03.05.07
the science of faith
It’s spring break. Perhaps that will mean that I’ll post a time or two, maybe not. We’ll see. At any rate, I’ve been thinking on something lately that I think I’m right about.
It strikes me that scientists and preachers have a whole lot in common. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that they basically have the same job. Here’s what I mean:
A preacher spends her or his existence attempting to help us understand the truth about the world as it’s been specially revealed to us in scripture. A scientist spends her or his existence attempting to help us understand the truth about the world as it’s been generally revealed to us in creation.
If one accepts God to be a creator and sustainer of creation, it basically follows, then, that both God’s general and special revelation of Godself tell us truth about God. Right? You follow me?
So, you’re thinking to yourselves, “Hey, Brandon, what’s with the waxing esoteric about science and faith all of a sudden. You’re being a big buzz-kill.” You’re right, I am. Sorry. But, as of late I’ve been bothered by something. It seems to me that when preachers give sermons they like to extend their scope beyond the special revelation of scripture. Preachers, especially ones with fundamentalist-ish roots, have a few favourite whipping-boys when it comes to sloppily preaching about things outside of their purview. As a soon-to-be-internet-researcher, my area of study is a favorite whipping-boy. (Myspace is causing the world to end up in hell, etc.)
So what if a preacher or two gets a tad pissy about the internet in a sermon? Who cares? Well, frankly, I do–and I’m guessing God agrees with me (he regularly does; I’m rarely wrong.) I care because the folks who talk bad about the internets have rarely read the work of those who have spent time trying to understand the way God has created humans to use the internet as a tool. In short, many of the people who would love nothing more than to demonize a whole medium of human communication, haven’t spent a lick of time reading the academic literature about it.
Imagine if a scientist, in his or her writing, made sweeping claims about faith without having read the claims of the documents about which they were proclaiming judgment. Such claims would be met with faith-wide outcry of a scientific prejudice about faith. Why then, are scientists who claim faith so damn tolerant of faithful prejudice about science?
So, are we to require that each time a pastor gives a sermon that they’ve read all of the extant literature relevant to the domain about which they hope to speak. I think not. (Although, a bit more research couldn’t hurt.) Rather, I would argue that the Church needs to stop being a failure at teaching its people the skill of application.
The skill of application is, to me, a major missing component to what it takes to be a church-member. We’ve so sanitized church in the hopes that any 4-year old without a church background will feel comfortably that they’ve been able to fully digest each aspect of the sermon, that our parishoners have lost the skill of being able to apply what they hear. Sure, I’ll blame MTV, too. Our culture has consistently and progressively been willing to engage of more of the cognitive processing (read: thinking) for its audience…and the Church has followed suit.
If the Church could process the messages it heard, there’d be less need for pastors to go out on tenuous limbs and whack at the whipping-flavors of the month. Rather, people could hear the truth as revealed in scripture, and (wonder upon wonders) do the work of application to their own lives.
It’s just a thought.
I like to “love my enemy” and that means, just listen to him (Matteo Ricci was good at that).
dorsey said,
March 5, 2007 at 7:53 am
Welcome back.
I think you hit on the truth of it when you used the phrase, “sloppily preaching about things outside of their purview.” I would also add “lazy” in there somewhere.
But I’m also concerned about the “pedestal dynamic” in which we require (or just assume) that our ministers must be experts in their field of discussion. Perhaps that’s another downfall of the prevailing lecture format. Too bad you can’t you can’t just stand up in church and say, “Uh, your eminence, I’m a physicist,” (or a web developer, or a porn actor, etc.). “Perhaps I can help you shed a little light on this.”
Dan Lewis said,
March 5, 2007 at 12:57 pm
In my church, science doesn’t come up much, but politics does every now and then. Those are the times I really have to grin and bear it, especially if I consider said opinions ill-informed. It’s the legacy of the religious right.
I was at church just on Sunday and there was someone sitting in front of me, writing down specific applications from the content of the sermon (I peeked). This is the exception rather than the rule, though.
The problem of application is as old as the Sermon on the Mount, at least. It’s something that a church doesn’t have that much control over. I think there’s a certain amount of teaching to the lowest common denominator though. I blame the Calvary Chapel style of preaching straight through a book from the first verse to the last verse. We lose a lot of context like that.
MySpace may not be hell but it is like a funhouse at a carnival, with millions of autoplaying, shrieking portraits in garish colors. Even I feel old fashioned when I click around it. Except for the band websites, which rule.
wildwest said,
March 5, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Why do preachers these days have to dumb everything down?
Brandon said,
March 5, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Very likely, Wildwest, because their parishoners demand it.
