You may have already met new team member Edgardo Rosado, Engagement Coordinator at Science for the Church. If not, I’d like to introduce him to you. You’ll quickly see that he brings unique gifts to Science for the Church.
Let’s start with the fun stuff.
He prefers “Ed” over “Edgardo” and lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Maytia. They love the city’s fast pace, diversity, and culinary offerings. They also enjoy walking along the Delaware River with their rescued dog, Maya. Ed is a proficient BBQ enthusiast and spends a reasonable amount of time with his smoker. He is a classically trained guitarist and bassist and enjoys classical music, 1980’s British metal, and jazz.
He encourages Latinx leaders, which is a major asset to the SftC team.
Ed has served as lead pastor for over 20 years in multicultural congregations in Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. He was trained in biblical studies and theology at Nazarene Bible College, pastoral leadership at Olivet Nazarene University (M.A.P.L) and received a Ph.D. in theology at the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico. This expertise will help us better serve the rapidly growing Latinx community in the United States (see the 2020 census report). As he recently told me, “I’m passionate about connecting faith and science as a means for social improvement and advancement within the Latinx community.”
What does “connecting faith and science as a means for social improvement and advancement within the Latinx community” mean practically?
In our conversation, he explained: “I believe in the importance of moving forward with connecting science and faith because I want to instill in our young people a deep-seated belief that pursuing a career in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics is within their grasps and that they can see it not just as a career move, but also as a vocational move, like responding or answering God’s call for their lives. They can become movers and shakers of the technological and scientific wave that is coming our way. Instead of their future careers being affected by the changes, I’d like them to be leading the change. For example, we realize that many Latinx Americans are in trucking, and instead of losing their jobs to self-driving artificial intelligence trucks, we want them designing AI.”
- You can find my entire conversation with Ed through Upper House’s UpWords podcast.
- We also published a Q&A with Ed.
- One of Ed’s key theological and pastoral influences is John Wesley. As he says, “Wesley used science as a tool to alleviate the needs of marginalized members of society and transforming their context helped me see the integration of faith and science as a catalyst for change and wholeness.” See also Deborah Madden’s “Inward and Outward Health”: John Wesley’s Holistic Concept of Medical Science, the Environment and Holy Life, and for more insight into the way Wesley connected the faith and science, “John Wesley’s Vision of Science in the Service of Christ.”
- Other influences are Leonardo and Clodovis Boff, who have helped Ed understand Liberation Theology from the perspective of those who suffer (also available in Spanish), and Karl Rahner, whose approach to theology provided Ed with a framework for the relationship between faith and science.
- Here’s a video of the 2020 faith-science summit that Ed helped organize as part of the Ciencia, Fe y Esperanza project.
- Another fascinating resource you should check out from this project is “Learning How to Forgive is Built on a Bridge Between Faith and Science” (also available in Spanish).
The particular context for Ed’s ministry is Philadelphia.
He says, “In the social work arena, I want to make a better community for the Latinx people who live in Philadelphia. An interest of mine, as I do postdoctoral work and research, is to determine how the dynamics of living in an economically depressed community influence being able to fulfill dreams of higher education. In fact, that’s my next dissertation.”
Did you hear that reference to his “next dissertation”?! Not only does this research relate to his previous academic work, but his theological studies motivate his praxis (another benefit he brings to the SftC team.)
“I ended up completing a whole different undergrad degree in Bible and theology, a masters of arts in pastoral leadership, and my doctorate in theology with a research focus on John Wesley’s Christology as an instrument of social change. I asked the question, How can we use faith? In Wesley, I found that our believing Christ should change our context, our community today—not as an eschatological hope or something that will happen one of these days. I discovered how we can insert ourselves as people of faith to bring about transformation that is rooted in the love of God to love neighbor so that our faith brings justice and equity for all. I started my studies in pre-med but found myself called to ministry as a pastor. Still, my interest in science never waned; it just kind of became a hobby. Seeing how theology and my faith connect enriched my understanding, and my vision of how God works in the world was amplified.”
I love how he wrapped up our conversation by discussing the way he relates science and faith.
“Theology and science are like two windows of our building’s edifice. Sometimes we get wrapped up in semantics and can’t see past those differences, but we are speaking about the same thing using different words. That’s what science does. It allows us to look at the same picture from two different angles of the building. Theology doesn’t dispute science, and science doesn’t dispute theology. We are speaking about the same God; we’re speaking about the same creation. We are just describing it from two distinct vantage points that come together to give us a wider appreciation and a deeper understanding of how God works in and through us and how he reveals himself to us and through creation.”
I hope you can see why we’re so enthusiastic about what he brings to our ministry.
Ed, welcome to the SftC team!
Greg
