The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: July 7, 2018

The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: July 7, 2018

From AOL: Who says this isn’t a great country? What could be better than a 104 year-old WWII veteran throwing out the first pitch for the Memphis Redbirds, triple-A affiliate for the St. Louis Cardinals.

From the New York Times: For many reasons we’ve been hearing a lot about China lately. But how about some pictures displaying a happy USA/China partnership? Here are some photos of Shanghai Disneyland by Reagan Louie. The park opened in 2016.

From Turnto10.com:

A dispute in North Providence led to a man hiring an artist to paint a less-than-flattering portrait of the mayor on a big building wall.

“I think it’s funny,” said Paul Morse, the artist commissioned to do the mural.

But it’s raising questions about whether the drawing is free speech, civil disobedience, or simply disrespectful.

Regardless of the split opinion from people passing by, it still is a depiction of North Providence Mayor Charles Lombardi as a king on the porcelain throne.

“That’s how politics have turned into in this town,” said a driver who asked to speak anonymously, saying it was too small of a town for him to be known.

Morse said Dr. Anthony Farina, who owns the property, and was also told by the city to tear the building down, hired and paid him to paint the wall.

From USA Today: Yet another great rock band name: The Parachuting Spiders.

Research published Thursday ended the long running debate if spiders can use the silk they weave as a parachute to fly through the wind or if flight is powered by static electricity reacting with silk.

A study by University of Bristol sensory biophysicist Erica Morley confirmed what Charles Darwin notably observed watching hundred of spiders fly 60 miles across the ocean and land on his ship, the HMS Beagle.

Darwin thought electrostatic force was somehow involved. Morley and researchers backed this up by demonstrating for the first time in a lab how spiders use electrostatic forces to balloon.

When spiders launch off from the ground and float through the sky, sometimes for thousands of miles, it’s due to a “ballooning process” where spiders raise their abdomen to the sky, spin 7- to 13-foot-long silk parachutes and fly away. A previous study confirmed that spiders fly by checking the wind and throwing out their silk parachutes at the right time. The study, however, could not account for why the multiple silk threads spiders use to balloon don’t tangle in the wind.

Morley’s research accounts for the lack of tangles and explains why spiders can fly thousands of miles even when it’s not windy outside. The strands don’t tangle because each strand is repelling off another in an electrostatic force. Their study also concluded that the weather conditions are not the primary driver of when a spider balloons, but rather if an electric field is present in the atmosphere.

Why I no longer read scripture the evangelical way.

Wayne Grudem taught at the seminary I attended when I was there. He wrote a systematic theology that has become a standard in many evangelical circles. This is a bright guy who is training tomorrow’s pastors and church leaders. But let me show you why I think he exemplifies a way of reading the Bible that is suspect at best, and frankly, a little crazy when you actually stop to think about it. Yet it is as common as grass in many churches.

Here is an article in which Grudem argues that President Donald Trump’s plan to build a border wall is not only a good idea but a biblical one that is moral and legitimate because the teaching of the Bible supports it. He says:

My conclusion from this overview is that the Bible views border walls as a morally good thing, something for which to thank God. Walls on a border are a major deterrent to evil and they provide clear visible evidence that a city or nation has control over who enters it, something absolutely essential if a government is going to prevent a nation from devolving into more and more anarchy.

So in other words, here is how we reason from the Bible:

  1. The Bible describes cities in the ancient world.
  2. Cities in the ancient world had walls.
  3. Some Bible passages speak favorably about those city walls.
  4. Therefore, it would be a morally good thing for the US to build a wall between us and Mexico.

Warren Throckmorton summarizes the rationale in his critique of Grudem: We should build a wall because the Bible has walls. This is what I call “Bible-for-brains” reasoning. I used to practice it all the time. Here’s how you “develop a biblical conviction” about an issue:

  1. Identify the issue: in this case, building a wall.
  2. Get out your Strong’s Concordance and look up every instance of the word “wall” in the Bible.
  3. Do an in-depth word study on the word “wall.” When you are done, you will find out that in Hebrew and Greek, the word means “wall.”
  4. From collating and analyzing the verses, come up with a systematic statement of what the Bible says about walls.
  5. Conclusion: this is the Bible’s teaching about walls.
  6. Apply your “biblical” position to a contemporary question such as “Should we build a border wall on our southern border?”

CONGRATULATIONS ARE DUE! I JUST GOTTA BRAG!

I can’t end this brunch without bragging about one of my best friend’s sons. Jeff Mercer, who coached Wright State into this year’s NCAA baseball tournament, has been named the head coach of Indiana University’s baseball team.

Jeffrey is only 32 years old. He played and coached when my son played ball at our local high school and his dad, who used to be an assistant at IU, was the head coach. I have written about his brother Daniel here at the blog, and the book their dad wrote about Daniel’s battle with a brain tumor and death in 2006. Young Jeff showed himself to be one amazing older brother through that ordeal, wise and faithful far beyond his age. I had the privilege of officiating his wedding, and I’m looking forward to meeting his first little baby boy, who will born this summer.

Since Jeff left town, we all have been watching his career with interest, knowing that the sky is the limit. In fact, in the article about his hiring, Fred Glass, the athletic director at IU, called him “the Brad Stevens of collegiate baseball.” If you know anything about Coach Stevens, now with the Boston Celtics, your mouth would drop at a compliment like that.

Jeff takes over the Big Ten’s premier baseball program. Since 2008, Indiana leads the Big Ten in total wins, conference wins and NCAA tournament appearances. The Hoosiers have appeared in the tournament in five of the last six seasons.

Here’s what he said about the opportunity:

“I have loved baseball and the state of Indiana my whole life and it is an honor to be the head baseball coach of the state’s flagship institution. With the talent that the Midwest is producing, top notch facilities, the commitment of the school, and our ability to recruit and develop players at the highest level, the sky is the limit for IU baseball. I cannot wait to get to work.”

Jeffrey, you are the best. God bless you in your new endeavor. You will have a wonderful impact on many, many young people. And you will bring a lot of us great joy as we watch your teams on the ball field.

Made in Canada, eh? “Respect” and a Summer Jobs Program

This is somewhat old news, but a story that Internet Monk readers may find interesting. The government of Canada had a complaint they had to deal with: If they were as committed to women’s rights as they claimed, then why were they allowing grant money for summer jobs to go to funding graphic protests at abortion clinics?

Someone, somewhere, high up, decided that this just wouldn’t do, and so for the summer of 2018, an attestation clause was added to the form used by businesses, charities, and non-profits to apply for grants under the Canada Summer Jobs program (CSJ). An application could not proceed without checking the checkbox next to the attestation.

