Protestant Modernist Pamphlets

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.

This book offers expert historical treatment of crucial documents in the American history of science and religion along with expert editing of the documents themselves. With contributions from luminaries in religion like Henry Emerson Fosdick and in science like Robert Milliken, the pamphlets illustrate the complexity of the science-religion relationship that has marked the entirety of our national history. As timely as it is richly historical.

Edward Davis not only provides an authoritative edition of the long-forgotten 'Science and Religion' pamphlets but also reveals the well-funded project of modernist theologians and scientists to define a 'spiritual religion' grounded in science. His discovery sheds new light on the Scopes Trial and the modernist-fundamentalist controversy of the 1920s.

Historians cannot understand or teach the Scopes Trial using just the famous words of William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow. More sophisticated religious perspectives on evolution circulated at the same time, and Davis brings these back to light through full-text primary sources and carefully researched background essays.

Davis has perfectly curated this set of important but rare primary sources. He also expertly guides the reader through the rich historical context of their production and reception. Anyone interested in science and religion, the history of evolution debates in the United States, or liberal Protestants (and their fundamentalist critics!) needs to read this book.