cover image Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons: Evolution and Christianity from Darwin to Intelligent Design

Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons: Evolution and Christianity from Darwin to Intelligent Design

Peter J. Bowler, . . Harvard Univ. Press, $24.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-674-02615-5

Bowler, a professor of the history of science at Queen’s University in Belfast, aims to show that “the renewed state of war between fundamentalists and atheistic Darwinists is not the only game in town,” because “there have always been religious thinkers looking for a middle way” to integrate Christian and evolutionary ideas. While not himself an advocate of any “middle way”—Bowler is a religious skeptic—he believes this stream of thought deserves more attention. Alongside outbreaks of controversy such as the Huxley-Wilberforce debates, the Scopes trial or contemporary battles over science education, Bowler portrays a broad movement, spearheaded by liberal Christians and religiously inclined evolutionists, to interpret evolution as God’s plan. Integrating cultural and political factors into the historical description, Bowler sees a great deal at stake. Political and social beliefs about competition, cooperation, and human improvability also come into play, as well as classic theological questions of suffering, freedom, and moral responsibility—or more recently, the value of animals and the environment. Although breadth sometimes comes at the expense of depth—Bowler treats some topics superficially and admits to finding some academic theology “totally incomprehensible”—overall this is a well-balanced survey that does justice to the complexity of the encounter and the variety of possible responses. (Sept.)