I don’t think that partisan politics do much to advance the kingdom of God; in fact I know politics are much more likely to be divisive than unifying. It’s for this reason that I make great efforts to keep my political ideologies separate from my witness of faith.
I know that no matter what I consider myself politically, whether Conservative Republican, Liberal Democrat or somewhere in between, I can be assured, Jesus wouldn’t have anything to do with any of it.
I would be blind, however, if I hadn’t noticed that in this modern era there is an intersection between politics and faith. It is not usually positive, in fact it is typically a lightning rod for those seeking an “us and them” wedge issue.
As I watched the news recently (Yes, I am a self avowed news junkie) one of the stories that piqued my interest was of a woman at an event for presidential candidate, Governor Rick Perry. The woman was goading her young son to ask Governor Perry a series of questions about evolution, the age of the earth and global warming.
I was particularly struck by one question the woman fed to her son. She said, “Ask him why he doesn’t believe in science”.
“Why he doesn’t believe in science?” As a person who is very interested in the branch of theology known as apologetics I was profoundly troubled by this question. Well, not so much by the question it’s self, but by the larger implications behind the question. What the woman was implying was that she did “believe” in science.
The woman’s question made me think of a book I read by M.I.T. educated author, Dr. Gerald Schroeder. Dr. Schroeder points out correctly “the trouble with the debate between science and religion is that most people have about an eighth grade education of science and an even lower level of knowledge pertaining to religion”.
See this woman was trying to use science to slam the candidate for his religious views, but she was among the many that Schroeder writes about. The woman doesn’t really know science or religion. This woman, and millions of others like her, armed merely with broad and unspecific science claims they’ve heard regurgitated by others, “believe” in science. For them, it has become a religion; they don’t simply believe science they believe in science…a true position of faith.
I think a deeper understanding of, or at least a clear distinction between, what science is and what it isn’t, will show the folly of this woman’s proclamation of such strong faith in science.
A visit to the University of California, Berkeley’s science web site brings some clarity to this issue. Among the things they state about science is this maxim:
"All scientific theories (from evolutionary theory to atomic theory) are works in progress. As new evidence is discovered and new ideas are developed, our understanding of how the world works changes and so too do scientific theories."
The site goes on to say:
"It's important to keep in mind that elaboration, modification, expansion or rejection of scientific theories is a normal part of the process of science."
This is science: ever changing, trial and error. Science can give us insight into the world around us and it can open our eyes to fascinating and marvelous new worlds but, be forewarned, the scientific understanding of those new worlds we find so intriguing today may be vastly different in thirty years. In fact, historically speaking, it would not be uncommon at all for science to say “oops!!! Never mind, it wasn’t really a world after all.
In my next blog (or two) I will take a look at how scientific thought has changed over the years. We will discover that while science should be studied and can certainly provide world changing advances in myriad fields from medicine to space exploration, it is a process of discovery, adaptation, modification and change. We will also look at why some seek to turn science into a series of tidy little truth statements that pit “us” against “them” for political reasons.
