Review of Wesley J. Wildman, Science and Religious Anthropology: A Spiritually Evocative Naturalist Interpretation of Human Life

Abstract

Only those unfamiliar withWesleyWildman’s workwill be surprised by how religiously exploratory, scientifically intelligent, philosophically grounded, and socially relevant this book is. In clear, often energetic prose, Wildman takes a determinedly interdisciplinary approach toward understanding what it means to be a human being. This tack works in Science and Religious Anthropology for at least four reasons. First, Wildman is one of those rare scholars who is more than conversant in a number of fields. His anthropology synthesizes insights from disciplines ranging from molecular biology to evolutionary theory, from sociology to cognitive neurology, and from theology to the scientific study of religion. To the extent that Wildman integrates these fields, he is able to critically engage the ‘modern secular interpretation of humanity (MSIH)’ and, in the process, even show how methods and insights of the MSIH can both ‘critique religion and affirm it, in different respects.’ Wildman’s multifaceted inquiry is organized around an anthropological presumption—the distillation of which does not unnecessarily foreshorten the scholarly concerns that undergird the MSIH —which states ‘that human beings are homo religiosus not only historically, culturally, or circumstantially, but ontologically, essentially, and inescapably’ (xvii). This argument is convincing because Wildman explores human religiosity as a religious naturalist. This is the second reason his approach is successful. Wildman’s religious naturalism gains anthropological depth because it strikes the appropriate balance between accountability to the biological constraints upon human beings set within complexly evolving natural environments on the one hand and a sensitivity to the apparently indeterminable aspects of life that many people call the ‘spiritual’ on the other. This balance is upheld throughout Wildman’s book and is sure to alienate both extremes of the theist/physicalist divide. But for the increasing numbers of us compelled by a more radical interdisciplinarity, Wildman’s approach provides extraordinary guidance. SOPHIA (2012) 51:411–413 DOI 10.1007/s11841-011-0296-7