Speaking Sense to a Listening World

This post is an adapted form of the message I preached on the Friday following Pentecost at the final worship gathering of the STEAM (Science and Theology for Emerging Adult Ministries) grantees. It summarizes so much about why I believe this engagement of faith and science is critical for the church and for the world.

We closed the worship in a circle singing "Amazing Grace."

The year was 1710, the year (I’m told) that Queen Anne approached the architect Christopher Wren and offered her assessment of his newly finished St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. She declared three simple words: “awful, artificial, amusing.” 

      

To us, who don’t understand the vernacular of 18^thcentury British English, this might sound incredibly offensive. But instead of offense, Wren felt flattered. Her words? “awful” (inspiring awe), “artificial” (full of artistry), and “amusing” (amazing).

      

Which brings me to my central point: It is important to know words at a particular time and context in order to understand their meaning.

My wife Laura and I lived in Germany between my Master of Divinity and my doctorate. It was a glorious year in many ways, and one of the glories consisted in learning the German language. But the subtleties of the complex German language can be tricky. I studied theological texts with my Duden dictionary by my side, sometimes looking up 20 to 30 words a page and writing meanings in the margin. I also had to pick up household German and mastered words, which proved advantageous for everyday life, like Steckdose(electric outlet or socket). One other trick consisted in listening to the radio, and in the process I learned news and how to speak about heavy traffic, or ein Stau,on the A4 autobahn. 

      

One day in fall, Laura got a head cold and didn’t quite know the right word to tell the doctors. I was so excited, and blurted out, “I know—I’ve got the perfect phrase!” And so I taught her. We headed into downtown Tuebingen. She walked up the pharmacist (which in Germany is where some of our medical consults happen) and exclaimed with utter confidence, “Ich hab einen Stau in der Nase!” which essentially means “I have a traffic jam in my nose.” 

Learning the intricacies of any language presents significant challenges. Today, in our scientifically and technologically saturated world, one of the languages in which we are to speak is the language of science. We’ve got to get it right. Let’s look at the text of Pentecost and discover some electrifying truths about the Spirit’s gift of languages that help us speak sense to a listening world.

Acts 2 (NRSV)

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.² Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³ They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. ⁴ All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. 

         ⁵ Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. ⁶ When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. ⁷ Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸ Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? ⁹ Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome ¹¹ (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” ¹² Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

The pouring of the Spirit

From this text, we learn three major truths: the first two I will only outline, but the third I will develop at greater length.

      

The pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost is the birth of the church. Put simply without the Spirit, the church has no life. And sometimes it’s better to know the Spirit through what the Spirit does. And what does the Spirit do? Create in the Christian community two fluencies.

The Jewish celebration of Pentecost, also called the Feast of Weeks, celebrated the giving of the law. Notice in verse 2 that the Spirit comes in the style of God’s appearances from the Hebrew Scriptures. Just like when God came “a whirlwind” to speak to God (see, for example, Job 38:1). Here too the Spirit comes “with a sound like the rush of a violent wind.” 

      

The second aspect to notice is a contrast with the Hebrew Bible. There, the Spirit was given to specific people at specific times for specific tasks (such as with Othniel in Judges 3:1). In this case, verse 4 says, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.” Not just some, but all. This is very important: the Spirit is given to the young and the old, to women and men, to slaves and to free.

A fluency in the Gospel

The first fluency is a fluency in the fundamentals of the Good News about God’s work in Jesus Christ. This is a critical task for any church.

      

If you want to experience this fluency, read ahead. See what story Peter tells in verses 14-36: the fulfillment of prophecy in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and especially the call to respond to this message. That’s fluency in the Good News of Jesus the Christ.

A fluency in dialects

But I'm focusing on the second fluency: learning the native language of those who have not yet heard the Gospel. This theme I would like to develop most of all.

      

It has been said that we all tell jokes, experience pain, swear, and dream in our native language. The Spirit leads the church to speak languages that outsiders can understand. This is the “fluency in the culture.” But in this passage, the abiding meaning is that God wants us to speak the vernacular, the “native language” (verse 8) that people can understand. (Notice as well the related word, translated as “tongues,” appears four times in the passage.) 

            

The impressive biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall, in his commentary on the book of Acts, sets out an answer to the question, How could Galileans speak in all the people’s languages?

