The last few decades have seen a growing number of publications on the dialogue between science and religion. The publication of The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity, edited by J. B. Stump and Alan G. Padgett, is a welcome addition to this burgeoning interdisciplinary discipline. What distinguishes this volume from other works in the field is that it has a narrower aim. This work provides a focused analysis on the complex interaction between modern science and Christianity rather than on science and religion in general. The editors make their purpose explicitly clear from the Introduction:

In this work, we narrow the conversation to science and Christianity to allow for greater specificity and depth on the topics. Of course there are some commonalities among religions with respect to their interactions with science, but as we get into specific doctrines, it is the differences in both the science and in the various world religions that become important after a certain basic introduction to this fascinating interdisciplinary field. (p. xvii)

The result is a fascinating, rich collection of fifty-four essays grouped into eleven major sections. The essays are written by young and established scholars in the science-and-religion dialogue. Topics are diverse and wide-ranging. Part I introduces the historical interactions between science and Christianity. Part II articulates various epistemological and methodological approaches for Christian engagement with science. Parts III-X address salient issues of natural theology, cosmology and physics, evolution, the human sciences, Christian bioethics, metaphysics, the concepts of mind and emergence, and theology. The final section (Part XI) concludes with an overview of significant figures of the twentieth century in science and Christianity (e.g., Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, T. F. Torrance, Arthur Peacocke, and Ian Barbour). The shortcoming in this section is that it is restricted to key figures in the twentieth century, but in the past decade alone there has been an exponential growth in the scholarly publication within this interdisciplinary field. As a result, many recent significant contributors (and their significant works) in the field are not included in the discussion.

As one comes to expect in volumes such as this, it is unlikely that the diversity of voices on such wide-ranging topics would share the same perspective on every issue. The editors acknowledge that while “the authors all write with Christianity in mind, they are not all themselves Christians” (p. xix). The volume is not meant to be exhaustive in its scope, and the authors' viewpoints are not expected to be in unison. Rather, the essays are meant to give a “fair representation of the topics,” and the authors are encouraged to “defend their own views and pick out salient points for discussion” (p. xix). Assessing the essays in the volume, I find that each is written in readable prose with non-technical language that newcomers to this field can appreciate. Each essay ends with a concise bibliography for further consultation and reading if the reader so desires. To sum up, this volume nicely complements other recent works in the ongoing interaction between science and religion. Students and teachers in the field will find this volume an accessible, reliable, and up-to-date resource for the contemporary discourse between science and Christianity.

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