My Favorite Reads of 2019
Ah, that wonderful time of year when Christmas trees are going up, my ten favorite Christmas songs get launched into a 24/7 repeat, and the obligatory parade of "My Favorite X" posts come out swinging!
This year I have been so blessed to have the opportunity to research and write full time. While the ol' savings account is running low (and sadly I suffered some health problems and so a few nasty medical bills are giving me the evil eye), my book is almost finished, and I am so excited to share it with you all! Reading and writing bring with it joy, but also their own intense weariness. And, set loose from working full time except on my various writing projects and some light teaching duties, my madness was allowed to swell. I have done more reading and writing than I think I ever have in a year. With that, of course, comes some books that ended up being bad--but also quite a few that were spectacular.
This list as such reflects a lot of my research interests this year and will not, sadly, have some of my more typical eclecticism. That said, there were some truly fantastic books out, and I am excited to share them with you. As always I follow a few rules - no authors twice; this list is purely academic, so no novels and pleasure reads (I tore through a lot of Brandon Sanderson in my off time) and so on. And, as always, I reserve the right to be totally inconsistent and break my rules at any time. At any rate, in no particular order, enjoy!
1.) Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (New York: Basic Books, 2019), 624pp.
As an atheist, Tom Holland in his latest book Dominion has nonetheless demonstrated a surprising mastery of the Christian tradition, and one where--despite the fact that he has no particular apologetic axe to grind--that is surprisingly charitable. To be honest, I was jealous reading this book. For such a large book it reads briskly; its examples are interesting and spot on; and above all its just a good read. When I initially set out to write Flat Earths and Fake Footnotes, something like this representing the history of Christianity in terms that tackle myths about Christianity on such a wide scale was the book I secretly wanted to write. Nonetheless, Holland has exceeding anything I could put together. Gorgeously written, if you are even remotely interested in the legacy of Christianity for the western world this book is a must-have. If you are familiar with Christian history, though this work isn't the most in-depth, you still may learn a thing or two (I certainly did). It will also help you annoy those family members who have been haunting the /atheism subreddit in anticipation of those delightful holiday screeds that happen over turkey and mashed potatoes.
2.) Peter Harrison and Jon Roberts, eds., Science Without God? Rethinking the History of Scientific Naturalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019) 288pp.
I have quite the intellectual crush on Peter Harrison (see my interview with him here, as well as my lengthy discussion of his book, The Territories of Science and Religion), so cards on the table I am biased here, to say the least. This book was really helpful for me in particular because my own work deals with what I call "deleting theology"--that is, the curious tendency of theology and religion to be deleting as irrelevant in historical reconstructions of intellectual development in the west. This book takes aim to undo that tendency head on. For example, it is commonly assumed that the rise of methodological naturalism was a tactic used to banish God by atheists, skeptics, deists, and the like. Nothing could be further from the truth, as methodological naturalism actually arose through Christian theological premises. This book does an incredible job of calling us to the fresh, undiscovered countries of religion hitherto undreamt of in our history textbooks.
3.) Edward Baring, Converts to the Real: Catholicism and the Making of Continental Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), 504pp.
Now this is my kind of book on theology. Rigorous, interdisciplinary--combining history, theology, sociology, and politics--and extremely well written. Converts to the Real traces the often forgotten influences that theology has had on the emergence of Continental Philosophy, with particular reference to the movement of phenomenology. Much has been made lately of the so-called "theological turn" that has occurred in Continental philosophy as it calls Christian theology to its aid. A host of fascinating works have come out detailing the movement itself, or this or that thinker within the movement--The Inconspicous God, Postmodern Apologetics, The New Phenomenology, and one just recommended to me by Artur Rosman and which I am eager to read, The Loving Struggle by Emanuel Falque--and this most recent book by Baring adds its voice to what is an absolutely fascinating but (especially in America) under-appreciated field. There has been a widely reported renaissance in Christian philosophy in the analytic tradition, spearheaded by Alvin Plantings and Richard Swinburne--but less noticed is that starting around the same time the continent was seeing a similar movement. "Continental philosophy today is haunted by religion," writes Baring. But far from two disciplines that merely happen to now find themselves converging, Baring argues that "the religious specters in continental philosophy can be explained by their family history," stemming from earlier movements, especially in Catholicism, in which Christian theology fertilized philosophy with many of its most powerful methods and ideas (343). Linking this to political currents as well, this book is one of those rare breeds that casts an entirely different light on histories we thought we knew. Far from secularization, things are now much weirder, much more theological.