The attestation (and its subsequent clarification) read:

CSJ applicants will be required to attest that both the job and the organization’s core mandate respect individual human rights in Canada, including the values underlying the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as other rights. These include reproductive rights and the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of sex, religion, race, national or ethnic origin, colour, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.

The employer attestation for CSJ 2018 is consistent with individual human rights in Canada, Charter rights and case law, and the Government of Canada’s commitment to human rights, which include women’s rights and women’s reproductive rights, and the rights of gender-diverse and transgender Canadians.

The government recognizes that women’s rights are human rights. This includes sexual and reproductive rights — and the right to access safe and legal abortions. These rights are at the core of the Government of Canada’s foreign and domestic policies.

The government recognizes that everyone should have the right to live according to their gender identity and express their gender as they choose, free from discrimination. The government is committed to protecting the dignity, security, and rights of gender-diverse and transgender Canadians.

The objective of the change is to prevent Government of Canada funding from flowing to organization whose mandates or projects may not respect individual human rights, the values underlying the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and associated case law. This helps prevent youth (as young as 15 years of age) from being exposed to employment within organizations that may promote positions that are contrary to the values enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and associated case law.

Here is a an extract of the response by a coalition of conservative religious groups:

Groups applying for 2018 funding were required to endorse an attestation by checking a box, indicating their affirmation of certain beliefs held by the current government, described by many as a “values test.” Such a values test contravenes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the freedom of religion and conscience (2a), of thought, belief, opinion and expression (2b), as well as “equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination”(15 [1]).

Signatories:
Mr. Bruce Clemenger, President
The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada

Rabbi Chaim Strauchler
Rabbinical Council of America

Mr. Derek B.M. Ross, Executive Director & General Counsel
Christian Legal Fellowship

Rev. John Pellowe , Chief Executive Officer
Canadian Council of Christian Charities

Mrs. Margaret Ann Jacobs, National President
The Catholic Women’s League of Canada

Dr. M. Iqbal Nadvi, Chair
Canadian Council of Imams

His Eminence Thomas Cardinal Collins
Roman Catholic Archbishop of Toronto
Representing: The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops

What if found most interesting was that both left and right wing media condemned the attestation.

…the government has overreached on this issue. Instead of focusing on what summer-jobs money would pay young people to do, it has made an issue of what the organizations that apply for the funds believe. – The Toronto Star Editorial Board

It’s one thing to decide you will not directly fund organizations’ work conducting political advocacy on this issue. It’s another thing to say you won’t fund a group for, say, their soup kitchen work just because they’re not willing to attest to being pro-choice… The Liberals need to do the right thing and eliminate this prejudicial, mean-spirited provision for next year. – Toronto Sun Editorial

Thousands of student summer-job grants, along with a brand-new community-service program, have been rendered unavailable to organizations and people of faith, thanks to an obnoxious new Liberal values oath. This oath is not only offensive; on its face, it’s a clear violation of the very Charter rights that it claims to defend… The government should scrap the odious clause from the application forms where it has popped up, apologize to Canadians for violating their right to freedom of religion and come up with something that doesn’t place people in an intolerable moral conflict. – John Ibbitson, Globe and Mail

Despite all the criticism, the government refused to back down, and their “clarifications” that this was about actions, and not beliefs, did little to appease those who were opposed. They did however say the attestation would be revisited for next summer.

As a result of the attestation, many groups did not apply for funding. Of those who did apply, over 1500 groups were rejected for having “incomplete applications” (they did not check the box).

So here is my take on all of this.

I think the whole debate hinges on the word “respect” in the application. Respect can have quite different meanings. Consider two of the definitions of the verb in the Oxford dictionary.

1. Admire (someone or something) deeply, as a result of their abilities, qualities, or achievements.
‘she was respected by everyone she worked with’

2.2 Agree to recognize and abide by (a legal requirement)
‘the crown and its ministers ought to respect the ordinary law’

When the above religious groups and editorials used phrases like “affirmation of certain beliefs”, it seems to me that they are interpreting the word respect in the first sense of the definition. The Liberal government, by their clarification that they are targeting actions, not belief, seem to be using the second sense of the definition.

In this second sense, if I say that I respect the speed limit, it means that I keep within it. It does not mean that I agree with it, or won’t campaign against it.

Because the Liberal didn’t out and out say that they meant respect in terms of the second sense of the word, I think that groups were rightly suspicious that what they really meant was the first sense of the word. Even if the Liberals had said “here is what we mean by respect”, I think that it would not have convinced many.

As for me, I think I would have held my nose and signed it, as I have done with many other questionable documents. If called on it, I would have simply said, “here is how I understand the meaning of the word respect in this context.”

How about you readers? Where have you stood, or would you stand, on this requirement? Is the government trying to compel belief, is this much ado about nothing, or does the answer lie somewhere inbetween? My mind is definitely open on this matter, and in fact I have changed my mind slightly in the writing of this post.

Mere Science and Christian Faith, by Greg Cootsona: Chapter 2- Emerging Adult Faith: Not an LP, but a Digital Download

Mere Science and Christian Faith: Bridging the Divide with Emerging Adults, by Greg Cootsona: Chapter 2- Emerging Adult Faith: Not an LP, but a Digital Download

We are reviewing the book, Mere Science and Christian Faith, by Greg Cootsona, subtitled Bridging the Divide with Emerging Adults.  Today we look at Chapter 2- Emerging Adult Faith: Not an LP, but a Digital Download.

Cootsona is the Onsite Co-Project Leader, along with David Wood, Co-Project Leader from Glencoe Union Church in Glencoe, IL and Dave Navarra, Program Administrator/Primary Contact from Community Presbyterian Church in Danville, CA of Scientists in Congregations.  Scientists in Congregations is a $2 million grant program, funded by the John Templeton Foundation, created to catalyze the dialogue of theology and science in local congregations.  They conducted an 18 month research project on the attitudes of 18-30 year-olds called, SEYA: Science Engaging Young Adults.  They presented groups in Northern California and in New York City ( a total of 638 participants) with a questionnaire based on surveys from Christian Smith’s Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults  and David Kinnaman’s You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church . . . and Rethinking Faith.  They surveyed the participants before presenting them with a seminar on integrating science and religion and then after the seminar.  So what he presents in this chapter is a result of the surveys and the discussions that occurred during the seminar, as well as his 18 years of pastoral ministry in congregations filled with college students.

“Well, go get a job and move out if your allowance doesn’t have the purchasing power it did when you were fourteen.”

