Indeed, one of the most striking features of much contemporary discussion of the battle between religion and science is the way both sides (rest assured, there are really more than two) sound like sandlot adolescents arguing about “who started it.” The scientists have apparently never forgiven the Church for its treatment of Galileo. And many contemporary Christians are not having what Carl Sagan once gleefully referred to as “the great demotions” accomplished by Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud.

If what we want is a politics of resentment, then this seems the best way to get it.

Louis A. Ruprecht reviews Krista Tippett’s new book, “Einstein’s God: Conversations about Science and the Human Spirit” at Religion Dispatches today.  Tippett, the host of NPR’s “Speaking of Faith,” offers us a way around and through the polarized landscape of what we call the culture wars, says Ruprecht.  And she does so with the same skill she applies to her show, by “displaying what reasoned and respectful discussion of the complex and manifold phenomena of faith might look like…”