“It has been objected that probably most of the crowd would speak Aramaic or Greek, the two languages which the disciples would also speak, and that therefore the miracle of tongues was unnecessary. But this difficulty must surely have been obvious to Luke also. What was significant was the various vernacularlanguages of these peoples were being spoken.”

Most of people coming to Jerusalem would have known Greek or Aramaic, but here God leads the church to speak in the common language of each person. Philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists and others tell us that language is the root component of who we are. God is communicating here that we aren’t simply known by the God as “a person,” but as Siri, or as Michelle, or as Ron, or as Melissa, or John.

      

This means we have to work hard to get the words just right. As Mark Twain once quipped, the difference between the right word and almost right word is the contrast between “lightening” and “lightening bug.”

      

I believe one of the main areas today is the language of science. Let’s make sure we find the right words.

The language we dream in

The first time I preached this message was at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City on Sunday School recognition Sunday. Why did the topic concern me and what did it have to do with the day? I thought of my then-5 ½ year old daughter Melanie. You see, she often mentioned to Laura and me, “I want to be a scientist.” (In fact, just last year she graduated from Barnard College of Columbia University with a degree in anthropology.) Here’s the problem: as a scientist in our congregation once said about much of natural science today: “They’re atheists, and they have the best science.” I never wanted my daughter, or any other church kid for that matter, to be forced to decide to between good science and her faith. I don’t want any of the Sunday school children to have to split their Christian faith from their thinking.

The angular effect of ethical engagement

Speaking the language of technology and science means that sometimes we in the church have to speak challenging, ethical words because science does not have within it the ability to boundary itself. 

      

During those WWII years, the Nazi regime had very few resisters. One of the few was the small Confessing Church in Germany led by the theologian Karl Barth. They said a distinct No to Hitler’s treatment of the Jews because—as they put it—Jesus Christ is the “One Word we have to hear and to obey in life and in death.”

      

One young physicist expelled from German was Albert Einstein who later said of the Barmen declaration. (I’d like to think it’s possible he reflected on as he walked past my alma mater, Princeton Theological Seminary on Mercer Street on his way home.) He made this observation:

“Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing the truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and moral freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.”

Work out all y'all's salvation

I conclude by turning to a final text, Philippians 2:12-13 (NRSV):

Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;  for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Just so we understand this passage, this is about not working for our salvation, but about working out our salvation. It’s not a faith versus works text. The verb katergazomai means to “work out the implications.” Work out what God has worked in. Even more interesting, in this passage, the Greek word for “you” in verse 13 is plural, and “salvation” is singular. In other words—and here I’ll lean what I’ve learned from the Southern dialect: “All y’all, work out your singular salvation.”

      

What does that look like? 

• What does speaking the language of science and technology mean when you’re sharing the Gospel in light of evolutionary science in Canada, or witnessing to the integration of mainstream science and mere Christianity on Facebook?
• What does it look like when you’re ministering to students at Cal Tech, NYU, and the University of Madison?
• What does engage faith and science sound like in the dialects of Oklahoma City, Nashville, and New York City?

I don’t entirely know. I’m not in your contexts. I don’t know your specific dialects. So you tell me.... Or better, you tell them--those to whom you’ll go back to after this conference.

      

And so I close with this prayer: May you STEAM grantees know the Power of the Spirit to speak languages that a listening world wants to hear. May it be so. Amen.

Thinking Like a None

Last week I stopped by setting out questions from the nones (i.e., those who profess no religious affiliation). In a way, since I’m a Christian, this is an act of imagination. But in another, it’s clearly not. I grew up in a non-religious environment. This leads to a number of things, but one is that I often fall prey to thinking that God might just be inside my head. (This I learned from the 19^thcentury philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach that we make a god in our image.)

As I post this blog I've briefly snuck of out a conference this week. This event has brought together over 50 leaders in Christian ministries throughout the United States, with a couple in Canada, who have received money through I grant I manage (called STEAM) to bring together Christian faith and mainstream science, especially as it relates to the lives of 18-30 year olds.

Conference of STEAM grantees

The current cultural moment is important. We are grasped by a culture war that pits one side against another—one that holds to traditional Christian values against radical secularist, atheist, scientific values. The first rejects the science behind climate change and evolution, and other ungodly ideas in order to assert beneath mainstream science lurk forces that are anti-God. This is certainly the case with the more radical elements of the science and religion like Answers in Genesis, who teach that the earth is only thousands of years young, but even the more intellectually credible Discovery Institute who often complain—in shorthand—that scientific agencies like the NAS and AAAS are “out to get them.”

