The Theology of an Evolutionist

A Congregationalist clergyman, editor of the influential progressive journal The Outlook, and intimate with Henry Ward Beecher and Theodore Roosevelt, Lymon Abbott (1835-1922) played a central role in religion and politics in turn-of-the-century America. In this work, first published in 1897, Abbott shows his characteristic optimism in human moral development, arguing that the Christian faith can fully accommodate evolution as the means by which God changes and improves the world over time. Abbott writes ‘not to disbelievers in evolution to prove that they are mistaken, but to believers in evolution to show them that their belief is not inconsistent with the Christian faith’. A companion to Abbott’s popular previous work The Evolution of Christianity (also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection), this text presents an innovative and often elegant reconciliation of the ongoing debate concerning scientific empiricism and Christian belief.