God & Nature Magazine
  • Winter 2023 Issue
    • Letter From the Editors
    • Braden, A Modern Bestiary
    • Garte, Assembly Theory
    • Defoe, The Heavens Declare
    • Greenberg, Bonding
    • Barrigar, God's Big Story
    • Phillippy, Overcoming Paradox
    • Bostrom, Near
    • Clifford, Hidden Figures
  • Fall 2022 Issue
    • Letter Fall22
    • Curry, Attentiveness
    • Russo, Deconstruction
    • Touryan, Four Forces
    • Mittchell, Three Words
    • Philippy, Math Theology Fall 22
    • Bostrom, Goodbyes
    • Clifford FAll 22
    • Linsley, Mystic Exile
    • Hall, A Call to Arms
  • Summer 2022 Issue
    • Letter Summer 2022
    • Engelking, Neurotheology
    • Kelley, Environmentalism
    • Garte, Sandpipers
    • Madison, Cultivating Contentment
    • Collins, Answers on Evolution
    • Touryan, Tentmakers
    • Oord, Ever-Creative God
    • Bostrom, Mentors
    • Clifford, Carbon and Sin
    • Campbell, Just, In Time
  • Past Issues
    • Spring 2022 Issue >
      • Letter from the Editors Spring 2022
      • Curry, Knowldege and Truth
      • Pinkham, On a Car Emblem
      • Murray, Candling the Egg
      • Carr, Music, Math, Religion
      • Smith, Wonder and Longing
      • Linsky, Cyber Service
      • Bostrom, Buteo
      • Obi, Coincidences
    • Winter 2022 Issue >
      • Garte &Albert Letter Winter 2022
      • Thuraisingham Pondering Invisible
      • Cornwell Mediations from Molecular Biologist
      • Fagunwa Blsck Scientist & Church Father
      • Garte A Dialogue
      • Gonzalez Being Human
      • Klein Naturalist in Two Worlds
      • Bostrom Creeds
      • Clifford Winter 2022
      • Ardern Contact Points
      • Cooper Imagine No Christmas
    • Fall 2021 Issue >
      • Garte &Albert Letter Fall2021
      • Johnson, God Winks
      • Cottraux, Ancient Aliens
      • Arveson, Anti-Vax Email
      • Gammon, Evolutionary Insights
      • Mitchell, No One Told Me
      • Rummo, Faith in the Invisible
      • Bostrom, Fall Furrows
      • Lemcio, A Franciscan Weekend
      • Funk, Plant Haiku
      • Robinson & Lim, Who is God?
    • Summer 2021 Issue >
      • Garte &Albert Letter Sum2021
      • Warren, Immunization and Salvation
      • Defoe, Bernard Ramm
      • Cornwell Canine to Divine
      • Mix, Running with Nature
      • Pinkham, Scuba Divers
      • Cao, Physics and Bible
      • Bostrom, Sugar Birds
      • Clifford Sum21
      • Oostema, Evolution of Faith
      • Hall, Generation upon Generation
    • Spring 2021 Issue >
      • Garte and Albert Letter Spring 2021
      • Loikanen, Divine Action
      • Madison, Humus and Humility
      • Lappin, Puddles and Persons
      • Cornwell, God's GPS
      • Touryan, Contolled Fusion
      • Russo, Vaccine and Salvation
      • Bostrom, Short-eared Owl
      • Redkoles, Expect Unexpected
      • Clifford, Boring
      • McFarland, Imposition of Carbon
      • Lemcio, Manis Mastodon
    • Winter 2021 Issue >
      • Winter 2021 Contents >
        • Garte and Albert Letter from the Editors
        • Burnett How iit All Started
        • Isaac Director's Corner
        • Ruppel Herrington, First Editor
        • Burnett Origin of Lire
        • Hearn Balance
        • Middleton Natural Theology
        • Story Antibodies and Randomness
        • Lamoureux I Sleep a Lot
        • Warren Overloaded Brains
        • Isaac Knowledge of Information
        • Bancewicz Wonder and Zebrafish
        • Oord Photoessay
        • Albert Hope in Winter
        • Clifford Storytelling & Drama in Teaching
        • Pohl The Column (Poetry)
    • Fall 2020 Issue >
      • Letter from Editors
      • Pohl, Panpsychism and Microbiome
      • Reyes, Communion During Loss
      • Griffin, Hands On
      • Azarvan, Science and Limits
      • Cornwell, Search Engines for God
      • Thuraisingham, Duality of Humans and Particles
      • Touryan, Prayers of Petition
      • George, Perfect Vision
      • Declare the Glory, Green: Awe
      • Bostrom Purpose
      • Oord, Theological Photoessay
      • Clifford, Food, Water, Waste
    • Summer 2020 Issue >
      • Summer 2020 Contents >
        • Editors Letter Summer2020
        • Jones, Science Faith Duopoly
        • Mix, God and the Virus
        • Warner, COVID-19 and Goodness of Creation
        • Gonzalez, Pandemic and Groaning of Creation
        • Johnson, Star Wars Food
        • Pyle, It Takes a (Medical ) Village
        • Arveson, Use for 3D Printers
        • Peterson, Pandemic and Research
        • Zeidan, Mentorship Online
        • Oleskeiwicz, Dragonfly on Water
        • Carr, COVID-19 and Climate Change
        • Nierrman, The Squirrel
        • Cornwell, COVIS-19 Bucket List
        • Bostrom, Grass Thoughts
        • Clifford, Summ20 Conflict
    • Spring 2020 Issue >
      • Letter from the Editors SP20
      • AD
      • Murphy, Nature and Calvary
      • Dickin, The Flood and Genesis 1
      • Gruenberg, Empiricism and Christian Spirituality
      • Ungureanu, Science, Religion, Protestant Tradition
      • Russo, How does it End?
      • Siegrist, Problems with Materialism
      • Ohlman, 20/20 in 2020
      • Warren, Rock Frogs
      • Edwards, Sanctuary
      • Bostrom, Clothed
      • Clifford, The Lent of Lockdown Spring 2020
      • Hall, 1:30 AM on a Tuesday (Poem)
    • Winter 2020 Issue >
      • Letter from the Editor Winter 2020
      • AD
      • Wimberly Inheritance, Meaning and Code
      • Defoe; A Pastor's Journey
      • Mix The Ends of the World
      • Pevarnik Limits of Physics
      • Greenberg "Godly" Science
      • Pinkham Teleological Thinking
      • Alexanian How to Witness
      • "Declare the Glory" Neal, Cross, Gait
      • Clifford "Across the Pond" Winter 2020
      • Oord "Theological Photoessays" Winter 2020
      • Salviander The Objective Man (Poem)
      • Ohlman Orphan of the Universe (Poem)
      • Lemcio Grey's Anatomy (Poem)
    • Fall 2019 Issue >
      • Letter from the Editor Fall 2019
      • Phillippy Mathematics and God
      • Pohl & Thoelen Databases
      • Garte Limits of Science
      • Mitroka Healthy Lifestyle
      • Sigmon Science and Revelation
      • Mariani Compatibility Creation and Evolution
      • Anders Theistic Evolution
      • Touryan Are we alone
      • Johnson Purpose and Source
      • Declare the Glory Curry, Smith, Best
      • Clifford "Across the Pond" Fall 19
      • Oord "Theological Photoessays Fall 19
      • Eyte Cross Cascade "Poem"
    • Summer 2019 Issue >
      • Letter from the Editor Summer 2019
      • Arveson Is There a “Theory of Everything”
      • Anderson The History and Philosophy of Science and Faith
      • Tolsma Science in Church
      • Salviander Black Holes and Atheism
      • Johnson Practical Problems for Literal Adam
      • Hall God and the Assumptions of Scientific Research
      • Linsky Overcoming Misconceptions
      • Wilder Sanctity of Creation