If this were a real dichotomy and I were thinking like a none, I know the choice I’d be forced to make. I’d go for the truth we find in science and conclude that Christianity has nothing to offer. I’d say, I want to go where the evidence is. I want to support people who believe in a planet for future generations and the best description of how we as humans came to be. 

Thankfully, there are other options.

On Emerging Adults and Faith

This is another adapted excerpt from my book set to be published March 6, 2018, Mere Science and Christian Faith. (By the way, if you pre-order, I recommend using the discount code: PRE3814.)

In talking about the culture and attitudes of emerging adults (i.e., 18-30 year olds), we arrive a critical question: Is this new reality good or bad? Notre Dame Sociologist Christian Smith, along with Patricia Snell, who tends toward the negative in his assessment, still summarizes well both the positive and negative sides of the emerging adult experience in Souls in Transition:

The features marking this stage are intense identity exploration, instability, a focus on self, feeling in limbo or in transition or in between, and a sense of possibilities, opportunities, and unparalleled hope. These, of course, are also often accompanied . . . by large doses of transience, confusion, anxiety, self-obsession, melodrama, conflict, disappointment, and sometimes emotional devastation. Smith and Snell

It’s worth noting that Smith’s follow-up to his first study highlights the shadow side of emerging adulthood, as the subtitle makes clear: Lost in Transition: The Dark Side ofEmerging Adulthood.Not all is right in Denmark—or at least with emerging adulthood.

It is, of course, entirely possible and utterly faithful for emerging adults to transform their experience of being “in between,” with its consequent worry, into a radical openness to what God can do. I’ve seen plenty of eighteen- to thirty-year-olds do just that. In that light, Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of Philippians 4:6-7 is brilliant:

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. (The Message)

Notice the displacement of worry with Christ. That’s a powerful image. I’m hoping this generation will take the raw material of emerging adulthood, center it on Christ, and let God do "a new thing" (Isaiah 43:19) in all kinds of areas, including science and faith.

Sensing Conflict, Seeking Collaboration: Emerging Adults' Attitudes on Science and Religion

As I've mentioned several times on this blog, I’ve been directing a grant project that investigates emerging adults’ attitudes on science and religion (SEYA, Science for Students and Emerging Adults). As a part of that work, I’ve studied national surveys and conducted two dozen qualitative interviews. Many of the latter are with Chico State students, often from my Science and Religion class. Sometimes the findings of researchers appear to head in opposite directions.

            

Consider two national surveys. In one, conducted by Kyle Longest and Christian Smith (link behind paywall), with almost 2,400 18-23 year olds, 70% stated that they “agree” or “strongly agree” that religion and science conflict. Similarly one my students, Ericka, commented, 

“I think that science and religion will always be in conflict because science and religion will never be able to agree, and there are such contradicting views.”

There is, however, competing data. Another survey from Christopher Scheitle (link also behind paywall--sorry!) of over 11,000 undergraduates came to an opposite conclusion:

“despite the seeming predominance of a conflict-oriented narrative, the majority of undergraduates do not view the relationship between these two institutions [religion and science] as one of conflict.” 

That majority was 69% of those surveyed and reminded me of Daniel, who had this advice for people discussing science and religion, 

“Be more friendly and open. Less conflict and more dialogue.”

How do we make sense of these competing claims? 

It’s a function of the question. The first survey asked about the culture at large: “The teachings of science and religion often ultimately conflict with each other. (Do you strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree)?” The second about views personally held: “For me, the relationship of science and religion is one of…”

            

Simply put, the majority of emerging adults (in this case, 18-23 years old) sense that there is conflict out there, but they personally seek another way. They sense conflict, but seek collaboration or independence.

            

And that’s just one reason it's energizing to find out what emerging adults think and, in the process, begin to discern the the contours of future discussions of science and religion. 

I'd also be interested to hear what you think.

