In the past thirty years there has been a sea change in North American intellectual life regarding the role of religious commitments in academic endeavors. Driven partly by postmodernism and the fragmentation of knowledge and partly by the democratization of the academy in which different voices are celebrated, the appropriate role that religion should play is contested. Some academics insist that religion cannot and must not have a place at the academic table; others insist that religious values should drive the argument. ~ Product Description

Table of Contents

• • Introduction Janel M. Curry and Ronald A. Wells  1

  Pt. I Probing Linguistic and Moral Coherence

  • 1 Words and Things: The Hope of Perspectival Realism Susan M. Felch  13
  • 2 Can We Be Good without God? John Hare  31

  Pt. II Questioning Assumptions Underlying Science

  • 3 Can Scientific Laws Teach Us the Nature of the World? David A. Van Baak  45
  • 4 Design in Nature: What Is Science Properly Permitted to Think? Del Ratzsch 57

  Pt. III Truth Telling and Truth Searching

  • 5 Reckoning with the Conquest of California and the West: Josiah Royce and American Memory Ronald A. Wells  81
  • 6 Better Media with Wisdom from a Distant Place Mark Fackler  99

  Pt. IV Imagining a World

  • 7 Gender Partnership: A Care Theory Perspective Helen M. Sterk  115
  • 8 American Poverty Policy: Concerns about the Nature of Persons in a Good Society Kurt C. Schaefer  131
  • 9 Understanding God, Nature, and Social Structure: A Case Study of Great Barrier Island, New Zealand Janel M. Curry  151
  • Index 165
  • About the Contributors 173