The SEMI Spring 14.1

T H E S E M I

WHAT IF YOU’RE EVER DONE WITH CHRISTIANITY?

DOUBT S P R I N G 2 0 1 4 . 1

Semi-Coherent

Editor’s Notes

Doubt. Supposedly Christians are terrified of this; the wider world paints pictures of the Church trying to squash and suppress and completely eradicate it. The truth is, all of us doubt sometimes. It’s also true that many of us try to exorcise it from others when it crops up.

So what do we do with it?

Brian Hohmeier, a MAT ’13 grad and pastor, presents a study of why we should have doubt in community and how that should play out.

Aline Gram, a chaplain for students at Fuller, discusses the painful process of deconstruction and reconstruction of belief systems while in seminary—a talk that she already posted on the Quad and is still open for discussion online (quad.fuller.edu).

On a similar tangent, this issue sees the beginning of a series of articles focused on discussing the intersection of theology and science.

Science has been seen by many Christians in the last 200 years as an opponent and destroyer of faith. We think otherwise. The two can and should intertwine, and an interview with Dr. Wilfred Graves, Jr., pastor and mathematician, starts off the conversation of what that looks like.

As a piece of spiritual nourishment, we have also published a Lenten reflection by Reel Spirituality’s Elijah Davidson. Using the monumental film Casablanca as an emotional goad, Elijah takes us through a meditation on Christ’s suffering and betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane.

The film acts as a catalyst to draw us closer to and focus on the Savior.

As always, we hope you enjoy this issue. May it encourage your faith and enlarge your understanding of the God Who is, was, and is to come.

Reed Metcalf, Editor

The SEMI

Managing Editor Carmen Valdés Editor Reed Metcalf Production Editor Jonathan Stoner

Letters to the Editor

The SEMI welcomes brief responses to articles and commentaries on issues relevant to the Fuller community. All submissions must include the author’s name and contact information and are subject to editing.

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Write for Us

You read that correctly. Email us at semi@fuller.edu to add your voice to the SEMI.

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& the Community of

Faith 4

by Brian Hohmeier

I

WAS DELIGHTED WHEN A non-Christian friend asked about the tattoo on my forearm (which reads, Christianus sum), ‘What if you’re ever done with Christianity?’ I was prepared.

‘Then I’ll be confronted every day with the reminder of what would always be true anyway,’ I told him, ‘that I’ve been indelibly marked by a community of faith. I can never erase that fact.’ Like many, I saw a number of close friends in college waver and depart from the faith. It was hard to see them struggle, harder with some than it was perhaps to shoulder my own intermittent doubts, but far more heartbreaking was seeing them withdraw from the life of our worshipping community. I understood why.

I recognized in them my own impulse to isolate from the seemingly fideistic joy in others as it sometimes flickered in and out of intelligibility amid my questions.

I also saw in the culture of our campus Christianity a vein of fundamentalism

nity life, but what seemed most tragic to me was the senselessness of going it alone. I find a fundamental flaw in the belief that one must separate from their worshiping community in order to see their doubts through, and it’s one that we perpetuate insofar as we create no explicit place for exploring difficult questions in the context of communal faith.

To encounter one’s own doubt is like to encounter the rotting planks of Otto Neurath’s ship at sea, and like Neurath one might conceive two options.

THE FIRST, TO RETURN TO DRY dock and reconstruct the whole. So the thought runs, I cannot truly work through my questions and be faithful to my doubts unless I extricate myself from the murkiness of belief. I cannot really question the practice of prayer while praying, cannot interrogate the Scriptures while reading them in devotions, cannot take the sacraments while finding

I FIND A FUNDAMENTAL FLAW IN THE BELIEF THAT ONE MUST SEPARATE FROM THEIR WORSHIPING COMMUNITY IN ORDER TO SEE THEIR DOUBTS THROUGH, AND IT’S ONE THAT WE PERPETUATE INSOFAR AS WE CREATE NO EXPLICIT PLACE FOR EXPLORING DIFFICULT QUESTIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF COMMUNAL FAITH. that was far less compassionate to these questions than they needed, an over-eagerness to propagate answers and to resolve ambiguity, and I was at crucial times just as guilty. However much we wanted to be, we were not an environment in which one could safely embark on a project of doubt—at least not without a certain tenacity we perhaps fail to breed into our Christians, a tenacity which we must breed into our Christianity if it will be a worshiping community of faith and doubt.

