God & Nature Magazine
  • 2025-#2 Issue
    • Letter from Editors 2025-2
    • Horst, Corruption in Romans 8
    • Touryan, Deep Seeing
    • Defoe, Discernment
    • Quick, Computation
    • Carpenter, Death Before the Fall
    • Pinkham, Deceiver deceived
    • Brownnutt, Incarnated Teaching
    • Bostrom 252
    • Clifford 252
    • Johnson 252
    • Eyte, Wings
    • Owen, Useful
  • 2025-#1 Issue
    • Letter from Editors 2025-1
    • Schrotenboer, Lying Dormant
    • Strauss, God Laughs & Smiles
    • Carr, Creation Stories
    • King, Falleness Physical World
    • Colon, A Hike
    • Thuraisingham, Identity
    • Bostrom 251 Every 6 Steps
    • Clifford 251, Just Starting Out
    • Johnson 251
    • Eyte, Touch
    • Budek-Schmeisser, Quitting
  • 2024-#4 (Fall) Issue
    • Letter from the Editors F24
    • Madison, 5 Smooth Stones
    • Dickenson, Genesis & Evolution
    • Berg, Is Genesis History?
    • Pinkham, Cells and Organs
    • Mitchell, Questions for AI
    • Taskinen, Alexander Grothendieck
    • Bostrom, On Camera F24
    • Clifford, Across the Pond F24
    • Johnson, Food for the Soul F24
    • Strand, Morning Prayer
    • Budek-Schmeisser, Sonrise
  • Past Issues
    • 2024-#3 (Summer) Issue >
      • Letter from Editors Summer 24
      • Horst, Death through Adam
      • Bradley, Game Theory & Theology
      • Defoe, Science and Faith
      • Pickett, Wonder & Miracle
      • Touryan Wonder of Math
      • Wright, In The Beginning, God
      • Clifford Sum24
      • Johnson,, Summer 24
      • Eyte, Kaleidoscope
      • Budek-Schmeisser Bohemian Gravity
    • Spring 2024 Issue >
      • Editor's Letter Spring 2024
      • Miller, Sense of Place
      • Quick, Georg Cantor
      • Niemeyer, Research to Thriller
      • Carpenter, Creationism Inter-Textual
      • Defoe, Wittenberg Circle
      • Madison, Buttercups
      • Bostrom, Birds' Eye View
      • Clifford, What's the Use
      • Budek-Schmeisser, The Choice
      • Anderson, Van Gogh's Sunflowers
      • Lange, Summer Meadow
    • Winter 2024 Issue >
      • Garte and Albert W24
      • Fagunwa, Origen: Black Scientist
      • Gonzalez, Being Human
      • Defoe, A Pastor/s Journey
      • Curry, Birds of New Zealand
      • Lin, Environmental Problems
      • Garte, Genetics of Race
      • Pohl, Third Culture in Church
      • Bostrom, Mentors
      • Clifford, Hidden Figures
      • Albert; Poem. A Goldfish Sings a Tentative Psalm
      • Ardern Contact Points
    • Fall 2023 Issue >
      • Letter from Editors Fall 23
      • Owen, Mystery of the Trinity
      • Albert, Denialsim: A Case Study
      • King, Elements in the Bible
      • Carpenter, When was Day One?
      • Spaulding, Guided Differentiation
      • Greuel, Vision for the ACB
      • Bostrom, Lady Bugs
      • Clifford, Small Things
      • Gentleman, 30/80 Anno Domini
    • Summer 2023 Issue >
      • Letter from Editors Summer 23
      • Touryan, Feathers
      • Stenerson, Horseshoe Crabs
      • Hull, Evolving Scotus
      • Silva, Younger Ages
      • Williams, Dense Obscurity
      • Bostrom, Water Cries
      • Clifford, To Church Repair
      • Craig, Heavenly Lights
      • Valerius, Nothing to Something
      • Pinkham, Wisedrop
    • Spring 2023 Issue >
      • Letter from Editors Spring 2023
      • Rummo Lewis and the Cross
      • Pagan Biodiversity
      • Funck Assembly Theory and Life
      • Williams Thus Far
      • Mitchell Making Mistakes
      • Phillippy Living in Paradox
      • Bostrom Rain Shadow
      • Clifford Sustainable Cooking
      • Budek-Schmeisser, Completion
    • 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
    • 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
      • 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
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Finding Hominids with Kamoya Kimeu

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Journalist Fred Heeren with Kimoya Kimeu
 — by Fred Heeren

Kamoya Kimeu is not known for his religious views. Many know him for his narrow escapes from lions, crocodiles, and cobras—and many more as East Africa’s preeminent fossil hunter, perhaps the most successful discoverer of hominid bones in the world. 