Cootsona notes that the term emerging adult refers to that psychological developmental period or stage of life where a person no longer feels like an adolescent but is not yet fully an adult.  This term recognizes the current cultural shift (at least in America or the first world) in which individuals are reaching the five milestones of adulthood—leaving home, finishing school, becoming financially independent (i.e. getting a job), getting married, and having children—much later than they did in the past.  He notes a 2009 analysis that found in 1960, two-thirds of young adults had achieved all five of these markers by age thirty, but by 2000, less than fifty percent of women and one-third of men had done so.  Of the six grandchildren I mentioned, ages 14-21, three post-high-schoolers still do not have their driver’s license (don’t even get me started, and yes, I’m a ride enabler, and part of the problem).  Cootsona also notes that those in lower socioeconomic levels often do not have the luxury of being “in between” and move out of adolescent life into adulthood more quickly than their peers of greater affluence.

Since the marrying age is around 28 for men and 26 for women, most emerging adult’s relationship to faith is not defined by family.  This reality presents a jarring contrast to the organization of most church ministries.  The church’s “focus on the family” tends to not make room, or even ostracize, emerging adults in their 20s. Cootsona quotes Christian Smith from the above mentioned book:

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.

Cootsona outlines 3 possible ways he thinks Christian ministries could engage emerging adults.

  1. Take on some new topics. The psychological effects of screen time, the possibility of artificial intelligence, the promise of transhumanism.  Concerns about sexuality and gender and the findings of neuroscience that there is no immaterial soul.
  2. A different understanding of faith, its pluralism and diversity, open to reinterpreting religious institutions, that most emerging adults are, frankly, not committed to anymore. One impediment for many congregations embracing their emerging adults is that they don’t put much into the collection plate—partly because they don’t carry cash or checks, so why invest in them if they aren’t going to invest in the institution?
  3. Third, we’d see Christian faith as Spotify mix instead of a vinyl LP. Young adults don’t buy a record and listen through it in the order the musicians recorded it.  They make their own “mix”, the listener, not the musician, determines the sequence of the music today.  The parallels with the faith are obvious.  Emerging adults are leading us out of the two-dimensional “science and religion” dichotomy to something much more multi-dimensional.

Cootsona, in a number of chapters in this book has what he terms “case studies”, a kind of digression or sidebar to the main chapter topic.  In this chapter his case study is “Addressing the New Atheism”.  I get why he includes it.

But most emerging adults express a live-and-let-live attitude towards those who disagree with them, and it is rare to find a young person expressing the stridency and aggressive anti-religion sentiment of the so-called “New Atheists”.   They exist, but mostly online.  And I’d be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that most of the “angry internet atheists” are boomers.

That is not to say that young people aren’t moved by the appeal that atheism has to everybody.  The logic of– if you can’t measure it—it doesn’t exist.  The spooky, cold, absurd, vast indifference of the universe we now know of and the tiny, insignificant speck we inhabit in it.  Unanswered (and seemingly unacknowledged) prayer.  The finality of death.  And of course, that greatest of atheist arguments—The Problem of Evil.  But these issues have always been around, and will always be around in all ages of humanity.

My one grandson is currently professing to be an atheist.  He has watched a couple of Richard Dawkin’s YouTube videos.  He brought them up to me and I showed him the following video:

We laughed, and had a pretty good discussion of Dawkin’s circular arguments, as well as those of the Christian apologetics.  I think he realized there are no “slam-dunk” arguments for either side, and maintaining respectful dialogue is a worthwhile thing.  His grandmother’s efforts to threaten him with hell is a pretty much useless strategy.

Independence Day 2018: The New Colossus

Statue of Liberty Series (V4). Photo by Andreas Komodromos

Independence Day 2018

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus
1883

• • •

Photo by Andreas Komodromos at Flickr. Creative Commons License

Brueggemann: On taking a route other than our zeal or certitude

Note from CM: Friends, I thought this a good follow-up to yesterday’s discussion about my “both/and” perspective on things.

• • •

Not many of us need advice about what to do with our life. Not many of us want such advice either. We may not agree on what to do, but most of us know what we would do, if we had the wits, or the freedom, or the imagination, or the courage. The church has been longer on advice than it has been on “underneath nurture.” Perhaps that is because advice is easier to give than is freedom or courage, and more obvious, too. Or perhaps it is because as liberals or as conservatives, we feel so passionately that we want to get everybody else straightened out. The problem is that the others are not very much open to coercion either, as we are not open.

It is a time, in my judgment, when the church may lower its voice about advice, and speak more gently and healthily and honestly about the nurture of faithful imagination, freedom, and courage. That stuff is not in large supply among us, and when it is not, our lives are diminished. That stuff is in short supply because such matters drive us to mystery which we cannot explain, to loyalty we cannot control, and to trust that we cannot will. Out of that mystery and loyalty and trust which comes to us as a gift, there does emerge an obedient life. But we arrive there by a route other than our zeal and certitude, and that makes us uneasy.

• A Gospel of Hope (p. 89f)

Just in case you’re wondering…I’m a both/and person

Martha’s Bears (2016)

I am a both/and kind of person.

This is a rather uncomfortable place to be in today’s polarized world. I know there are more of us out there, but our voices are getting drowned out by partisans and tribalists. At any rate, I thought I might list some of the ways (peculiar perhaps) that I view the world as a both/and guy.

• • •

I believe the Bible is God’s inspired Word, that God himself speaks through this Word, and that it is divinely powerful to bring people to Jesus and renew lives.

And

I believe the Bible was produced by human beings in communities of faith for their purposes, and that it is marked by all kinds of imperfect human characteristics as people describe their experience of God and their understanding of God’s work in this world.

•

I believe belonging to the church is an essential, not optional, part of being a Christian. As Christians we are organically linked to God’s family and our faith and formation is meant to be nourished within the community of faith.

And

I believe there are times we must leave the institutional church in order to find Jesus and practice our faith with integrity and in the way it was meant to be practiced.

•

I voted Republican in the last presidential election (though absolutely not for DT) and consider myself a moderate Republican, thinking that a frugal, efficient, responsive government would best serve the people of our country.

And

I strongly support the Democrats’ emphasis on a shared social contract where we the people, through our representatives, are called to take care of each other. Therefore I hold political positions, such as universal health care, that are usually anathema to Republicans.

•

I am against abortion, believing that it harms the most vulnerable and helpless in our society, and is often not really a woman’s “choice,” but something that she feels constrained to do for various reasons.

And

I think abortion should remain legal, safe, and available.

•

I believe marriage is presented in scripture as a unique covenant relationship between a man and a woman, blessed by God as the relational context in which sexual intimacy is to be enjoyed and  children are to be born and flourish.

