Redeeming Culture

American Religion in an Age of Science

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by James Gilbert

University of Chicago Press

Due/Published May 1998, 407 pages, paper

ISBN 0226293211

In this intriguing work, James Gilbert examines the historical confrontation between modern science and religion as these disparate, sometimes hostile modes of thought have clashed in the arena of American culture. Beginning in 1925 with the infamous Scopes trial, Gilbert traces nearly 40 years of competing American attitudes toward science and religion. From Harvard intellectuals to Hollywood, from UFOs to the USAF, from sci-fi thrillers to the nightly news, from liberal religion to Fundamentalism -- American culture became a proving ground where the boundaries between science and religion were polemicized, propagandized, and contested. Ultimately, Gilbert argues, Catholics and Jews as well as Protestants were able to use the language of democracy to check the growing authority of science. They did this by appealing to American tolerance for contending views and by presenting a populist counterweight to what they portrayed as elitist claims to specialized knowledge. In the end, a kind of cultural paradox emerged in which conflicting systems of explanation were accepted, respected, and even encouraged. In Redeeming Culture, Gilbert has managed to convey not only the persistent ambiguities in American approaches to science and religion, but likewise the means by which these ambiguities continually reshape and invigorate our evolving experience.

Review

Despite the 20th century achievements in science the influence of religion in America and specifically American culture has not only stubbornly persisted but, as Gilbert argues, has grown since WWII. In the latter half of the twentieth century religion and science have coexisted in American society even as they have had to reshape their relationship, and roles in American life. Gilbert sees the 1930's to the early 1950's as the period in which science enjoyed its greatest prestige— scientists and many Americans believed science and the application of scientific methods could reform problems in all of society. Cracks in science’s image began with the detonation of the atomic bomb. Just as the bomb was a symbol of the power and prestige of science, it also undermined its image. More specifically, the physics which helped to create the bomb was opaque, obscure and was thought of as counterintuitive. Open to only a few specialists, science began to be looked upon with a suspicious eye, a sense which was further fueled by the physicists foreign-sounding names. However, it is not only the “decline” of science’s prestige that has opened up room for religion’s influence but the dogged quality of religious groups in America. Relying on America’s democratic ideal, religious groups have successfully fought for their “equal right” to have a say in society. They have also been ready to respond to each of science’s developments, often by incorporating those same notions or methods into their own doctrines (think of Creation Science). Gilbert explores the changing attitudes toward religion and science from a wide variety of vantages, from Harvard intellectuals to Hollywood, from UFO’s to the USAF, from sci-fi thrillers to the nightly news, from liberal religion to Fundamentalism.