Vibrant Dance: Communicating Theology/Science and Theology Issues

There were three panel discussions at the conference, one on Wednesday morning, and two on Thursday morning, of which this is the second. I was generally able to summarize each statement made by each speaker, and so will present these as summarizing transcripts. Each speaker will be identified by their initials, listed after their name below. The listing below comes as presented in the symposium program. My comments will be bracketed.

This panel was entitled, “Panel Discussion and Q&A with Speakers: The Vibrant Dance of Faith & Science:  Communicating to our Churches, Communicating to our Cultures – Theology/Science and Theology Issues,” and was moderated by Larry Coulter (Shepherd of the Hills Presbyterian Church). Panelists were Rob Norris (RN), John Walton (JW), Jack Collins (JC), Walter Kaiser (WK), Tremper Longman (TL) (Westmont College) and Hugh Ross (HR). {Ross Hastings fell ill, and left early, but was supposed to be on the panel.}

Start transcript summary.

LC—This is more of a theological rather than scientific panel; Let’s look at three areas of interest among congregations—1) Genesis 1-11 & miracles, 2) practical applications of science, and 3) sharing the faith with highly educated folks.  How do you make decisions about the boundary of science as a person of faith?

JC—Certain ethical things are universal.

RN—Two steps in making these decisions-1) inform yourself on the nature of the involved issues , but that’s hard in all the complexities of the field, so get help being informed from those in the field with and to whom you want to minister and/or dialogue; 2) in areas where there are concerns, it is partially due to a lack of policing (bioethics-end of life issues/beginning of life issues, etc.) so need constant dialog between parishioners and between practitioners. {& between both groups}

HR—What can we do in churches to get scientists and engineers to be more active in fulfilling the work of the church?

LC—How do you do it?

HR—Active recruiting of them to teach and be involved in life of church, which also helps lowers barriers.

JC—We had one medical researcher in our church declare that the theologians WILL NOT tell them {scientists} what to do and they will do the research they want to do, regardless of what the theologians think is appropriate.

LC—{New topic} How does science interact with the cross and empty tomb?

JW—We need to be able to separate different parts of issues; how to evaluate what claims Scripture is actually trying to make. While there can be some variation in the OT claims, the cross/resurrection is very clear about its claims.

TL—Genesis 1-11 is one of the most difficult sections to interpret, so we need to be solid on the things that are truly clear (i.e. God did it). Encourage dialog.

WK—The author’s intentionality has been a big issue for last 50 years, but we also need to just point to text and determine the truth intention; pastors need to be able to show, “Thus saith the Lord,” and give the parishioners real direction. The theological community is reluctant to engage in discussion on the science/faith debate. {It sounds like Kaiser is calling the clergy/seminary community to man up and take a stand in grace and truth.}

HR—How can we use these issues to bridge the science/faith gap to bring others to the cross?

RN—Scripture not about creation alone. Forgetting this can cause us to lose the perspective that Creation is the beginning of the story and Revelation is the end of story—the REAL story is of Redemption (of which Creation is the introduction). Isolating Genesis 1-11 cuts it off from the cross and creates division, and loses the Divine perspective. Exegesis needs to be informed by systematic theology. {Major on the majors and minor on the minors, maybe? Perhaps we will be more successful in evangelism to all types of folks if we don’t ourselves get wrapped around the axle with secondary issues.}

TL—They {exegesis and systematic theology} inform each other and it is a great reminder!

WK—Told the following joke:  A Sunday School teacher asked her class, “What climbs trees, eaths nuts and has a bushy tail?” The class was silent, and obviously puzzled for a long time. She kept encouraging the children to answer the question. Finally, one kid tentatively piped up. “I know the answer is supposed to be Jesus, but it sure sounds like a squirrel.” {I guess his point was that folks tend to think that as Christians, only certain perspectives are acceptable, even when common sense and common knowledge seem to disagree.}

TL—If things are differently clear, it raises challenging questions. {?}

HR—Shouldn’t we continue to seek out clarity?

TL—Yes, but we also need to be honest about what we do/don’t know.

WK—Even Peter said the same about Paul J; Jesus and Peter tend to have things to say about whatever is in the Scripture—God put everything in Scripture for a reason. Theologians need to be more risky/bold in directing interpretation of Scripture just like scientists are about science. {There it is again, “Man up!”}

LC—{New topic} How do we handle miracles?