Paleoanthropologists have a running argument about whether fossil prospectors are better prepared for the job from textbooks in academia or from expert collectors in the field, where they learn skeletal anatomy by handling bones and fragments. Kimeu makes a strong case for the latter.

In addition to finding hominids with Louis and Mary Leakey (starting in 1959) and their son Richard (becoming his right-hand man in 1963 and taking control of field operations in Richard’s absence in 1967) and his more recent field work with daughter-in-law Meave Leakey, Kimeu found now-famous hominid specimens while prospecting with Tim White, Alan Walker, Kay Behrensmeyer, and Andrew Hill. In 1977, the National Museums of Kenya appointed him curator for all of Kenya’s prehistoric sites.

Kimeu’s field-trained eyes were the first to spot the bits of fossils leading to the discovery of the earliest Homo sapiens skull (Omo I), now dated to 195,000 years ago. He discovered the 1.5-million-year old Turkana Boy, the most complete skeleton of the small-brained-but-tall-bodied Homo erectus. And he bagged the most important specimen in the Australopithecus anamensis collection: a partial tibia including where it forms the lower knee joint; it demonstrated that this ape-like creature was walking upright 4.1 million years ago. I could name many more, several of which are named after him.

But as I found out when I joined the Leakeys’ “Hominid Gang” during one field season, none of these contributions to science would have been possible unless Kimeu had decided at the start that his religious views could be adjusted to permit this kind of work. I’ll complete that thought at the end of this piece. First let me explain what I mean by “this kind of work.”

Forced to retire by Kenyan law at 55 (although he stretched his age downward as long as possible), Kimeu now spends his days on the field wherever the prospects of finding more hominids look best. And that’s what brought us both to the Leakey camp in 2007 at the very north end of Kenya, northeast of lake Turkana. Though he is now officially retired, hominid hunting continues to drive him. A typical workday for Kimeu and the Hominid Gang has changed only slightly since the old days.

At three o’clock every morning, the wind begins, drowning out the jackal calls. Tents convulse, their straps flapping and sounding like hail to would-be sleepers inside. Kamoya Kimeu joins other crew members heading out of their tents at 5:30, using flashlights to avoid stepping on snakes. At 6:00 this prospecting team—called the Hominid Gang since the days of Louis and Mary Leakey—loads up into two ten-year-old Toyota Land Cruisers. The men watch the sun come up during an hour’s bumpy drive past brown vistas sparsely dotted with commiphora, which looks like flat-topped sagebrush. Given his reputation for having the world’s best eye for spotting hominid fossils, the crew not only finds Kimeu’s presence inspirational—they believe they can improve their chances of making big finds just by sticking close to the master.

Another group, the collecting team—composed of senior scientists and an international group of post-docs, grad-students, and local field documentation trainees—heads out in two more Land Cruisers at 6:30. They use GIS (Geographic Information System) instruments to find their way to each of the prospecting team’s discoveries from the day before, while the prospectors use it to mark the coordinates of today’s new finds, to be used by the collecting team tomorrow. The area they’re working falls between two volcanic tuffs dated to 1.6 and 1.8 million years ago.

The day is filled with routine animal fossil finds until mid-afternoon, when one of the youngest prospectors, Abdub Sharamo, hired by Richard in Nairobi just this year, decides to spend the afternoon following Kimoya Kimeu along a dried river channel. Kimeu has been working his way alongside a ridge, and then along the dried riverbed below, noting the way recent rains have washed tiny fossils from above. Sure enough, about three o’clock, while following Kimeu’s path, Abdub picks out something Kimeu’s old eyes had missed: an equid tooth, and then, not far away, a bone that looked much more promising, with two small teeth embedded in it.

He calls to Kimeu. Is it a monkey? Kimeu withholds judgment, but the gang gathers round and argues about whether it is a hominid while they record its position and photograph it. Then someone else finds a piece of skull some distance away.  

When I fly in with a missionary pilot friend later that afternoon, I find them back at camp. Excitement builds when Meave Leakey, Louise Leakey, Fred Spoor, and the rest of the collecting team crowd around a monitor to view that day’s fossil photos. It’s a maxilla—an upper jawbone—and it’s definitely a hominid.