      • Clifford "Across the Pond" Summer19
      • Oord "Theological Photoessays" Summer 2019
      • Flaig Time and Me (Poem)
    • Spring 2019: Creation Care and Environment >
      • Letter from the Editor Spring 2019
      • Bancewicz;Sustainability Pledge: Why the Environment is My Problem
      • Lin; Environmental Problems as a Place for Compromise and Dialogue
      • Garvey; Where the Fall Really Lies
      • Lewis; Solar-Powered Life: Providing Food, Oxygen and Protection
      • Garte; Time and Human Impact on the Environment
      • Mays; Reforming Science Textbooks
      • Carr; Cosmic Energy First, Then Matter: A Spiritual Ethic
      • Kincanon; The Young Earthers and Leibniz
      • Declare the Glory Gauger
      • Clifford "Across the Pond" Spring 2019
      • Oord; Photoessay. Theological Photo Essays
      • Rivera; Photoessay. Digital Artwork: Images of Jesus
      • Albert; Poem. A Goldfish Sings a Tentative Psalm
      • Armstrong; Poem Holy Sonnet XI
    • Winter 2019: Education and Outreach 2 >
      • Letter from the Editor, Winter 2009
      • Applegate; Project Under Construction: Faith Integration Resource for High School Biology
      • LaBelle; Sidewalk Astronomy Evangelism - Taking it to the Streets!
      • Reed; Speaking to the Heart and Mind of Students about Evolution and Creation
      • Marcus; The Conflict Model
      • Rivera; The Implicit Assumptions behind Hitchen's Razor
      • Russo; Redeeming Bias in Discussion of Science and Faith
      • Fischer; Origins, Genesis and Adam
      • Clifford Column, Winter 2019
      • Gait; Photoessay - Stripes
      • Lee; Poem. In Chaos and Nothingness
    • Fall 2018: Education and Outreach 1 >
      • Letter from the Editor Fall 2018
      • Glaze; A Walk within Two Worlds: Faith, Science, and Evolution Advocacy
      • Johnson; Teaching the Controversy in Texas
      • Cootsona; Mere Christianity, Mainstream Science and Emerging Adults
      • Kindstedt; Creating a Third Culture
      • Zeidan; An Effective Way to Integrate Supportive Communication and Christian Belief into Virtual Classrooms
      • Marshall; A New Model of Causation
      • McClure; Nothing in the Bible Makes Sense Except in the Light of Grace
      • Frank; Christianity, Science and Teamwork
      • Assad/Reyes; Interview. Discovering a Renewed Sense of Awe and Wonder about God
      • Clifford Column Fall 2018
      • Menninga; Photoessay. What do These Stones Mean?
    • Summer 2018: Judgment and Peer Review >
      • Letter from the Editors Summer 2018
      • Jones; Peer Review: Avoiding Judgmentalism
      • Arnold; Discovering Spiritual Information Through Peer-Reviewed Science
      • Peterson; Peering at Double-Blind Peer Review
      • Smith; A Philosophical Influence from the Scientific Revolution on Scientific Judgment
      • Mix; The Poetry of Probability
      • Mobley; Randomness vs. the Providence of God?
      • Gordon; Chances are Good: Design and Chance in Genesis 1
      • Siegrist; But the Multiverse...!
      • Reyes; The Community Table: Interview with Marianne Johnson
      • Clifford Column Summer 2018
      • Hill; Poem. Synthesis
      • Lemcio; Poem. I Could See Where This was Going
      • Oord: Photoessay
    • Spring 2018: Chance & Design >
      • Letter from the Editors
      • Bishop; God, Love and Chance
      • Bonham; Quantum Reflections
      • Spaulding; God as Designer
      • Garte; Teleology in Evolution
      • Hall; God, Chance and Buridan's Ox
      • Pohl; Why We Need a Third Culture in Church
      • Dorman; Liturgical Brain
      • Warren; Galapagos
      • Blanchard; On Christian Science
      • Touryan; The Cross as a Cosmic Filter
    • Winter 2018: Race & Inheritance >
      • A Note from the Editors
      • Essay: “Some Pastoral Considerations of CRISPR CAS 9 Gene Editing” by Mario A Russo
      • Essay: “The Genetics and Theology of Race” by Sy Garte
      • Essay: "Grieve the Segregation of Science" by S. Joshua Swamidass
      • Poem: "Cardboard Man" by Ciara Reyes
      • Featured Interview: “Love Is Risk” with Carolyn Finney
      • Essay & Poem: “Abortion Languages: Love, fear, confusion and loss”
      • Essay: "Why the Church Needs Intersectional Feminism" by Emily Herrington
      • Essay: “Elected to Salvation (and other things?)” by Bill Leonard
      • Essay: “Local Colour: A reflection on family, history, and heritage” by Mike Clifford
      • Interview: Corina Newsome, environmentalist and animal keeper
      • Essay: “Spiritual Kin Selection” by Steve Roels
      • Photo Essay: "Trouble in Paradise: Plastic pollution in the Bahamas" by Grace Swing & Robert D Sluka
      • Essay: “Race & Inheritance: Personal reflections and annotations” by Walt Hearn
      • Interview: Carla Ramos, molecular biologist
      • Clifford Column; Discipine Hopping
      • Lemcio; Waves
      • Harris Artwork
      • Hearn; Eulogy - Beyond Science,
    • Summer 17: Cosmology & Theology >
      • Letter from the Editors: Summer 2017
      • Essay: "The News from My Home Galaxy" by Walt Hearn
      • Interview: "Deep Incarnation & the Cosmos: A Conversation with Niels Henrik Gregersen" by Ciara Reyes & Niels Henrik Gregersen
      • Photo Essay: "Breath & Dust" by Kathleen Eady
      • Essay: "Why the Eagle Nebula Just Doesn’t Do It For Me" by Mike Clifford
      • Essay: "The Cosmos in My Hand" by Lucas Mix
      • Interview: “What is Life? On Earth and Beyond” with Andreas Losch
      • Artwork by Missy Pellone
      • Essay: "When God & Science Hide Reality" by Davis Woodworth
      • Essay: "​In Search of Wonder: A Reflection on Reconciling Medieval and Modern Cosmology" by Monica Bennett
      • Essay: "If Christianity and Cosmology Are in Conflict, Whose Side Is Philosophy on?" by Vaughan Rees
    • Winter/Spring 17: "Flesh & Blood" >
      • Letter from the Editor: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Essay: "Probiotics, Prebiotics, Synbiotics: On microbiomes and the meaning of life" by John F. Pohl
      • Essay: "With All Your Mind" by Paul S. Kindsedt
      • Essay: "The Stuff of Life" by Mike Clifford
      • Essay: "Experiencing God’s Love in a Secular Society: A Christian experience with socialized medicine" by Alison Noble
      • Poem: "The Problem with Pain" by Eugne E. Lemcio
      • Essay: "Thoughts of Death in a Cruel World: Job’s suicidal ideation and the “right” Christian response to depression" by Jennifer Michael Hecht and Emily Herrington
      • Essay: "Tissues at Issue" by Walt Hearn
      • Essay: "The Dilemma of Modern Christianity" by Tony Mitchell
      • Poem: "Light" by Billie Holladay Skelley
      • Essay: "Some Theological Implications of Science: Revisiting the Ant" by Mario A. Russo
    • Summer/Fall 16: "Stewardship of Words" >
      • Letter from the Editor: Summer 2016
      • Levity: "Walt Being Walt: Excerpts from the ASA newsletter" by Walt Hearn (compiled by Jack Haas & Emily Ruppel)