And

I think it behooves our society to recognize committed homosexual partnerships as a valid way of doing family and not discriminate against them, but encourage them to live in those relationships responsibly.

•

I can appreciate the Yankees and the Red Sox, the Colts and the Patriots, Indiana, Purdue, and Butler basketball, rock and classical music, the city and the country, the mountains and the ocean, dogs and cats.

But I have my limits.

Never Trump.

Cubs, but never Cardinals.

Adam Palmer: How Liturgy Saved My Faith

How Liturgy Saved My Faith
by Adam Palmer

Here’s what you need to know about me: I was raised by Charismatic parents in a Charismatic church. The first Bible I ever bought for myself was the Spirit-Filled Life Bible, one that had an emphasis on all the scriptures that had to do with the gifts of the Holy Spirit and that had commentary from then-famous Charismatic preachers, often about how the Holy Spirit wanted to “have His way” among gathered believers.

In the church where I grew up, the order of service was tolerated as a suggestion, and if the Holy Spirit ever saw fit to disrupt that order, then all the better. That was always the unstated goal every Sunday morning, every Sunday evening, and every Wednesday night: make room for the Holy Spirit to “take over.”

I can’t count the number of times my small congregation would sing the same chorus over and over as the service gave way to spontaneous prayer for 10, 20, 30, 45 minutes. Or the number of times I would secretly hope to hear these words from our pastor: “Well, I was going to preach, but I guess the Holy Spirit had other plans, so I’ll have to save that sermon for another time.” I just couldn’t do a 45-minute sermon after all that Holy Spirit movement—after all, it was lunchtime.

My Charismatic upbringing led to a stint upon graduation at a Charismatic Christian university where our twice-weekly chapel services were often “interrupted” by a move of the Holy Spirit. I recall a specific instance where the hour-long service ran into a second and then third hour. I remember because I sat there, completely unaffected by the move of the Holy Spirit happening around me. Where once I would’ve lapped it up, would’ve participated with gusto and enthusiasm, I just sat, stone-still, thinking, “I must be some kind of sinner.”

In adulthood I shifted to a Spirit-filled megachurch that had less of an emphasis on the Holy Spirit and more on the authority of the preaching; I got married and my wife and I started leading worship in various contexts. From there we moved once more and spent more than a decade at a non-denominational, Spirit-filled church that was perpetually crouched in preparation to pounce at the slightest movement of the Holy Spirit.

I mostly loved it all. I had life-giving relationships in all these stops. I learned about Jesus and deepened my faith. Times weren’t all rosy, and there were reasons I wound up leaving these various churches, but as I look back, I can see various ways that God brought life, health, and vitality to me in the midst of them.

But I can also see how my faith became less about practice and more about a constant search for an emotional high. If I didn’t get that—if I didn’t feel the presence of the Lord on a Sunday morning—then I hadn’t “had church.”

As our musical opportunities grew and my wife and I began leading worship more, we put together a thick binder of all the songs we regularly sang at our church. And in the seasons when my cynicism sprouted and grew, I would jokingly refer to it as our “Big Book of Spells and Incantations for Summoning the Presence of God.” It sure felt like that, anyway.

Though I heard over and over that God had a created a beautifully ordered universe, my Sunday morning experiences were all about disrupting order as proof of a Real Encounter with the Lord. If someone on the pastoral staff wasn’t stepping on stage in the middle of a song with “a word” or if there wasn’t a time of prayer and healing at the end of the service, then we hadn’t truly “entered in.” I knew a service was authentic if I kept giving the “repeat” motion to the band so we could head into the bridge of “From The Inside Out” for the fourteenth time.

I spent some twenty years’ worth of church services oscillating from the hands-off “I must be some kind of sinner because I’m not feeling anything” to the hands-up “I need to try harder to feel something” to the hands-free “I’m feeling every possible feeling right now” and back around. And my faith suffered as a result. My life was chaotic already; I didn’t need the place where I was supposed to find peace to purposefully seek out Spirit-authored chaos, too.

And then along came liturgy.

My wife and I were in the running for a worship job with a Spirit-filled church that had gotten on the new wave of “neo-liturgical” churches that has begun to crest in the past few years. It’s a non-denominational church that incorporates aspects of liturgy to create order, to orient the weekly service in the context of the long line of weekly services that have been held before it for two thousand years.

We visited to check the place out. I’d always heard that liturgical churches were “dead,” but it’d been years’ worth of Sunday mornings since I’d felt this alive. We said the creeds together. We heard scripture proclaimed by someone who wasn’t paid to be there. We didn’t just greet people in the midst of service, we said and received a blessing of grace and peace. We participated in a responsive and collective prayer. We took communion, and it wasn’t even a Fifth Sunday!

And then we went back the next week and did all those things again (the repeated communion really threw me for a loop—I hadn’t ever taken communion on consecutive Sundays in my life). And then the next week, we did them again.

I started to feel at ease. I was always able to orient myself in the service. And the Holy Spirit ministered to me in the midst of it—He was in the words of the creeds, alive in ways I’d never known Him. He was in the handshake and the blessing of grace and peace. He was tangible in the bread and the cup that I took at the end of the service (after the preaching!).

It was a unique experience and for awhile it was fresh and new. Since then, that high has worn off but my faith has remained grounded, perhaps more than it’s ever been. I can’t imagine ever going back to disorder.

I am grateful for my upbringing and my history with the Charismatic church. I love the Holy Spirit. I still believe in the Holy Spirit (and I say as much every week when I say the Nicene Creed!). It shaped me and contributed to who I am today. I know plenty of people—some who are lifelong friends—who thrive in Interrupted Order churches.

But the structure of liturgy gave me a lifeline. Now, no matter how I feel when I arrive on Sunday morning, I know I’m going to confess my sin and receive absolution, I know I’m going to confess what I believe alongside my fellow believers, I know I’m going to pass and receive peace, and I know I’m going to partake of the body and blood of Christ at the table, surrounded by a community of believers. And I know the Holy Spirit is present in all those plans. And He is using the order and structure to change me, bit by bit, into something more like Him.

Saturday Brunch, June 30, 2018 Surprise Edition

Hello, friends, and welcome to the weekend. Ready for some brunch?

Image result for brunch surprise

You know what I love about going to a brunch? Surprises. Brunch is unpredictable. They might serve you roast beef, they might serve you eggs Benedict, they might serve you French Toast. You just never know. There is a “suprise” element. Well, we’re going to play on that theme today. Today is all about surprises.