4.) Eugene McCarraher, The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard, 2019), 816pp.
I am admittedly only a few chapters into this one, but it is mesmerizing so far. I remember when I started my tender entrance into the world of theo-blogging way back in 2007 (!) rumors of this book even then were circulating. The long wait has paid off. This is not the typically uninformed screed against capitalism. McCarraher wants to make clear that "I am not one of those churlish reactionary radicals who see nothing in capitalist modernity but one long, unrelieved nightmare of greed, brutality, and desiccating rationalization" (12-13). His object of attack is rather how capitalism has involved a migration of the holy that fundamentally reorients all of Christian values around wealth, capital, accumulation, and a sort of theodicy of the market. Capitalism is, as Augustine defined sin, a "disordered love" that "longs for communion" but does so through a "predatory, misshapen love of the world." This argument also involves overturning one of the most frequent tropes of secularization--that of the disenchantment of the world. One of my favorite books from last year--Josephson-Storm's The Myth of Disenchantment--similarly attacked this notion by pointing out how religion, theology, and magic accompanied modernity and even supposed secularization at all stages of its development (indeed, the more it was protested the world was now disenchanted and religion a bygone superstition, often the stronger the underground currents of magic and theology). McCarraher carries out this critique by noting that "enchantment," and the idea of the sacral quality of the world, the charged power of objects, the intrinsic and haunting meaning of the world--did not disappear, but packed its bags and found capitalism now responsible for casting such a glamor, giving things their enchanted halos. The question is not therefore "does capitalism work" but "what work does capitalism do?" That work, indeed, is a devastating reprogramming of the entire grammar of Christianity that so influenced the West.
5.) Remi Brague, The Kingdom of Man: Genesis and Failure of the Modern Project (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2018), 352pp.
The final third of Remi Brague's trilogy (which I have written more about here) is an engaging look at how man became the measure of all things. While the usual stories we hear are told along the lines of religion losing its credibility to reason, God fading into the background, and the crutch of religion being tossed aside for humanity to stretch its muscles fettered for so long by superstition, the truth is much different and more interesting. Instead of a pure victory, what often occurred was rather a concerted effort of rediscription, where instead of overcoming religion through the superiority of reason, secular humanism often defined its opponents into irrelevance rather than defeating them face to face. It is only in this way that "humanism must tend to become an atheism" (4). Instead of the typical idea that "Humanism" is an anti-religious movement, Brague demonstrates in a convincing way that it was only with later distortions that such antitheses arose.
6.) Hans Boersma, Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), 488pp.
One of the few "pure" theology books that I was able to squeeze in this year, it in fact has some tangential relevance to the history of Christianity and science precisely because notions of God--and hence conceptions of what it means to "see" God either in the world or in the world to come--deeply implicate how faith relates to knowledge of the natural world. That said, this is a gorgeous, informative, and deeply spiritual book. Boersma can be a hit and miss for me--I loved his work in Violence, Hospitaliy, and the Cross, and his introduction to la Nouvelle Theologie. But his wholesale adoption of the notion of a "sacramental world" and the "Scotus Story" of how that world was often lost strikes me as far too simplistic. Some of that does show up in this most recent book. I particularly enjoyed his chapter on Symeon the New Theologian, who is still sadly neglected. This is, to sum up, the definitive work out there on the beatific vision and is a must have on any theologian's shelf.
7.) Karsten Harries, Infinity and Perspective (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2001), 368pp.