Alan Price said,
March 6, 2007 at 11:20 am
Brandon,
Thanks for posting on this. Probably my biggest qualm with churches today is pastors and others sanctioned by the Church speaking about things they don’t understand. The church I attend has allowed a creationist to speak for several weeks in a row, and even with the limited scientific knowledge I have, it’s obvious his “science” come up way short. There are biology students, teachers and professors in the congregation; it has to be killing them.
Nicole said,
March 6, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Funny, I just hate that that has become the purview of pastors. Pastors, imo, are to be shepherds of the people. The church lost something important, real, and beautiful when leading a congregation went toward preaching and away from pastoring. I appreciate a sound and engaging sermon as much as anyone. However, the words mean nothing to me outside of a relationship with a leader whom I can trust.
I think that I should be able to go to my pastor, to expect a certain level of spiritual direction and care from my pastor. But, sadly, that is no longer the case in the church as we’ve made it. *Sigh*
I think that church people have bought into the idea that they want their faith to be a science, and thus have forfeited all the passion, relationship, and mystery in order to gain a false sense of security. God isn’t about security. I’d rather a preacher say “I don’t know” than to make erroneous claims based on faulty research, as you point out Brandon.
Alan, You oughta be a psychologist. Church preachers just love to say horribly incorrect things about people and how we work and were created. It’s no wonder I had a lot of anger to work through in that regard.
Mike said,
March 6, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Here’s a thought that’s sure to stir up the pot, but let’s do it anyway. Science is a religion.
“A scientist spends her or his existence attempting to help us understand the truth about the world as it’s been generally revealed to us in creation.”
Actually, scientists try to explain to us their best understanding of creation at that moment in history. Scientific “fact” as we all know, changes as often as some churches change their doctrine. Scientists are rarely tolerant at all of people of faith, and scientists of faith are often made to feel like traitors, or second class citizens within their own community. But let’s skip all that and get to the heart of the matter. If you want a deeper understanding of creation, why not start by asking the Creator? Science is constantly proving information that was established in the Bible thousands of years ago. And, if the Scriptures do provide us insight into the inner workings of creation, why then shouldn’t our Pastors, who should have intimate knowledge of Scripture and it’s application in our lives, be expected to present that information to us in a simple easy to understand format? If you want to investigate these matters on a deeper level, read a book, start a Bible study, or attend seminary courses.
Finally, no, preachers shouldn’t bag on things they don’t understand, nor should they preach against a particular tool (like the internet) because some people use that tool for evil, but for someone else to decide what is or is not within a pastor’s purview to preach from his own pulpit smacks of the worst kind of censorship. This is just as bad as the preacher who says there shouldn’t be pornography, or violence or Carl Sagan or whatever on TV because they disagree with it. If they don’t like they shouldn’t watch that channel, or they should turn off their TV. If you don’t like what the preacher preaches on a consistent basis you have two options: 1. Vote with your feet, and find someplace else to have your ears tickled, or 2. Check your own heart to find out if the response is valid, or merely your flesh rebelling against the Truth of God being sown into your heart.
Just my opinoin, no one else’s and feel free to do with it as you wish [file 13 is always an excellent choice….;-) ]
Brandon said,
March 6, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Okay, Mike, you knew you were picking a bit of a fight. And, because I think I can fight friendly, I’ll bite.
Sort of true, mostly, though, you’re wrong. One of the values of the scientific method IS that it is self-correcting. And, scientific theories can be shown to be false (if they’re good theories). However, scientific facts, scientific findings NEVER change. It’s merely the context around them that change. The way we understand these findings changes over time…but the findings themselves don’t change. Furthermore, I’m unaware of branches of science that experience radical field altertering change overnight. Rather, as you assert, like churches, science experiences change sometimes painfully slowly, too slowly even. What fields are you thinking of that experience radical change so regularly?
Mike, if you’ve been hurt by scientists in some regard with reference to faith, I’m sincerely sorry. You may have had very real and very painful experiences that feel very real. However, I’m not sure you can castigate a whole social category of academics on the basis of your impression. My experience is that scientists are almost always tolerant of people of faith. They may not always share that faith (although many of them do), but they almost never, in my experience, are intolerant of people of faith. However, they are intolerant of, as I am, logically fallacious thinking, poor methodologies, bad data analysis, lousy conclusion making, and overstated claims. I find these things not only to be bad science, but for the Christian practitioner of science, these should be tantamount to heresy.
Of course, scientists who think that bad science is, in a way, heretical probably make statements that the uninitiated might interpret as intolerance. This intolerance is not of faith, it’s an intolerance for their craft being treated without care and reverence.
