“Let Others Wrangle, I Will Wonder,” A Travelogue

Since the last post, I’ve participated in some truly invigorating conversations about faith and science, especially as they transpire in Christian congregations. These discussions raised various thoughts in my brain—conclusions, questions, and a few big insights.

            

Last week, I and my colleague on the STEAM project, Drew Rick-Miller, invited ten Christian thought leaders to Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena last week. Our task was to evaluate the 2011-14 Scientists in Congregations project, which paired a scientist and a pastor in 37 congregation in the U.S., Canada, and even Paris, France for purpose of integrating bring faith and science in the form of classes, conferences, sermons, small group discussions, and whatever other creative and productive formats they created. 

            

Among I heard many insights worthy of recording (though I won’t do that here), the resounding answer was that it—this integration—has to feel like it’s vital. I really mean vital, as in its root, the Latin vitalis “of or belonging to life.” Does this make a difference to my life, especially my life with Christ?

Sure, the ten core thought leaders we invited didn’t need to be convinced, but as a result one wondered if we were simply hearing ourselves in an echo chamber. If we let the echoes fade away, a lingering question speaks in the silence, Why would anybody else find this interesting?I used to denigrate this approach, but in order for this conversation to take place, it has to attach to some conviction, some interest, some need that’s deeply felt. 

More recently—in fact, Tuesday—the leading sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund curated a conversation at Rice University Religion and Public Life Project and brought together various thought leaders (including several pastors) to discuss her recent research and book on the topic of “what Christians think about science.” But it was much more. In the discussion, we considered why indeed this might be a topic of consideration for the church, which it isn’t entirely self-evident.

Again, there were so many notable insights, but I will only note my favorite quote from the day together:

 “Let others wrangle, I will wonder” (Augustine). 

I love that. Because there is a great deal of fairly loud static, whether it’s the shrill cries of Richard Dawkins “Belief in God is a delusion,” or the equally disturbing declaration of Ray Comfort that greeted me as I thumbed through pages a Santa Ana Airport store on my way to Houston and thus Rice University: “If evolution is true, then the Bible is false.” Just to emphasize the obvious--this was inside a public place not within the walls of a fundamentalist church. (See the pics.) 

At the heart of the church’s enterprise is to help us wonder at the mystery of God and at the beauty of creation. Let's not lose that in the midst of din of media voices.

Augustine of Hippo

And it was this great intellectual voice from antiquity, Augustine from the African city of Hippo, that carried our conversation toward something that we in fact needed: to move past the “conflict thesis”—the idea, promoted by Cornell founder Andrew Dickson White in the late nineteenth century, that religion and science have been, and will always be, in conflict. This was Fox News vs. CNN before television existed (which, by the way, I watched on the plane home). 

Certainly, some feel the conflict—and it needs to be addressed—but that’s not going to sustain the inherent question of wonder that drives science and interests those who don’t practice science.

“Let others wrangle, I will wonder.” 

That’s something worth remembering.