Not from 2019 (2001, actually) this book only recently came to my attention and I am glad it did--it is glorious. Much as Converts to the Real above, this is theology exactly how I most enjoy it done. A brilliantly interdisciplinary work, its argument is essentially that the modern story (told by historians of science like Alexander Koyré and others) that the emerging notion of the infinity of the universe was an affront to Christian theologians, who balked at the newfound space and were terrified at man's insignificance, gets its facts all twisted about. Quite conversely, Harries argues it was Christian theology, through the primary vehicle of Nicolas of Cusa, that introduced the infinity of the universe as a scientific concept precisely as the universe one would expect to be created by an infinite God. "The boundlessness of space and the infinite depth of the individual are both experienced" in Christian theology "as epiphanies of God" (63). Multiperspectivalism, heliocentrism, the plurality of worlds, even the plurality of universes themselves--all were live options for the all-powerful, quite infinite Christian God. This isn't merely a decadent theological ornamentation foisted upon the science, rather Harries demonstrates a genealogy of ideas that reveal their inner historical dependence upon Christian categories. A really scintillating read (and one I'm glad I ran in to as I write my chapter on Copernicus and Galileo).
8.) Alan G. Gross, The Scientific Sublime: Popular Science Unravels the Mysteries of the Universe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 328pp.
This was completely off my radar until the glorious (insidious?) algorithms of Amazon plopped it onto Facebook in that weird, interconnected web we are all trapped in. I might be a slave to the system, but it sure does know my book tastes. Gross argues in essence that the perception that science contradicts faith has not to do with the science, but with the aesthetics and the tastes attached to it in popular literature. In particular Gross uses the concept of "the sublime" to show how sublimity migrated from God to science, and eventually shoved God out of the picture as a bad sense of taste. In this way it is quite complementary to two other works I have learned a great deal from--Genres of Doubt, which argues that the rise of science in the Victorian period was tied to unbelief by the emerging genre of science fiction (using again the notion of the sublime). And, secondly, Science Fiction Theology, which--you guessed it--uses the concept of the sublime in many works like H.P. Lovecraft, to show how senses of the world specifically antithetical to Christian aesthetics have been constructed. A really gripping trio of reads that I think any Christian interested in popular-level communication need to address. Christian apologetics too often think the content is what is at issue. Of course, that is important. But the form is what dwells in the hearts of those with ears to hear, eyes to see, noses to smell, mouths to taste, bodies with touch.
9.) Andrew J. Brown, The Days of Creation: A History of Christian Interpretation of Genesis 1:1-2:3 (UK: Deo Pubishing, 2014), 361pp.
This book was initially brought to my attention reading my friend Dr. Joseph Minich's excellent Ph.D. thesis on phenomenology and atheism (seriously, fascinating stuff. While we wait for it to be published, see the reader friendly intro he wrote last year, Enduring Divine Absence). As providence would have it, I subsequently ran into a pristine used copy at the Portland used-bookstore chain Powell's, a place that is the envy of the rest of the world. I'm not sure what they put in the water in Australia, but the best work in the history of science and Christianity is hands-down coming out of Queensland right now--Peter Harrison, Ian Hesketh, James Ungureanu--and in this case, Andrew J. Brown's reception history of Gen. 1-2:3 which is the most complete one-volume work in English that currently exists. It took Brown a decade to research and write this (originally his Ph.D. thesis) and the time and dedication shows: every chapter ends up in the ballpark of 300 footnotes, and every rock has been overturned, every nook and cranny of the tradition scoured. While a ton of great work has been done recently on the interpretation of Genesis itself--C. John Collins, Ian Provain, John Walton, William P. Brown, Peter C. Bouteneff--few have even approached a comprehensive reception history. Like or leave the tradition of interpretation, one cannot help but be struck by the diverse array of just what the text means. A definitive conclusion of what creation must mean in scripture seems like it should be less a hill to die on, and more a constant source of complex discussion to navigate at the pub. As Basil of Caesarea (notable for his stress on the literal meaning of Genesis) put it in his Hexameron: "If we undertake now [to make Genesis embody the competing theories of natural philosophers] we shall fall into the same idle chatter as they. Let us rather allow them to refute each other. ... Let us [convinced as we are that God created the heavens and the earth] glorify the Master. ... From the greatness of these perceptible and circumscribed bodies let us conceive of Him who is infinite and immense and who surpasses all understanding in the plenitude of His power" (Hex. 1.11).
10.) Aaron Riches, Ecce Homo: On The Divine Unity of Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), 280pp.