I’ve been trying but God’s stayed pretty tight lipped on the whole mitochondrial DNA thing.
More seriously though, I suspect you mean for me to look to scripture to reveal truths about the world. My problem with this is that to do it requires of scripture things which it was never intended and is unequipped to handle. Let’s stay away from the creation / evolution debate. Frankly it’s tired and is not particularly helpful in this discussion. Rather let’s think about human communication and technology, mostly because that’s what I study. The Bible is relatively silent on the issue of how humans communicate via computers.
Sure, hindsight is 20/20 and occasionally, scientific truth will appear to be consistent with Biblical truth. One could look at the publication dates of both the Bible and the Scientific Journal article, see which one came first and declare that knowledge to be original knowledge. More likely than not, however, the truth driving both the scientific discovery and the Biblical author’s inclusion of the passage in question is the fact that human nature makes us do things in certain ways. In that sense, it doesn’t really make sense to make the argument that the Bible precedes scientific discovery.
Frankly, pastors can’t possibly be expected to be a jack of all trades in this manner. Like it or not, the Bible isn’t the key to ALL information. Now, before any passers-by accuse me of heresy, let me say I think the Bible is incredibly valuable–even vital. Yes, I even believe it is the inspired word of God. That said, the Bible isn’t a Physician’s Desk Reference, Handbook of Interpersonal Communication, or Differential Equations textbook. That’s not its purpose.
If God gave us creation, and science is one of the ways we understand that creation, doing the work of exploration scientifically is essentially the same as learning about the way God reveals Godself to us through God’s creation. From that perspective, science takes upon itself a new reverence. An ill-informed pastor “bagging on”, as you eloquently describe it, things she or he hasn’t taken the time to understand is, taken to the extreme, heretical. The pastor is, from the pulpit, treating God’s creation irreverently. That’s shameful.
I have other thoughts, but I’ll save them for later. That’s enough for now.
I don’t mean to be harsh, Mike, but you sort of walked into my wheelhouse there. I feel pretty strongly about these things. I’m glad you commented, your ideas were certainly a good primer for me, I hope you stick around.
zalm said,
March 7, 2007 at 3:35 am
I like this whole spring break thing so far.
I also like scientists.
And I don’t mind a pastor who tries to talk about science as long as he or she does so with requisite humility. Lord knows that’s the only way I can talk about it. As you pointed out quite nicely in that last comment, knowing the limitations of scripture is the beginning of all sorts of wisdom.
That said, you think it’s hard being a scientist at church? Think of what it must feel like visiting MySpace as a web designer. It might not be sending the world to hell, but it definitely makes my soul hurt.
Brandon said,
March 7, 2007 at 5:15 am
1. Depends on the church, and the day.
2. True. Very true.
Thanks for swinging by Zalm.
Ha Kohen said,
March 7, 2007 at 4:37 pm
This is an absolutely amazing blog; the best I have run across in a very long time!
Mike said,
March 8, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Brandon: Sorry to have been mistaken as picking a fight. Truly, I thought I was merely adding a previously unspoken point of view to a lively debate. I also appreciate your response to my comments. While I still disagree with you on several points, I can agree to disagree, and yes I will still come around. I have been reading this sight (as well as a few similar ones) off and on for about a month now, and find it intriguing.
Anyway, I won’t beat a dead horse by rehashing, or trying to clarify points we will never agree on, however, I do want to say this much: No, I haven’t been hurt by science or scientists, although I am frequently annoyed by lots of so called facts, that are merely theories (yes, I do understand the difference in a philosophical theory and scientific theory). No, the Bible is not the key to all information. It is the key to all TRUTH. And finally (with tongue planted firmly in cheek) … I must disagree that at least part of the purpose of the Bible IS to be a Handbook on Interpersonal Communication…isn’t it……do you want chapter and verse…it may take awhile to post them all…LOL
P.S. I hope my comments are still welcome.
Brandon said,
March 9, 2007 at 7:43 am
I agree with you on a number of things here Mike. Lots of people misunderstand science and think it turns out facts: rather, it turns out statistical likelihoods that can, with a bit of counter evidence, be tossed out.
Help me understand what you mean when you say that the Bible is the key to all TRUTH. I might disagree, but I’d like to hear for sure what you mean by this statement before I do. It really depends on which words you’re emphasizing. I would probably agree with the statement, “The Bible is the key to all truth”, but not the statement, “The Bible is the key to all truth.”
P.S. Of course your comments are welcome.
