Janet Kellogg Ray, The God of Monkey Science: People of Faith in a Modern Scientific World. Eerdmans, 2023. Pp. 248.
Since the dawn of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy more than a century ago, a tendency has existed within some portions of American Protestantism to view faith commitment and scientific consensus as fundamentally at odds with each other. Such was part of the fertile ground from which the modern evangelical movement emerged, evangelicalism itself now having been a formative stream within the Brethren in Christ theological tradition for several generations. Readers of this review may be familiar with such paradigmatic examples of faith-science conflict as the Scopes Monkey Trial or Answers in Genesis, but anti-science sentiment in American Christianity is not limited to the rejection of the consensus view of biological evolution. Recently, science denialism has manifested in widespread rejection of safety recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic and the appointment of anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. These and other recent controversies have revealed that the unfortunately all-too-common evangelical opposition to scientific consensus is more than just a rejection of proposals about our planet’s distant geological and biological past. It is a dangerous posture that has profound impact on current matters of education, creation care, and public health.
The “faith or science” framing is not, however, an inevitable reality. In recent decades such theologians as Peter Enns and Scot McKnight, sincere Christians working in the sciences including Francis Collins and Katharine Hayhoe, and groups like The BioLogos Foundation have reaffirmed that one can indeed live as a committed follower of Jesus without embracing the anti-science assumptions of fundamentalism. To this list we may add Janet Kellogg Ray, a biology professor at the University of North Texas who has recently published several works on the intersection between science and faith, including The God of Monkey Science.
With this book, Ray aims “to explore evangelical science denial … [a] conversation that begins with evolution” (21). The book begins with William Jennings Bryan, the famous orator and politician of Scopes Monkey Trial fame. Bryan’s posture of showmanship and braggadocious rejection of scientific inquiry established a model of media-savvy anti-science sentiment that has continued to the present (7-9). Throughout the pages of The God of Monkey Science, readers are provided with examples of troubling anti-science developments within the fundamentalist and evangelical communities of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Key figures and movements are noted, including America’s Frontline Doctors, Answers in Genesis, Jerry Falwell, Ken Ham, Robert Jeffress, John MacArthur, Owen Strachan, and Andrew Wakefield. Ray mentions these figures to highlight the myriad ways in which evangelicals fall prey to alternative “authorities” (25-34) and culture war narratives (87-100), with damaging results for our churches, schools, and world. For readers already familiar with the broad contours of recent anti-science movements, these summaries may bring back stressful memories and heartburn. Yet for readers who lack sufficient context for anti-science claims made in the pulpit and on the news, they provide a valuable sense of trajectory.
Interspersed between these accounts are helpful orientations to scientific matters that are subject to disingenuous claims by prominent anti-science organizations, think-tanks, and (concerningly) pastors who disparage scientists and scientific consensus for personal gain. These include discussions about the scientific method, the nature of scientific theories, controls and peer review, and the limits of scientific inquiry (42-57). Also included are brief introductions to the science of evolution (33-38), fossils (12-15), stem cells (153-157), vaccine production (58-61, 68-69), and CRISPR gene editing (164-167). Although brief, these orientations are a helpful means of cutting through dishonest framings and may also prove effective at conveying to some readers that scientific consensus is subject to far more rigor than is commonly assumed.
Relatively late in the book, Ray describes evangelical rejection of creation care as part of a package of “theo-political beliefs” (140), a phrase that helpfully summarizes a (perhaps the) major component of modern evangelical science denialism. As was seen with masking recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic, public health and other scientific matters become rapidly politicized in our twenty-first century context. It is through the lens of political polarization and mass media propagandizing, rather than through theological reflection or discipleship commitments, that many church folk receive their understandings of scientific topics. Throughout this book, Ray does a great job of summarizing the cultural and theological dynamics at play, directly naming movements, organizations, and individuals who have informed those dynamics both historically and today. And while attentive readers may note references to cable news, social media, and political pundits, the book ultimately does not address these vital components with the level of prominence that they enjoy in shaping the “theo-political beliefs” of today’s evangelicals. Core concepts of evangelical science denialism may come from the likes of Ken Ham, but the thoroughly politicized view of scientific inquiry that is embraced in much of the American evangelical subculture emerges more so from Fox News, social media algorithms, and other forms of far-right media.
Although outside the exact scope of the book’s stated purpose, one area that I wish received greater attention was how to talk with evangelicals about science in a productive way. Part of the pastoral call to make disciples is helping those in our charge to look at the world around them through a discipleship lens. One way in which we can do this is by encouraging our people to reject politicized framings of public health and creation care matters that impact both ourselves and our neighbors. How might a science educator or pastor guide their people away from damaging anti-science postures towards vaccines and other matters? Some hints towards potential first steps can be found within the pages of The God of Monkey Science, including a call for better literacy about the scientific process. But answers on how to do so within the evangelical communities that we call home, unfortunately, will need to be found outside the bounds of this particular book.