Of course the big surprise of the week came when Anthony Kennedy unexpectedly resigned from the Supreme Court. Though he is 81, he had given no indication of his intention before this week. Many people were not exactly thrilled with this surprise. Seth Meyers tried to talk him out of it: “Justice Kennedy, what are you doin’ retiring, man? You have a great job where you barely work, you get to wear a robe all day and give your opinions on stuff. That basically is retirement. Stick around, at least until we get a new president. Six months tops.”

When Trump was asked whom he would nominate to replace the judge, he responed, “I dunno yet. Leaning toward either Simon Cowell or Adam Levine”.

New trend: surprising your dog. Also called the Whatthefluff challenge. Here’s the basic idea:

Election shocker: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old Latina running her first campaign, ousted 10-term incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley in New York’s 14th congressional district on Tuesday. An activist and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Ocasio-Cortez won over voters in the minority-majority district with a ruthlessly efficient grassroots bid, even as Crowley — the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House — outraised her by a 10-to-1 margin. Crowley had served in Congress for 20 years, and the polling only weeks earlier had not been in Ocasio-Cortez’s favor.

Surprise in the World Cup: Germany is out! The defending champs shocking failed to make it out of the group stage, the first time that has happened since 1938. They lost to South Korea 2-0, which allowed Mexico to advance. A few of the headlines from Germany:

Other countries, of course, reveled in the Schadenfreude. Brazil’s Fox Sport tweeted one word:

A joint Mexico-Sweden Chorus arose: “Bye-Bye Germany”

For Mexican fans, there was a party and South Koreans were invited. Germany’s defeat meant Mexico advanced for the seventh time in a row since 1994. In response, hundreds of jubilant Mexican fans rushed to the South Korean embassy in the capital. They chanted “Corea, hermano, ya eres Mexicano,” which translates to “Korea, brother, you’re now Mexican.” Mexican fans rushed to thank the ambassador personally, and forced him to down tequila shots.
Of course, some people just got plain mean:
Image result for germany shocked meme
Cannabis Surprise: Voters in Oklahoma [that’s right, Oklahoma] on Tuesday elected to legalize medical marijuana, which makes the state the 30th to allow the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes. The measure is also relatively unique in that it doesn’t tie medical marijuana to any specific qualifying conditions, which will likely make it easier, compared to other states, to obtain pot for medicinal uses. 56 percent of voters supported medical marijuana, while 43 percent opposed it.

According to a new study, older people who have sex regularly tend to have better memories. I had something witty to add here, but I forgot what it was…

This surprised me: The percentage of U.S. multiracial congregations almost doubled between 1998 and 2012, from 6.4 percent to 12 percent, according to a study published in June in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. In the same period, the percentage of U.S. congregants attending an interracial church has reached almost one in five, advancing from 12.7 percent to 18.3 percent. The 2012 statistics are the latest available.

Bus driver surprise:

Most people seem to think that the meaning of “science” and what disciplines are scientific are pretty much agreed upon. Surprise. The people that think most deeply about this (scientists and philosophers of science) have long struggled with these questions. What makes science science? Daniel Sarewitz attempts to answer the question in the latest issue of The Weekly Standard:

What separates science from other intellectual activities? The search for a distinctive logical structure of scientific inquiry and for the essence of scientific truth goes back at least to David Hume’s concerns with the limits of inductive inference (does the fact that the sun rose yesterday mean that it must rise tomorrow?) and has been pursued along a variety of philosophical lines. Perhaps best-known among such efforts is the falsifiability criterion devised by the Austrian-born philosopher Karl Popper, according to which science should be recognized not by the evidence it garners on behalf of one proposition or another (supporting evidence can be found for pretty much any proposition) but by the types of questions it asks—questions that can be empirically contradicted. ‘In Lost in Math, however, Sabine Hossenfelder, a physicist who is funny and writes with that slightly oblique flair sometimes found in totally fluent nonnative English writers, learns at a scientific conference that Popper’s idea that scientific theories must be falsifiable has long been an outdated philosophy. I am glad to hear this, as it’s a philosophy that nobody in science ever could have used . . . since ideas can always be modified or extended to match incoming evidence.’ Exactly.

What, then, joins Hossenfelder’s field of theoretical physics to ecology, epidemiology, cultural anthropology, cognitive psychology, biochemistry, macroeconomics, computer science, and geology? Why do they all get to be called science? Certainly it is not similarity of method. The methods used to search for the subatomic components of the universe have nothing at all in common with the field geology methods in which I was trained in graduate school. Nor is something as apparently obvious as a commitment to empiricism a part of every scientific field. Many areas of theory development, in disciplines as disparate as physics and economics, have little contact with actual facts, while other fields now considered outside of science, such as history and textual analysis, are inherently empirical. Philosophers have pretty much given up on resolving what they call the ‘demarcation problem,’ the search for definitive criteria to separate science from nonscience; maybe the best that can be hoped for is what John Dupré, invoking Wittgenstein, has called a ‘family resemblance’ among fields we consider scientific. But scientists themselves haven’t given up on assuming that there is a single thing called ‘science’ that the rest of the world should recognize as such.

The demarcation problem matters because the separation of science from nonscience is also a separation of those who are granted legitimacy to make claims about what is true in the world from the rest of us Philistines, pundits, provocateurs, and just plain folks. In a time when expertise and science are supposedly under attack, some convincing way to make this distinction would seem to be of value. Yet Hossenfelder’s jaunt through the world of theoretical physics explicitly raises the question of whether the activities of thousands of physicists should actually count as ‘science.’ And if not, then what in tarnation are they doing?”

Wait for it…(it’s worth it)

A Restoration Surprise: Six years ago, a well-intentioned woman’s attempts to restore a fresco of the scourged Christ in a church in the north-eastern Spanish city of Borja went viral, with her efforts dubbed “the worst restoration in history”. Perhaps you’ve seen the before and after pictures of what is now called, “Monkey Christ”: 

Well, that didn’t turn out well…But surely since then people who have authority over precious historical works of art have learned to only give restoration privileges to professionals, right? Especially in Spain, right? Surprise! For 500 years, the painted wooden effigy of St George that adorns a chapel in the Spanish town of Estella has been locked in a silent struggle against his old foe, the dragon.

Parish authorities decided George needed to be freshened up, and so they hired…wait for it…they hired…a local handicrafts teacher. The result has not exactly won unanimous applause:

The mayor is pissed. ““The parish decided on its own to take action to restore the statue and gave the job to a local handicrafts teacher. The council wasn’t told and neither was the regional government of Navarre. It’s not been the kind of restoration that it should have been for this 16th-century statue. They’ve used plaster and the wrong kind of paint and it’s possible that the original layers of paint have been lost. This is an expert job it should have been done by experts.” Apparently the mayor doesn’t like surprises.