The next morning, my first on the field, we drive to the end of a trail and then walk over a landscape littered with pebbles and stromatolites, pitted boulders of fossilized algae. Sometimes we pass tall hills of them, which I’m told ancient people piled up as burial mounds. A closer look at the ground reveals that it is also littered, less liberally, with something more distinctive. Louise, Meave’s daughter, who is in charge of logistics, leads me along, pointing at various spots we pass and saying: “Fossil, fossil, fossil, fossil.”

Within an hour, I can find them too. I have cave-dived deep into a Carpathian mountain to reach a tiny gallery strewn with fossilized bones. I have driven for days along Chinese dried riverbeds to see a half-dozen new fossils found at as many sites. But never have I looked out upon a boundless expanse where every few feet you’re bound to find another petrified piece of antler, or bovid femur, or equid molar. Some of them actually sparkle in the sunlight. Everyone who comes here gets the bug—you can’t take your eyes off the ground, and you think maybe you’re going to be the one to find a hominid this season.

But this season that honor goes to Abdub. Meave Leakey directs the crew to cordon off the area, to search it (resulting in the discovery of another tooth), and to sieve it. But the glory of “Max frag. dp4,” as she identifies the specimen in her notebook, is short-lived. Meave Leakey and Fred Spoor tentatively identify it as a juvenile bosei—a wide-jawed hominid not in the human lineage—meaning the jaw is destined to take its place in a backlog of specimens that are relegated for future study, description and publication, while they work on more notable finds, some worthy of publication in Nature.

Not yet knowing this and hoping I’m seeing history in the making, I interview Abdub to get all the details of his find. However, I especially enjoy following Kamoya around as he continues his prospecting on another ridge. It’s not until that night that I get my first truly exciting interview of the trip, under a sky lit by a brilliant Milky Way and the Big Dipper on the horizon. Kamoya Kimeu regales me with exploits from his past, tales that play in my mind like episodes from an old action-adventure movie serial.

He tells me of a narrow escape he shared with Richard Leakey in 1967, when he found that earliest Homo sapiens skull. While crossing the Omo River in southern Ethiopia in a tiny wooden dinghy, Richard, Kamoya, and two others charted a zigzagging course through a hundred gathering crocodiles. One especially large crocodile gave chase and caught up with them just before they reached the other side, clamping its jaw down heavily on the boat’s side. This sent splinters into the air and passengers to the opposite side, almost capsizing them. Nearly swamped, the skiff reached the bank, but the giant reptile sprung ahead for one more snap. Kimeu and Leakey leapt for shore, leaving the creature clamped down on the transom—along with Leakey’s belt and part of his ripped pants.

Another time, while on an expedition with Mary Leakey, Kimeu’s Land Rover was swept away while he tried to drive back across a river during a flash flood. When the vehicle began to sink with the doors jammed, he crawled to the back, which was still partly above water, and escaped out the back window.

While leading a team of prospectors on a remote fly camping expedition over several weeks, Kimeu had a number of encounters with lions. Once one sauntered right between the workers’ cots at night. On another evening, six lions on the hunt invaded the camp, and even after Kimeu got in his car and drove them off with his loud engine and headlights, they kept coming back. He had to post guards to keep watch, two at a time, all night.

On another such remote trip, he heard something moving in his sleeping bag as he was waking in the morning. Before he could get out, he was bitten by a large cobra that had spent the night with him. This initiated two weeks of unrelenting pain while his leg swelled up and friends tried various methods to cut out the poison.  So … be careful who you sleep with.

Kimeu demonstrated to me how they cut into his leg: “You cut it just like this,” he said, “and squeeze it hard. Something black came out. Ouch—big thing.”

Kimeu sounded trooper-sanguine about the final result, explaining: “Because I have that poison in my body now, you know, next time when I’m going to be bitten by another snake, I’ll be protected.”


No one knows exactly how old Kimoya Kimeu is. His parents could only tell him that he was born during the years when his father was working on the railroad. When Louis Leakey recruited him as a laborer in 1959, Kimeu figures he was somewhere between fifteen and twenty. 

And that brings us all the way back to Kimeu’s moment of truth, the confrontation between his teenage spiritual beliefs and this odd thing called science, when he had to decide if the enterprise was something to join or to reject.