JW—God is involved in everything. There is No secular/sacred separation, so ancient world didn’t have a class for miracles—they were signs and wonders—you can’t intervene in something you are already doing and they saw everything as being the activity of God. {GREAT point!! I think this disconnect occurred as we started trying to understand natural mechanisms as a separate and independent field from theology/philosophy, and forgot to reintegrate that framework back into a theological superstructure.}

RN—The nature of miracles fits into the doctrine of Providence, so doesn’t have a unique scientific designation.

JC—Disagrees with JW a little, in that miracles describe things a little out of the ordinary, but need to be careful about semantics.

HR—Not all miracles are transcendent, many are transformational—God takes the resources and laws of physics and manipulates them with His intelligence.

LC—{New topic} What is the origin of the soul/imago Dei?

HR—The Hebrew indicates to him that there is direct divine action in the creation of humanity.

JC—We need to settle some definitional issue. What do we mean by soul and image of God? How do we image God—through similar characteristics? As relational beings? By being His representatives? Why not all 3? The embodied soul is a representation of the image of God, so the body is not less important than the soul.

WK—A magazine in the 50’s had an article that said science has found the human soul in the brain. He thinks imago Dei is the ability to speak/communicate, to have dominion, to love, intelligence, the capacity for or awareness of holiness/righteousness, etc.

JW—Tying the physiological with the physical is fraught with difficulty. Should we not focus on imago Dei in terms of his purposes?

TL—{made a comment on a Hebrew interpretation by another panel member}

RN—Christ is the very image of God, so we are made by and for God and Christ is the embodiment of our destiny.

TL—We display the image Dei best in our resurrected bodies, so we don’t just look forward to heaven.

LC—{New topic} Youth directors are the primary purveyors of the faith and college ministries too. How do we equip these folks to deal with students who are dealing with learning the sciences?

JW—We try to give students answers, instead of models for thinking. This needs to change. We also give students the idea they must choose between science and faith, and so they choose science. So we need to tell them that it isn’t a choice they have to make. We need to push education to youth pastor conferences etc. about science/faith issues.

JC—Agrees. We need to recognize that redemption is a restoration of Creation. God is not embarrassed by our curiosity, so we need to encourage it. We also tend to leave out the enjoyment of God and his creativity as we enjoy and express ours.

RN—Gave 3 pictures of what he’s done in his church over 20 years:  1) he created a Sunday School curriculum from junior high through college—gospel, hermeneutics, sense of doctrine along with an age appropriate apologetic; 2) they teach teachers to develop the curriculum theologically; and 3)prepare high schoolers before they go to college, giving them a conference on applied apologetics to provide them with ability to defend the faith in different situations—teach them there is nothing that is true that is contradictory with the nature of Christ.

HR—We need to really upgrade the intellectual challenge of Sunday School materials for our children, not just tell them answers, but get them to discuss, debate, think through and equip them to engage their peers from early on.

End Transcript summary.

SDG

Vibrant Dance: Communicating Science and Science/Theology Issues

There were three panel discussions at the conference, one on Wednesday morning, and two on Thursday morning, of which this is the first. I was generally able to summarize each statement made by each speaker, and so will present these as summarizing transcripts. Each speaker will be identified by their initials, listed after their name below. The listing below comes as presented in the symposium program. My comments will be bracketed.

This panel was entitled, “Panel Discussion and Q&A with Speakers: The Vibrant Dance of Faith & Science:  Communicating to our Churches, Communicating to our Cultures –Science and Science/Theology Issues,” and was moderated by Andy Crouch (AC). Panelists were Deborah Haarsma  (DH), Rob Norris (RN), Dinesh D’Souza (DD), Darrel Falk (DF), Hugh Ross (HR), Stephen Meyer (SM) and Ross Hastings (RH). {I apologize for all of the D’s, H’s and R’s! ugh!}

Start transcript summary.

Missed AC’s intro—apparently a survey that only 2% of scientists are evangelical. “How can we raise it?”

DF—We can’t convey an opinion that biology is fundamentally flawed—this is a missional issue as opposed to a scientific one

HR—Take a different survey:  instead of looking for evangelicals in science, look for those who respect the Bible

AC—True—what can we do to redeem the term “evangelical?”

RN—Teach Christian students in Christian schools not to be afraid of science. They also need to recognize there is a diversity of approaches to science/faith. This will discourage the defensive mentality we see among those coming from Christian schools.

DH—“AMEN!”