THERE WAS A SENSE OF LOSS IN seeing someone pull back from commu-

only stale bread. To practice amid doubt, we could think, is to stifle doubt or to be disingenuous both to doubt and to belief. One seeks the view from nowhere— or, the view from absolutely elsewhere: atheism, perhaps, to live as the atheists live. I must then quit the waters cleanly either to repair or to rebuild my vessel as seaworthy. I must reboot.

THE PROBLEM WITH THE DRY dock is first its impossibility. Such safe harbor is, sadly, chimerical; the view from nowhere is nowhere located. We can no more empty ourselves of our perspective, our culturally and theologically

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formed selves, than a ship can find harbor in the middle of the sea. This should be obvious to us. Nor can we easily erase the mental models and social imaginary cultivated in us by the practices of faith that have engaged us. If we think we can escape the tainted air of our faith community, we can run neither fast nor far enough; we bear its marks in us in the

to work from them as I revise, revise, replace. My experience of worship must be the resource from which I critique and question the practices of worship, of faith. Thus the difference is not between interrogating our beliefs objectively, rigorously, and not at all. It is between setting upon the work alone or in community. More exactly, between using the

WE CAN NO MORE EMPTY OURSELVES OF OUR PERSPECTIVE, OUR CULTURALLY AND THEOLOGICALLY FORMED SELVES, THAN A SHIP CAN FIND HARBOR IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEA... DOUBT IS A PRACTICE DONE IN COMMUNITY. IF I DOUBT ALONE, I DOUBT ALONE IN THE CONTEXT OF A COMMUNITY... way we think about the things we no longer think about and the things we no longer do. How I’ve learned to worship will continue to influence what I think about worship even after I’ve stopped.

How I’ve learned to talk about Gød in community will form the basis for the God I place on trial and the precise atheism that pretends to usurp Gød. Doubt is a practice done in community. If I doubt alone, I doubt alone in the context of a community, as traditioned, as a member of a community.

THE SECOND OPTION IS illustrated by W.V.O. Quine as our normative process of forming knowledge:

“We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.”1 UNABLE TO RETURN TO DOCK, we must rebuild at sea—not hull for hull but plank by plank. I can’t exchange my whole set of beliefs for another but have

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resources of my community in isolation or using the resources of my community in community.

WHAT IS EASILY FORGOTTEN IN the crisis of doubt, for the doubter and for her dismayed community, is the long tradition borne by Christianity. Yet we needn’t reach into Eusebius or to Augustine to find champions of doubt lived out faithfully. Why? Because you, if ever you’ve critically reflected upon your faith, are one. Because I am one. Because a shifting and multifarious 2,000-yearlong performance of narrative would be impossible without a practice of critical reflection to sustain it across time and crisis. The great crises of reformation are but dramatic macrocosms of the banal trials to which the Christian places her faith . To trust that doubt is ubiquitously a part of our history is to lend a minimal credit to our forbearers, to suppose that our questions are not too trenchant or intellectually devastating for them to have dared encounter. To believe otherwise is simply to slight them and the integrity of their faith. It is this critical reevaluation of faith that has led the community of faith, as a community of controlled doubt, to advance its sys-

tems of thought and practice while continually encountering new frontiers of experience and possibility.