Quick, which country has the world’s smallest dessert? The answer may surprise you.

Photographer Darren Pearson this month captured this surprising shot: incredible long exposure shot of lightning striking a tree.

Well, that’s it for this week. How about some surprise gifs?

Why I am an Ally – Part 5 – My Conversation with Geoff

Welcome to part five in the series.  If you would like to catch up on other posts in this series, or on anything else I have written, Internet Monk keeps them all here.

My Conversation with Geoff

Six years ago I received Birthday greetings from Geoff, a former work colleague. He wrote:

Michael, Happy Birthday. You’re the only dyed in the wool Christian, other than my mother, that has had my back. I will always be grateful to you for that.

In the nine years that I had known my colleague, and in many years before that, he had not met another Christian who he thought that he could depend on. The thought of that made me very sad.

I had a series of follow up questions for Geoff that he graciously answered, I had intended to share that that interaction with the Internet Monk audience years ago, but never felt the time was right was do so. This was partly because of other posts that were occurring when I initially had this interaction, partly because I was unsure of my own thoughts on the matter, partly because I had a leadership position in a church that would have frowned on my posts, and partly because I was afraid it would come across as me saying, “hey look at me!” It is for these reasons that my attempt to finally share this story has grown into a series to provide some context. Geoff has again provided permission (for the 3rd time) for me to share his answers. Here then is my interaction with Geoff.

Hi Geoff,

Thanks for helping me out.

I might be asking the wrong questions too, so feel free to let me know and answer the questions I should be asking! 🙂

Michael, my friend, before I begin I need to state for the record that I am not a Psychologist, Psychiatrist or a Social Work. I’m just your average Joe middle age, middle income [gay] man and these thoughts are just my own from my own experiences through the book of life.

Understood! What does “dyed in the wool Christian” mean to you?

Being brought up Christian and Canadian I may have a different view than others on this. A “dyed in the wool Christian” to me is someone that started off life in a Christian family and continues to be a Christian to this moment. I know many would say that phrase has shades of Fundamentalist in it but I don’t see it. It’s can be a harsh phrase as it has feelings of absolute to it but to me it just means you always were and always will be until, if and when, something changes your mind.

Now for the qualifier (now a qualifier he says?). A “dyed in the wool Christian can be a “good” Christian or a “bad” Christian. I don’t distinguish on principle until I know the person better. That would be like saying my Mother is the same as Fred Phelps.

Do you have any recollection of how you found out I was a Christian? Any recollection of your original feeling about that?

Michael, you were never overtly exercising the Gospel when I met you, if that is what you mean. I think we all, at work, found out around the same time when we were talking about education and yours came up. You expanded on it over time but it was never an “aha” moment. It was from good Canadian conversation (and I say Canadian because I think we are unique in our ability to have those conversations).

I find your expression “never overtly exercising the Gospel” an interesting turn of phrase.  I would describe myself as someone who wears my Christianity on my sleeve, but  I am not someone who will “beat you over the head with it.” 

So, how did I “have your back”? What did that look like to you?

Interesting. First we must bring some context to the situation. We were in the cafeteria at our place of work and I was being questioned by, what I would term, a blind Christian about Leviticus and such. Being a learned man and one that did not take kindly to having his faith misrepresented you calmly and politely corrected the gentlemen on his interpretation of the Bible. You pointed out that Leviticus as more a teaching guide for Jewish leaders of their faith in a time much different than ours. You went on to educate this man that Leviticus also speaks of not wearing mixed fibers (heaven forbid we wear a poly-cotton blend), that we should stone our children if they mistreat us (or was it disrespect us?) and that during a Woman’s monthly cycle that men should not look upon them.

You didn’t agree or disagree with homosexuality but you would not let the text of your religion be dissected and conveniently used to prove a point. I knew then that you were a learned man, much like myself, and believed in the truth and the whole truth. Only then can a person make a sound decision, judgment or statement. You came to my defense because the person did not have a clear understanding of the words on the page. You did good for two people that day. You de-vilified me in the context of educating another man on the whole truth and you educated him in that he was not looking at the whole text and to understand part you must understand the whole.

You know, I only have a vague recollection of that conversation. It did happen over six (now twelve) years ago! I think I reacted strongly because I saw a friend being picked on, and because as you say, I did not like the Bible being “dissected and conveniently used to make a point.” My own opinion on those scriptures is certainly more nuanced than I expressed, but the person we were talking to wasn’t interested in nuances or having a generous discussion, so I shut him down.

As a Christian I am especially interested in how we are perceived by others. What in particular stood out to you in the way that we interacted?

I do not think this has to do with being gay or straight. I think this has to do with social factors based on today’s norms. Some saw you as socially awkward and in a very “high school” way did not want to interact with you. Unfortunately, at that time, I was particularly drawn into that and I apologize for that. That said, deep down I knew I could always connect with you on an intellectual level that wasn’t always present amongst my chosen peers. Again, this has nothing to do with sexuality but more to do with play ground bullying. I enjoyed my talks of faith and politics with you. We did not always see eye to eye but that is what makes for a good conversation. Who in their right mind would want to live their lives unchallenged? Faith or not faith, that is probably the truest teaching of them all.

“Socially awkward”? Ouch, that hurts. I do find that a very interesting comment. I have had a huge range of interactions in varying workplaces. In some I fit right in. In others, like where we worked together, I stood out like a sore thumb. More recently I think some lessons I have learned from my kids has helped. (But enough about me. 😀 )

I did appreciate the fact that we could have good respectful conversations without necessarily seeing eye to eye on things.   Part of the reason why I wanted this interaction was to let others read your viewpoint regardless of my own opinion.

How have you been treated by other Christians? Has there been a range of experiences with different people?

I am not of the norm. This is very important to understand. I grew up in middle class central Canada. Canadian Christians, at the time, were not militaristic like we see in some other countries (or in regions of our own today).

The best example was, again I’ll refer to my Mother, of a woman born of the Salvation Army in a somewhat divided home that rediscovered her faith through the Anglican Church later in life.

She was the last person I came “out” too. I was so worried. I love my Mother so deeply and dearly that I couldn’t stand that though of her tossing me aside as I had seen so many other mothers do to their gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered children. How foolish was I? She did play a large role in making me who I am today (as a man not a Gay man). At first it was a shock. I’m sure she cried as I didn’t have the guts to tell her to her face. When we talked on the phone she said to me that “there are some things a mother does not need to know” and I gently replied that there were “something that a mother has to know”.