SEYA & CSL

As September comes to a close, two significant dates converge for me: September 26 marked the one-year anniversary of the publication of my book, C. S. Lewis and the Crisis of a Christian, and today (September 30) signifies the completion of the 16-month grant project I've been directing, SEYA (Science for Students and Emerging, Young Adults). In my previous post, I offered an overview of SEYA's findings, and here I'd like to ask one more time: What did I learn, and does "St. Clive" (aka C. S. Lewis) have anything to add?

With one long (perhaps even run-on) sentence, I'll summarize the strategy that emerged from this project: 

As a result of SEYA, I’ve discovered that there  is interest among emerging adults (ages 18-30) on how to integrate mere Christianity with mainstream science, and the strategy for this integration is to connect it with pressing life issues through a robust biblical hermeneutic, through relationships of trust, through skilled communicators, and through the use of high-quality and high-impact resources.

How do I evaluate the current "state of the question," as academics like to say? Is the integration of mere Christianity and mainstream science happening? Certainly, if we listen to Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins, it's all for naught. But they may not have the full story. As Elaine Ecklund has discovered in her research--some of the most comprehensive to date:

"76 percent of scientists in the general population identify with a religious tradition" and "85 percent of Americans and 84 percent of evangelicals say modern science is doing good in the world." 

Both the qualitative analysis of our SEYA surveys with target groups of approximately 100 emerging adults, as well as the two-dozen in-depth interviews I conducted, indicate that there is interest among 18-30 year olds and that high-quality resources makes a significant difference in emerging adults' attitudes toward integrating Christian faith and mainstream science. (For you statisticians out there, the p-value on this sample group was .001.)

I think we still need more skilled communicators who, first of all, employ a robust (and thus not literalistic) biblical hermeneutic. For one engaging example, see Dave Navarra (from the SEYA team) and Scott Farmer take on the topic, "Hasn't Science Disproved God?" 

Of course, we could simply go back to Augustine who insisted that Christians shouldn't ignorantly talk nonsense about astronomy and other fields in their exposition of the Bible. "Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn." (The longer quote is in the Endnote.) 

It's true--we can't be stuck in a biblical approach that ignores scientific insights. Though John Calvin could be about as hard-headed as they come, he never tired of learning from secular (i.e., non-Christian and non-biblical) writers, and he wrote quite pointedly on this all the way back in 1559,

“If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God."

We know that God created the world--and we properly worship our Creator as a result--but we can't be sure how God did it from Scripture, because, for one thing, the Bible doesn't address that issue.

In fact, the Bible is concerned with something else entirely: our transformation as followers of Christ. As Lewis phrased it in Reflections on the Psalms, God's revelation in Scripture is not "something we could have tabulated and memorised and relied on like the multiplication table," as convenient as that would seem. This approach, however, is misguided. Instead Lewis presented one central component of a more robust, biblical hermeneutic: 

Follow the intent of the text. Read what it says, not what you want it to say.  

Instead of imbedding a math table in our brains, Lewis wrote, we take Jesus seriously and discover something unexpected:

"He will always prove the most elusive of teachers. Systems cannot keep up with that darting illumination. No net less wide than a man's whole heart, nor less fine of mesh than love, will hold the sacred fish."

And so, with Lewis in mind, I arrive at two elements of the strategy SEYA identified that we are still lacking: skilled communicators who present a sound approach to science and Scripture. I realize, of course, that Lewis wasn't perfect nor was he a scientist, but he did grasp the effects of science on the wider culture and expertly articulated mere Christianity in that cultural context. And so we could certainly use more of his ilk. He called it "translating" and left us with a question that has not been satisfactorily answered: 

"People praise me for being a translator. But where are the others? I wanted to start a school of translation."

Where indeed are these translators who understand the glories, challenges, and intricacies of science and bring mere Christianity to a scientifically and technologically saturated age? Part of the work I've been about with SEYA is to identify these translators--and perhaps to become one myself--but there's much more left to do.


Endnote: Here's the full citation from Augustine's Literal Meaning of Genesis (Bk. 1, ch. 19): "Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field in which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although "they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion."

Notes on How Pluralism Challenges the Integration of Religion and Science with Emerging Adults

Here's a current excerpt from an academic article I'm writing on the problems facing the integration of science and religion, especially in light of the attitudes of 18-30 year olds. 

