Reading Paul’s ideas of a creation that groans for its redemption and incorporating an understanding of the book of nature can help us see the adverse effects of human activity on God’s creation in a new light. It may even suggest a new domain of action where we can become catalytic agents and partners in God’s redemptive impetus.
We take your feedback seriously. You repeatedly said you want video resources. You repeatedly said, you want materials that link science to the Bible. You identified a lack of good materials to use in small groups, Bible studies, and Sunday school classrooms. While it has taken a while for us to get to the finish line, we listened and are pleased to announce the first of several new products.
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.
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.
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.
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.