November 3rd, 2009
A portion of Yale's "Education" window
Mark I. Pinski, one of the better-known names in the realm of religious journalism, offers a pretty salient look in yesterday’s USA Today at the sometimes fractious relationship between faith and science, looking both to the past and the present.
Pinski suggests (rightly, I think) that President Barack Obama’s appointment of renowned scientist Francis Collins (a committed evangelical Christian and author of one of my favorite books, “The Language of God“) to head the National Institutes of Health, is an effort to heal some of the riffs between science and faith. He also finds inspiration in Yale’s famed Tiffany window called “Education,” which has graced the university for around 120 years.
The window, commissioned by businessman Simeon Baldwin Chittenden back in 1889 puts science and faith on center stage, flanking an angelic-like woman with her eyes cast upward. Pinski notes that a thumbnail picture of the window can be found on the Web site for the BioLogos Foundation (an organization founded by Collins).
Collins earned his Ph.D. in chemistry at Yale in the early 1970s, and I find no mention of the Chittenden window in his writings, or whether the NIH head has contemplated its significance to his own life. But in a commentary for the Christian Broadcasting Network, he displays sentiments consonant with the window’s message.
“The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome,” Collins said. “God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God’s majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.”
It’s a beautiful window, reflecting I think beautiful, and truthful, sentiments. Collins is one of my heroes, and I hope he does fantastic work in his new position.
Tags: Collins, education, Francis Collins, religion, science, stained glass, Yale
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November 2nd, 2009
G.K. Chesterton
Well, it’s been a pretty frantic weekend, so I don’t think I’ll write much. Rather, I’ll direct you to this thoughtful musing on G.K. Chesterton, perhaps my favorite Christian writer of the last century or so.
Chesterton, for those who aren’t familiar with him, was one of England’s greatest wits at the turn of the last century. He wrote endlessly on a huge variety of topics (he authored the still popular “Father Brown” series of mystery stories), but his musings on Christianity are, I think, incredibly relevant today — far more relevant, in some ways, than I expect they were in his own time: He has a talent for the soundbite and a gift for charming self-deprication. And “Orthodoxy,” which celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, I believe, sounds like a clarion call to Christianity in a postmodern world.
I’d encourage you to pick up “Orthodoxy,” if you’ve never read it. But, barring that, check out this page of quotations that hint at Chesterton’s wit but barely brush the surface of his wisdom. My favorite: “You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion.”
Tags: book, Chesterton, conservatism, writing
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October 30th, 2009
Suicide, in some church cultures, is still considered to be the unforgivable sin. Some consider it to be the ultimate rejection of God’s ultimate gift. While many other churches don’t go quite so far — the deed may be wrong, but it doesn’t necessarily risk a person’s immortal soul — there’s still a powerful taboo when it comes to this most violent, most heartbreaking act.
Yet even pastors are not immune.
The Religion News Service recently offered a story (published here in USA Today) that tried to explain why pastors sometimes commit suicide. The conclusion, probably, shouldn’t surprise us. Pastors have one of the most stressful, most thankless jobs around. And when things go wrong, very often they have no one to turn to:
A pastor is like “a 24-hour ER” who is supposed to be available to any congregant at any time, said Steve Scoggin, president of CareNet, a network of 21 pastoral counseling centers in North Carolina. “We create an environment that makes it hard to admit our humanity.”
It’s a job that breeds isolation and loneliness—the pastorate’s “greatest occupational hazards,” said Scoggin, who counsels many Baptist and other ministers. “These suicides are born out of a lack of those social supports that can intervene in times of personal crisis.”
Tags: church, clergy, pastor, suicide
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October 29th, 2009
Some Christians are pretty excited that, over here in America, it looks like we might be seeing a bit of a surge in Christian-tinged filmmaking. But, according to Christianity Today, we’re far behind the curve. Nollywood — shorthand for the burgeoning film industry in Nigeria, Africa — is churning out faith-tinged films by the score. About a fifth of the nearly 900 films churned out by Nollywood in 2006 — almost 200 films — were considered Christian.
Not that even Christians there are uniformly thrilled. Sounds like Nigerian believers have many of the same discussions we have here: Are we transforming culture, or are we being transformed by it? Are we tools for Christ? Or are we using Christianity as a tool to sell more stuff?
While Nollywood looks remarkably Christian compared to Hollywood, some Lagos pastors and film producers think Nigeria’s film industry is full of idolatry and social evils and don’t want their ministries associated with it. In 1995 the National Film and Video Censors Board tracked almost 200 G-rated movies and few others. By 2005 over 1,300 movies rated 18-and-older were outpacing G movies by 6 to 1.
“Half of the Christian movies are not done by faith-based organizations, but by directors who want to take advantage of the strong religious inclinations of Nigerians to sell [movies],” [Nigerian arts and culture reporter Obidike] Okafor said. “The others do it to promote their faith.”
I’d be interested to see a Nollywood produced movie. Would you? Have you?
Tags: Africa, culture, movie, Nigeria, Nollywood
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October 28th, 2009
Christopher Hitchens. Photo by ensceptico
Christopher Hitchens, author of “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” has been debating religious leaders for a good long while now, traveling from campus to campus, auditorium to auditorium, arguing the (I think ludicrous) point that faith is an unqualified, unrepentant force for evil.
But perhaps, in spending so much time with real flesh-and-blood people, Hitchens may be ever-so-slightly softening. Look at this line from a column he recently wrote for Slate:
I haven’t yet run into an argument that has made me want to change my mind. After all, a believing religious person, however brilliant or however good in debate, is compelled to stick fairly closely to a “script” that is known in advance, and known to me, too. However, I have discovered that the so-called Christian right is much less monolithic, and very much more polite and hospitable, than I would once have thought, or than most liberals believe. I haven’t been asked to Bob Jones University yet, but I have been invited to Jerry Falwell’s old Liberty University campus in Virginia, even though we haven’t yet agreed on the terms.
I doubt Hitchens will ever decide he’s been wrong all these years and convert to Christianity (or another religion). He now has, in fact, all sorts of public and financial incentives for remaining the staunch atheist he is. But I’m encouraged that, while he may not agree with what we believe, he perhaps sees a glimpse of the people who we are: Christians are no longer people of the “they,” but people who he’s met with, talked with, perhaps even eaten with.
I think it’s much harder to hate a group of people once we meet them. Hitchens, to his credit, has met us where we live. And perhaps, in so doing, there resides a faint flicker of hope that Hitchens and his fellow “angry atheists” may not stay quite so angry.
Tags: apologetics, atheism, conservative, evangelical, faith
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Let me be honest: I’m still reeling from the Denver Broncos 30-7 loss Sunday to the Baltimore Ravens. I’ve been a Bronco fan since I was old enough to put on a plastic helmet, and my weeks always start a little more miserably during football season when we — I mean they — lose. And, after a loss like the one that took place on Sunday, even reading the word “football” can be painful.
