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ERIC THOMASAssistant Professor Dept. of Religious Studies office: 4 Glebe, Room 206 |
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Eric Thomas specializes in American religious history and science-and-religion studies. His Ph.D is from the Department of Religion at Princeton University (2007); his M.A., M.S. and B.S. are from the University of Florida (1997), Yale University (1994), and Morehouse College (1991). His dissertation was on the Emanuel Movement, an early twentieth-century liberal Protestant project that marked the beginnings of the incorporation of psychotherapeutic techniques into the practices of American Protestant clergy.
"I'm interested in how religions evolve, both intellectually and practically, especially in the context of new claims to knowledge and power put forth by modern science and technology. Religions always function within cognitive and somatic environments; religions' rituals, texts, and communities reflect those environments, in diverse ways. Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection has had a clear impact on the theological and philosophical landscape of American religion. The modern science of psychology has had a similar influence, on both religious thinking and religious practice.
"I try to introduce to my students the organic, transformative, even hybridizing character of religious culture: How and why do particular religious characters appear within a culture? What environmental and social processes affect which practices and ideas survive, thrive, or decline?"
Selected Publications
“Agnosticism/Deism”; “Eastern Religions (Buddhism, Hinduism)”; “Eco-theology”; “Pantheism.” Entries in Encyclopedia of American Religion and Politics. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2003.
Links
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859)
Metanexus Institute
UMKC School of Law Scopes’ Trial
The North Star: A Journal of African American Religious History
African-American Religion: A Documentary History Project
General Search Engine for Religious Studies
Religion News Service