      • Poem: "A Prayer Tribute to Walt and Ginny Hearn" by Paul Fayter
      • Essay: "Authentic Science & Authentic Christian Faith" by Paul Arveson
      • Essay: "On Modern-Day Saints & Epistles" by Emily Ruppel
      • Essay: "​Mathematics and the Religious Impulse" by Karl Giberson
      • Poem: "The Wasteful Gene" by Eugne E. Lemcio
      • Three Poems by Dan Eumurian
      • Excerpts from: "The Dictionary of Daily Life in Biblical and Post-Biblical Antiquity" by Edwin Yamauchi
      • Essay: "A Comprehensible Universe: The blessing from God that makes science possible" by Bob Kaita
      • Poem: "The Epistolarian" by Emily Ruppel
    • Spring 16: "Brain Science" >
      • Letter from the Editor: Spring 2016
      • Essay: "Ancient Q, Modern A (?)" by Walt Hearn
      • Essay: "Souls, Brains and People: Who or what are we?" by Gareth D. Jones
      • Essay: "A Functional Theology of Psychopathology" by Edgar Paul Herrington IV
      • Three Poems by Richard Gillum
      • Essay: "Thoughts of Death in an Unkind World: Job’s suicidal ideation and the “right” Christian response to depression" by Jennifer Michael Hecht
      • Short Story: "Malefic" by Jeffrey Allen Mays
      • Essay: "An Engineer Visits a Mindfulness Workshop" by Mike Clifford
      • Essay: "Traces of Trauma in the Body of Christ: The case of The Place of Refuge" by Elizabeth Hernandez
      • Essay: "Did God ‘Create’ Science? Christianity and the uniqueness of the human brain" by William H. Church
    • Winter 16: "Quantum Physics/Epigenetics" >
      • Letter from the Editor: Winter 2016
      • Essay: "God and the New Evolutionary Biology" by Sy Garte
      • Essay: "Quantum Mechanics and the Question of Divine Knowledge" by Stephen J. Robinson
      • Essay: "Creation Out of... Physics?" by Joshua Scott
      • Essay: "Of Books and Bosons" by Mike Clifford
      • Essay: "Words, Words, Words" by Walt Hearn
      • Poem: "Encountering Ernst Haeckel’s 'Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny'" by Eugene Lemcio
      • Essay: "The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: New conversations and theological questions at the horizons of modern science" by Michael Burdett
      • Poem: "The Difference" by Emily Ruppel
      • Essay: "Maupertuis's Ghost: Finding God in 'action'" by Colin C. Campbell
    • Fall 15: "Technology" >
      • Letter from the Editor: Fall 2015
      • Essay: "‘Braving the New World (Wide Web): Mapping Theological Response to Media" by Justin A. Bailey
      • Poem: "Entropy and Enthalpy" by Glenn R. McGlaughlin
      • Essay: "‘How Proactive Should Christians Be in Learning about Emerging Biomedical Technologies?" by D. Gareth Jones
      • Essay: "‘Can We Fix It? Erm..." by Mike Clifford
      • Poem: "To My Dear Parents" by Sarah Ruden
      • Essay: "‘Which Side, Lord?" by Walt Hearn
      • Poem: "The Column" by John F. Pohl
      • Essay: "‘Technology and the Church" by Derek Schuurman
      • Poem: "On the Shores of Oroumieh" by Emily Ruppel
      • Essay: "‘Technology as Discipline" by Johnny Wei-Bing Lin
    • Summer 15: "Doubt" >
      • Letter from the Editor: Summer 2015
      • Essay: "‘The Road Not Taken’: A personal reflection on careers, counterfactuals and callings" by Tim Middleton
      • Essay: "The Gift of Doubt in My Life" by Rev. Paul Herrington
      • Poem: "The Marsh Birds" by Sarah Ruden
      • Essay: "On St Brendan and the Pendulum of Postgraduate Study" by Mike Clifford
      • Essay: "Doubt: The Invisible Conversation" by Karl W. Giberson
      • Essay: "Doubt, Faith, and Crevasses on My Mind" by Peter M. J. Hess
      • Poem: "Magdalene" by Leonore Wilson
      • Essay: "Breaking Barriers, Ministering in Relationships, and Exemplifying the Gospel" by Stephen Contakes, et al.
      • Poem: "On the Extinction of Matter Near a Black Hole" by Ruth Hoppin
      • Essay: "Sometimes I Doubt..." by Walt Hearn
      • Essay: "The Risks of Love and Life's Big Questions" by Thomas Jay Oord
    • Spring 15: "Animals/Imago Dei" >
      • Letter from the Editor: Spring 2015
      • Essay: "50 Years of Wilderness: a Christian perspective" by Peter van der Burgt
      • Essay: "All Creatures Great and Small " by Walt Hearn
      • Essay: "Let There Be Less: A Christian musing on nature, faith, and farmers’ markets" by Emily Ruppel
      • Poem: "The New Plant and Animal Kingdoms" by Steve Roels
      • Essay: "Of Wonder and Zebrafish" by Ruth Bancewicz
      • Essay: "The Lion, the Spider and the Image of God" by Mike Clifford
      • Cat Poem 1: "Lullaby for Stomp the Cat" by Sarah Ruden
      • Cat Poem 2: "Letting the Dog In" by Emily Ruppel
      • Cat Poem 3: "Reading on the Couch" by Carol Ruppel
      • Essay: "Angry Discussions: A Wrong Way to Stand for Creation Care or Science Advocacy " by Oscar Gonzalez
      • Essay: "Ethical Eating on a Catholic Campus: Some thoughts from a student of environmental studies" by Grace Mican
    • Winter 15: "Information" >
      • Letter from the Editor: Winter 2015
      • Essay: "What Does it Mean to Know?" by Mark Shelhamer
      • Essay: "Knowledge of Information" by Randy Isaac
      • Photo Essay: "Being Here" by Carol Ruppel
      • Essay: "Truth Anyone?" by Walt Hearn
      • Poem: "Transformation" by Ruth Hoppin
      • Interview: "Unpacking Chance, Providence, and the Abraham's Dice Conference" by Olivia Peterson
      • Essay: "On Knowledge and Information–Tales from an English childhood" by Mike Clifford
      • Poem: "Space Travel" by Ruth Hoppin
      • Essay: "Resuming the Science/Faith Conversation" by Jamin Hubner
    • Archives >
      • Past Contributors
      • Unpublished Materal >
        • Richard Graven A Vision of God
      • Fall 14: "History of Science & Christianity" >
        • Letter from the Editor: Fall 2014
        • Essay: "Orchids: Why the founders of modern science cultivated virtue" by Ruth Bancewicz
        • Essay: "Science Falsely So Called: Fundamentalism and Science" by Edward B. Davis
        • Essay: "The Other 'Atom' in Christianity and Science" by Karissa D Carlson
        • Poem: "The Hermit" by Ciara C. Reyes
        • Essay: "Players" by Walt Hearn
        • Essay: "Using Storytelling and Drama in Engineering Lectures" by Mike Clifford
        • Essay: "Is There Anything Historical About Adam and Eve?" by Mike Beidler
        • Essay: "Finding Harmony in Controversy: The early years of the ASA" by Terry Gray and Emily Ruppel
        • Levity: "Fish n' Chips" by Mike Arnold
        • Essay: "Stories" by Walt Hearn
      • Summer 14: "Christian Women in Science" >
        • Letter from the Editor: Summer 2014
        • Essay: "I Really Did That Work: A brief survey of notable Christian Women in Science" by Lynn Billman
        • Essay: "He + She = We" by Walt Hearn
        • Photo Essay: "The Faces of Nature" by Susan Limone
        • Essay: "On Grass that Withers: Overloaded brains and spiritual discernment" by Janet Warren
