Walt being Walt:
​Excerpts from The ASA Newsletter from December 1969 to September 1993

By Walt Hearn (compiled by Jack Haas and Emily Ruppel)

Walt & Ginny Hearn, Troll House kitchen, 2012

My wife, Ann, and I had our introduction to Walt Hearn at the 12th ASA Annual Meeting held at Gordon College, July 1957. He gave a paper on the origin of life. This was our first look at ASA culture. I suspect that he does not remember that occasion. However, a little more than a decade later we were able to view his whimsical rhetoric on a regular basis. The Hearns faithfully followed the Everest act into the age of the internet, pumping out quarterly and later bimonthly news and (yes) opinion related to the mission of the organization – with a style (augmented by his editor spouse, Ginny,) that kept us coming back for more.

Historians will appreciate the gold in this record. If these excerpted memories stir you to look for more, the entire collection is available.  http://network.asa3.org/?ASANewsletter

- Jack Haas, June 2016

VOLUME 11, NUMBER 5:   DECEMBER 1969

“ASA NEWSLETTER BEGINS THE DESCENT FROM MOUNT EVEREST”

“How do you follow an act like that of F. Alton Everest and Elva? Especially when they performed faithfully for ten years--and got better all the time? We're afraid ASA News reached its heights under their editorship and now it'll be downhill all the way. The only hope for Walt and Ginny Hearn as we begin to steer this toboggan is that we've picked up some of Alton's good judgment, sensitivity, and humor as faithful readers over the years. There is obviously no use trying to imitate Alton's inimitable style. We'll just try to avoid flaming up the inflammable as we edit the inevitable ineditables.”
[And so it began.]

VOLUME 12, NUMBER 4:   AUGUST, 1970

“OUR EDITORIAL POLICY: ESCHEW OBFUSCATION”

We know certain editors who confuse their readers by using big words -- like "inelectable", for instance. Not us. We think ASA News should be understood by, say, your typical undereducated man-in-the-lab who just happens to have a Ph.D. in microbiogeochemical astrophysics.

However, since the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation is the outstanding evangelical publication we know of, we intend to remain in syzygy with its elongated editor, Dick Bube. Of course, syzygy still allows us the option of conjunction or opposition. The new feature in the June issue of the Journal, "Periodicals on Parade", for example, tempted us to start a rival series in ASA News called Graffiti in Regression" with a couple of gems picked up at a Christian coffee house: 
       à  JESUS WAS A GREAT TEACHER BUT HE HAD NO PUBLICATIONS.
       à  JUDAS ISCARIOT WORE A CREW CUT.
 
VOLUME 22 NUMBER 2:   APRIL/MAY 1980
 
"ONE OF THESE MONTHS ..."

... You'll get your Newsletter during one of the publication months posted on page 1, but maybe not this time. It may be biblical for our right (Elgin) hand and our left (Berkeley) hand to be uncoordinated (Matthew 6:3), but we figure there'll be applause when we can get'em both on schedule. (Sound of one hand slapping: "Ouch!") Our difficulties meeting bimonthly deadlines don't seem to discourage those members who want ASA/CSCA to publish a "popular magazine" on science/faith issues. We don't have room to discuss the pros and cons in this issue, but we'd like to draw more people into the discussion. Starting a whole new magazine seems out of the question but some kind of modification of the Newsletter might meet a public need. The Newsletter, now edited solely for members, could take on a slightly different slant, or outer-directed issues could alternate each month with inner-directed issues, or something like that. It would take seed money to produce something new, more to market it. Is there a market? Could we find it?
 
A recent jump in JASA subscriptions from direct mail advertising can be read two ways: (1) "The Journal will fill the need if people just know about it"; or (2) "if that many nonmembers are interested in a scholarly publication, think how many would go for something written in a more popular style." We don't know how to read the sines (or cosines), but we know there are a lot of ups and downs.

We especially appreciate our loyal fans who think the Newsletter has a lot going for it now, and don't want to lose that. Maybe we should discuss the whole thing at the 1980 ASA ANNUAL MEETING at TAYLOR UNIVERSITY in UPLAND, INDIANA, AUGUST 8-11.
 
Meanwhile, we'd better shape up. We've just seen Volume 1 Number 1 of the Newsletter published by the Toronto CSCA local section, edited by Ken Kosow, and it looks great. We could get by with a little sloppiness when there was nothing to compare us with, but not any more. As one bumper sticker says, "ENTROPY ISN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE."
 
VOLUME 33 NUMBER 6:   DECEMBER 1991/JANUARY 1992
 
“TIME TO REMEMBER”

Between September and November we remembered December, in time for our annual Christmas Greeting to top off 1991. ASA's 50th Anniversary year began with a high-tech war in biblical lands. Then the Iron Curtain rusted through. Rust in Peace. In our 22nd year of editing the Newsletter, the 1991 Annual Meeting brought to mind ASA's unique calling. One plenary speaker reviewed ASA's deep roots in apologetics and evangelism. Another urged us not merely to build, but to be, a bridge between the scientific and Christian communities. For the New Year, we wish you joy in our shared task of witness and reconciliation. Remember: One piece of news from "biblical lands" still counts for more than all our technologies and scientific knowledge behind them. Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, putting us in contact with the Creator of the universe. Greetings in His hopeful name.”  
Walt & Ginny Hearn – December 1991
 
VOLUME 34 NUMBER 2:   APRIL/MAY 1992
 
“THE EDITOR’S LAST WORDS: 20”
 
Editing this Newsletter isn't all fun and games. It's more like fun and names-the names of ASA/CSCA members whose activities we report. Reading about each other keeps us in touch, inspires us, and shows us how other followers of Jesus honor the Lord with their scientific training. Despite illegible handwriting and our own stumble-thumb keyboarding, we try to spell proper names properly. But is it Schaefer, Schaeffer, or Shaeffer? Check the ASA/ICSCA Directory–which lists one of each. Is it Van Der Vermen, Van der Vennen, van der Vermen, vander Vennen, or some other permutation? We keep alert for double-Dutch vowels in names like Klaassen and Maatman, recalling that Dooyeweerd spelled correctly "doo look weerd."
 