Jen said,
March 9, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Great post and I loved what Nicole had to say. Why do we in the west select one person to get paid to be the pastor - and then expect he or she to encompass all the gifts that are important for leadership - teacher, counselor, healer, pastor, prophet, etc? (with an emphasis on teacher) This is why I’m looking into the whole idea of the organic or home church - there is no paid staff but rather a group of leaders - and each of their gifts are used equally. If someone in the group seems to be gifted at teaching he or she might be the person who leads the teaching/discussion on a Sunday more often, but, as Dorsey mentioned, there acutally WOULD be room for someone who was more of an expert on the topic to share things.
And why are we so hung up on having sermons anyway? How many of us actually remember from week to week what was said on a Sunday? I sure don’t. What impacts my faith more than anything is having a small group of people I get together with every week to share my heart, my struggles, my doubts and my occasional triumphs. That is what brings me life.
Mike said,
March 9, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Brandon: I agree with your emphasis the Bible is the key to all truth. I mispoke, and thank you for pointing it out, the point I intended to make was that all truth originates with God. No matter who wrote it down, discovered it, observed it, etc. all truth originates from God. When person who has does not believe in God acknowledges truth, even if they do not acknowledge God, it still originates from Him.
Mike
Pither said,
March 10, 2007 at 10:51 am
Interesting that your original comment is about the Bible, but your explanation is about God. Are you really saying that truth can only be revealed from the Bible? I’m sure Einstein would disagree, as would any Jew, Muslim, Buddhist or atheist. Even a progressive Christian like me would disagree. It’s easy to get agreement that truth comes from God, since the definition of God can and does vary widely, even among Christians - good and “bad”.
Mike said,
March 10, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Pither:
Interesting that you didn’t read where I admitted my error. Read up. I did NOT say truth can only be revealed from the Bible in the correction (second post). I’m sure many people disagree with me, heck, I do it myself sometimes! Hopefully even a “progessive Christian” like you can find forgiveness for one who openly admits his errors. Also, yes, many people (including you and me) put their own definitons on God, so what? Does that mean that the statement that all truth comes from the One True God is any more or less true, whether people define Him, or acknowledge Him the same, different, or even at all?
wildwest said,
March 12, 2007 at 11:47 am
All truth comes from God. Hey, I certainly cannot disagree with that statement. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m going to agree with all of anyone’s footnotes to that statement. “All truth comes from God, therefore…”
Kammer said,
March 12, 2007 at 12:50 pm
I couldn’t agree with you more.
It seems that the fundamentalist Christan tends to distill all of evil into one area, tries to isolate Sin and Evil, so they can better control it.
Kind of comes down to people wanting to be their own Saviour, I’ve found.
You’ve intelligently spoken what has been knocking around in my head for the last few months. Thanks.
mark gullickson said,
March 13, 2007 at 6:14 pm
who of you who post has read DANIAL DENNETT?
and similar arguments…for example, a recent
article in the new york times magazine. belief
is being subjected to scientific scrutiny as an
evolutionary trait that has contributed to the
success of humans to dominate the earth.
language is limited to describing the cause and
effect world. therefore it is easy to understand
the notion that GOD is difficult to define or
discuss. on the other hand, we can easily speak
to our experience, some of which is a mystery
that cannot be explained by cause and effect.
so far, in what i have read, which is not extensive,
these materialists tend to ignore all experience
that is not based in cause and effect which i find
interesting. my question to readers here is: how
do we relate the idea of GOD to cause and effect?
melissa said,
March 14, 2007 at 6:08 pm
What I particularly like about the internet as a follower of Christ is that what we are doing here is like the epistles. We are communicating back and forth with people outside the fishbowl of our lives to hear what God is doing and to connect to brothers and sisters and pass love around a little more freely than what happens in your sunday service. I have experienced people being a heck of a lot more honest here in blogityville than the shiny happy people holding hands in churches across the land each sunday. Because I freaking breathe, I sin, is breathing a freaking immoral thing?…Maybe I should throw myself off a bridge so I never sin again…dumbasses. Anyway, I am very blessed by the oportunity to speak freely on the internet, to share my experience of faith, my art and my life with my brothers and sisters all over the place…hmm, maybe the telephone is evil too because people gossip on there and maybe paper is evil because people write books that don’t glorify the lord and maybe everyone is out to get us and maybe we should build a really huge compound and shut ourselves up from the whole rest of the world so we can be holy. I’m sorry, I ranted. It is just phyisically impossible to contain myself when confronted by people doing the absurd in the name of Christ….suffice it to say, I couldn’t agree more.