She struggled for a few years, always polite to my boyfriends but that is more about her being English than Anglican. Until one day we were left alone on my balcony in Toronto while my brother and Dad went off to find some bargains in the city. She said to me the most comforting thing ever. By this time she was becoming more frank with her words and said, “You know, back in the days when the bible was said to be written, it was all about the size of your tribe. Well, of course, if you couldn’t procreate you were seen as a Sinner. If you can’t add to the numbers of the tribe what good where you? But times have changed and we are no longer tribal people are we?”

In that short powerful statement she represented history, common sense and in her own way her undying love for her son. She was able to reconcile it in her mind and it allowed her love to flow freely again without being dammed up by hyperbole.

Again, I say I’m lucky. Many a men and woman I’ve known and read about have suffered greatly at the hands of so called Christians. A quick Google search can show you the damage and hate that a fundamentalist or narrow minded person can do. Christian’s are not alone in that. To this day there are several faiths that still publicly hang homosexuals or cast them out from all they have ever known to be nothing more than a street pariah. Christians do not have the copyright to discrimination. It is vast and wide spread throughout this world. We just see it more as a “Christian thing” here in North America and Europe.

What could and should be Christians be doing differently?

Oh, this is hard. I am as flawed as any man and who am I to say what one should and shouldn’t do? That said, if I were in front of any religious congregation I would say a couple things. First and foremost, love is at the root of all your texts and I don’t mean “love the sinner but hate the sin”. I mean just LOVE. Secondly, I would encourage any man or woman of faith to learn as much as they could about the foundations of their religion. For example, the Bible was put together by men, who are by your own faith’s omissions, inherently flawed. Where is the Book of Mary? It’s not just homosexuals and mentally ill who have been left out, but also women. We know today they are as every bit capable and intelligent as any man, as well as just as flawed. Learn your history, then take the teachings of your text and put them in context. What was then, is not now. That is not because of “evolution”, but because of understanding and education. Finally, should I be speaking to the Christian flock directly, I would say really think about what the words of your Lord. Jesus, according to the historical transcripts, was a good and just man that just wanted love and understanding to be spread. So don’t see a homosexual woman, a brown skinned person, or someone lame as someone inflicted, but someone that can enrich your understanding of the world your God created. What would Jesus do? Well, I can tell you with some certainty what he would not want you to ever do… have hate or fear in your souls. Wash yourselves of that and rise above to accept all “men”, as we are all created from the same thing… the force of life.

…oh, and for the love of Pete, take your jackets off when you’re in church! It drives me bananas when I go back to my old parish with my mother and see everyone with their outdoor coats still on. Where are you going? Get comfortable and listen to your faithful leader. Brunch will still be there when you’re done.

Do you recall what I might have said about my own beliefs about homosexuality? (And yes I am being deliberately vague here, as I am interested in your impressions here.)

Short and simple, you never divulged to me your innermost thoughts on homosexuality. They were your own, I believe, and they had no context in our communications.

It doesn’t surprise me that you would respond that way. I was, and still am very much, in process with my own thoughts. (I have come to enough of a resolution in my own mind that I could finally write this series.)

Any thoughts as to how I marry my view of scripture with my support for a Gay colleague?

Simply through the intelligence you were given. Descartes is often misunderstood by truncating his work down to “I think therefore I am”. Hogwash. His work was about proving there was a God and it was because you could think that there was a God [in short]. Take scripture and put it into context of the time is was originally written, how it was manipulated through the ages and marry it with what we know now. You will naturally come to your own conclusion. I can not give that to you. You must come unto it yourself but for the love of anyone’s God, use the brain you were given. If something doesn’t seem right then question it and back that up with the empirical evidence of the age. If I was to walk into King Arthur’s court with a pack aof smokes and a lighter would they not call me the devil’s witch? Today, it’s just a filthy habit that I’ve yet to shake. Take everything in context, my friend. I’m not asking you to forsake the real, real teachings of the man you call your savior because I love his words even though I do not see him as the son of God any more than I am (as we are all sons of God). He wanted you to love and help without restriction. Nowhere in the New Testament does he say, “help here but not there”. He preached love and help. If you want to honour your Lord then do his bidding by loving each and every creature of this planet to the best of your abilities. Just love.

Do you have any thoughts as to how Christians with a “high view of scripture” can treat bible verses about homosexuality?

As I’ve said before, but I’ll say a little more bluntly here; Get an education. Learn, learn, learn. Understand the times and the context in which the words of your faith were written and then transcribe them into the here and now. Again, you will find the fundamental truth that carries is to love. Your God forbids you from judging and I think that is a sound piece of philosophy. That’s “his” job, not yours, so in the meantime just love.

Michael, I want you to ask your readers, “When was the last time they fed the poor? When was the last time the helped the ill? When was the last time they comforted sorrow?” It’s not all about homosexuality. We are just part of the mix. We can be ill, sad or hungry. We can also be, as several I know, good Christian citizens that know how to love. I encourage all of you to watch Reverend Brent Hawks. He is probably the most wonderful religious man I’ve ever met next to my sadly departed Reverend Flemming of Saint Stephen’s on the Mount.

Love!

How can a Christian parent with a Gay child show support for that child?

In a word, and at the risk of beating a dead horse, love them. Just love them. Let them be. Let them find their way. Who I was at 13 at 16 at 25 and now at 43 was not who I was at 10. Grow and evolve with your children and try to instill into them the values of decently, kindness and compassion. Who they lay next to at night has no bearing on those overarching principles of humanity. That’s what my Mother did.

Let me recount to you one last story. Then I will close with a final statement. Shortly after you “stood up” for me by way of educating the uneducated that same man came to me and told me that one of his sons preferred to dress in women/girls clothing and was adamant that they were not a boy but a girl. Was this a phase? I do not know as I’ve lost touch with this person but he did humbly ask me, “What do I do?”. Again I said, “Love them”. Does a lilac not turn from white to purple over time because of its pollinators? It’s still beautiful. It still makes use smile. The funny thing about a lilac or a poppy is that as soon as you clip it from its roots, all that is beautiful soon falls to the floor. They were never meant to be clipped, trimmed or captured in your home. Leave them be but nurture them so that they may grow and be beautiful in the place that the heavens meant them to be. Don’t control them but love them for what they are and if they are sickly or in danger protect them.

Any closing thoughts for us?