He remembers the day his uncle told him that a couple needed strong men to dig for bones. His parents forbade him, fearful that such a foolhardy stunt would result in his death because of kucha, the tribal curse against touching human bones. Kamoya agreed. Why on earth would anyone want to risk getting mixed up with the world of the dead? These scientists were not as smart as they thought; they were clearly ignorant of the trouble they were stirring up.

The traditional religion of his Kamba people taught Kimeu that there is one, transcendent, creator God, but that there are also countless spirits, some from dead ancestors, known as the living-dead—not to be confused with the living dead of today’s zombie movies. These were spirit-beings who were usually invisible and usually best to avoid—and to touch the remains of any dead-and-buried human was to interfere with processes and powers beyond us. It was not just asking for trouble, it was guaranteed by the kutcha curse. In Kamba logic, to touch the bones of the dead was to risk becoming like the dead yourself, before your time.

Still, Kimeu knew that he didn’t yet have all the facts and wondered how the scientists themselves would explain their behavior. He decided to learn more and to see Louis Leakey in Nairobi. 

“My mother told me ‘You’re going to do that and you’re going to die.’ I told my mother, ‘Let me go and see whether it’s true that we’re about to dig into graves.’” And he assured her, “I will not do it.”

During his visit to Nairobi, Louis spoke in Kikuyu, a language very close to his own Kamba language. Kimeu couldn’t help but to like this msungu (white man) who treated him as an equal, who had grown up with an understanding of his culture. He had a plan to provide responsibly for his work crew, and he sounded like a good man. So Kimeu listened to what he had to say. He peppered Louis with questions about exactly what kind of work they would be doing and why. 

“He told me that we want to know about what was happening here millions of years ago. ‘We want to see what these people looked like at that time, and to see what kinds of stone tools they were using.’ I thought that was good, because there’s no other way to tell about what was happening millions of years ago—no one then was writing a book about it.”

Kimeu and the other potential recruits weren’t sure what to make of the whole evolution thing. But after Louis explained to them how old these creatures were and showed them the kinds of primitive tools they used, Kimeu decided the bones did not belong to humans like humans today—or even their dead. These creatures were different from us and our recently departed ancestors, not at all like the living-dead. 

Three days later Kimeu headed out on safari with the group to Tanzania to dig trenches around recently found hominid fossils. Then Mary taught him how to look for more. “I was very, very, very hard working, looking very hard,” Kimeu tells me. “So Louis and Mary like me a lot because of that. But I can tell you, at that time I could not find anything good—because I don’t yet know the bones.” 

Louis and Mary found Kimeu to be an extraordinarily bright apprentice, and they heaped responsibilities on him above all the others. It wasn’t long before he started to “know the bones,” distinguishing himself with his special ability to find and identify them. 

The story of Kamoya Kimeu raises interesting questions for Christians in science: What if he had decided against going to Nairobi to hear from the scientists themselves? What if he’d trusted his first negative impressions? What if his fear of kutcha had driven him to see Leakey’s offer of work “as an opportunity to dismiss uncomfortable scientific knowledge on account of background beliefs” (in the words of ASA member Jitse van der Meer in his article “Background Beliefs, Ideology, and Science” in the June 2013 issue of PSCF)? With today’s hindsight of the scores of significant hominid discoveries since made by Kimeu, it’s clear that our knowledge of hominids would be considerably diminished. 

This fact raises questions pertinent to our own Christian culture: Do we have our own forms of kutcha? I wonder how many important finds have been missed because talented Christians decided long ago that “mainstream” science was not for them, as a result of the negative impressions given them by their pastors, their families, their whole Christian subculture. How many young believers never sought information beyond the anti-evolution dogma promoted by the authorities in their lives? What’s the most obvious explanation of the fact that Christians are so grossly under-represented among paleoanthropologists, to name one neglected scientific field? 

And how many Christians with a natural, God-given interest in scientific inquiry have missed their potential for making contributions to science because, although they pursued a kind of scientific interest, they decided to spend their energies trying to prove a particular apologetic agenda?

Scripture, it seems to me, more naturally promotes a desire to go directly to the animals and to the earth to see what the hand of the Lord has done (Job 12:7-9). The Psalmists encourage us to deeply investigate, not just human apologetics arguments, but God’s works themselves:

Great are the works of the LORD;

They are studied by all who delight in them. (Ps. 111:2; cf. Ps. 107:24)

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God & Nature magazine is a publication of the American Scientific Affiliation, an international network of Christians in science: www.asa3.org