A weekly dose of science for the church

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Material Matters

The God who comes on Christmas morning created unfathomable amounts of stuff that scientists help us to see and appreciate. This is an unexpected way we can prepare for Christmas—to delight in all that God created.

When Jesus was an Embryo

This Christmas, think about how our wise, loving, patient God entered the ancient Middle East—“Taking the very nature of a servant”—and trusted himself to the developmental processes that had been created through him.

A Prophet of Hope for the Holidays

I knew R.E.M. shaped the outlook of an entire generation in some important ways, but I had not heard them acknowledge the very quest I was on in the 1990s. These were the years I was owning my Christian faith while studying physics at Northwestern.

God Wired Us for Love: My Conversation with Leonard Matheson

God Wired Us for Love: My Conversation with Leonard Matheson

One of the gifts that’s come to my pastoral ministry at Bidwell Presbyterian Church is neurorehabilitation psychologist Leonard Matheson. Len and I began by talking about a “biopsychosocial” approach to medicine. We also looked at the role of oxytocin and the hippocampus and connected all of it to scripture and faith.

Stuck in Between, Part 2

Stuck in Between, Part 2

Many Christians feel stuck somewhere in between their faith and evolution. The issues are complicated but here is one place where I find agreement between the two. Observation clearly shows that Earth’s biology entails both competition and cooperation. It is the kind of world one would expect if you believe in the theological truths of fall and redemption. It is not implausible that the God revealed in scripture would use both cooperation and competition to advance life on our planet.

Stuck in Between, Part 1

Stuck in Between, Part 1

I don’t think I was the only member of our family who dreamed of seeing a lurking big cat pounce and chase down its prey. We saw several big cats but never saw one go in for the kill during our five-day safari. Instead, what we saw was lots of cooperation, like oxpeckers on the backs of wildebeests and hippos, or hyenas crunching bones leftover from a nighttime kill, or all the birds who would sound out danger to all the animals within earshot.

Ministry in an Age of Climate Distress

Ministry in an Age of Climate Distress

There’s a certain kind of grief when you are the messenger, and it feels like no one is listening. Or maybe people are listening, but they don’t care as much, or at least their actions don’t indicate they do. That is the feeling I experience in ebbs and flows as a science journalist whose love for God has led me to care deeply for his creation.

Introducing your Church to the Science and Faith Dialogue

Introducing your Church to the Science and Faith Dialogue

Introducing your church to the science and faith dialogue starts by finding what works best for you. It is followed by engaging concerned partners and stakeholders that can partner with you in leading the way. And it is sustained by a proactive approach to preaching, teaching, and programming that promotes and includes science at its core.

The Cradle of Humankind

The Cradle of Humankind

The Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site is one half of a story told by both science and Scripture: not only are we one in Christ, all bearers of God’s image, but every human being shares 99.9 percent of our DNA. To use the words from the Cradle of Humankind’s website, “our collective umbilical cord lies buried” in Africa.  It is a story about the unity of humankind.

Expanding the Conversation

Expanding the Conversation

I’ve become fatigued by the ruts in which science and religion often become bogged down. Are the two in conflict or not? Is it Genesis 1 or evolution? Are Christians for or against technology? To...

Psychology for Ministry: Ritual in Spiritual Practice with Laird Edman

Psychology for Ministry: Ritual in Spiritual Practice with Laird Edman

Ritual does the important work of binding us together with other people… Ritual helps us engage in synchronous behavior with other people. We recognize our kin because they act like us. A group of people who are all standing and sitting and chanting the same way are activating their kin recognition circuits. Unconsciously, they think, “These people are my family.” If we want to help a congregation feel like family, ritual is one of the biggest ways.

Psychology for Ministry: Embodying Community with Mark McMinn

Psychology for Ministry: Embodying Community with Mark McMinn

Today, we’re launching our psychology for ministry series in partnership with Blueprint 1543. We start with a conversation with a psychologist who has spent nearly four decades building bridges between science and the church. Mark McMinn, recently retired from George Fox University, has worked assessing ministry practices and spiritual formation.

How We Really and Truly Relate our Faith with Science (Reprised)

How We Really and Truly Relate our Faith with Science (Reprised)

This week, with team members spread across not only the country but now three continents, we thought now would be a good time to republish something (lightly edited) that our readers enjoyed and that also gets at the heart of our vision. If you’re a new subscriber, we hope you enjoy this for the first time. And for those of you who have been with us for a while, we hope you find something new in this piece.

How can our team help your church engage science?

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Science for the Church

280 Chico Canyon Rd.

Chico, CA 95928

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