        • Interview: "Ancient Humans and Modern Choices" with Briana Pobiner
        • Essay: "Crystallographer, Quaker, Pacifist, & Trailblazing Woman of Science: Kathleen Lonsdale’s Christian Life 'Lived Experimentally'” by Kylie Miller and Stephen M. Contakes
        • Artwork: "Eden, Zion" by Harold Sikkema
        • Essay: "Asking the Right Question" by Dorothy Boorse
        • Interview: "Not So Dry Bones" with Mary Schweitzer
        • Essay: "Is Being a Mother and a Scientist Worth It?" by Abby Hodges
        • Essay: "Playing God: A theological reflection on medicine, divine action, and personhood" by Ann Pederson
        • Column: Great Gravity! "BNL 1976 – 2000 (Part 1)"
      • Spring 14: "G&N: The 2-year tour" >
        • Letter from the Editor: Spring 2014
        • Essay: "Political Science?" by Walt Hearn
        • Comic: "Education"
        • Essay: "Finding Hominids with Kamoya Kimeu" by Fred Heeren
        • Poem: "Ziggurat (and Helix)" by Amy Chai
        • Creative Nonfiction: "One Summer" by Dave Harrity
        • Essay: "Do the Heavens Declare the Glory of God?" by Owen Gingerich
        • Comic: "Miracle Mechanics" by Emily Ruppel
        • Essay: "I Sleep A Lot" by Denis O. Lamoureux
        • Poem: "Angels and RNA" by Walt Hearn
        • Comic: "Seminary"
        • Essay: "The Elegance of Antibodies" by Craig M. Story
        • Photo Essay: "Conversing with Nature" by Thomas Jay Oord
        • Essay: "Under the Tutelage of Trees: Arboreal Lessons on Virtue, Kinship, and Integrity" by Peter M. J. Hess
        • Comic: "Humor"
        • Essay: "Science and Scientism in Biology" by Sy Garte
        • Interview: "Biopsychology and Faith" with Heather Looy
      • Winter 14: "Health & Medicine" >
        • Letter from the Editor: Winter 2014
        • Poem: I Have a Piece of Cow in My Heart
        • Essay: Acts of God: Are all mutations random?
        • Column: Beyond Science
        • Poem: Psalm 1859
        • Essay: The Tao of Departing
        • Essay: The Tao of Departing p 2
        • Photo Essay: Walking in Winter
        • Essay: A Christian Doctor on Evolution, Faith, and Suffering
        • Opinion: Making Friends with Frankencorn
        • Poem: Chiaroscuro
        • Interview: "Biopsychology and Faith" with Heather Looy
        • Essay: "The Elegance of Antibodies"
        • Artwork: "Helix" by Harold Sikkema
        • Column: Great Gravity! "Dissertations and Revelations"
      • Fall 13: "Environmentalism" >
        • Letter from the Editor: Fall 2013
        • Poem: Time
        • Essay: Is there Hope for the Ocean?
        • Artwork: "Earthly Tent" by Harold Sikkema
        • Essay: What is Responsible Eating?
        • Essay: Are We Too Obsessed with Food?
        • Poem: Conversation on Creation
        • Essay: Creation Care from the Perspective of a Conservation Geneticist
        • Essay: Mobilizing Scientists for Environmental Missions
        • Poem: Paleocene Spring
        • Interview: Dorothy Boorse
        • Column: Beyond Science
        • Essay: New Testament Motivation for Environmental Stewardship
        • Poem: Stone of House
        • Column: Great Gravity! "Running the Data"
      • Summer 13: "Science & Creativity" >
        • Column: Beyond Science
        • Letter from the Editor: Summer 2013
        • Column: Faith on the Field
        • Poem: Trying Not to Be Too Sunny
        • Comic: "Work in Progress"
        • Essay: Do the Heavens Declare the Glory of God?
        • Essay: Science, Faith, and Creativity
        • Essay: One Summer
        • Comic: "Miracle Mechanics"
        • Featured Essay: Poetry for Scientists
        • Artwork: "Confluence" by Harold Sikkema
        • Column: Great Gravity! "The Great Ungainly Journey West"
      • Winter 13 >
        • Letter from the Editor: Winter 2013
        • Column: Faith on the Field
        • Comic: "Apples to Apples"
        • Creative Nonfiction: "One Winter"
        • Column: Clearing the Middle Path
        • Essay: Science and Scientism in Biology
        • Poem: "Angels and RNA"
        • Feature Article: I Sleep A Lot
        • Poem: "Fragile"
        • Column: Beyond Science
        • CiS 2012 Student Essay Contest: Runner Up
        • Essay: Why Awe?
        • CiS 2012 Student Essay Contest: First Place
        • Column: Great Gravity! "A Bit of Perspective"
        • Column: Modern Frontiers, Ancient Faith
        • Column: Time Capsule
      • Fall 12 >
        • Letter from the Editor: Fall 2012
        • The Director's Corner
        • Column: Faith on the Field
        • Comic: "Education"
        • Interview: Greetings from Mars!
        • Column: Clearing the Middle Path
        • Photo Essay: "Conversing with Nature"
        • Comic: "Abe"
        • Essay: Evolution and Imago Dei
        • Poem: "Locus Iste"
        • Levity: Beyond Science
        • Essay: God, Occam, and Science
        • Opinion: Humility and Grace
        • Levity: Great Gravity! "The College Years"
        • Poem: "Q.E.D."
        • Essay: My Overlapping Magisteria
        • Column: Time Capsule
      • Summer 12 >
        • Table of Contents
        • Letter from the Editor: Summer 2012
        • Director's Corner
        • Column: Faith on the Field
        • Column: Modern Frontiers, Ancient Faith
        • Comic: "Seminary"
        • Poem: "Temptation in the Wired Wilderness"
        • Levity: Beyond Science
        • Opinion: "The Breaking Bread"
        • Comic: "Humor"
        • Column: Clearing the Middle Path
        • Poem: "Ziggurat (and Helix)"
        • Levity: Great Gravity! "The Grade School Years"
        • Opinion: "Adam and the Origin of Man"
        • Poem: "Missa Solemnis"
        • Column: Time Capsule
      • Spring 12 >
        • Table of Contents
        • Letter from the Editor: Spring 2012
        • Director's corner
        • Column: Faith on the Field
        • Column: Time Capsule
        • Poem: "From Where do We Come?"
        • Featured Scientist
        • Levity: Beyond Science
        • Essay: "Faith and Science"
        • Fiction: "A Matter of Dust"
        • Levity: Great Gravity! "The Early Years"
        • Opinion: "Phony Environmental Theology"
        • Fiction: "Illumination"
        • Interview: "Process"
        • Column: Modern Frontiers, Ancient Faith
    • Spring 13 >
      • Letter from the Editor: Spring 2013
      • Column: Faith on the Field
      • Faith on the Field, cont.
      • Poem: Scientist's Psalm
      • Essay: A Downcast Spirit Dries Up the Bones: More perspectives on depression
      • Artwork: "Lipo Osteo" by Harold Sikkema
      • Feature: The Bible, Evolution, and Grace
      • Column: Beyond Science
      • Book Review: Prisoners of Hope
      • Column: Great Gravity! "The Grad School Years"
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Mere Christianity, Mainstream Science, and Emerging Adults​


