Bridges Badly Built

This chapter unpicks the strange fact that John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White both claimed to be writing to reconcile science and religion, and yet managed to do the precise opposite—they significantly boosted the conflict thesis. What exactly were the motivations of the two men; how did they get it so wrong? By looking at their respective influences and analyzing their progressive and liberal theology, this chapter unravels the apparent contradiction. It concludes that the looseness of their pseudo-Christianity actually led to agnostics and atheists appropriating their manuscripts in a way that neither of them could have previously imagined. By attacking what they saw as backward and naïve theology, both Draper and White undermined the historical faith altogether, and made it possible for their own conflict thesis narrative to be turned against them. Their liberal Protestantism turned out to be far closer to full-blown atheism than they had ever realized.

Liberal Protestantism without Protestantism

After World War II universities often added religious programs. But these seldom touched the heart of the enterprise. Mainstream American Protestants typically saw religion as an add-on, in contrast to John Henry Newman’s Catholic Idea of a University with theology and philosophy at the center. Nathan Pusey’s efforts to strengthen religion at Harvard illustrate the problem. Will Herberg and John Courtney Murray each pointed out the limits of generalized American religion. Religion departments acted as a palliative. But especially in the 1960s legitimate concerns for pluralism and diversity undermined specifically Protestant teachings in favor of a generalized ethic, as illustrated by Harvey Cox in The Secular City. Mainline Protestant campus ministries declined rapidly in the later 1960s. By the 1970s and 1980s ideals of inclusiveness displaced any specifically Protestant heritage. Some see a “cultural triumph of liberal Protestantism,” but the laudable inclusive ideals by themselves also bring cultural fragmentation.

Liberal Protestantism at Michigan

In the later nineteenth century the University of Michigan under President James Angell was often seen as a model of a modern university friendly to Christianity. Early in his tenure the university was accused of discrimination in preferring Protestant Christianity to Roman Catholicism, Judaism, or atheism. Angell responded to the satisfaction of a state investigating committee that while the school was Christian, it was not sectarian in the sense of teaching any one theology in preference to another. The emphasis was on building moral character rather than relating theology directly to other learning. Throughout the rest of the century this was the prevailing resolution of the tension between the Christian heritage and modern scientific research ideals. Characteristic was a volume, Religious Thought at the University of Michigan (1893), published by the Student Christian Association at Michigan. It represented a broad Christian ethical emphasis and included a presentation by John Dewey.

Conceiving the Inconceivable: Paradox in the Thought of Paul Tillich

Paradox is a term used repeatedly in Paul Tillich’s thought. This article explores how Tillich uses paradox to present key areas of Christian belief and practice and, in doing so, how he endeavours to liberate Christian theology from the perceived low Christological reductivism of certain expressions of liberal Protestantism and the ostensibly impenetrable supernaturalism of Chalcedon. Further to this a number of contemporary critical assessments of Tillich’s theology are outlined; the author draws upon the concept of paradox to engage with these criticisms and presents his own reflections on how Tillich’s thought might be situated within a pluralist theology.

Sebastian Castellio’s Liberal Challenge

Sebastian Castellio presented to French-speaking Protestants a vision of Christianity fundamentally different from that of Calvin. His vision was based on a belief in the opacity of Scripture and thus the temporary, provisional nature of any claims to religious truth. This need for doubt in Christianity led Castellio to his famous opposition to religious persecution and to his praise of reason as the ultimate arbiter in questions of religious truth. Castellio’s opposition to religious persecution emerged most strongly in his criticism of the execution of Michael Servetus, but he continued for the rest of his career to fight with Calvin and Theodore Beza over that issue, as well as others, such as biblical interpretation, predestination, and justification. Unlike recent studies that have downplayed Castellio’s role as a forerunner of liberal Protestantism, this book argues that he should, in fact, be viewed as such.

The Transformation of Religion

This chapter examines religious disaffiliation as itself a potentially religious act. It argues that “nothing in particular,” a religious option commonly presented to respondents on social scientific surveys, often entails an affirmation of religious cosmopolitanism rather than simple secularization or the rejection of religion altogether. This kind of religious cosmopolitanism—this preference for religion “in general” rather than “in particular”—has a long history in the United States, which this chapter tracks across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It attends especially to liberal Protestantism and other forms of religious liberalism as the source of modern religious cosmopolitanism and argues that the development of religious cosmopolitanism made religious disaffiliation easier for many Americans and even necessary for some. Understanding the religious nature of some religious disaffiliation is essential to understanding the broader phenomenon of religious disaffiliation in the twenty-first century.