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The Christian as scientist

I’ve just discovered a wonderful blog by Dr. Ruth Bancewicz, a Cambridge University geneticist and a practicing Christian. She writes about faith and science. Here’s an excerpt from a blog interview she did with Jeff Hardin, an American zoologist: “The first time I peered down a microscope at a living sea urchin embryo when I […]

I’ve just discovered a wonderful blog by Dr. Ruth Bancewicz, a Cambridge University geneticist and a practicing Christian. She writes about faith and science. Here’s an excerpt from a blog interview she did with Jeff Hardin, an American zoologist:

“The first time I peered down a microscope at a living sea urchin embryo when I was a graduate student at Berkeley I was absolutely hooked on developmental biology. Christians, when they’re doing science, are experiencing something that I call ‘doxological fascination’.  In other words, they’re locked in on the minute details of something – which academics tend to do – and yet they’re doing it for God’s glory, in the same way that Johann Sebastian Bach wrote SDG (Sola Deo Gloria) in all the margins of his manuscripts. [I know a scientist who writes SDG on all her lecture notes and in her lab book – Ruth]. They’re trying to, in Keplerian fashion, ‘think God’s thoughts after him’.

I teach two main courses, cell biology and developmental biology.  In each of these courses I start by telling the students that my main goal for the semester is that they would think cells, or embryos, are cool. They laugh, but I go on with this quote that I love:

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. — Albert Einstein, from The World As I See It 

Here’s something Bancewicz posts from an interview with chemist Shannon Stahl:

There is something so beautiful about science and the way that, when you get that inspiration, everything fits and there is a sense of shalom. It’s otherworldly. For better or worse, it often happens in the moments of greatest stress!

I think what drives many of us to science is this beauty – this sense of awe and wonder when you come across a discovery. It’s very rare because there’s so much grunt work involved in the lab, but when all of a sudden things fit, you’re on a high, and that inspires you to keep going. For me, that’s an interface between science and something that’s spiritual, in a sense.  Something that is bigger than myself has all of a sudden taken hold of me and lifted me up.

Bancewicz works for The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, a Cambridge-based institution that brings together some of the world’s great scientific minds to discuss ways that faith and science interact. I got to know Faraday somewhat when I worked for Templeton, because Templeton gives grant money to it. Denis Alexander, whom I interviewed last year at Oxford, is Faraday’s director. Denis is a wonderful man. There is no way to spend time with him and not have any prejudices one might have about Christians in science profoundly challenged, if not dispelled.

I see that Bancewicz is behind a program called Test of FAITH, an outreach from Faraday to Christians, especially in small church and parachurch groups, interested to know more about how religious and scientific truths work together. It’s geared toward non-specialists. Spend some time on the Test of FAITH site looking at what they’ve come up with. Remarkable stuff. From my experience with Faraday, I know that whatever it produces will be first-rate and reliable. Julie and I are going to order the Test of FAITH course and figure out how to work its presentation into our children’s education, as well as into church youth group discussions in the future.

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