by Greg Cootsona
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For the past twenty years or so, I have committed myself to integrating mere Christianity with mainstream science, especially with ministries that serve emerging adults. 
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Sometimes, when I articulate that last sentence, I immediately hear this question: “What is an ‘emerging adult’? Why not simply an ‘adult’?” I usually begin by affirming that the term is not meant as a slight, but as a realization that life for eighteen- to thirty-year-olds has changed. It was the psychologist Jeffrey Arnett who first defined this category in 2000 as a stage of life in which a person no longer feels like an adolescent but is not yet fully an adult (1). Though I have some questions (for example, how well it applies universally across the United States), I find the paradigm illuminating. It recognizes the current cultural shift in which individuals are reaching the five milestones of adulthood—leaving home, finishing school, becoming financially independent, getting married, and having children—later than they did in the past (2).  A 2009 analysis found that in 1960, two-thirds of young adults had achieved all five of these markers by age thirty, but by 2000, less than fifty percent of women and one-third of men had done so (3). We could simplify this by focusing (with Robert Wuthnow) on two markers: Americans are marrying and having children later (4).
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"It is, of course, entirely possible and utterly faithful for emerging adults to transform their experience of being “in between,” with its consequent worry, into a radical openness to what God can do."
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These may sound like five uncomplicated facts, but these markers have an important psychological impact. Many of us used to know where to go when we turned eighteen—we graduated from high school, left home and headed to college, landed a job, got married, bought a house, and had kids. Certainly, some found this path stultifying, but what it lacked in originality, it compensated for with clarity. Arnett portrays an alternative emerging adulthood through five interrelated characteristics: 1. Emerging adults are actively looking for personal meaning and identity. 2. Their lives are marked by instability due to regular relocations, job changes, and revision of life plans. 3. They tend to be self-focused, liberated from parental oversight and significant responsibility for others. 4. They feel—here is the summary phrase—“in between” (my italics)--beyond adolescence, but not yet full adult. 5. Finally, they live in an “age of possibilities,” optimistic about the future and keeping their options open (5)

