It's time to do another book review. This one is not for PSCF since someone else had already committed to do it so this is at the request of the UK folks to be published in Science & Christian Belief. Zondervan's years-long project of publishing the Dictionary of Christianity and Science has finally come into print. I just received my copy and it will be quite a challenge to figure out how to review such a compilation.
Have any of you seen the book? Any insights or comments you have would be greatly appreciated. I'll try to post a few notes as I go through it.
Randy
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Posted Monday, June 5, 2017
Overall, this is a very impressive resource, with well-written articles, every one of which includes “References and Recommended Reading.”
Therefore, I was a bit surprised at what wasn’t included, such as an Index that would let the reader know that Theistic Evolution was to be found under Evolutionary Creation, which is reasonable, except that there is no cross-reference to let the reader know.
Also, an Index to the Multiple-Views Discussions would have been a helpful and easy-to-create addition to the Dictionary.
Multiple-Views Discussions included, among others, Adam and Eve, the Age of the Universe, Young and Old Earth Creationism, the Days of Creation, Evolutionary Creationism, the Fossil Record, the Genesis Flood, and Hominid Fossils. I was therefore surprised to see so little discussion of other current hot-button Christianity and Science issues like Information and Intelligent Design (one very short article each, both by William Dembski, with no multiple-view response), and Original Sin (one page).
Despite these shortcomings, I recommend this book to anyone interested in the Christianity and Science dialogue.
Another similar, though much smaller, book that does include both a List of Entries and an Index is "A Science and Religion Primer," edited by Heidi Campbell & Heather Looy (Baker Academic, 2009).