In discussing the relation between religion and science, it sounds like a conversation about two things (and may imply, to many) a conversation between Christian faith and science). And that fact may deceive us in understanding the attitudes of 18-30 year olds on the topic. Emerging adults have grown up in an environment saturated with options and possibilities. This experience has become increased through the explosion of knowledge on the Internet, with the number of websites fast approaching one trillion (a number that can be monitored here). 

In some ways, this is essentially the reality of pluralism, and we could argue that this not really a new problem. But that notion strikes me as a bit naïve. Pluralism is not entirely novel, to be sure, but it will certainly continue to increase. And for the focus of this article—namely, emerging adults—the panoply of options available makes it difficult to decide about science and religion. In a recent article (behind paywall), “The ‘Relation’ between Science and Religion in the Pluralistic Landscape of Today’s World,” Zainal Abidin Bagir rightly notes that this simple “and” between “science and religion” obscures a mass of complications, for one thing, that both are primarily about ideas. And there are other concerns: Emerging adults are not only facing the situation of religion (in the singular) and the way it interacts with science, they are coming to grips with the variety of religions that can be brought to bear on scientific insights, and not only the five classic world religions of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, which leaves out religious traditions with rather large numbers of adherents such as Sikhism, but also indigenous traditions as well. Bagir rightly highlights these concerns and concludes that

The intention to expand the discourse by taking into account the pluralistic landscape that we know and experience today requires not simply inviting more participants from different religious traditions but also demands the expansion of the conceptions of “science” and “religion.” (p. 406)

But I think we need to go further.

      

Emerging adults are experimenting with various religious inputs and therefore not subscribing to one single religious tradition. Put a slightly different way, emerging adults I have interviewed find it hard to decide on one religion in light of all the possibilities for spirituality, which makes it difficult to know which religion to bring to science. “I can’t commit to any religion until I know more” was a common refrain, which may reflect “choice phobia,” but may also be a statement of supreme humility. And this pluralism is not simply moving beyond religion and Christianity to any number of other religions, whether “world religions” or indigenous ones. It is about dividing religious practice in various slices. Analogically, this is an iPod playlist approach to religion instead of an LP one in which the listener makes the choices from a variety of artists, and is not bound by the sequence that the artists themselves assemble. If it sounds like we have arrived back at Wuthnow’s theme of emerging adults as bricoleurs (or "those who tinker"), then I have made my point. Thus many voices exist, and many students blend a variety of spiritual insights, certainly not simply Christian, but other religious traditions, such as Buddhism and Wiccan practices, as well. In addition, there are those who synthesize belief with materialism, such as the hard-core biochemistry student who could not deny that he prayed and the request seem to be granted. He remains unsure that this is not simply coincidence, and yet, continues to pray. The blend of various beliefs—and even unbelief—confuses the theoretician who seeks pure types, but that is the reality of emerging adult culture. Ultimately, the choice may be based on an inherent pragmatism, and not on what is theoretically true. All this makes twenty-first century pluralism, as practiced by 18-30 year olds, complicated and dizzying to grasp. We have left the world of two-dimensional “science and religion” to something much more multi-dimensional for which I frankly have no substitute term.

      

Finally, in this search for religious answers, one result is that many emerging adults would rather Google than go to a congregation in pursuing answers about science and religion. One of the questions I posed in the interviews was this: “Where would you go to look for answers about science and religion?” A large majority responded: “the Internet.” As I mentioned above, the conflict model seems to predominate on the Internet in its craving to provide “click bait” for its users, provocative snippets of articles that demand our attention by their outrageous or adversarial claims. (We are naturally, neurologically stimulated by threat, novelty, and conflict.) These emerging adults find faith in the Internet (as it were) because of its putative neutrality, openness, and objectivity. Here I have to offer a further differentiation for who curates this conversation. My research suggests that, in addition to the Internet, academic voices have some air of neutrality for those outside faith communities. In contrast, for the 18-30 year olds who approach this question as Christians, for example, Jonathan Hill’s research indicates that a pastor’s voice, because it defines a social world, of what can be thought or not, is probably more important than the Internet or the college classroom. Hill writes, “For most students, then, it matters little what their professor teaches… What their friends, parents, and pastor thinks is going to be far more important, because their social world is inextricably tied up with these significant others" (Emerging Adulthood and Faith, 56). In contrast, for religious seekers (in all varieties) outside of religious communities, they are often distrustful of the church, synagogue, or mosque as a place to seek out answers about science and religion. Partly, this reflects distrust in institutional religious traditions as repositories for truth seeking. Partly, whether this is accurate or not, imams, pastors, and rabbis are seen as “hired guns,” who give answers that always reinforce their respective traditions because they are hired to do so. 