FOR THE MATURE CHRISTIAN, departing from the worship community to explore one’s doubts—rather than exploring doubts within the context of community, to explore our doubts—is both needless and irresponsible. But one does not bear the responsibility alone. It is always our responsibility as that community to be one that encourages the exploration of doubt, that provides a

me and external to me, and in all places it is it has been tested by a communion of saints, a great cloud of witnesses to their own doubts, whose faith did not leave them when they placed their own convictions in abeyance, for neither it did not rest with them. To confess with Sanctus of Vienne, ‘Christianus sum,’ is to engage with a fleet: we rebuild our boats together. And whensoever we depart we will be—may we be—haunted by the hand of the sisters and brothers before us in our architecture. Doubt, especially for the Christian, is a communal

TO CONFESS WITH SANCTUS OF VIENNE, ‘CHRISTIANUS SUM,’ IS TO ENGAGE WITH A FLEET: WE REBUILD OUR BOATS TOGETHER.... DOUBT, ESPECIALLY FOR THE CHRISTIAN, IS A COMMUNAL PRACTICE. stable environment in which it can be explored, and that cultivates the tenacity of character that will endure the burden of sitting quietly and reflectively, sometimes alone, while the rest of us recite a liturgy we today believe. It is you, skeptically holding your ground in the rear of the church, whom I will need to walk along side of me when I cease to hear Gød speaking. And your slipping quietly out the back to clear your head robs us— the “us” that contains you—of your part in a dialogue that keeps our kerygma from collapsing into the pure thought that will cease to reach the stranger.

JONATHAN DIAMOND ASKS HIS patients, when challenging them to experiment with periods of sobriety, ‘Are you afraid you’ll forget how to drink?’2 I’ve found myself over the years increasingly liberated to question the tenants and practices of my faith, knowing that it is not so fragile as it might break, that I’ll forget how to practice this faith, for it does not rest with me. It is prior to

practice, and it is the solitary practice of doubt, and not doubt itself, that breaks faith with the community.

Brian Hohmeier (MAT ‘13) is a recreational theologian and bivocational pastor at the Hub Community in Sunland, Calif. A self-described Orthodox Mennongelical and failed gardner, he processes spirituality and ethics at dirtoftheriver. wordpress.com. For a list of things he is currently doubting, Brian can be found scattered across the Internet or at your local coffee shop or alehouse.

1. Otto Neurath, “Protocol Sentences,” in Logical Positivism, ed. A. J. Ayer, trans. George Schick (Chicago : Free Press, 1959), 201.

2. Jonathan Diamond, Narrative Means to Sober Ends: Treating Addiction and Its Aftermath (New York: Guilford Press, 2012).

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D O U B T D E ) C O N S T RU C T I O N

LER

at FUL

BY AM GR INE AL

R E ( C O N S T R U C T I O N

W

E SEMINARIANS ARE SOMEtimes no strangers to doubt, especially as it relates to that seminary experience called “deconstruction.” Yet, what this fancier, academic term means in comparison to the simpler, “doubt,” may be as particular as the seminarian experiencing it. It can be helpful to tease out the nuances between the intellectual and volitional aspects of belief and faith, whereby belief

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gets designated the more intellectual of the two. Though the person who is experiencing doubt in either faith or belief may have a harder time making these distinctions.

IN A ROUGH PERIOD DURING seminary, I got assigned a “difficult” text in one of my preaching practicums. It was 1 Kings 22:29-38—a gruesome battle scene

in which King Ahab is miraculously killed.

In the follow-up, class discussion, my professor wondered why I had peppered my sermon with so much humor. In particular, she asked a question that was like the arrow that had fatally pierced Kind Ahab’s heart, “Might your humor be a defense against the violence in the passage?” Before I was able to answer, I burst into tears; they betrayed some lingering doubts that I had in both my head and my heart. Though I had recently acquired strategies to begin to piece back together my understanding of the Bible—after all those classes in

THIS SEASON OF LENT MAY BE AN especially fruitful time to expose doubt.

