Culture and history: Essential partners in the conversation between religion and science

In this essay I respond to John Caiazza's claim for the primacy of what he calls techno-secularism for understanding twentieth-century history. Using the examples of the Taiping Rebellion in nineteenth-century China and Zionism in twentieth-century Europe, I argue that the range of Caiazza's schema is confined solely to the Protestant West with little applicability to other national histories. I argue further for the lack of clarity and therefore the uselessness of the dichotomy of the secular and the religious for understanding human history. I claim instead that, while the category of technology and the institutions of religion are important determiners in human history, they need to be subsumed, without special status, within a broader set of interrelated factors called "culture." I appeal for the academic study of science and religion to give primacy for the near future to the history of science and religion over both theology and science.