Another "pure" theological book that I read alongside Rowan William's excellent (and quite similar) Christ the Heart of Creation. I was using these to research for an essay on divine simplicity and non-competitive transcendence that, as it happens, ws just released in the volume The Lord Is One: Reclaiming Divine Simplicity, to which I had the honor of contributing two essays. On the other hand, notions of the incarnation are incredibly important for faith and science dialogues, as they embody (pun intended) God-world interactions in a way that all too often is avoided in broader faith/science discussions. Both Riches volume and William's exemplify a rare combination of synoptic overview and the retention of a sophisticated level of theological and philosophical depth incorporating both the history of thought on the incarnation, and more contemporary systematic approaches. It would be hard to conceive of work on Christology being done today without reference to either of these works, and both deserve a place on the theologian's shelf (or in their Kindle).
11.) James C. Ungureanu, Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition: Retracing the Origins of Conflict (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), 309pp.
This one was my bread and butter. As I mentioned, my research has taken the front seat this year--my research being on the history and historiography of science and Christianity. Yet another masterful work coming out of Queensland, this one tackles the origin of the so-called warfare thesis of Andrew Dickson White and John William Draper (that is, that Christianity and science have perennial been at each other's throats). My own research led me to believe that, ironically enough, there is a myth of the myth of the warfare thesis, as neither White nor Draper were against religion per se, but rather its entrenched dogmatic and authoritarian forms. My hunch has been filled out in a way I could have only dreamt of accomplishing on my own by Ungureanu. Arguing that both Draper and White should be seen as part of the broader Protestant tradition (specifically its Liberal forms), their notions of the warfare of Christianity and science were actually meant to liberate "true religion" from the heavy fetters of dogmatists. Ironically, both thought that the notion that religion itself was antithetical to science to be completely false. Yet, due to some extreme rhetorical infelicity on their part, as well as the obvious polemical advantage for many freethinkers, atheists, and secularists to simply ignore the fact that White and Draper considered themselves harmonizers of science and faith, White and Draper were immediately coopted and their memories in the history of ideas has become that of the originators of the warfare thesis. A truly fascinating read, there is something profoundly odd about learning that the warfare thesis started as an "in-house" Christian debate about the nature of true religion and, even more specifically, was often directly cribbed from Protestant polemics against Catholics.
12.) Jason Blakely, Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and the Demise of Naturalism (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2016), 136pp.
A mercifully brief read that punches well above its weight, this is a fascinating journey into the origins of the thought of MacIntyre and Taylor. Both have the distinction of starting out as Marxists working in a movement known as the British New Left, becoming disillusioned with Marxism's ability to produce a coherent social theory, traveled through Anglo-American Analytic philosophy, into Christianity, and each became one of the more notable figures in philosophy in the latter half of the twentieth century. If you are at all interested in either thinker (or both) this is a must-read that will give some truly invaluable context to the massive corpus of both thinkers.
13.) David Bentley Hart, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell & Universal Salvation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), 232pp.
I am one of those who populate Hart's detested category of "hopeful universalist." As Hart writes in one of his many asides on such creatures as myself, "I see no great virtue in vacillation, especially when it seems like a strategy for crediting oneself with a tenderheartedness that one might nevertheless be willing to doubt in God." As such, this book does not make the list because I found it convincing, but because I admire Hart's rip-roaring boldness to thunder through both his opponents, and the squeamish like myself. I am sickeningly cautious, and Hart bearing his learning lightly as he stomps through the landscape was, if nothing else, a nice change of pace. The notion that the elect might delight in the torments of the damned may be reprehensible, but I'll be damned if the schadenfreude one gets with Hart's more devilish ripostes are not sinfully delicious. The chaos of that stew called the internet in the wake of Hart's book alone has been worth the price of admission. I remain a steadfast fan of Hart, having been won over years ago by Beauty of the Infinite, Atheist Delusions, and The Experience of God (along with some of his essays, and I still enjoy Doors of the Sea). Admittedly, however, I am growing weary of the level of bravado Hart brings. I can only hope his book on consciousness has a few more footnotes, or a lengthy bibliographic essay. Hart might know without fail that the tradition says such and such, but for lesser mortals like myself tracking down those things called references are a necessary evil. I tend therefore to prefer Illaria Ramelli, Robin Parry, or David Congdon on the topic, as such. For for sheer punchiness, though, this is a heady tonic.
