It seems for centuries we’ve insisted on perpetuating a war between faith and science. Implicitly or explicitly we’ve been told we have to pick a side. However, recently the conversation has shifted and we are beginning to see a number of Theologians and Scientists come together and provide an alternative of both/and.
Bishop N.T. Wright in his book, Surprised by Scripture, writes about the debate that in many ways is unique to Americans:
“I want to point out that the way the science and religion debate is conducted and perceived in North America is significantly different from the ways analogous debates are conducted and perceived elsewhere . . . I want to suggest that this is at least partly because of the essentially and explicitly Epicurean (Google if you don’t know anything about Epicureanism) underpinnings of the social self-understanding of the United States since the late eighteenth century – and that the standoff between science and religion in America is therefore analogous to, and indeed bound up at quite a deep level with, the standoff between church and state, or religion and politics, or however you like to put it, so that you can’t address one of these topics without implicitly addressing all of them. . . I want to propose that we therefore need a much more radical rethink of the underlying worldviews we are dealing with than we have normally contemplated in our science and religion discussions.” (P.2)
This “radical rethink”, unifying science and religion, is underway and we are better off because of it. Thus, we welcome Science Mike this weekend as he helps move forward the conversation.
Through Christ,
Pastor Doug