Of course, this is a generalization, and those at lower socioeconomic levels often develop job skills more quickly. They move out of adolescence and into adult responsibilities earlier than their peers with more resources (6). With that caveat in mind, it is still worth remembering that eighteen- to thirty-year-olds are often markedly uncommitted to church life and to marriage. Since the marrying age is around twenty-eight for men and twenty-six for women (7), most emerging adults’ relationship to faith is not defined by family. Their reality presents a jarring contrast to the organization of most congregational ministries. Simply put, most churches are focused on the family and have no place for emerging adults in their twenties. 

At eighteen, I became a Christian in the remarkably non-church-affiliating culture of the San Francisco Bay Area, which makes me feel like today’s emerging adult. I also led college and post-college ministries for two decades, and now I teach undergraduates. So I read these characteristics with empathy, concern, and excitement. I am expectant to see how emerging adults alter the way we receive and live out the gospel. The future ain’t what it used to be (to paraphrase the late Yankees catcher and prophet Yogi Berra… or maybe the French poet Paul Valéry (8). Members of this generation are making great contributions through their creativity, energy, and openness to new ideas. They are, after all, continuing to define what it means to live in a “digital age.” Over my years with this demographic, I have come to treasure their spontaneity, and I believe that they will make a difference despite enormous challenges like rising debt, overpopulation, and global climate change.
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How have we, who are older, prepared this generation? Frankly, I think we have often failed, as evidenced by the deep anxiety associated with their “in-betweenness.” And here I can speak from experience—I have been the pastor for hundreds of emerging adults and enjoyed numerous conversations at Peet’s Coffee or in my church office in Manhattan or Chico, CA. We have talked while building houses in Mexico, or chatted casually at Christmas parties or after small group meetings. Consequently, this statement from emerging-adult ministry specialists David Setran and Chris Kiesling brings me pain: “Because many of the stable and scripted road maps of the adult life course have vanished, there is little clear direction on how to proceed through the twenties. In a period of instability, continual change, and new freedom, the weight of personal responsibility can be overwhelming” (9). As a result of this instability, some even talk of a “quarterlife crisis” (10). In fact, the challenges of twenty-something life may be more extreme than those of midlife.