Robert Louis Wilken, Liberty in the Things of God: The Christian Origins of Religious Freedom (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), 248pp.
Reading this in my usual coffee shop turned a few heads. Few things are less associated with Christianity than the freedom to think as one wants (just see the reactions to Hart's book above for apparent confirmation). Wilken, a historian whom I respect deeply, argues to the contrary that religious freedom, human rights, and the like all originated in Christianity. And his case is, as one might imagine, both thorough and eye-opening. As he succinctly puts it "I wish to show how Christian thinkers came to consider religious freedom, or liberty of conscience, a natural right that belongs to all human beings, and not accommodation granted by ruling authorities." A really fascinating pairing with Holland's Dominion, above, this is yet another book that hit my sweet spot of debunking the legion of myths that rattle about in the back of everyone's minds.
This year I have been so blessed to have the opportunity to research and write full time. While the ol' savings account is running low (and sadly I suffered some health problems and so a few nasty medical bills are giving me the evil eye), my book is almost finished, and I am so excited to share it with you all! Reading and writing bring with it joy, but also their own intense weariness. And, set loose from working full time except on my various writing projects and some light teaching duties, my madness was allowed to swell. I have done more reading and writing than I think I ever have in a year. With that, of course, comes some books that ended up being bad--but also quite a few that were spectacular.
This list as such reflects a lot of my research interests this year and will not, sadly, have some of my more typical eclecticism. That said, there were some truly fantastic books out, and I am excited to share them with you. As always I follow a few rules - no authors twice; this list is purely academic, so no novels and pleasure reads (I tore through a lot of Brandon Sanderson in my off time) and so on. And, as always, I reserve the right to be totally inconsistent and break my rules at any time. At any rate, in no particular order, enjoy!
As an atheist, Tom Holland in his latest book Dominion has nonetheless demonstrated a surprising mastery of the Christian tradition, and one where--despite the fact that he has no particular apologetic axe to grind--that is surprisingly charitable. To be honest, I was jealous reading this book. For such a large book it reads briskly; its examples are interesting and spot on; and above all its just a good read. When I initially set out to write Flat Earths and Fake Footnotes, something like this representing the history of Christianity in terms that tackle myths about Christianity on such a wide scale was the book I secretly wanted to write. Nonetheless, Holland has exceeding anything I could put together. Gorgeously written, if you are even remotely interested in the legacy of Christianity for the western world this book is a must-have. If you are familiar with Christian history, though this work isn't the most in-depth, you still may learn a thing or two (I certainly did). It will also help you annoy those family members who have been haunting the /atheism subreddit in anticipation of those delightful holiday screeds that happen over turkey and mashed potatoes.
I have quite the intellectual crush on Peter Harrison (see my interview with him here, as well as my lengthy discussion of his book, The Territories of Science and Religion), so cards on the table I am biased here, to say the least. This book was really helpful for me in particular because my own work deals with what I call "deleting theology"--that is, the curious tendency of theology and religion to be deleting as irrelevant in historical reconstructions of intellectual development in the west. This book takes aim to undo that tendency head on. For example, it is commonly assumed that the rise of methodological naturalism was a tactic used to banish God by atheists, skeptics, deists, and the like. Nothing could be further from the truth, as methodological naturalism actually arose through Christian theological premises. This book does an incredible job of calling us to the fresh, undiscovered countries of religion hitherto undreamt of in our history textbooks.
Now this is my kind of book on theology. Rigorous, interdisciplinary--combining history, theology, sociology, and politics--and extremely well written. Converts to the Real traces the often forgotten influences that theology has had on the emergence of Continental Philosophy, with particular reference to the movement of phenomenology. Much has been made lately of the so-called "theological turn" that has occurred in Continental philosophy as it calls Christian theology to its aid. A host of fascinating works have come out detailing the movement itself, or this or that thinker within the movement--The Inconspicous God, Postmodern Apologetics, The New Phenomenology, and one just recommended to me by Artur Rosman and which I am eager to read, The Loving Struggle by Emanuel Falque--and this most recent book by Baring adds its voice to what is an absolutely fascinating but (especially in America) under-appreciated field. There has been a widely reported renaissance in Christian philosophy in the analytic tradition, spearheaded by Alvin Plantings and Richard Swinburne--but less noticed is that starting around the same time the continent was seeing a similar movement. "Continental philosophy today is haunted by religion," writes Baring. But far from two disciplines that merely happen to now find themselves converging, Baring argues that "the religious specters in continental philosophy can be explained by their family history," stemming from earlier movements, especially in Catholicism, in which Christian theology fertilized philosophy with many of its most powerful methods and ideas (343). Linking this to political currents as well, this book is one of those rare breeds that casts an entirely different light on histories we thought we knew. Far from secularization, things are now much weirder, much more theological.