The net result is this: in order to make sense of diversity of options, emerging adults increasingly look to the Internet, which means the locus of their pluralistic search for relating—and perhaps integrating—science and religion will continue to migrate to a diversity of locations, but especially virtual ones.

More Thoughts on the Future of Science and Religion

Alfred North Whitehead wrote almost ninety years ago in his book Science and the Modern World, 

“When we consider what religion is for mankind and what science is, it is no exaggeration to say that the future course of history depends upon the decision of this generation as to the relations between them.” 

We are far from Whitehead’s generation, but the exhortation still has merit. Therefore, following Whitehead I pose the question: What will this interaction look like in the future?

To determine the future (as I have argued already in this blog), we need to ask emerging adults (age 18-30), because they will increasingly set the agenda for how this question is answer and particularly whether they find an easy détente between the two. The most immediate response is that there are some challenging statistics. According the noted researchers Christian Smith and Kyle Longest, 70% of 18-23 year olds “agree” or “strongly agree” that the statement that the teachings of religion and science conflict. And more than half (57 percent) disagreed with the statement "My views on religion have been strengthened by discoveries of science.” 

It would seem that the forces of science and religion are locked in a deadly battle.

Various surveys  and my qualitative research, however, suggests something different—namely, that emerging adults are not as personally negative about the compatibility between science and religion, more that they have heard others argue for incompatibility. Perhaps they have heard about the conflict between the two (maybe they watched Bill Nye and Ken Ham on TV or seen some YouTube clips of Richard Dawkins or Ray Comfort), but they themselves are quite interested in finding a response. So, though they know that warfare is in the air, many emerging adults, when asked, generally are not adherents. If anywhere it would seem that the resistance is with religious dogma, which prevents those of faith from engaging with the insights of science. Yet, as Elaine Ecklund has pointed out, religious believers are remarkably interested in science, at about the same percentage as the wider culture. This all makes sense of one of the most consistent responses I received in interviews with students: Travis, after looking at the interaction of science and religion from the perspective of history and philosophical critique, concluded, “I’m really interested to hear from someone who’s thought about these issues.” Though many emerging adults may perceive conflict, they would like to hear thoughtful voices from either side that move beyond warfare. This generation has been fatigued by the culture wars.

            

But these nuances do not fully exhaust the varieties of responses to the question of how to related religion and science. I will simply mention some briefly now and plan to explicate them more fully explicate them in future posts. I note that there are emerging adults who are turned off by the church’s unwillingness to embrace mainstream science as David Kinnamon’s study, published in You Lost Me, demonstrated. That is one clear analysis of the growth of the “Nones” among 18-30 year olds (those who respond “None” to the question “What religious affiliation are you?”), which currently hovers around 30-35%. And there are remarkable amounts of emerging adults in the United States who pull together religion with “traditional American values.” That seems to be the best way to understand the growing voice of anti-evolutionists who combine that with conservative politics, which is notably contrasted with those who are in the mainline religions, who are more likely to ascribe to the truth of evolutionary theory than the wider public, according to the Pew Report. And there are certainly other voices, such as the students who blend a variety of spiritual insights, certainly not simply Christian, but other religious traditions, such as Buddhism and Wiccan practices, as well.

Ultimately,  the future is potentially fraught with less certainty than the past and does not yield a clear winner. Yet, despite whatever problems and/or challenges that lie ahead, the sketch of this variegated interaction of science and religion seems more interesting than any simple caricature. And then, one final question looms: what role will you and I play?

Final Thoughts on the Problems for the Science-Religion Dialogue with a Concluding, Largely Unscientific Postscript

I’m concluding my reflections on the predicated future state of the dialogue of science and religion based on my research with emerging adults (18-30). It’s probably worth emphasizing that I am primarily outlining problems that have come to me. I am seeking first to understand, then to be understood (to quote both Stephen Covey and the famous St. Francis prayer). The next task will be to formulate responses.

