Faith and Science

William D. Underwood

November 2006

I.

Andrew Sullivan published an insightful opinion piece in a recent issue of Time magazine in which he decries a “secular-fundamentalist death spiral” that he sees as a threat to our very civilization.^[1]  From every faith tradition, we are today confronted with people of faith who express complete certainty that God has spoken to them, that they know the will of God, and that it is God’s will that they smite their enemies.

·           An Iranian president and Islamic fundamentalist, certain that it is “God’s will that Israel be wiped out from the map of the world.”

·           A prominent Baptist fundamentalist and television personality, equally certain that God struck down Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon because he dared to withdraw Israeli troops from Gaza and thus “was dividing God’s land.”

·           A Jewish fundamentalist who slaughtered Israeli prime minister Itzhak Rabin, certain that it was God’s will and that he was acting “for the glory of God.”

·           A prominent Muslim fundamentalist, certain that the religious extremists who brought about the tragedy of 9/11 were carrying out God’s revenge against America for opposing Allah. 

·           Two prominent Baptist fundamentalists, equally certain that 9/11 was God’s revenge against America for adopting the agenda “of the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists and the gays and lesbians.”

·           A Baptist fundamentalist who called for the assassination of a foreign president, and who confidently warned citizens of a community in Pennsylvania that disaster could strike their community because they had opposed the will of God by voting for the wrong candidate in a local school board election.

This brand of faith has no humility, no toleration for dialogue, religious diversity, freedom of thought and expression, separation of church and state, or peace.^[2]  With a theology rooted in fear, these religious fundamentalists are driven to define doctrines that serve as tests of piety, to erect barriers to exclude those who fail to meet their standards, and thus to divide our society into warring camps.

And they are provoking a secular backlash.  Responding to the cold and fury of fundamentalism, many are becoming convinced that religion is the principal problem in our world of unrest.  That religion is responsible for making the world a very dangerous place.  That religion has deepened our cultural divisions.  That religion stands in the way of scientific discovery.  That religion obstructs our search for truth.  Americans, when surveyed, are increasingly expressing the view that Christians have gone too far in trying to impose our views on others.  Karen Armstrong, in her monograph titled The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism, observes that secularists and fundamentalists “seem trapped in an escalating spiral of hostility and recrimination.”^[3]

II.

The same “secular-fundamentalist death spiral” threatens to destroy Baptist higher education.  Faith and science, the church and the university – they are natural allies.  They are our two institutions that care most about ideas, about language, about understanding the world in which we live, and about searching for truth.  Truth-seeking, testing beliefs with tough-minded questions and arguments is a deeply Christian enterprise.^[4]  

That is what our best Christian universities are all about.  We are places where our future leaders learn how to search for truth through a robust exchange of competing ideas.  Christian universities have a distinct advantage over government schools as forums for this robust exchange of ideas – an advantage under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which mandates that any discussion of religion and theology at government schools must be from a neutral and secular perspective.  Studying religion and theology under this restriction is like eating ice cream without the cream.  The richness, the flavor, the texture is lacking. 

We can have the cream at our Christian universities.  There are no external legal restrictions on our freedom of academic inquiry.  We are free to explore the life and teachings of Jesus and to examine how those teachings impact issues across the academic spectrum.  This is the promise and the privilege of Christian universities.  Among Christian universities, those sponsored by Baptists should be the most free – should have the most vibrant search for truth.  We have no pronouncements by the organized Church to limit our exchange of ideas.  We have no denominational creeds to restrict our truth-seeking.  What Baptist universities have instead is the historical and theological commitment of Baptists to individual freedom of thought and expression.     

This has been the exciting promise of Baptist higher education.  Our finest Baptist universities have walked side by side with the church in searching for truth. This walk has not always been easy.  Those within our universities have sometimes been irresponsible in exercising their freedom.  And our churches have sometimes sought to shackle our universities when science challenges our existing views on matters of faith.  But despite these challenges, the alliance between faith and science, between the church and the university, has deepened our understanding of God’s truth.

Nonetheless, many Baptist denominational leaders have chosen to pit their faith against science and thus our churches against our universities.  By confusing theological truth, as revealed in the scriptures, with scientific truth, as revealed in God’s creation, they have created a caricature of both faith and science.^[5]   Embracing a false certainty rather than an open search for truth, they reject any idea inconsistent with their dogma.  Rather than Christian higher education being about an ongoing search for truth and discovery, to them it is about indoctrination.  As one Southern Baptist denominational leader explained, if we say pickles have souls, our schools “must teach that pickles have souls.” 

