Welcome to God and Nature, the ASA's new online magazine, which evolves out of the "God and Nature" articles that were published separately on Wordpress last year. With this new publication, we are hoping to bridge the gap between the scholarly topics ASA approaches quarterly in our academic journal, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, and the personal stories and creative writings of our diverse membership, which can speak to a wider audience about the many ways scientific progress inspires their Christian faith, and vice versa.
We are delighted to have Emily Ruppel with us as Associate Director of Communications—a key part of her responsibilities with the ASA has been to revamp this publication, giving it a new look and feel, and taking advantage of new electronic distribution means, with the intention of producing a print version of God and Nature in Spring 2013. We're pleased to announce that our sister organization in the UK, Christians in Science, will collaborate with us in this venture.
With this inaugural edition, we are staking out new territory and aim for a broader audience while continuing to meet the needs of all our faithful members. In these pages, you will be less likely to encounter yet another twist in the debate on the age of the earth or the meaning of the days of creation or the extent of evolutionary processes or whether or not the Intelligent Design paradigm is useful in the integration of science and faith. There’s a place and a time for all that. Rather, our intent is to move beyond these differences and celebrate the glorious nature that God our Creator has set in place. We seek to open the lives of scientists who are passionate in their vocation as students of God’s creation. We seek to explore the myriad ways in which scientists see the handiwork of God in every corner. We seek to worship God together as we revel in the beauty of all that surrounds us.
Our statement of faith emphasizes our understanding of God and his Son, Jesus Christ, as articulated in the Nicene and Apostles’ creeds. His objective reality as the creator and author of all things serves as the supreme being at the center of our worship. He reaches out to us, his creatures, as symbolized by the vertical arrow in our logo. Our belief statement continues with our belief that God has created and is preserving nature, endowing it with contingent order and intelligibility so that we can study it, as symbolized by the horizontal arrow in our logo. The juxtaposition of these two arrows creates a third diagonal arrow, symbolizing the synergy and harmony of God and nature. Hence, the name we have chosen reflects that intersection of our creator with his creation. May we find in these pages the resources that will unite our hearts in worship to God.