These recent posts have also been sketches for something more substantial. Being sketches, I now realize something: the six main problems facing the integration of science and faith for emerging adults, which I've outlined in these posts, can be grouped into four main areas--perception of conflict; resistance to intellectual work; ancient faith, modern problems; and pluralism and decisions. (If you read the previous posts, you'll see how these categories fit.) 

Accordingly, I now move to one final problem in the third category, two problems in the fourth category, and a concluding postscript.

Ancient faith, modern problems

In terms of the church’s often not embracing the lesbian-bisexual-gay-transgendered community, religious communities often seem to the wider public uninformed by science.  

The majority of emerging adults support same-sex marriage. A 2013 Pew Research Center poll states, “The new survey finds 67% of ‘Millennials’ – born since 1980 and age 18-32 today – are in favor of same-sex marriage.” And though some denominations (e.g., Episcopalian, Presbyterian Church USA, United Church of Christ) solemnize same-sex ceremonies, the strong majority of Christian churches today is, and its historical consensus has been, marriage is a covenant between one man and one women. The church’s stance on this and the related set of issues does set it in conflict with mainstream culture.

Partly, this question relates to how science relates to ethical questions, let alone what the science is that helps us understand same-sex attraction. Certainly, science can inform, but not entirely decide ethics. Indeed, ethical deliberations can stand on their own without needing science as the final arbiter of truth. Nonetheless, science can help us understand to some level the genetics and psychology of same sex attraction. And it’s fairly clear whether mainstream science is on same-sex attraction: For example, the American Psychological Association removed homosexuality from its list of disorders in 1973 from its DSM II. Less conclusively, there appears to be some genetic predisposition toward same-sex attraction, but in this and other areas, no one can demonstrate a direct link between certain genes and specific behaviors. My reading, nonetheless, is that most young adults believe that science supports the equivalence of heterosexual and homosexual attraction.

Thus, this problem relates to the previous post (on how to interpret and live by an ancient text, namely the Bible) since the means by which the church uses its key Scripture will determine how it makes decision about its ethics, and particularly how it changes its views.

Pluralism and decisions

Many emerging adults would rather Google than go than go to a congregation in pursuing of answers about science and religion. For the people who come from faith to this question, Jonathan Hill’s in his forthcoming Emerging Adulthood and Faith indicates that a pastor’s voice is probably more important than the Internet or the college classroom: “For most students, then, it matters little what their professor teaches… What their friends, parents, and pastor thinks is going to be far more important, because their social world is inextricably tied up with these significant others” (p. 71). In contrast, for religious seekers (in all varieties), there needs to be further work here in bringing out integrationist views of science and religion, and they are often distrustful of the church as a place to seek out answers about science and religion. Partly, this reflects a distrust in the institutional church as a repository for truth-seeking. Faith in the Internet (as it were) also returns me to earlier reflections about the general tone about the Internet and religion—that it’s largely negative. For those outside, the Internet appears to neutral, perhaps even objective.  In addition, the conflict model seems to predominate in its ability to provide “click bait.” We are naturally, neurologically stimulated by threat and thus by conflict.

It’s hard to decide on one religion in light of all the possibilities for spirituality, which makes it difficult to know what religion to bring to science. This is partly the simple problem of pluralism, which has become exacerbated by the explosion of knowledge on the Internet, which is approaching a trillion websites (a number that can even be monitored on http://www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites). But I don’t think we can evade the issue simply by asserting that this problem has been in play for a long time; it certainly continues.

Concluding, largely unscientific postscript

Overall, the integration of faith with scientific insight becomes best resolved by employing good rhetoric for mature, thoughtful religious faith—in other words, making its truth interesting and beautiful. I don’t think this task is any different for emerging adults than any other generation. Truth must become beautiful. And by that sentence I mean that rhetoric—as the engagement with beauty—should be used in concert with philosophy—as the pursuit of truth. Truth is only worth engaging if it’s beautiful, and beauty is that which allures us. By this, I mean a particular beauty, the beauty of life making sense, of satisfying needs we have for deep abiding happiness or Aristotle’s “human flourishing.”

      

I concur here with the great French physicist Henri Poincaré, who commented, 

“The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it; and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing and life would not be worth living….”

I join hands with the ancient Eastern church's view of theology as philokalia, the love of beauty. In fact, my goal is to join these two disciplines so that science and faith can together lead to a thoughtful life that is both truly beautiful and beautifully true.