publications

Today I got my copy of volume 12 of Stone-Campbell Journal, which includes my pretentiously entitled article "How to Talk about Religion and Science...Rationally." It's probably unfortunately not apparent how ironic I conceived that title to be, but in its original form the paper was a presentation for a session on "Re-imagining Faith and Reason" at the 2007 Christian Scholar's Conference--hence the "rationally." It's probably even less evident that the "how to" is meant ironically, though I dare to hope that reading the article makes that at least somewhat clear.

Also included in the volume is a review of the one-volume commentary from ACU Press, The Transforming Word, which includes my little essay on religion & science. The review singles out my essay, which would be a good thing, if the reviewer had in fact said something positive about it. Instead the essay is criticized for being too general to be helpful, which I personally find to be quite fair--that's pretty much exactly how I feel about it. Sigh.

And now to click over to the ol' CV and change the "forthcoming" to "12.1 (2009): 31-38."

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Awhile back I was invited to contribute to ACU Press's The Transforming Word, a one-volume commentary on the Bible. My essay is in the background knowledge section, on the topic of religion and science as it relates to biblical interpretation. It's a brief general essay aimed at making one very simple point: there's no good reason to assume that Christianity is or should be anti-science.

from the essay: "Dialogue permits exchange in a way that acknowledges the integrity of science and religion as distinct sources of knowledge while insisting that they cannot remain strictly independent. This type of relationship strikes a balance between the necessary autonomy of individual disciplines and the holistic nature of the human search for understanding. In dialogue, science and religion are equal partners investigating areas of common interest: the natural world, human nature, and the question of how God acts in the world.

But it is a little misleading to suggest that a single dialogue exists. In reality, there are dialogues between particular sciences and particular religions and theologies on particular topics. Conversations about human nature, for example, may engage biology, psychology, and anthropology, while conversations about nature may partner with physics and chemistry. The conclusions reached in these specific conversations may differ from each other, or there may be no conclusions reached at all. But this should be no surprise to theologians and Christians in general, who, after all, ought perhaps to be more sensitive to the limitations of human rationality than anyone else. Human reason is fallible, so all conclusions must be open to continued examination.

Finally, unpredictability in the dialogue between religion and science is a fact to be accepted, if the conversation is really to be genuine...We cannot afford to ignore that dialogue brings with it the possibility of disagreement, if it is in fact an honest conversation. Yet there is a positive side to this as well: dissonance often opens the door for renewed investigation and creativity. It is only when conflict is assumed to be a permanent and inevitable condition that it becomes detrimental to dialogue, because the motivation to find resolution disappears."

You can check out the list of contributors, etc., here. If you're looking for one great big giant book all about the Bible, this might be the one for you...:)