With Evolution Weekend coming up this weekend, I figured I should up date this particular piece.
As I have noted in the pieces that I list below,
Evolution Weekend is an opportunity for serious discussion and reflection on the relationship between religion and science. One important goal is to elevate the quality of the discussion on this critical topic – to move beyond sound bites. A second critical goal is to demonstrate that religious people from many faiths and locations understand that evolution is sound science and poses no problems for their faith. Finally, as with The Clergy Letters themselves, which have now been signed by more than 13,000 members of the clergy in the United States, Evolution Weekend makes it clear that those claiming that people must choose between religion and science are creating a false dichotomy. – “The Clergy Letter Project”
This project began in 2006 and I have participated, either with a sermon or a blog post, since 2009. The following is a list of those messages and posts. This has been edited since it was first posted to correct a link.
Here are my thoughts for the “Back Page” of the bulletin of Fishkill UMC for this coming Sunday, February 16, 2020 (6th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A). Our services start at 10:15 am and you are always welcome.
Can Science and Religion Work Together to Deal with the Problems of Climate Change?
In the beginning, God charged humankind with one directive, to take care of the earth and all that was in it. In one sense, this affirms that science is as much a part of our life as faith, for it is through science that we can find the ways to take care of this world on which we live and with whom we share its resources and space. And while the Bible should never be seen or taken as a science text, it can be seen as help us to think and even take us outside the box, as it were.
In Deuteronomy, we read of God telling us to look at what He has done for us. But when we do look around, can we say that we have taken care of what we have been directed to do?
For a long time, humankind has thought that it could do whatever it wished with this planet and its resources; recent events have shown the fallacy of that thought.
In the Gospel reading for today, Jesus speaks of the Ten Commandments and our relationship with others. Does this not extend to how we care for this world that we share with so many others?
Despite the claims of some, the problem of climate change is a man-made problem and it will be up to us to solve. Science can give us the solutions but it will be the church which provides the moral imperative to seek the solution
Here are my thoughts for the “Back Page” of this Sunday’s (January 5) Bulletin at Fishkill UMC. We will be focusing on Epiphany of the Lord (Year A). Services start at 10:15 am and you are welcome to be a part of a new year of worship.
As you may know, I am a chemist and a science educator. If you were to trace the lineage of my profession backwards in time, sooner or later you would end in some obscure laboratory in 17th century Europe. More importantly, if you continued the travel back in time, you would also end up in an equally obscure laboratory outside 16th century Baghdad.
The wise men are the intellectual ancestors of today’s mathematicians and scientists. While we call what they did alchemy, it was still a study of matter and its reactions, the basic definition of chemistry. The driving force behind these studies was to gain a better understand of who God was and what God was doing. It should be noted that Robert Boyle, considered the father of modern chemistry, was also a prolific writer of religious manuscripts and Sir Isaac Newton, in the preface to his most famous work, Principia Mathematica, wrote that he hoped that what he presented would lead the reader to a better understanding of God.
Did not Jesus, when asked if He was the expected Messiah, tell the questioners to look at the evidence before them?
The evidence before me tells me that the universe is not quite 14 billion years old and not, as determined by some quirky and faulty calculations, 10,000 years old. But the evidence does not tell me why it was created.
If nothing else, that I am both a Christian and a scientist dispels the notion that one cannot be both or that one must sacrifice one for the other. When I look at the processes of creation, I can understand how it occurred but it is though my faith that I begin to understand why it was created.
And in doing so, I continue the legacy of Boyle and Newton and those who saw the Star in the East and sought to understand the meaning of what they saw.
In including the wise men in the Christmas narrative, Matthew suggested that, like the wise men, we must seek our understanding of God. In looking at the world around us, in trying to understand the world around us, we can better understand who God is and what our relationship to Him through Christ might be.
This will be on the “Back Page” of July 21, 2019 ( 6th Sunday after Pentecost, Year C) bulletin for Fishkill UMC. Service begins at 10:15 and you are always welcome!
