I received an opportunity to give a presentation four years ago at a conference held on the campus of Central College in Pella, IA on the theme of “Faith and Reason in the Reformations.” The conference celebrated the five hundredth anniversary of Luther’s reform movement by gathering a group of scholars and church leaders to reflect on the intellectual legacy of the reformation movements. Despite pandemic delays, the collected reflections have been assembled and published thanks to the excellent editorial work of Dr. Terry Kleven. Faith and Reason in the Reformations is available now for anyone interested themselves or to order for their library. My own chapter centered on the work of Francis Bacon and is titled “Faith and Reason Behind the Throne: Francis Bacon’s Integral Correlation of Religious Conviction and Inductive Curiosity.” I thought I would whet your appetite for the full chapter by giving you a small sample of Bacon’s thoughts on the problems posed by “superstition” and “fanaticism” to religious and social stability.

Alongside the clear references to the relationship between learning and religion in Francis Bacon’s (1561-1626) work appeared other comments that have given his interpreters pause. These comments implied that religion, or at least some forms of it, might pose a complication for pursuing Bacon’s inductive methods. In the Novum Organum, Bacon wrote:...