Jen said,
March 16, 2007 at 10:57 am
The problem with preaching: http://www.the-next-wave-ezine.info/issue93/index.cfm?id=16&ref=ARTICLES%5FDOING%20CHURCH%5F253
Aeolian said,
March 16, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I am a roman catholic traitor and should be burned for what I say below. But I dont claim to possess the truth as Galileo Galilei and Matteo Ricci did. I only presume it is …
That “truth originates with God” doesn’t necessary mean that only the “Bible is the key to all truth.” It may be so, but we can’t know, only believe. I would say instead that the Creation (Bible included) is the key to all truth, as the Creation was made by God or rather, the Creation is the energy revelation of God.
I would rather say that the Bible gives a confusing image about at least human ethics. “You shall not kill” or “You shall stone to death”, “Eye for an eye” or “Love your enemie.” Maybe this was planned by God just to make us use our brain sometimes, to try to think out what is right and what is wrong? I would be an awful teacher if I always gave all the truth.
I am not the etnocentric one that believes that God talkes “only” to me, as I am a Christian. God has talked to all kind of people, so may God have talked to Einstein or to Zarathustra.
I like to “love my enemy” and that means, just listen to him (Matteo Ricci was good at that).
Third, could God ever have talked about the formula of relativity or about atom physics to our ancestors living 4000 years ago? Of course not, God used figtree metaphores to explain to farmers, and fish metaphores to fisher. So what’s about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? This is an intelligent and deeply wise farmer metaphor where God explained with words understandable for the people of that time, the Big Bang (this is of course our modern scientific model), the creation of the stars in the black nebulas, the development of the human race mind that took us from being monkeys to being homo sapiens sapiens. So the Bible and other holy scripts contain the truth, maybe all the truth. But we must open our minds to understand some more about it.
I say “some more” instead of “all” as I believe we will only understand everything the day our soul has matured and left its body. I believe that our brain has developed beyond the limitation of decoding sensory organ signals but it wont never be able to fully decode itself.
You are maybe right if you think I am a lunatic misunderstanding everything. I am very humble about what I think and believe. I think however it is quite intresting to read about the religious thoughts Einstein had: www.einsteinandreligion.com Many scientist have sought for answers meditating on religious believes. Religion was once in a time our science.
My believe and admiration of God has increased and developed “logaritmically” reading astronomy and quantum physics litterature.
Thank you for an intresting and inspiring post.
http://aeolians.blogspot.com
Soren said,
March 17, 2007 at 3:43 am
It seems that we may have a lot in common and more to speak of.
Have a look at my blog and let me have some feedback either here or by emailing me .
wildwest said,
March 17, 2007 at 10:29 am
Aeolian,
Thank you for writing about Matteo Ricci. I had not known about him before, so I had to look him up. Very, very interesting.
Aeolian said,
March 17, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Hello Wildwest
I am happy you liked to know about Matteo Ricci, a wise jesuit. Interestingly, he shared the Galilei astronomical news to the Chinese while Galileo was processed by the inquisition.
I think we must be humble about ourselves and listen to our brothers and sisters. The most important is what we do in our life. I believe you will go to paradise, Buddhist, Confucianist, animists, atheists whoever you are, on the condition you are a good man doing what Jesus told us to do.
Alexei said,
March 24, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Wow, this is one of the best threads of comments I’ve read in a while. Something that strikes me about the internet today is that not many people are willing to engage in discussions that reach more than just skin deep about a particular topic. In fact, most of them degenerate into name-calling. Great to see that it is not the case here.
Mike and Brandon, you guys both have great points about the whole science vs. religion ordeal. My experience goes right along that debate, if I can call it that. Both of my parents are PhDs in molecular biology and I’ve witnessed a number of pastors giving speeches about science that were personally embarrassing to me as a Christian and a scientist. I have also seen scientists who dock 30 points off your IQ just because you tell them you believe in Jesus.
Personally, I think it all goes back to the desire for truth and ability to step out of your comfort zone to face some hard questions. Funny thing about that is that some people don’t even believe in truth (as in absolute truth). Sometimes I find this liberal society is so liberal that it does not know what it believes. Speaking of absolute truth, I’ve just posted on that topic here.
Brandon, your site is an instant favorite. I’ll be glad to add you to my blogroll.
Loving god said,
July 14, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Are preachers even experts in the field of god? Has your priest ever stood in the presence of god? I don’t think my priest ever did. Thats why when I stood in the presence of god all that my priest had told me was revealed to be lies.
Loving god said,
July 14, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Who cares if priests arn’t experts on science. The real problem is that they arn’t experts on god yet they act as though they were.
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