This is an interesting read on the nature of science and creation – (from the Catholic Astronomer).
Once, at the beginning of a semester, on the second meeting of an Astronomy 101 class, one of my students piped up with a comment. She said that when she had told a certain person (her grandmother, if I recall correctly) that she would be taking an astronomy class, that person had responded by saying that astronomy in particular and science in general was the stuff of devil-worshipers. My student thus offered the class a wonderful comment. She was seeking from the outset of class to engage the material, her professor, and her fellow students with a very honest comment, expressing honest fears (her grandmother’s, and perhaps hers, too). Her comment reflected a sentiment that is not uncommon among students taking science classes—a fear that there is something about science that is contrary to their religion, and in that way there is something about science that is the work of the devil. (This view is not limited to grandmothers of … Continue reading →
This is one of those posts I almost dread to write. The reason I say almost is because I have come to peace with my understanding of global climate change. The reason I feel a hint of dread is because of how the people I know who live in Wisconsin will react to this post. These past three weeks, we have experience wind chills that have dropped to -51 degrees Fahrenheit, multiple snow storms that shut down local schools for days at a time, and so much cloud cover that those with seasonal affect disorder are going a little nutty. Am I simply complaining about the weather as many in the Midwest United States enjoy doing? Perhaps. However, my primary reason for reflecting on this is because NASA, the United Kingdom Met Office, and the World Meteorological Organization have found that 2018 was the fourth warmest year on record. After reading the reports, I have no problem embrace these findings. … Continue reading →
As many of you
know, the 2nd Sunday in February holds a place special significance
in my heart and in my life. On February
14, 1965, I formally began my walk with Christ as I became a member of the 1st
EUB Church of Aurora, CO. Slightly over
1 year later, I would begin the walk that would lead to my Ph. D. in Science
Education.
Of course,
back then, I really didn’t know where those paths would take me. But, over the years, one thing became
clear. You cannot walk two distinct
paths; either you walk one and ignore the other or the two paths merge into
one. But to choose one path over another
means that your life will be incomplete.
Paul always
made, at least for me, a logical argument for believing in Christ. After all his encounter with Christ was a
great deal different from the disciples.
And Isaiah, in the OT reading for today, makes a subtle argument for
education and the consequences when one was not willing to learn. As Jesus selected those who become the
disciples, he told them that they would be using their skills in a new way.
The same is
true for each of us. We start off
walking many different paths, not sure of where they might lead. But when those paths merge with the path that
we walk with Christ, we know where we are headed. On this path, we will meet others who also
walk with Christ.
But we will
also meet many who are lost, have no idea where they are going and are seeking
Christ. With our skills and talents, we
can help these individuals began their walk with Christ.
This weekend is Evolution Weekend and the following are my thoughts on the nature of religion and science. My previous posts for this weekend can be found at “Evolution Weekend”
For the better part of my life, I have lived near either a river,
the mountains, and sometimes both. At
the present time, I live near the Hudson River and near the Adirondacks.
But during high school and college and for some years after
graduation, the river of interest was “Old Man River”, the Mississippi
River. And when I would drive from
Memphis to St. Louis and then onto Kirksville, I would look for roads that
paralleled the Mississippi. These roads
lead me past the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, just south of
Cairo, Illinois.
The thing about moving water is that chooses the path that
it wants to flow, carving a path out of the rock and soil If we follow the Mississippi, just before we
get to Baton Rouge and New Orleans, we find what is called “The Old River
Control Station.”
Figure
3 – The Old River Control
Structure at the juncture of the Mississippi River and the Atchafalaya River.
In this photograph, the Mississippi River runs along the left and curves away
to the right in the distance. The Atchafalaya River meets the Mississippi
At this point on the river the Mississippi wants to shift
its course and join with the Atchafalaya River.