I am admittedly only a few chapters into this one, but it is mesmerizing so far. I remember when I started my tender entrance into the world of theo-blogging way back in 2007 (!) rumors of this book even then were circulating. The long wait has paid off. This is not the typically uninformed screed against capitalism. McCarraher wants to make clear that "I am not one of those churlish reactionary radicals who see nothing in capitalist modernity but one long, unrelieved nightmare of greed, brutality, and desiccating rationalization" (12-13). His object of attack is rather how capitalism has involved a migration of the holy that fundamentally reorients all of Christian values around wealth, capital, accumulation, and a sort of theodicy of the market. Capitalism is, as Augustine defined sin, a "disordered love" that "longs for communion" but does so through a "predatory, misshapen love of the world." This argument also involves overturning one of the most frequent tropes of secularization--that of the disenchantment of the world. One of my favorite books from last year--Josephson-Storm's The Myth of Disenchantment--similarly attacked this notion by pointing out how religion, theology, and magic accompanied modernity and even supposed secularization at all stages of its development (indeed, the more it was protested the world was now disenchanted and religion a bygone superstition, often the stronger the underground currents of magic and theology). McCarraher carries out this critique by noting that "enchantment," and the idea of the sacral quality of the world, the charged power of objects, the intrinsic and haunting meaning of the world--did not disappear, but packed its bags and found capitalism now responsible for casting such a glamor, giving things their enchanted halos. The question is not therefore "does capitalism work" but "what work does capitalism do?" That work, indeed, is a devastating reprogramming of the entire grammar of Christianity that so influenced the West.
The final third of Remi Brague's trilogy (which I have written more about here) is an engaging look at how man became the measure of all things. While the usual stories we hear are told along the lines of religion losing its credibility to reason, God fading into the background, and the crutch of religion being tossed aside for humanity to stretch its muscles fettered for so long by superstition, the truth is much different and more interesting. Instead of a pure victory, what often occurred was rather a concerted effort of rediscription, where instead of overcoming religion through the superiority of reason, secular humanism often defined its opponents into irrelevance rather than defeating them face to face. It is only in this way that "humanism must tend to become an atheism" (4). Instead of the typical idea that "Humanism" is an anti-religious movement, Brague demonstrates in a convincing way that it was only with later distortions that such antitheses arose.
One of the few "pure" theology books that I was able to squeeze in this year, it in fact has some tangential relevance to the history of Christianity and science precisely because notions of God--and hence conceptions of what it means to "see" God either in the world or in the world to come--deeply implicate how faith relates to knowledge of the natural world. That said, this is a gorgeous, informative, and deeply spiritual book. Boersma can be a hit and miss for me--I loved his work in Violence, Hospitaliy, and the Cross, and his introduction to la Nouvelle Theologie. But his wholesale adoption of the notion of a "sacramental world" and the "Scotus Story" of how that world was often lost strikes me as far too simplistic. Some of that does show up in this most recent book. I particularly enjoyed his chapter on Symeon the New Theologian, who is still sadly neglected. This is, to sum up, the definitive work out there on the beatific vision and is a must have on any theologian's shelf.