But, in addition to that which needs to be worked through intellectually and that which needs to be healed emotionally, there is also a kind of “doubt” that needs to be turned around, so to speak—where it’s no longer we who interrogate God or scripture, etc. but, rather, scripture interrogates us. This is the kind of doubt that the prophets encouraged with questions like, “To whom then will you liken God or what likeness compare with him? An idol?” That is, in what ways have we fashioned substi-

WHATEVER HELPFUL HERMENEUTICAL LENSES I USED, AT THE LEVEL OF BELIEF THEY CLEARLY HADN’T SUNK THEMSELVES DOWN INTO MY HEART, WHERE HIDDEN FEARS AND DOUBTS ABOUT TRUSTING GOD LAY. which we take it apart—this “reconstruction” still felt shaky. And whatever helpful hermeneutical lenses I used, at the level of belief they clearly hadn’t sunk themselves down into my heart, where hidden fears and doubts about trusting God lay. I was embarrassed that I showed so much raw emotion in class, but in retrospect, my public tears were a blessing. I was surrounded by very loving, sympathetic people who helped me begin to talk through my struggles with both the text and with God—and so begin some healing.

THE ROLE OF DOUBT IN THE LIFE of faith is complex, and sometimes controversial. Should it ever be embraced?

Staunchly guarded against? My own feeling is that, at minimum, doubt needs to be exposed. But, this should happen in a safe environment where there is potential for growth in both intellectual and emotional aspects of belief and faith. So I encourage all of us to seek out a community of loving, sympathetic people who can help us when we need it.

tutes for God—or even, fashioned our conceptions of God after these substitutes? It is these substitutions we ought to doubt.

BUT, AGAIN IT IS BEST TO DO THIS work in community, because the healing that we need in response to this kind of doubt requires forgiveness—the forgiveness that is shown in fullness in the events we remember in worship this time of year.

So, for this Lent, and beyond, may our belief in this forgiveness sink ever deeper into our hearts, so that we can truly have the freedom to walk by faith and not by sight.

ALINE GRAM is a Chaplain at Fuller Seminary. She can be reached along with the other Pastoral Care Team members at pastoralcareteam@fuller.edu. The Chaplains at Fuller are available to support you in your spiritual growth through prayer, pastoral care, and spiritual formation opportunities. Students often meet with a chaplain for pastoral care and prayer related to vocational discernment, challenges in relationships, spiritual questions and concerns, academic stress, or referral to a spiritual director or therapist.

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Betrayal &

CASABLANCA

By Elijah Davidson

REEL SPIRITUALITY presents

“P L AY IT AG A I N, SAM” LE NT E N MOV IE RE F LE C TIO N S

D

uring LENT this year, Reel Spirituality started a project that was meant to help us focus on the STATIONS OF THE CROSS and prepare our hearts for HOLY WEEK. The plan is simple yet ingenious: read and reflect on a passage of SCRIPTURE, watch a movie to help generate the emotions presented in the Scriptural text, and reflect on the SCRIPTURE through the eyes of the emotions found in the movie. The catch is that you cannot finish the movie; part of LENT is the waiting, the uncomfortableness, the lack of resolution. We have printed one of Reel Spirituality's Lenten Reflections below. Immerse yourself in LENT via the movie and the SCRIPTURE, and in doing so, may your mind be turned towards THE CROSS and the one who bore it for our salvation. -RM

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S C R I P T U R E I N T E R P R E T AT I O N THE FOLLOWING IS AN INTERPRETATION OF MATTHEW 26:36-41 AND MARK 14:43-46 to bring out the themes being discussed. Quotes are taken from the CEB translation.

“I am so sad. It is as if I am dying.”

ALL OF US WILL DIE. OUR DEATHS ARE SURE, BUT VERY FEW OF US WILL see them coming. Death will sneak up and snatch us away from this life. Jesus, on the other hand, isn’t caught off guard. Jesus knows the time has come for his death. He sees it. He feels it. He is grieved. Jesus mourns. He mourns his own death.

HE WOULD AVOID IT IF HE COULD. HE BEGS HIS FATHER TO SPARE HIM from death. Like a death row inmate writing letters to the President again and again, Jesus asks God to grant him clemency. Jesus’ Father is silent. God refuses to let Jesus escape his impending demise. Jesus submits himself to his Father’s will.

