Theology as Interdisciplinary Inquiry: Learning with and from the Natural and Human Sciences

Can a neuroscientist help a theologian interpret a medieval mystical text? Can a historian of religion help an anthropologist understand the effects of social cooperation on human evolution? Can a legal scholar and a theologian help each other think about how fear of God relates to respect for the law?

In this volume leading scholars in ethics, theology, and social science sum up three years of study and conversation regarding the value of interdisciplinary theological inquiry. This is an essential and challenging collection for all who set out to think, write, teach, and preach theologically in the contemporary world.

CONTRIBUTORS:

John P. Burgess
Peter Danchin
Celia Deane-Drummond
Agustín Fuentes
Andrea Hollingsworth
Robin W. Lovin
Joshua Mauldin
Friederike Nüssel
Mary Ellen O'Connell
Douglas F. Ottati
Stephen Pope
Colleen Shantz
Michael Spezio

Robin W. Lovin is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. He formerly served as the William H. Scheide Senior Fellow in Theology at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey; as the Cary Maguire University Professor of Ethics at Southern Methodist University; and as dean of SMU's Perkins School of Theology. He is also a past president of the Society of Christian Ethics and a contributing editor to The Christian Century. His other books include An Introduction to Christian Ethics: Goals, Duties, and Virtues and Christian Realism and the New Realities.