Scientism and Mythologies of Progress in modern Religion-Science Debates

One of the most influential ongoing discussions in modern public culture centers on the putative relationship between 'science' and 'religion.' Taken up in recent decades by some influential and renowned figures including physicist Steven Hawking, British intellectual Alister McGrath, Orthodox thinkers Efthymios Nicolaidis and Dn. Andrei Kuraev, and others, the books and articles produced in this arena span crude reductionism to historically and theologically informed models of solid scholarship. Despite the latter works, however, popular narratives continue to reinvigorate worn-out old metaphors of science-religion conflict or warfare, narratives spurred on over time not only by self-styled 'scientific atheists' like Richard Dawkins but also by some who consider themselves Christian in the most fundamental senses. If one is to understand the nature of these debates and fruitfully engage believers and others interested in them, it is useful to consider the role of two crucial albeit unstated assumptions at work in much popular rhetoric: the historical myth of Progress and the philosophy of scientism. In this presentation I will outline some of the historical background of these ideas and consider their role in recent examples from the public science-religion conversation