We anticipate a rise in our orthographic anxiety index as we report this summer's ASA ANNUAL MEETING in HAWAII. One reader thanked the Weary Old Editor for translating kanaka in the Dec/Jan issue "for the rest of us haoles." The WOE can also throw around lanai, lei, and luau, but gives up on Hawaiian proper names, from King Kamehameha and Queen Liliuokalani on down.” 

VOLUME 35 NUMBER 4:   AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1993
​
“THE OLD EDITOR'S LAST WORDS: 28”

“Editorial deadlines are killers. but their lethal effect on your Weary Old Editor (WOE is me) has been gradual. This tongue-in cheek column probably began as an apology for some foot-in-mouth comment years ago, but I've-forgotten which one.

Mostly I've managed to appreciate all sorts of viewpoints, hoping that others would do unto me the same. To try on that many mind sets, it has helped to read as widely as possible. Professional journalists call that "research" or "deep background." Our Wedded Editor is more apt to refer to it as "goofing off."

Besides standard sources of news and commentary (like Science, American Scientist, The Scientist, Christianity Today, Religion Watch, Zygon, Science & Religion News, I've been known to browse for hours in whatever comes across the desk. It's fun to read accounts of the same "creation/evolution debate" in both ICR's Acts & Facts and NCSE Reports, for example. Tired of such polemics? Pick up the irenic Origins from-Loma Linda's Geoscience Research Institute, or the relatively open-minded ARN Origins Research or the NCSE journal, CreationlEvolution.

For "variety of religious experience," I read things like Radix; Fuller Seminary's Theology, News & Notes; Focus on the Family; CMDS Journal; NAACE's Firmament; Evangelicals Concerned's,  Record; USCWM's Mission Frontiers; even CSICOP's Skeptical Inquirer. To see what we're really up against, try Free Inquiry from the Council for Democratic & Secular Humanism (Summer 1993 theme: "Is Religion a Form of Insanity?").

All kinds of periodicals yield bits of news about ASA/CSCA members, opportunities for Christian service, issues we need to face, and so on. Newsletters, for example. (I'm inordinately fond of newsletters.) My favorites are those of our own members, like that of the Affiliation of Christian Biologists, Martin Price's Echo News, Hugh Ross's Facts & Faith, or the Calvin College Geogram. The "exchanges" will eventually go to the new editor, though he's counting on the rest of us to be his eyes and ears.

I'm already tapering off, dropping some things (American Biology Teacher, Science Scope) and trying to resist trial-subscription-offers. This week I managed to turn down free copies of World Monitor and The Pope Speaks. With freebies, even if you cancel when they send a bill, your name is already on their mailing list and maybe sold to other hungry publishers, so you keep getting more offers. What I'd like to do now is skip the breadth and start reading deeply again-to explore my own viewpoint, you might say.

Maybe I'm hooked. I do expect to keep reading a few radical Christian publications that make me think: Peacework from the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America; The Catholic Agitator from the L.A. Catholic Worker Community; The Plough from the Hutterian Brethren; and of course the New Testament.

What a privilege to edit a Newsletter that so many thinking Christians have included in their reading. WOE is no longer me.” – walt hearn

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Walter R. Hearn grew up in Houston and majored in chemistry at Rice University. He received a Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Illinois in 1951. After doing research for a year at Yale Medical School and for three years at Baylor College of Medicine, he spent 17 years on the biochemistry faculty at Iowa State University. His research interests included peptide chemistry, hypothalamic hormones, and bacterial pigment biosynthesis. 

For five years he was a Visiting Biologist to Colleges for the American Institute of Biological Sciences. He is a Fellow and Life Member of AAAS and an Emeritus member of the American Chemical Society. In 1972 he switched professions and moved to Berkeley to do free-lance editorial work with his wife Virginia. They have edited periodicals and some 200 books, largely for Christian publishers.
 
 Walt joined ASA while he was in grad school and served on the Council in the 1960s. From 1969 to 1993 he edited the ASA newsletter. He was a coauthor of the widely distributed publication, Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy (ASA, 1986) and author of Being a Christian in Science (IVP, 1997). 

He has also contributed chapters to a number of books, the latest being "Creation Matters" in Darwin and the Bible: The Cultural Confrontation (Penguin Academic, 2009), edited by anthropologists Richard Robbins and Mark Cohen. His articles, reviews, and poems have appeared in such publications as Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith and the Berkeley publication Radix, for which Ginny has been copy editor for over 40 years. Walt was once "poetry rejection editor" for Radix magazine. Walt and Ginny have strong IVCF backgrounds, helped to launch New College for Advanced Christian Studies in the 1980s, and are members of Berkeley's First Presbyterian Church.