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Beyond War and Peace: A Reappraisal of the Encounter between Christianity and Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

David C. Lindberg  and
Ronald L. Numbers
David C. Lindberg
Affiliation:
Professor of the history of science in the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.
Ronald L. Numbers
Affiliation:
Professor of the history of medicine and the history of science in the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.
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Extract

On a December evening in 1869, with memories of civil war still fresh in their minds, a large audience gathered in the great hall of Cooper Union in New York City to hear about another conflict, still taking its toll—“with battles fiercer, with sieges more persistent, with strategy more vigorous than in any of the comparatively petty warfares of Alexander, or Caesar, or Napoleon.” Although waged with pens rather than swords, and for minds rather than empires, this war, too had destroyed lives and reputations. The combatants? Science and Religion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , September 1986 , pp. 338 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1986

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References

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26. The struggle over heliocentrism was not the only battle during the period of the scientific revolution identified by White. For his discussion of the biomedical sciences, see A History of the Warfare, 1: 49–63. For contrasting views, see Numbers, Ronald L. and Sawyer, Ronald C., “Medicine and Christianity in the Modern World,” in Health/Medicine and the Faith Traditions, ed. Marty, Martin E. and Vaux, Kenneth L. (Philadelphia, 1982), pp. 134–136;Google Scholar and Walsh, James J., The Popes and Science (New York, 1908).Google Scholar

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28. Ibid., 1: 17–18.

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44. Although we are aware of the danger that some readers might interpret our use of the terms “science” and “Christianity” as an unwarranted reification of these entities, we have retained this terminology as a convenient way of designating the various manifestations of Christianity and science.