SM—Christian colleges should look at teaching models with flexible schedules to allow for research. The Discovery Institute has a research fellow program and try to help faculty at Christian colleges buy out a teaching schedule to allow research. We also have summer research institutes. Christians in academia and clergy should pay attention to the rising generation of scholars and mentor/nurture them.

DF—I believe strongly in Christian colleges. In effect, he seems to disagree with SM on balancing mentorship with research—taking SM’s comment to mean replacing mentorship with research

SM—Corrects impression—there is a need for Christian PhD granting institutions, also, not in place of Christian undergraduate only institutions.

AC--How can this group {the panel} interact with what’s going on at Christian colleges?

DH—Likes the current system of Christian colleges, but also sees need for Christian students in secular institutions—pastors can encourage students to be Christian scholars anywhere.

AC—{New topic} Instructed panel to offer ways to stay relatively well informed on new frontiers in science (WITHOUT referring to their own websites/books!) {jab at RTB in particular, who tend to mention a topic in passing, then send folks to their materials for the details before going to the next topic and doing the same thing. I understand they have such a vast amount of material and they give very similar talks repeatedly and it saves time. I get that, but they make such references so often, it becomes annoying to hear over and over and…GREAT folks, though! I recommend their stuff. Seriously.}

DD—The challenge for Christians is to be bilingual in secular culture. We think culture is made from the ground up, but it is often from the top down, especially in science, so we need to influence the influencers. Also, we tend to go from science to nature, rather than the other way around at times. Finally, we need to have ‘interpretive modesty.’ {i.e.-we should not be dogmatic about our interpretation, either of Scripture or the book of nature. Being tentative draws people in to examine our claims to see if they are true, rather than beating them over the head with them.}

HR—In his churches, they focus on teaching not preaching and they deal with controversial issues, which draws in unbelievers. Agrees with DD on top down—we need to engage the top scientists.

RN—As a pastor, he meets with the scientists who do keep up with the developments and has them give him a précis on what is going on, but pitched at his level. He needs to understand the issues so he can encourage others to face them.

DH—See the ASA journal on current science and faith. {ASA: American Scientific Affiliation—an association of Christian scientists}

AC—{New topic} DH’s husband has an article at bit.ly/fourmyths that gives 4 myths about ID and 4 about theistic evolution. Why don’t’ these issues engage both the scientific community and the faith community?

DH—Astronomy is starting to improve in this area. Women aren’t interested in the interface because few women are in either/both clergy and science. Also, they don’t see hard science as relevant or able to help people. {Comment based on general idea that women tend to be primarily concerned with compassion issues as nurturers.}

DD—sees this as a non-issue—the big issue is why evangelicals in general are drastically underrepresented in all areas of elite society. He calls for a well thought out strategy to infiltrate and engage debates legally and politically, not affirmative action. He objects to science books including metaphysical statements.

AC—Science and the church are some of the most diverse in society, yet the interface between them seems to be most interesting to European males.

HR—Are we merely dealing with demographics—are women are committed to supporting it, but maybe as a support role rather than reading the journals themselves?

DF—Sees origins as more of a hobby area than area of priority.

DH—True—people more concerned about evangelism than apologetics.

HR—Apologetics is part of evangelism.

DD—Do we meet needs of body or engage culture?

SM—ID does attack the foundations of the atheist culture, which is the public face of the secular worldview. He disagrees with DF, and thinks that origins is more than a hobby and is critical. It is one among several priorities or areas of interest.

AC—{Next topic} We should have public engagement with the way science is done—science has limits—what it can and should do. Scientists often want/try to push those limits. How do we make the case for those limits effectively and be part of the public debate, regardless of whether others come to faith?

DH—Best arena for these discussions is the professional scientific societies, which limits what the church can do.

DD—There are two things we can do 1)articulate the hidden faith-based assumptions of modern science (uniformity of nature)and  2) scientists think faith is a bad word, so we have to establish the reasonableness of faith (differentiate between evidence based faith and blind faith).

DF—The church needs to realize that science is capable of being pretty certain about some things.

HR—We need to not shackle the research of theologians, philosophers and scientists so that we can talk with each other.

RN—It is not the church’s role to police the scientific society, but to proclaim the kingdom of God, and equip the scientific members to responsibly act in their communities.

AC—There are lots of questions (pre-submitted from the audience) about details that we didn’t get to (such as was Adam really 900 yrs old, best dating systems, etc)

End Transcript summary.

