Theos

Home / Comment / In brief

Magisteria: A new book by Nick Spencer

Magisteria: A new book by Nick Spencer

Pre–order Nick Spencer’s latest book Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion. 31/01/2022

Most things you ‘know’ about science and religion are myths or half–truths that grew up in the last years of the nineteenth century and remain widespread today.

The true history of science and religion is a human one. It’s about the role of religion in inspiring, and strangling, science before the scientific revolution. It’s about the sincere but eccentric faith and the quiet, creeping doubts of the most brilliant scientists in history – Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Darwin, Maxwell, Einstein. Above all it’s about the question of what it means to be human and who gets to say – a question that is more urgent in the twenty–first century than ever before.

From eighth–century Baghdad to the frontiers of AI today, via medieval Europe, nineteenth–century India and Soviet Russia, Magisteria sheds new light on this complex historical landscape. Rejecting the thesis that science and religion are inevitably at war, Nicholas Spencer illuminates a compelling and troubled relationship that has definitively shaped human history.

Pre–order the book here.

Nick Spencer

Nick Spencer

Nick is Senior Fellow at Theos. He is the author of The Landscapes of Science and Religion (OUP, 2025), Playing God: Science, Religion and the Future of Humanity (2024), and Magisteria: the entangled histories of science and religion (Oneworld, 2023). Nick is host of the podcast Reading Our Times.

Watch, listen to or read more from Nick Spencer

Posted 31 January 2023

Religion, Science, Science and Religion

Research

See all

In the news

See all

Comment

See all

Get regular email updates on our latest research and events.

Please confirm your subscription in the email we have sent you.

Want to keep up to date with the latest news, reports, blogs and events from Theos? Get updates direct to your inbox once or twice a month.

Thank you for signing up.

Our use of cookies

This site relies on cookies to work. We'd also like to set optional analytics cookies to help us improve it.

You can read more in our Cookie Notice

Necessary

We use cookies to protect our site and users, and to enable necessary functionality.

Analytics cookies

We would like to set analytics cookies to help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it.