Not from 2019 (2001, actually) this book only recently came to my attention and I am glad it did--it is glorious. Much as Converts to the Real above, this is theology exactly how I most enjoy it done. A brilliantly interdisciplinary work, its argument is essentially that the modern story (told by historians of science like Alexander Koyré and others) that the emerging notion of the infinity of the universe was an affront to Christian theologians, who balked at the newfound space and were terrified at man's insignificance, gets its facts all twisted about. Quite conversely, Harries argues it was Christian theology, through the primary vehicle of Nicolas of Cusa, that introduced the infinity of the universe as a scientific concept precisely as the universe one would expect to be created by an infinite God. "The boundlessness of space and the infinite depth of the individual are both experienced" in Christian theology "as epiphanies of God" (63). Multiperspectivalism, heliocentrism, the plurality of worlds, even the plurality of universes themselves--all were live options for the all-powerful, quite infinite Christian God. This isn't merely a decadent theological ornamentation foisted upon the science, rather Harries demonstrates a genealogy of ideas that reveal their inner historical dependence upon Christian categories. A really scintillating read (and one I'm glad I ran in to as I write my chapter on Copernicus and Galileo).
This was completely off my radar until the glorious (insidious?) algorithms of Amazon plopped it onto Facebook in that weird, interconnected web we are all trapped in. I might be a slave to the system, but it sure does know my book tastes. Gross argues in essence that the perception that science contradicts faith has not to do with the science, but with the aesthetics and the tastes attached to it in popular literature. In particular Gross uses the concept of "the sublime" to show how sublimity migrated from God to science, and eventually shoved God out of the picture as a bad sense of taste. In this way it is quite complementary to two other works I have learned a great deal from--Genres of Doubt, which argues that the rise of science in the Victorian period was tied to unbelief by the emerging genre of science fiction (using again the notion of the sublime). And, secondly, Science Fiction Theology, which--you guessed it--uses the concept of the sublime in many works like H.P. Lovecraft, to show how senses of the world specifically antithetical to Christian aesthetics have been constructed. A really gripping trio of reads that I think any Christian interested in popular-level communication need to address. Christian apologetics too often think the content is what is at issue. Of course, that is important. But the form is what dwells in the hearts of those with ears to hear, eyes to see, noses to smell, mouths to taste, bodies with touch.
This book was initially brought to my attention reading my friend Dr. Joseph Minich's excellent Ph.D. thesis on phenomenology and atheism (seriously, fascinating stuff. While we wait for it to be published, see the reader friendly intro he wrote last year, Enduring Divine Absence). As providence would have it, I subsequently ran into a pristine used copy at the Portland used-bookstore chain Powell's, a place that is the envy of the rest of the world. I'm not sure what they put in the water in Australia, but the best work in the history of science and Christianity is hands-down coming out of Queensland right now--Peter Harrison, Ian Hesketh, James Ungureanu--and in this case, Andrew J. Brown's reception history of Gen. 1-2:3 which is the most complete one-volume work in English that currently exists. It took Brown a decade to research and write this (originally his Ph.D. thesis) and the time and dedication shows: every chapter ends up in the ballpark of 300 footnotes, and every rock has been overturned, every nook and cranny of the tradition scoured. While a ton of great work has been done recently on the interpretation of Genesis itself--C. John Collins, Ian Provain, John Walton, William P. Brown, Peter C. Bouteneff--few have even approached a comprehensive reception history. Like or leave the tradition of interpretation, one cannot help but be struck by the diverse array of just what the text means. A definitive conclusion of what creation must mean in scripture seems like it should be less a hill to die on, and more a constant source of complex discussion to navigate at the pub. As Basil of Caesarea (notable for his stress on the literal meaning of Genesis) put it in his Hexameron: "If we undertake now [to make Genesis embody the competing theories of natural philosophers] we shall fall into the same idle chatter as they. Let us rather allow them to refute each other. ... Let us [convinced as we are that God created the heavens and the earth] glorify the Master. ... From the greatness of these perceptible and circumscribed bodies let us conceive of Him who is infinite and immense and who surpasses all understanding in the plenitude of His power" (Hex. 1.11).
Another "pure" theological book that I read alongside Rowan William's excellent (and quite similar) Christ the Heart of Creation. I was using these to research for an essay on divine simplicity and non-competitive transcendence that, as it happens, ws just released in the volume The Lord Is One: Reclaiming Divine Simplicity, to which I had the honor of contributing two essays. On the other hand, notions of the incarnation are incredibly important for faith and science dialogues, as they embody (pun intended) God-world interactions in a way that all too often is avoided in broader faith/science discussions. Both Riches volume and William's exemplify a rare combination of synoptic overview and the retention of a sophisticated level of theological and philosophical depth incorporating both the history of thought on the incarnation, and more contemporary systematic approaches. It would be hard to conceive of work on Christology being done today without reference to either of these works, and both deserve a place on the theologian's shelf (or in their Kindle).