JESUS’ FRIENDS PROVE UNHELPFUL TO HIM AS WELL. IN HIS GRIEF, JESUS asks them to sit awake with him to pray for their salvation, for Jesus’ salvation, that they all might be spared what’s coming. Jesus needs them that night in the garden as he has never perhaps needed them before, and they each fail him. The disciples fall asleep. Jesus knows they want to do well, but wanting isn’t doing. In the moment when he most needs them to be strong, they are weak.

FINALLY THE MOMENT JESUS HAS BEEN DREADING ARRIVES. A MOB brandishing swords and clubs emerges from the darkness. They are led by one of Jesus’ own. Judas, signaling to the mob that this is Jesus, says ironically, for certainly Judas did not learn from Christ what Christ most tried to teach, “Teacher!” and kisses Christ on the cheek.

CHRIST IS BETRAYED FIRST BY HIS FATHER WHO WILL NOT ALLOW HIM to escape death. Christ is betrayed also by his friends who cannot stay awake in Jesus’ hour of need. Christ is betrayed finally by Judas who hands him over to be killed.

THEMATIC REFLECTION OUR FOCUS THIS WEEK OF LENT IS ON BETRAYAL. BETRAYAL—EXPECTING and wanting a good thing, but finding something bad instead—is at the heart of everything we focus on throughout Lent and peripatetically (twist!) on Easter morning when the bad we have come to expect is overtaken by great good instead.

AS WE SEE IN THE GETHSEMANE NARRATIVE, JESUS WANTS GOOD THINGS from everyone in his life and finds something else instead. He wants reprieve from his Father. God is silent. He wants steadfastness from his disciples. They fall

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asleep. He wants loyalty from Judas. Judas hands him over to the mob. Christ is betrayed repeatedly.

CASABLANCA IS A GREAT FILM FOR THESE CINEMA-INSPIRED, LENTEN reflections. The film is in many ways the most movie-ish of movies. It’s classic in the most Classic sense—filmed on a soundstage, “invisibly” directed by Michael Curtiz, shot in two weeks and quickly released—as pure a product of film industry as we have.

Here’s

Looking at you, Kid AND YET, CASABLANCA, WHILE STEREOTYPICAL IN EVERY ASPECT OF ITS production, is atypical in its effect. Casablanca is constantly listed among the greatest films of all time, because it is such a great story full of characters with relationships more vibrant and complicated than most. Other movies shine like streetlights, illuminating but cold. Casablanca crackles like a campfire.

CAS A B LA NC A IS P A R TI C U L AR L Y P ER TI N E N T TO L E N T A S W E L L , because its narrative is built upon and carried along by betrayals. As you watch the film, note the betrayals. Some are bold. You won’t miss them. They are the story. Others are subtle. For instance, how is Sam playing “As Time Goes By” a kind of betrayal?

AS THE STORY GOES ON, RICK, OUR RELUCTANT HERO, SPINS AN EVER more complicated web of betrayals to get what he wants. He is a cynical, self-serving man. He doesn’t “stick his neck out” for anyone, because no one has ever stuck their neck out for him. Everyone he has ever loved has betrayed his trust.

Watch Casablanca. Stop the film at 1:34:49, right after Louis says, “That is my least vulnerable spot.” (You’ll watch the rest of the film on Easter.) After watching the film, read the rest of the reflection and answer the questions.

FURTHER REFLECTION AND QUESTIONS RICK HAS CERTAINLY MANIPULATED THINGS TO WORK IN HIS FAVOR, hasn’t he? Of course, he’s had to lie to and betray everyone in his life to get what he wants, but at least he’s getting it. He betrayed Ugarte to the authorities, Yvonne

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to other men, Victor to Louis, and Louis to the Germans. Along the way, Rick has also been terrible to Ilsa, betraying the love they once shared and forcing her to betray her husband.

OTHER CHARACTERS BETRAY EACH OTHER AS WELL. ILSA BETRAYED RICK long ago when they were in Paris. Sam betrays Rick when he plays “As Time Goes By” even though Rick asked him not to ever do that. Louis betrays his German superiors by allowing Rick the chance to escape. Even the conflict between the Vichy and Free France political groups is built on an accused betrayal - the Vichy government betrayed their country by siding with the German occupants. No one in Casablanca, with the exception of Victor Laslo, the film’s paragon of virtue, is trustworthy.