The Old River Control Station was constructed to keep the Mississippi
flowing to the Gulf of Mexico through Baton Rouge and New Orleans. This insures that industries located in Baton
Rouge and New Orleans will not lose their access to the Gulf of Mexico and
created substantial economic damage.
If we see religion and science as two streams of thought,
then we can see that, sooner or later, they will merge into one stream. It requires a greater effort to keep them
separate than it does to allow them to merge.
And just as regular streams of water meander over the
terrain that it passes through, so then do our own streams of thought
concerning religion and science. We call
that curiosity.
As I noted in “A
Dialogue of Science and Faith”, many early scientists were as interested in
religion as they were in science. Now,
as the processes of science were codified, it became apparent that while one
could understand what it was that God had done, it would not be possible to
find God (even if He were in the details).
But instead of seeing this split negatively, one should see it positively. It should be apparent that one cannot answer all the questions of the universe from science or religion alone but as a combination of the two. Through the combination, we have a better chance of getting the answers or at least knowing where one might find the answers.
As we look at the lectionary readings for this Sunday, we
find Paul, trained as a lawyer, making a logical argument for the existence and
power of Christ. His decision concerning
Christ came not actually knowing Jesus as so many others did but in the
evidence that comes from what they did.
And God reminds Isaiah of the consequences that come when
one is unwilling to learn. When Jesus
picked his disciples, he told them that they would take the skills they already
had and used them in a different manner.
(Adapted from “The
Path You Walk”.
When we try to keep science and religion as separate streams
of thought, we spend more time and energy keeping them apart. If we were to allow them to merge, that time
and energy could be used to expand our understanding of this universe, this
planet, and its inhabitants.
It has never been the task of science to find God (even the
early scientists only wanted to understand who God was) but, rather, use the
skills that God has given us to better understand this place we call home. And God never meant that religion would
answer the questions of science but help us understand how to use science in
ways that help rather than hinder (something we tend to forget at times).
I am not sure where society is on this stream of thought I
have constructed. It seems that many,
both in religion and in science, are at the “Old River Control Station”,
valiantly trying to keep the streams apart.
I would hope that we are further upriver where the streams come
together, creating a broader and deeper understanding of the world, the
universe and the people.
This is a Christmas
piece, but one not based on readings from the Gospel concerning Jesus’ birth. Rather, I will be using some thoughts from
Paul and some thoughts that Jesus gave during the Galilean ministry.
There is a little bit of
Christmas in this piece because one of the pieces that many choirs sing at this
time contains the line, “what gift can I bring?”
One would think that one
must understand what gifts we have been given so that we know what gift we can
bring. Oh, I suppose that one could run
down to the store at the mall or page through countless pages of on-line
shopping to find the right gift to give the Baby Jesus. But one is going to have to really stretch to
give a gift that beats gold, frankincense, and myrrh, don’t you think?
I do believe that the
gift we bring to Jesus is found in the gifts that we have been given. In Romans 12: 6 – 8, Paul speaks of the gifts
that we have been given:
Prophecy
Service
Teaching
Exhortation
Giving
Leading
Mercy
Each of these gifts is a
product of how we received God’s Grace.
So the gifts that we give must and need to reflect those gifts that we
have received.
And therein lies the
rub, how much of those gifts will we give away?
There are so many individuals today who proclaim that they have received
the gift of grace from God, yet their words, actions, deeds, and thoughts reflect
the actions of the one servant who received the one talent and then buried it
for fear of losing it. Those who gave
more of themselves in terms of the gifts and talents that they received found
the return as great as what they had been first given.
And there will come a
time when we must account for the use of our gifts. If we look beyond the birth of Christ and
beyond His death to the point of His return, then we are faced with the
question of when do you use those gifts in my name? How many times did Jesus challenge the people
to see God’s presence in their lives outside the Temple? How many times will our use of the gifts we
have been given, in whatever form they may take, to help others find Christ?
What gifts will you
share this year as your celebration of Christmas?
Thoughts From The Heart On The Left 