology: Resolving the Dissonance and Providing a Lens

MARIO A. RUSSO
Pages: 26-40

Abstract

Recent studies of the relationship between science and religion yield a growing scholarly consensus over the compatibility of each category’s truth claims, but there is continued dissonance in the relationship between the truth claims of cosmology and eschatology. On the one hand, cosmologists claim that the world ends in catastrophe; on the other hand, theologians working on eschatology claim that it is moving towards renewal and new creation. Recent scholarship responds to this dissonance by emphasising the bodily resurrection of Jesus. There is, however, another possible resolution to this dissonance that also provides an interpretive lens for understanding cosmology: using the Christian doctrine of soteriology as an analogy for eschatological claims. Through a comparative analysis of its own narrative with the narrative of cosmology, the Christian doctrine of soteriology lends a new perspective to the cosmological-eschatological dissonance while also providing a larger interpretive lens.

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Science, Religion and the ‘New Reformation’ of the Nineteenth Century

JAMES C. UNGUREANU
Pages: 41-61

Abstract

The concept of a ‘New Reformation’ has a long history among Protestant intellectuals. Protestant theologians, philosophers, historians and men of science have all called for another reformation of religion, a purification of Protestant Christianity rather than its abandonment. But in the hands of nineteenth-century scientific naturalists, dissident intellectuals and even liberal Anglicans, the trope of ‘New Reformation’ underwent a dramatic transformation. From a Protestant self-critique, the trope became a polemic against orthodox Christian belief. While the new ‘reformers’ continued to use the language of Protestants, they ultimately rejected the doctrinal beliefs of traditional Christianity.

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Correspondence

Concordism

TIM WEATHERSTONE
Pages: 78-80

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Book reviews

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Jesus, Beginnings and Science: A guide for group conversation

Naomi Dawson
Pages: 81-82


Religion in the Anthropocene

Christopher Southgate
Pages: 82-84


Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design

Denis Alexander
Pages: 84-85


Theological Neuroethics: Christian Ethics Meets The Science Of The Human Brain

Emeritus Professor Malcolm Jeeves, CBE.
Pages: 85-86


A Primer in Ecotheology: Theology for a Fragile Earth

Meric Srokosz
Pages: 87-88


The New Cosmic Story: Inside Our Awakening Universe

John P. Slattery
Pages: 88-89


God and the Mathematics of Infinity

Rob Heather
Pages: 89-91


Psychological Science and Christian Faith: Insights and Enrichments from Constructive Dialogue

Professor Justin Barrett
Pages: 91-93


Entangled Worlds: Religion, Science and New Materialisms

Tim Middleton
Pages: 93-96


Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress

Jonathan W. Chappell
Pages: 96-98


Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think

Amy Unsworth
Pages: 98-99


A Teacher’s Guide to Science and Religion in the Classroom

Benjamin Hinks
Pages: 100-101


There is No Theory of Everything; A Physics Perspective on Emergence

Tom McLeish FRS
Pages: 101-103


God and Ultimate Origins: A Novel Cosmological Argument

Gavin Merrifield
Pages: 103-104


Mere Science and Christian Faith – Bridging The Divide With Emerging Adults

Clare Foster Jonathan Foster
Pages: 104-106