God and Nature Summer 2024
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By Sy Garte and Anikó Albert
Welcome to the Summer 2024 issue! For your faithful editors, it’s been an exciting (and a bit exhausting) season. As members of the local Washington DC ASA chapter (Sy is vice President), we became members of the original planning committee back in 2019 for the 2020 annual meeting, to be held at Catholic University here in our nation’s capital… We all know what happened next.
Fast forward to 2024, when it was time to return to those plans. Mike Beidler, local chapter President and the incoming Chair of the ASA Board of Directors, and Sy became Co-Chairs of the Program Committee—hence the exhaustion. (Anikó played a major role in organizing the oral presentations into coherent sessions.) As for the excitement, that came from the success of the long-delayed meeting, which had a stellar roster of plenary speakers, and an even better than usual set of 60 oral presentations and posters.
But time marches on, and here we are presenting to you an equally exciting group of essays, poems and columns. Two of the essays in this issue are about mathematics, one by James Bradley on how game theory might be used for biblical hermeneutics and analysis, and the other by Ken and Cheryl Touryan on the miraculous ability of mathematics to be able to capture so much of physical reality. Next, Terry Defoe gives us a thorough historical summary of the often misunderstood relationship between science and Christian faith.
Speaking of miracles, Galen Pickett writes about the distinction between wonder and miracles and its profound implications. There are also two great essays focusing on biblical interpretations related to a scientific worldview: William Horst writes a scholarly piece on sin, death, and Paul’s letter to the Romans, while Mark Wright argues for the importance of focusing on the ways the Bible speaks of God being the beginning of… everything—instead of reading science into the text.
Our two regular columnists will not disappoint: Cheryl Bostrom’s “On Camera: Scripture in Creation” delights us with a striking photo-essay of late-summer farm fields, and Mike Clifford regales us with an entertaining yet thoughtful account of less-than-constructive evaluation comments encountered during his student and then teaching career in “Across the Pond.”
And the big news for this issue: We welcome brand-new columnist Kristine Johnson! Kristine was inducted as an ASA Fellow at the 2024 annual meeting mentioned above, and she might also be familiar to some readers as the admin of a couple of Facebook groups devoted to science and faith. She has long entertained her online friends with amazing photos and recipes of her cooking. Her new column “Food for the Soul – Recipes for Flourishing” starts in this issue and will have you eager to head to the kitchen!
We also have two stirring poems by veterans of the God and Nature poetry section, Christopher Eyte and Andrew Budek-Schmeisser.
We hope you enjoy this issue, and please consider sending us your essays, stories, poetry, etc. (as always, after carefully reading the submission guidelines, of course). Blessings to all.
Sy Garte, Ph.D. Biochemistry, is Editor-in-Chief of God and Nature, and the author of “The Works of His Hands: A Scientist's Journey from Atheism to Faith”, (Kregel) and “Science and Faith in Harmony: Contemplations on a Distilled Doxology" (Kregel). He has been a Professor of Public Health and Environmental Health Sciences at three universities and was an Associate Director at the Center for Scientific Review at the NIH. He blogs at The Book of Works, and his website is sygarte.com. Sy is Vice President of the Washington DC ASA Chapter, and a fellow of the ASA.
Anikó Albert grew up in Budapest, Hungary, and is a graduate of Eötvös Loránd University. A serial migrant, she taught English as a Foreign Language in her hometown, high-school Spanish in Kingston, Jamaica, and English and various subjects in Alameda, California. She is currently the Managing Editor of God and Nature, and Chair of Rockville Help, an emergency assistance charitable organization in Rockville, Maryland.
Welcome to the Summer 2024 issue! For your faithful editors, it’s been an exciting (and a bit exhausting) season. As members of the local Washington DC ASA chapter (Sy is vice President), we became members of the original planning committee back in 2019 for the 2020 annual meeting, to be held at Catholic University here in our nation’s capital… We all know what happened next.
Fast forward to 2024, when it was time to return to those plans. Mike Beidler, local chapter President and the incoming Chair of the ASA Board of Directors, and Sy became Co-Chairs of the Program Committee—hence the exhaustion. (Anikó played a major role in organizing the oral presentations into coherent sessions.) As for the excitement, that came from the success of the long-delayed meeting, which had a stellar roster of plenary speakers, and an even better than usual set of 60 oral presentations and posters.
But time marches on, and here we are presenting to you an equally exciting group of essays, poems and columns. Two of the essays in this issue are about mathematics, one by James Bradley on how game theory might be used for biblical hermeneutics and analysis, and the other by Ken and Cheryl Touryan on the miraculous ability of mathematics to be able to capture so much of physical reality. Next, Terry Defoe gives us a thorough historical summary of the often misunderstood relationship between science and Christian faith.
Speaking of miracles, Galen Pickett writes about the distinction between wonder and miracles and its profound implications. There are also two great essays focusing on biblical interpretations related to a scientific worldview: William Horst writes a scholarly piece on sin, death, and Paul’s letter to the Romans, while Mark Wright argues for the importance of focusing on the ways the Bible speaks of God being the beginning of… everything—instead of reading science into the text.
Our two regular columnists will not disappoint: Cheryl Bostrom’s “On Camera: Scripture in Creation” delights us with a striking photo-essay of late-summer farm fields, and Mike Clifford regales us with an entertaining yet thoughtful account of less-than-constructive evaluation comments encountered during his student and then teaching career in “Across the Pond.”
And the big news for this issue: We welcome brand-new columnist Kristine Johnson! Kristine was inducted as an ASA Fellow at the 2024 annual meeting mentioned above, and she might also be familiar to some readers as the admin of a couple of Facebook groups devoted to science and faith. She has long entertained her online friends with amazing photos and recipes of her cooking. Her new column “Food for the Soul – Recipes for Flourishing” starts in this issue and will have you eager to head to the kitchen!
We also have two stirring poems by veterans of the God and Nature poetry section, Christopher Eyte and Andrew Budek-Schmeisser.
We hope you enjoy this issue, and please consider sending us your essays, stories, poetry, etc. (as always, after carefully reading the submission guidelines, of course). Blessings to all.
Sy Garte, Ph.D. Biochemistry, is Editor-in-Chief of God and Nature, and the author of “The Works of His Hands: A Scientist's Journey from Atheism to Faith”, (Kregel) and “Science and Faith in Harmony: Contemplations on a Distilled Doxology" (Kregel). He has been a Professor of Public Health and Environmental Health Sciences at three universities and was an Associate Director at the Center for Scientific Review at the NIH. He blogs at The Book of Works, and his website is sygarte.com. Sy is Vice President of the Washington DC ASA Chapter, and a fellow of the ASA.
Anikó Albert grew up in Budapest, Hungary, and is a graduate of Eötvös Loránd University. A serial migrant, she taught English as a Foreign Language in her hometown, high-school Spanish in Kingston, Jamaica, and English and various subjects in Alameda, California. She is currently the Managing Editor of God and Nature, and Chair of Rockville Help, an emergency assistance charitable organization in Rockville, Maryland.