Something New and Fresh in the Multiverse (Another Soul Dialogue)

News flash: Andy Walsh is moderating an online book club about Faith Across the Multiverse: Parables from Modern Science (read an excerpt here). It's moderated through Joshua Swamidass's Peaceful Science, and you can sign up here.

Andy talking about his book with grad student

(The walk, and dialogue on the soul at Gordon College, continues...)

Bob (my imaginary friend): Greg, what do you think about Andy Walsh's new book?

Greg: Do you have a few minutes for me to spiel a bit? It's a fascinating book...

The best way for me to understand this remarkably different presentation of faith and science in Faith Across the Multiverse is to highlight that Andy Walsh is a “translator.” Why do I arrive at this? We found ourselves together at a lunch meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation in late July where he spoke to a group of graduate students from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF).  Andy commented on the book (and I quote from notes enhanced by memory): 

“This book is full of stories because stories orient us. Theology and science can be abstract, and so I fill this book with narratives from X Men movies. In many ways, Faith across the Multiverseis a translation.” Andy Walsh

(Full disclosure: Andy is a blogger for the Emerging Scholars Network, which received a STEAM grant for which I’m project leader. I felt like I needed to say that.)

Andy’s words reminded me of the one I call Saint Clive—Clive Staples Lewis—and how he viewed translation. As a boy, Lewis never forgot reading the fantasy fiction of a Scottish minister, George MacDonald. 

“In reading Fantasies, my imagination was baptized.” C.S. Lewis

As a result, in Lewis’s fiction and even his non-fiction, Lewis sought to baptize his readers’ imaginations, which implied translation into vernacular images and language. As he once advised Anglican priests and youth leaders, 

“You must translate every bit of your theology into the vernacular…. A passage from some theological work for translation into the vernacular ought to be a compulsory paper in every ordination examination.” C.S. Lewis

Though not an Anglican priest or youth leader—Andy works as a science writer for IVCF’s Emerging Scholars blog and the Patheos network (among other things)—he still could be earning a St. Clive Certificate of Translation. (To be honest, someday I hope someone will award me one.)

Not saving my quibbles until the end, let me verbalize that translation is hard work. When I comment that there are several pop culture analogies in Faith Across the Multiverse, I’m not overstating. The book truly is replete with X Men, Star Wars, the Justice League, et al. allusions. Though I don’t mind an action hero movie, I’m no fanatic, and sometimes the analogies seemed to me overwrought or simply repetitive. In fact, some I like much better than others, which represents one issue with pop culture—X Mendoesn’t do it for me, and so I preferred the topic of entropy addressed via Joker and Two-Face in Christopher Nolan’s Batmanseries (pp. 120ff.)

But even further, pop culture is not called “high culture” for a reason. It doesn’t always carry more substantive ideas. Do we need to limit ourselves as translators of faith and science issues to what popular media can provide? Do we need to take the scraps, or fast food, from their table? 

I couldn’t entirely suppress these questions. But then again, I’m at least a couple and half decades older than an important demographic. His use of popular media means has remarkable ability to speak to a population that I care deeply about, 18-30 year olds. In an email, Andy told me that the Faith across the Multiverse “might be particularly relevant to emerging adults, as there is also a significant pop culture element. Since both the science and theology can get abstract, I introduce each topic with a sci-fi story to help with accessibility.”

I’ve mentioned several points on presentation, and so I only have space to touch on a few topics.

Again from the email, 

“I find it helpful to think about God's grace using the idea of strange attractors from chaos theory. The hope is that believers might see new value to science in helping them get a fresh perspective on God & Christian teaching, while science-literate folks might find that Christianity makes more sense in these terms. (And, of course, plenty of folks may fall in both categories.)” Andy Walsh

I’d add to this the topics of mathematics, physics, and computer science all play a role. And several of these combinations strike the reader (or at least this reader). That belief in God is axiomatic is generative. His title for chapter 7, for example, that “The Genome Made Flesh” is arresting. His delayed approach to evolution (it doesn’t appear until page 243) is striking, in which he tells the reader that “I was just as surprised as you when I realized it, this entirebook has actually been about evolution” (243). That might surprise his more conservative readers. All in all and as a result, I suspect that most readers will end up learning quite a bit, about pop culture, biblical texts, theology, and a variety of sciences.

I close with this. Having been in the business of studying theology and science books for at least three decades, I find a freshness in Faith Across the Multiverse. It might even be, in the lingo of emerging adults, “legit,” “cool,” “tight,” “sweet,” or “ill.”

So there you have it. Bob, read it and see what you decide.

Bob: Super interesting! Hey, look over there--I see Josh, who's moderating the book club on Andy's book--talking with Steve Moshier. Aren't they both STEAM grantees? Let's head that way.

Greg: Let's do that, and why don't we talk a bit about what Scripture and positive psychology about the soul...

(To be continued...)