This one was my bread and butter. As I mentioned, my research has taken the front seat this year--my research being on the history and historiography of science and Christianity. Yet another masterful work coming out of Queensland, this one tackles the origin of the so-called warfare thesis of Andrew Dickson White and John William Draper (that is, that Christianity and science have perennial been at each other's throats). My own research led me to believe that, ironically enough, there is a myth of the myth of the warfare thesis, as neither White nor Draper were against religion per se, but rather its entrenched dogmatic and authoritarian forms. My hunch has been filled out in a way I could have only dreamt of accomplishing on my own by Ungureanu. Arguing that both Draper and White should be seen as part of the broader Protestant tradition (specifically its Liberal forms), their notions of the warfare of Christianity and science were actually meant to liberate "true religion" from the heavy fetters of dogmatists. Ironically, both thought that the notion that religion itself was antithetical to science to be completely false. Yet, due to some extreme rhetorical infelicity on their part, as well as the obvious polemical advantage for many freethinkers, atheists, and secularists to simply ignore the fact that White and Draper considered themselves harmonizers of science and faith, White and Draper were immediately coopted and their memories in the history of ideas has become that of the originators of the warfare thesis. A truly fascinating read, there is something profoundly odd about learning that the warfare thesis started as an "in-house" Christian debate about the nature of true religion and, even more specifically, was often directly cribbed from Protestant polemics against Catholics.
A mercifully brief read that punches well above its weight, this is a fascinating journey into the origins of the thought of MacIntyre and Taylor. Both have the distinction of starting out as Marxists working in a movement known as the British New Left, becoming disillusioned with Marxism's ability to produce a coherent social theory, traveled through Anglo-American Analytic philosophy, into Christianity, and each became one of the more notable figures in philosophy in the latter half of the twentieth century. If you are at all interested in either thinker (or both) this is a must-read that will give some truly invaluable context to the massive corpus of both thinkers.
I am one of those who populate Hart's detested category of "hopeful universalist." As Hart writes in one of his many asides on such creatures as myself, "I see no great virtue in vacillation, especially when it seems like a strategy for crediting oneself with a tenderheartedness that one might nevertheless be willing to doubt in God." As such, this book does not make the list because I found it convincing, but because I admire Hart's rip-roaring boldness to thunder through both his opponents, and the squeamish like myself. I am sickeningly cautious, and Hart bearing his learning lightly as he stomps through the landscape was, if nothing else, a nice change of pace. The notion that the elect might delight in the torments of the damned may be reprehensible, but I'll be damned if the schadenfreude one gets with Hart's more devilish ripostes are not sinfully delicious. The chaos of that stew called the internet in the wake of Hart's book alone has been worth the price of admission. I remain a steadfast fan of Hart, having been won over years ago by Beauty of the Infinite, Atheist Delusions, and The Experience of God (along with some of his essays, and I still enjoy Doors of the Sea). Admittedly, however, I am growing weary of the level of bravado Hart brings. I can only hope his book on consciousness has a few more footnotes, or a lengthy bibliographic essay. Hart might know without fail that the tradition says such and such, but for lesser mortals like myself tracking down those things called references are a necessary evil. I tend therefore to prefer Illaria Ramelli, Robin Parry, or David Congdon on the topic, as such. For for sheer punchiness, though, this is a heady tonic.
Reading this in my usual coffee shop turned a few heads. Few things are less associated with Christianity than the freedom to think as one wants (just see the reactions to Hart's book above for apparent confirmation). Wilken, a historian whom I respect deeply, argues to the contrary that religious freedom, human rights, and the like all originated in Christianity. And his case is, as one might imagine, both thorough and eye-opening. As he succinctly puts it "I wish to show how Christian thinkers came to consider religious freedom, or liberty of conscience, a natural right that belongs to all human beings, and not accommodation granted by ruling authorities." A really fascinating pairing with Holland's Dominion, above, this is yet another book that hit my sweet spot of debunking the legion of myths that rattle about in the back of everyone's minds.
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