SDG

Vibrant Dance: Nurturing Techie Christians

Wednesday afternoon finished up with a sermon from Rob Norris (pastor, 4^th Presbyterian, Bethesda, MD) comparing our modern technological society to that which built the Tower of Babel. His title was “The Nurture and Spiritual Formation of Technically Oriented Christ-followers.”

The passage, Genesis 11:1-9 :

¹ Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. ² As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

 ³ They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. ⁴ Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

 ⁵ But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. ⁶ The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. ⁷ Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

 ⁸ So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ That is why it was called Babel—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Norris reminded us from the passage that God does not approve of unrestrained human powers used for imagined desires—He frowns on us trying to be gods ourselves. The people of Babel made a revolutionary technological advance—that of making building materials from scratch. Babel was in the middle of a plain, and too far from mountains and the ready building material of stone. This is the first recorded time bricks are made—they CREATED the very materials for building, by warming and transforming portions of the earth.

I had never realized the significance of verses 2 and 3. I always paid attention to verse 1 and saw 2 and 3 as just details of the story. But, as they say, the devil is in the details, possibly literally in this case! ;) The Bible is so incredibly efficient in the way it communicates important info, it is easy to overlook vital implications.

Norris wasn’t finished yet. He said the concept of the city is a thoroughly human invention designed to affirm humanity’s efforts to be self-sufficient, to allow us to master and control our environment. While there can be some healthy discussion about this assertion, it is a valid point as far as it goes, and I will revisit it in a later post.

God’s judgment on the folks of Babel was tribalism—they were condemned to small groups based on common language, which created the variety of cultures we have today. {As I study God’s judgments throughout Scripture, I see that there is nearly always something positive and Creative that results. God rarely does things for just one reason and has an amazing knack for wringing the most benefit out of everything. This can be great comfort in our tribulations.} He then allows the tribal cultures to be swallowed by the darkness their rebellion invited. He then uses Abraham to create a personal nation, from which He begins to sculpt the redemption of all cultures.

At this point, I was thinking that where we are technologically today puts Babel to shame—why does God allow that if he didn’t allow that? It was as if Norris was reading my mind. He maintains that we have only changed in magnitude of technology advancement, not in kind. (i.e.-the wheel, fire, building bricks, etc.)

Norris’ final point in the comparison was that scientism is the very spirit of Babel. “The term scientism is used to describe the view that natural science has authority over all other interpretations of life, such as philosophical, religious, mythical, spiritual, or humanistic explanations, and over other fields of inquiry, such as the social sciences. ...” Dictionary.com has both more and less charitable definitions for those interested, but the one I’ve given above matches best Norris’ usage. By asserting the completeness of naturalistic methods and philosophy to describe, explain and ultimately manipulate existence, scientism is the very philosophy of replacing God with human understanding and ability.

{It is interesting to me that aside from the fact that this frees the will from God’s moral authority, the only kind of God that scientism truly replaces is a God-of-the-gaps—our ignorance needs god to make sense of the universe and as we beat back ignorance, god gets smaller until he is irrelevant before the power of human comprehension. That is why I’m so rabid about anything that smells of a gaps argument.}

So far, Norris has done a rather thorough job of describing the problem. Next he turned to guidance, giving us five principles on means by which we will progress in Christ in the midst of our technological advances.

1)            We need to develop/maintain a reverence for God—the “Babelonians” {my term} lost a sense of reverence, replacing it with an arrogance we understand all too well.

2)            There needs to be an engendering of humility, the antidote for that arrogance, where we recognize our own fallibility, and that we can learn from those with whom we disagree.

3)            We must remember our own mortality—the Babelonians wanted to build a name for themselves as opposed to glorify God or even building a name for their offspring. Even Cain named the city he built after his son, rather than himself.

4)            We must set {keep?} a moral compass. In Babel’s self creation there was no external source of right and wrong—power and technique are morally neutral. Norris then asserted that you cannot deduce anything moral from the natural world/cosmology! {I’m not enough of a theologian/philosopher to address this with expertise, but I wonder if Paul in Romans 1 would take issue with this statement. Readers—great opportunity for comment!!}

5)            We need to build in the church—it is the only thing that will last! I believe the interpretation of this final point is in the context of the third point. Our achievements ought to be for the glory of God, the edification of the church and the furthering of the Gospel, rather than a name for ourselves or even our posterity. Let God worry about who’s name gets built.

I thoroughly enjoyed this sermon—it just doesn’t get better than to hear Scripture expounded by a rich Scot baritone like Norris’.

SDG