Beyond conflict: an exploration of the way UK church leaders view the relationship between science and religion

ABSTRACT

There has been a growing body of academic literature over the last ten years that has attempted to challenge the notion that science and religion are in conflict with each other (otherwise known as the ‘conflict thesis’). One prominent voice on this topic has been the theologian Ian Barbour and his four-fold typology of the way science and religion relate to each other: ‘conflict’, ‘dialogue’, ‘integration’, ‘independence’. In this article, I reflect on Barbour’s contribution to the field as well as my inclusion of his framework in a survey carried out on clergy attitudes to science. The fieldwork comprised a survey of over 1,000 UK church leaders and interviews with 20 senior church leaders. This article explores church leaders’ views on science, their engagement with the subject, and the extent to which their views on science and religion reflect or challenge Barbour’s typology. The research included in this article (carried out during the period 2015–2018) was commissioned by the project “Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science”.

KEYWORDS:

• Science
• religion
• conflict thesis
• Barbour
• clergy
• church leaders
• survey
• interviews

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The research was funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation between 2015 and 2018 and carried out on behalf of the project “Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science”, based at St. John’s College at Durham University, Durham, UK.

Notes on contributors

Lydia Reid

Lydia Reid is a visiting fellow at St. John’s College at Durham University, UK. Prior to that, she was a post-doctoral research fellow on the project “Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science” (2015–2019). Her research interests include: quantitative and qualitative analysis, science, religion, education, (new) atheism, humanism, and ethics. She is the author of How Religious Students Negotiate the Secular Culture of a State University (2017).