I wanted to understand all this more fully, so I put together a meeting of twelve of the best thought leaders in emerging-adult culture I could find. They described this demographic with some important words and phrases such as lives “marked by instability in relationships, purpose, and faith.” Similarly, we found that the word “anxiety” resonated strongly with our combined years of pastoral ministry. As Setran and Kiesling conclude, “While many of these emerging adult changes can be exhilarating, they also tend to produce a great deal of anxiety” (11).

This openness and a related anxious stress characterize the lives of eighteen- to thirty-year-olds and set the context for their culture. Moreover, these specialists added, emerging adults “are caught in the pastiche of postmodernism. At times, they can display delayed self-awareness.” Someone threw out a somewhat jarring—if also memorable—phrase: eighteen- to thirty-year-olds can be “choice-phobic.” Choice phobia obviously relates to relationships and marriage partners but can also characterize commitment to following Christ and to Christian community. 

Nonetheless—lest I sound like this meeting was one huge complaint session—these leaders all affirmed their love for emerging adults and their excitement about the possibilities they bring to the church, including their incredible technological savvy and ability to take in a wide range of ideas.

Are the new realities of emerging adulthood good or bad? For one thing, they simply are, and so we need to adjust. And they are a mix of both beneficial and detrimental. Christian Smith, who tends toward the negative in his assessment, still summarizes well both the positive and negative sides of the emerging adult experience: "The features marking this stage are intense identity exploration, instability, a focus on self, feeling in limbo or in transition or in between, and a sense of possibilities, opportunities, and unparalleled hope. These, of course, are also often accompanied . . . by large doses of transience, confusion, anxiety, self-obsession, melodrama, conflict, disappointment, and sometimes emotional devastation" (12).

It is worth noting that Smith’s follow-up to his first study highlights the shadow side of emerging adulthood, as the subtitle makes clear: Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood (13).
 
Despair is not ultimately consistent with the Gospel. It is, of course, entirely possible and utterly faithful for emerging adults to transform their experience of being “in between,” with its consequent worry, into a radical openness to what God can do. I have seen plenty of eighteen- to thirty-year-olds do just that. In that light, Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of Philippians 4:6-7 is brilliant: "Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life." (The Message)

Displacing worry with Christ—now that is a powerful image. My hope for this generation is that it will take the raw material of emerging adulthood, center it on Christ, and let God do a new thing (Isaiah 43:19) in all kinds of areas, including science and faith.
 
The nature of emerging adulthood also leads us to ponder what it would look like for Christian ministries to engage science and faith in ways that resonate with this demographic. Here are three directions.
 
