Pete Jordan

Biography:

I am a historian of religious worldviews. My research seeks to understand how (primarily) Christians from the early modern period to the present make sense of themselves and the world around them, and how religious and theological ideas help them to do so. I am particularly interested in their use of concepts and theories from the natural sciences and from political economy, and in how their ideas from each of these domains interact with and influence one another.

My first book, Naturalism in the Christian Imagination: Providence and Causality in Early Modern England (CUP, 2022) examined how early modern Christian intellectuals committed to some form of the doctrine of providence also made use of natural causality, and naturalistic explanations, to account for what happens in the world. My second book (OUP, under contract), which was first prompted by my work as an external adviser to the Templeton World Charity Foundation, analyses the religious, scientific, and political-economic dimensions of the worldview of investor turned philanthropist John Templeton (1912-2008)

Research Area/s: 

Science and Religion, History of Christianity

 

Academic Summary

BEng (Queensland University of Technology)

PhD (Cornell University)

MDiv (Duke University)

PhD (University of Queensland)

Research Interests

  • History of Christian thought

  • Providence

  • Naturalism

  • History of science and religion

  • Early modern history

Affiliations

  • Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR)

  • Member of the Steering Committee of the Science, Technology, and Religion Unit at the American Academy of Religion

  • Member of the Science and Religion Forum

 

Publications

  • “Legitimacy and the Field of Science and Religion.” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, forthcoming.

  • “Penultimate Curiosity in the Pre-Modern Era.” Science and Christian Belief 30 (2018): 147-58.

  • “John Spencer and the Limits of Natural Causation in Early Modern England.” In Are There Limits to Science? edited by G. F. Straine, 121-30. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017.

  • “Meaning in Nature.” Cosmologics: A Magazine of Science, Religion, and Culture Fall 2017.
  • “Science and the Reformation: Historiographical Soundings.” Science and Christian Belief 29 (2017): 142-60.
  • “Minimalist Engagement: Rowan Williams on Christianity and Science.” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 51 (2016): 387-404.

 

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