They have put our Baptist universities to a choice.  Submit to fundamentalist control and thereby forfeit any legitimate claim to the title of “university.”  Or walk away. Forced to this choice, we have seen one flagship Baptist university after another walk away from the church and toward secularism in order to preserve its academic integrity.  Brown University was founded by Baptists in 1764 and stood tall for over 150 years as the leading Baptist university in the world.  Confronted by Northern Baptist fundamentalists who coalesced to form the Baptist Bible Union, Brown chose to walk away from the Baptist church in the 1920s.^[6]  Like Brown, the University of Chicago was founded by Baptists and emerged as a leading Baptist center of learning, until confronted by these same Northern Baptist fundamentalists.  Chicago changed its charter to protect the university from fundamentalist control, eliminated the requirement that the school’s president be Baptist, and eventually walked away from the church altogether.^[7]  The more recent outbreak of fundamentalism among Baptists in the South has led one Baptist university after another toward the path of Brown and Chicago.  Rather than the church and university joining together in a search for God’s truth, we are seeing a growing divide between faith and science. 

III.

This fundamentalist-secular divide leaves many of us stuck together in the middle – moderate Christians, Muslims, and Jews.  Sullivan rightly suggests that those of us in the middle hold the key to escape from this “secular-fundamentalist death spiral.”^[8]  We are the hope for a new morning, a new day, a new way.  A way that will be led by people of faith not threatened by the mystery of faith and who understand that for now we can only see through a glass darkly; people of faith who embrace reason and science  as God’s gifts to aid us in our search for truth;  people of faith who honor the Lord’s commandment that we love God with all of our hearts, and all of our souls, and also love Him with all of our minds;  people of faith who see God in distant places and understand that God is not the enemy of the Muslim and the friend of the Christian, or the friend of the Muslim and the enemy of the Jew.  A new way that will be led by  people of faith who have learned from the life and the teachings of Jesus that someone is not a follower of Christ because he agrees to believe some particular set of dogmas.  Rather, a Christian is a Christian because of the way he lives his life.  He loves and forgives his neighbor.  And listens, and prays, and contemplates.  And understands that there are many things that we cannot fully grasp.

There is a new way.  But only if those of us in the middle become energized – only if we become passionate about bringing our faith to bear upon the world – only if we succeed in becoming a new Christian witness to the world.  Let me suggest that being moderate is not the same as being passive.  I can tell you what our fundamentalist brothers and sisters are passionate about.  And some of those things we ought to be passionate about as well.  I can tell you how they are bringing their faith to bear on the world.  What are we passionate about?  How are we shaping the world?  In honoring the Lord’s commandment that we love our neighbor, at one time Christians fought against the injustice of slavery, and later the injustice of ignorance in our fight for universal education, and later against the shameless exploitation of children through child labor. 

Is there any injustice today that requires our attention? Rather than declaring a war on science, perhaps by honoring the values communicated by the life and teachings of Jesus, we Christians should declare a war on poverty.  Today, the average annual income per person in the world’s poorest nations is only $211.  More than half the world’s people live on less than $2 a day.  Millions of people are on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa.  When Jesus one day says to us, I was hungry, and you had been blessed with an abundance, but you didn’t feed me, what will we say?  Perhaps by honoring the values communicated by the life and teachings of Jesus, we Christians should declare a war on disease.  Every month, more than 100,000 people in the world die of malaria and another 200,000 die of AIDS.  When Jesus one day says to us, I was sick, and you had been blessed with an abundance, but you didn’t care for me, what will we say?

There is much to be done.  And by getting on with the task, we can begin to provide a new way out of Sullivan’s “secular-fundamentalist death spiral.”  We can become a new Christian witness to the world.  But we need to care – and to care enough to act.  Mercer intends to be a part of this new way. Rather than Mercer walking away from the churches, it is the Georgia Baptist Convention that has walked away from the university.  We are committed to the path of Christian higher education.  We are committed to being a Baptist place.  We Baptists need a place that embraces freedom of inquiry, and that is also committed to authentic spiritual development.  We need a place where our next generation of leaders can learn to use their gifts and talents in service of their fellow man – who will use their gifts and talents to answer the call of Christ to feed the hungry and care for the sick.

While the Georgia Baptist Convention has walked away, many individual Baptists and congregations are committed to continuing to walk with us.  We are finding new ways to enrich our relationship with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.  And new partners from across the country are joining with us as well.  The American Baptist Churches, USA, Buckner Baptist Benevolences, and the Lott Carey Baptist Mission Convention are partnering with us to provide summer mission opportunities for our students in places like Kenya, Brazil, Guatemala, and Zimbabwe. 

Mercer is truly a gift too good to keep to ourselves here in Georgia.  Mercer needs to become to Baptists what Notre Dame is to Catholics.  To accomplish this, we will need Baptists to care passionately about having an authentic Baptist university.  There are many questions that will be answered in the years ahead as we seek this new way.  Will Baptists give us their prayers?  Will Baptists send gifted young people to study and grow with us?  Will Baptists provide scholarships to help Baptist young people in need continue to enroll at Mercer?  We will learn whether Baptists care enough to help us make this new way.