Overview

Originally published in 1988, Jon Roberts’s book provided the first comprehensive analytical overview of public dialogue among nineteenth-century American Protestant intellectuals who struggled with the theory of organic evolution. Before the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859, most American Protestant intellectuals valued science, especially natural history, for supplying data that appeared to be invaluable for defending many major tenets of the Christian worldview. Arguments over the scientific merits of Darwin’s theory gave way to discussions of its theological implications. Roberts’s book reconstructs the course of that conversation from 1875 to 1900.

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9780268178567

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Reviews

Jon H. Roberts has scrutinized the response of Protestant apologists to this major challenge to their faith in such painstaking and exhaustive detail that his effort will surely stand as the book of record. ----The Journal of American History

"""Jon H. Roberts has scrutinized the response of Protestant apologists to this major challenge to their faith in such painstaking and exhaustive detail that his effort will surely stand as the book of record."" —The Journal of American History ""While many contemporary historians have become captivated with sociocultural interpretations of the past, Roberts demonstrates the continuing viability of intellectual history. . . . this book offers one of the fairest historical expositions of the anti-Darwinists to be found in scholarly literature."" —The Christian Century ""Awarded the Brewer prize of the American Society of Church History, this book provides the most detailed account to date of the reaction of American theologians to Darwinism. . . . this study is richly suggestive and a gold mine of information. Roberts deserves praise for a first book of such depth and complexity."" —The American Historical Review ""Professor Roberts’ thesis is neat, closely argued and convincing, and his scholarship is prodigious."" —Journal of American Studies ""Essential reading for an understanding of the battle lines drawn between Protestant evolutionists and their opponents in the late twentieth as well as the late nineteenth century."" —Journal of the American Academy of Religion "". . . . a rich resource for students of American history and culture. . . . an impressive scholarly accomplishment upon which much subsequent research shall be built."" —The Journal of Religion ""For those with an interest in the creation-evolution controversies, Darwin and the Divine in America is an important and helpful book."" —Theology Today ""This thoroughly researched book establishes a new standard for discussing connections between evolutionary theory and Protestant thought in nineteenth-century America."" —Isis “...Roberts’ award-winning Darwinism and the Divine in America remains a well documented and valuable source for understanding the intellectual and religious concerns raised by Darwin’s transmutation theory in the late nineteenth-century US.” —Religious Studies Review"

Author Information

Jon H. Roberts is the Tomorrow Foundation Professor of American Intellectual History at Boston University. Darwinism and the Divine in America was awarded the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize of the American Society of Church History.

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