Michael, you are unique in Christianity for the simple fact that more than once you have reached out to me. Homosexuals fear any fundamentalist religion that seeks to destroy and vilify us. Sure, there are good and bad amongst my peers but the same can be said about yours. There are some dang right scary people out there today that would see me hanged or worse. That terrifies me and limits me as a person. You don’t have to understand or even “like” what we like but you do, as is my understanding of Christians, have to love without reservation. You are not the ones to judge. Your Father will do that for you. If you want of follow the true teaching of the man know as Jesus of Nazareth then drop the garbage propaganda and love every person as if they were yourself. Let everyone choose their own path and don’t judge them for it because that’s not your job. Your Father said so.

Understand history and all its faults and apply them to the new knowledge that we have been gifted with today. Feel the grass under your feet and the wind in your lungs and ask yourself, in light of this does being “gay” really matter?

I ask one last thing of your readers. If you see any sense in what I’ve just said – if you are moved in any way by my words then take up a bigger battle and protect the planet that your God gave us. Stop buying products with Palm Oil in them to same God’s beloved Orangutans. Take up a collection and buy a portion of the Rainforest that cleans our air, or simply walk up to the person you feel most awkward around and say, “Is everything ok?”

Thank you Michael for asking.

Thank you Geoff for being so open to me and our readers. The time you took to respond to my questions was really appreciated.

Internet Monk readers, please feel free to comment on anything you read here. Did anything in particular catch your attention? I think the one thing I would encourage our readers about: Many of us will find usourselves disagreeing with parts of Geoff’s theology. Try not to get too hung up on that, but instead listen and respond to Geoff’s heart. Geoff was uncertain as to his availability over the next couple of day, but I look forward to a good Internet Monk discussion from the rest of you.

Mere Science and Christian Faith, by Greg Cootsona: Chapter 1- Creation, Beauty, and Science

Mere Science and Christian Faith: Bridging the Divide with Emerging Adults, by Greg Cootsona: Chapter 1- Creation, Beauty, and Science

We are going to look at the book, Mere Science and Christian Faith, by Greg Cootsona, subtitled Bridging the Divide with Emerging Adults.   Greg Cootsona (PhD, Graduate Theological Union) is a writer, researcher, and speaker. He directs Science and Theology for Emerging Adult Ministries (or STEAM) at Fuller Theological Seminary, and teaches religious studies and humanities at California State University at Chico. He previously served as a pastor for eighteen years in Chico, California, and New York City. He has been interviewed by CNN, the BBC, the New York Times, and the Today Show.  Greg is also the author of the 2014 book, C. S. Lewis and the Crisis of a Christian, that explored how Lewis dealt with the crises that he experienced to his faith.

Greg Cootsona

RJS has reviewed parts of this book on Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog as well as her own blog, Musings on Science and Theology.  RJS recommended the book, and she is one of my most influential examples of science and faith blogging. By “emerging adults”, Cootsona means high school and college age men and women who are wrestling with the science and faith issues in American society.  I have six grandchildren that fall into this category, so the subject matter is of great personal interest to me.

Greg begins the book with a story of a backpacking trip he took with his about-to-go-to-college daughter and the delight that the 7-year old child of the youth pastor had in finding beautiful rocks and bringing them to her father, who also had a geology degree.  He notes what that child did—finding beauty in nature—is the beginning of science.  Greg also recalled a discussion with a biologist at a conference who stated, “I find biological science fascinating and have ever since I was young.  In fact, every scientist I know began with a profound experience with nature as a child”.   I totally relate to this.  I remember as a five-year old child being introduced to the “All About…” books by the famous geologist and explorer, Roy Chapman Andrews, and being so totally enchanted with the natural world he described that I decided then and there to become a geologist (very precocious I know, but true story nonetheless).

In Eastern Orthodoxy, it is said, that all theology begins with philokalia, the “love of beauty”, and when we grasp beauty in nature, we are drawn to the source of that beauty.  That is why, with this book, Greg hopes to inspire more ministry leaders to point emerging adults toward studying nature as an act of worship.  He calls the book a manifesto, he says, “…it’s designed to convince you that the church must embrace mainstream science for its future“.

Greg notes that many churches, especially evangelical churches, fail to treat the topic of science at all, even as their high schoolers are trying to put their faith as taught to them in church together with what they learn about the natural world in their classrooms. David Kinnaman, Barna president, noted in one survey that 52% of youth group members will ultimately enter a science related profession, but only 1% of youth groups talk about science even once a year.  Kinnaman also noted that surveys indicate that a third of 18-30 year olds, when asked the question, “Which religion do you affiliate with?” answer, “None”.  And one of the top reasons that “nones” state they leave the church is that it is “anti-science”.  Greg says:

If Kinnaman is right, unless Christian congregations work to bring science back into the church, there may be millions fewer people in American pews in the coming years, and ultimately there may be a visibly diminished church left to engage science.  I’m not arguing that we should integrate faith with mainstream science just to gain converts—though I think that will happen.  Rather, I’m convinced that the church must do the work of integration because if we don’t, we throw away our legacy of Christian’s contribution to natural science… We have science as a birthright in the church and love science at its best because it discovers truth.  And the Christian church is at its best when it seeks truth.

The interesting thing about Cootsona’s own story is that he grew up in Northern California with a happy secularism that, because of his upper middle class environment, simply didn’t see a need for God.  That area, Oakland-San Francisco-San Jose, is found, by Barna, to be the number one “unchurched” area in the country.  At age 17, he started at the University of California, Berkeley, and shortly thereafter became a follower of Christ.  As he puts it:

Grow up in a secular home.  Go to Berkeley. Become a Christian—it’s almost laughable.  But that’s what happened.

Boy, talking about God working in mysterious ways.  It wasn’t a necessarily intellectual conversion.  He was not “argued” into the faith (is anybody?), but he became disenchanted with the smug, Randian- “virtue-of-selfishness”, self-sufficiency of his functional atheism, and began longing for “something more”.  He became acquainted with intelligent, irenic Christians, and in the second quarter of his first year, committed his life to following Jesus.

This being Berkeley, he, of course was exposed to the arguments that there is no way to put faith and science together.  As one of his professors put it to him, “What possible sense does faith make after modern science and the Enlightenment?  How could you believe in God after Hume and Kant?  True intellectuals have concluded that science presents decisive reasons for not believing in God.”

So Cootsona has worked through these issues in his own life, and has now made his career of engaging the dialogue between faith and science.  He has discovered that for the Christian message to have any impact today with emerging adults, it must engage science.  Otherwise, for the church to ignore science, or worse, engage in fraudulent science, is to make science, particularly evolution, the “universal acid” that “eats through just about every traditional concept and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view” that philosopher Daniel Dennett claimed would happen in his 1995 book, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.