Frederick Robert Tennant

Frederick Robert Tennant
Born	Sept. 1st, 1866 Burslem, Staffordshire, England
Died	Sept. 9th, 1957 Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
Nationality	British
Occupation	Theologian

Frederick Robert Tennant (1866-1957) studied mathematics, physics, biology, and chemistry at Caius College, Cambridge (1885–89) prior to becoming a theologian. After hearing the 1889 Huxley lectures, Tennant’s interest in religion grew in the 1890s ultimately leading him to prepare for ordination in the Church of England.^[1]

As an Anglican theologian, Tennant assimilated much of Huxley’s lectures culminating in the 1901-1902 Hulsean Lecture entitled Origin and Propagation of Sin where he integrated evolutionary ideas into a Christian synthesis.^[2]

Tennant's primary goal in his writings was an integrative synthesis of the doctrines of the fall and original sin with Huxley’s claims of conflict between Darwinian thought and Christianity.^[3]

References

1. Mary Frances Thelen (1968) biography in Tennant F.R. (1903) The Sources of Doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin (Schoken: New York); Delton L. Scudder (1940) Tennant’s Philosophical Theology (Yale University Press: New Haven; Humphrey Milford: London; Oxford University Press: Oxford). Also, see the website: http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/t/tennant_f_r.shtml
2. Frederick R. Tennant. 1906. The Origin and Propagation of Sin: Being the Hulsean lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge in 1901-2. 2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge).
3. Brannan, D.K. (2007) Darwinism and Original Sin: Frederick R. Tennant’s Integration of Darwinian Worldviews into Christian Thought in the Nineteenth Century. Journal for Interdisciplinary Research on Religion and Science 1:187-217; Brannan, D.K. (2011) Darwinism and Original Sin: Frederick R. Tennant’s analysis of the Church Fathers’ understanding of Original Sin and an exegesis of St. Paul. Journal for Interdisciplinary Research on Religion and Science 8:139-171.