First of all, we would address some new topics. Big Bang cosmology and evolution, step aside and make room for technology—for example, the psychological and behavioral effects of screen time, the use of artificial intelligence, the promise of transhumanism. The conversation is not just about pure science anymore. In addition, we would look at new questions about sexuality and gender (not something you would find in many religion and science textbooks). And finally, we would examine the materialistic philosophy often enshrined in the putative “findings of neuroscience” that there is no immaterial soul.
 
Next, we would understand faith in a new, pluralistic mode. If any one thing characterizes contemporary emerging adult life, it is pluralism—this generation has been formed in an age of dazzling diversity, including worldview, religion, sexual identity, race, and ethnicity. Life is open, holding more possibilities than it ever had for past generations. In a worldview or religious context, this implies that emerging adults often live, in varying degrees, as “spiritual bricoleurs,” to quote Wuthnow (14). (And if his “bricoleur” does not work for you, try “tinkerer”—it means the same thing.) This spiritual tinkering means emerging adults often are uncommitted to religious institutions in general and churches in particular. Thus Smith concludes, “Emerging adults are, on most sociological measures, the least religious adults in the United States today” (15). This gives many congregations pause and, frankly, prevents them from seeing ministry with eighteen- to thirty-year-olds as a worthwhile investment (not to mention that these young people often do not contribute much to the collection plate—partly because they do not carry cash or checks).
 
This pluralism also means that talking about “religion and science” may seem like a dialogue between two things, but eighteen- to thirty-year-olds see it differently. Emerging adults have grown up in environments saturated with options, seeing religion and science (and technology) as multiform sets of ideas and possibilities. And though pluralism is certainly not new—the apostle Paul referred to the many “gods” in Corinth (1 Cor. 8), and the United States is known as a “melting pot,” religiously and otherwise—the experience of pluralism has increased through the explosion of knowledge on the Internet. Consider that the number of active websites has topped one and half billion (16).
 
Finally, we would take in that emerging adults see Christian faith not as a vinyl LP but as a Spotify mix, where listeners choose from a variety of artists based on a certain mood or a feel. On this point, I sometimes tell my college students that it is time to take a trip down memory lane. In the old days I used to drive to Tower Records and thumb through aisles of twelve-inch-square cardboard record sleeves, looking for the right “long-play” recording. Afterward, an LP or two tucked under my arm, I would journey home, take musical refuge in my room, place the vinyl LP on a turntable, and listen to side A in the sequence the band had set (not an order that I constructed). Then I would go to side B. One album. One sequence. All determined by the artist.
 
Today, music is not bound by the sequence set by the artists. We have the ability to mix music based on the algorithmic features of Spotify, Pandora, or Apple Music. The listener, not the musician, determines the sequence of the music today.
 
And this carries an analogy with our ministries: A college student might take part in a weekly InterVarsity meeting, attend worship at the local Presbyterian Church, participate in a small group put together by Cru, travel a yearly mission trip to Mexico with another church, and then do a little yoga on the side, without any concern. She did not take the Presbyterian denomination’s LP off the shelf and play through our selected sequence of worship service: small group–large group–mission trip. Emerging adults are experimenting with various spiritual inputs both inside and outside congregations and campus ministry groups.
 
With those three directions in mind, I am not proposing that taking a fresh approach to science and faith will halt the exodus of emerging adults from church affiliation. I do know, however, that that one of the six main reasons emerging adults are walking out the doors of the church is that they see it as “anti-science” (17). So engaging mainstream science with mere Christianity seems like a reasonable plan.
 
The climate has changed—that is a fact we cannot deny. Instead, I am suggesting we do something about it.

References

(1) Jeffrey Arnett, Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000), 469-80.

(2) David Setran and Chris Kiesling, Spiritual Formation in Emerging Adulthood: A Practical Theology for College and Young Adult Ministry (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013), 2.

(3) Ibid.

(4) Robert Wuthnow, After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping American Religion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 11.

(5) Summarized by Setran and Kiesling, Spiritual Formation, 3-4.

(6) Ibid., 242 n. 12.

(7) Ibid., 165.

(8)  See https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/12/06/future-not-used, accessed September 24, 2018.

(9)  Ibid., 4.

(10) Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner, Quarterlife Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2001).

(11)  Setran and Kiesling, 4.

(12) Christian Smith with Patricia Snell, Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults (New York, Oxford University Press, 2009), 6.

(13) Christian Smith, Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

(14)  Wuthnow, After the Baby Boomers, 135.

(15) Smith with Snell, Souls in Transition, 281.

(16)  See “Total Number of Websites,” Internet Live Stats, www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites, accessed March 21, 2018.

(17)  The quickest way to find this conclusion is on the Barna website, https://www.barna.com/research/six-reasons-young-christians-leave-church.


Parts of this essay that were taken from Mere Science and Christian Faith by Greg Cootsona (Copyright (c) 2018)  were used by permission of InterVarsity Press.

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Greg Cootsona studied comparative literature at U.C. Berkeley and theology at Princeton Theological Seminary (M. Div.), and the Universities of Tübingen and Heidelberg, and he received his Ph.D from  Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union. He served for 18 years as Associate Pastor for Adult Discipleship at Bidwell Presbyterian Church in Chico CA, and Fifth Avenue Presbyterian in New York City. Greg is Lecturer in Religious Studies and Humanities at California State University at Chico and directs Science and Theology for Emerging Adult Ministries (or STEAM). His latest book is Mere Science and Christian Faith.
God & Nature magazine is a publication of the American Scientific Affiliation, an international network of Christians in science: www.asa3.org