a Role for Science within Religion

Those on the left handed path, on the outward journey as it were, have the ability to be prophetic to those on the right handed path, or those that remain in the village.

Religion and Science seem so often to be at odds.  Recently on an NPR program discussing the decline of church in american society they solicited possible reasons the church was declining.  One person simply stated that science was the primary reason, as if science could replace religion.

Science can not replace religion, it is a systatized approach to trying to find the physical nature of the universe.  It relys on repeatable experiements and data.  It does not deal partculiarly well with unique occurances, like legitimate miracles or even something like the big bang (i would be blown away if Science ever got all the way back to the actual beginning, even though they will probably get closer and closer and closer as they parse nanoseconds of time), or what happens to us when we die (although science might be able to figure out chunks of that at some point).  Science by itself does not have built into any sort of ethical or moral structure.  Curiosity is the primary driver.  Morality and ethics in Science are added on by society, but Science on its own does not do this.  We need Science though, it needs to be a part of our worldview, along with a spiritual worldview.  Religion asks questions that Science would have little interest in exploring, questions of our humanness and what it means to acutally exist in the world.  Religion likes to deal in Myth, which can speak as much truth if not more than Science for questions about our being and interacting with one another and the world around us.

Science does uncover truths though, undeniably.  Evolution is one that comes to my mind quickly.  As theologians it is our resposibility to place the truths that we learn from scripture in context of the truths we learn from Science. 

Science can act, in many ways, like those on the left handed path.  It can offer refreshing new realities to help keep the prespective of the village fresh.  The reason the village needs folks to go out and journey is that when they come back, or when they visit, it can break up homostasis in the family system or the village dynamic.  The village needs new challenges to remain relevant. 

As a church, to remain relevant, to meet the needs of those in the world, we need Science to challenge us, we need Science to break up our homostasis.  Our systems are in decline, what we offer does not meet the needs of the population at large.  For the village, and the church, to remain relevant, to offer insite in our existance, we need to welcome the world of science with open arms and let it challege us.

There are truths in Scripture, we need to remain rooted in those truths, but to pass those truths along we need relevant language, we need to speak in a way that those truths can be reached.  Claiming that Science can be that language is short sighted, but learning how to speak in myth within the world of Science is key.  

Those of in the church, even if we are sometimes on the left handed path, have to acknowledge that by staying with the church we are also on the right handed path, and that Science can act as our "hero".

Repentance

repentance is very much a christian idea, but it is present, in various ways, in many other religions as well.    To start with a definition of sorts, the greek word for repentance has very much the sense of turning, of aligning yourself with god, to give up the "old ways" and embrace the way of God.  Buddhists have this notion, a renouncement of worldly things, Muslims define their religion by submission to God, Islam means just that, to submit (or one who submits, i can't remember exactly.

I was speaking with someone about repentance the other days and she spoke about how much she loved how Billy Graham made it easy to understand the gospels, and that she believed he was saying to turn away from your own self, that thats what repentance meant.  And i have pointed out turning is key to the idea of repentance, and it might seem like a play on grammar to say whether we turn away from ourselves or turn towards God, is there really that much difference.

When we understand repentance as turning away from ourselves, it implies that there is something inherently wrong with ourselves.  That we are so sinful we have to leave our old life behind and become something new.

It is true that in christ we become a new creation, but it does not mean that we turn away completely from ourselves.

I may be taking a minor issue to an extreme, but the reality is when we really start to believe that we need to turn away from ourselves, we cease to see the blessing that we are.  We are loved by God, we are a divine creation of God.  We are transformed in God, but God does not erase the blessings we have already received, our inherit divinity, even though we are flawed, even though we are sinners.

Unfortunately we are always going to be sinners, but turning towards God prevents us from letting those sins control us.  As Calvin so gracefully pointed out, repenting and turning towards God is being loved into freedom and away from the sins that can control our entire existence.

When we repent, we can't turn away from our old selves,  as Paul pointed out the Romans so many years ago, we give ourselves sacrificially to God and we are accepted and holy.  We each receive gifts that we can in turn use.  If we turn completely away from ourselves, then we ignore the gifts that have already been bestowed upon us.

Repentance has to be a turn towards God, to accepting the guidance and leadership of God.  God does not ask us to give up ourselves, but rather to offer ourselves as holy and meaningful sacrifices.

Let us be loved into freedom.