LOVE IS BUILT ON TRUST. IT DEPENDS UPON IT. EVERY TIME WE FAIL TO love someone, we betray that trust. We may never do anything as dramatic as handing a friend over to a murderous mob or leaving a lover standing forlornly on a rain-soaked train platform, but we betray each other nonetheless. Anytime we don’t do what we say we’ll do or anytime we do what we say we won’t, we betray.

RECALL THE WAYS YOU HAVE BETRAYED THE PEOPLE YOU CLAIM TO LOVE. Recall the ways you have betrayed God. Confess your betrayals to one another.

1) When have you, like the disciples and like Rick, betrayed someone you are meant to love?

2) When have you, like Judas, betrayed God? ALSO, RECALL THE TIMES YOU HAVE BEEN BETRAYED. THINK ABOUT WAYS people who supposedly love you have let you down. Remember the times life has let you down. Perhaps even God hasn’t been there for you as you expected when you expected. Don’t wallow in self-pity or lash out at people who care about you like Rick does the evening after Ilsa shows back up. Do as Christ does in the garden. Sit with the betrayal you have experienced, and mourn it.

1) When have you, like Jesus and like Rick, been betrayed by someone you expected to love you?

2) Have you ever, like Jesus, felt betrayed by God? NOW, DO AS CHRIST DID AND AS RICK NEEDS TO DO - MAKE YOURSELF submissive to God’s will. Trust God to fulfill God’s promises and be good to you in time. Turn and face your betrayers peacefully. Know the story isn’t over yet. Pray, “Let your will be done, God. Let your will be done.”

Elijah Davidson is a fifth year student of Intercultural Studies and Theology and Art at Fuller Theological Seminary.

His favorite stories have always been told cinematically. He works as the Editor of the entire Brehm Center website.

He and his wife, Krista, an elemetary school teacher, live in San Diego where they are daily seeking out creative ways to live out their faith amongst the diverse suburban community on the border between Mexico and the United States.

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at the Intersection of

Science ✚ Faith Part 1: Dr. Wilfred Graves, Jr. on Mathematics, Theology, & Faith Seeking Scientific Understanding

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR I grew up in a home with a literature professor for a mother and a writer for a father. We all read anything and everything we could get our hands on, and a huge part of my learning to read was about understanding and working with different genres of lit. It was thus no problem for me to read Genesis and Darwin, holding both as true. Though they differed in genre, they were both stories of human origin.

I was perfectly willing to understand God as the master, creator, and sustainer of the universe, with evolution as a method he used when creating the world.

Upon leaving high school, however, I ran into fundamentalist thought for the first time. I was told to choose one or the other; God and science could not coexist. My faith was almost destroyed. Having to choose between what I could lay my hands on, what I could see with my own eyes, and that which I could not see? The choice seemed obvious.

Praise God for a man named Paul Hunt, my high school biology teacher, a practicing Roman Catholic.

He saved my faith one autumn afternoon, when an unextraordinary college freshman walked into his classroom with red eyes, a breaking heart, and many questions. Since that day, I have been an opponent to those who present a false dichotomy between science and faith.

Now, at the completion of my time at Fuller, I feel that I can become instead a proponent of their intersection, helping offer insights into how the two can and should work together. This is still an important issue in the church today; the Ken Ham Creation Museum or the Peter Enns-Westminster Seminary controversy are perfect examples of how this issue has not disappeared. Christians need not be afraid of science, and hopefully we can get to a point where scientists are not afraid of Christians. The SEMI will run several pieces throughout the spring quarter that focus on this end. Where science and faith intersect, we hope the conversation will strengthen our faith, enlarge our understandings of the unchanging Creator, and create a space where all feel safe, welcomed, and heard.

-Reed Metcalf, Editor

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Dr. Wilfred Graves, Jr. is a pastor, professor, and author based in Los Angeles. After earning a B.S. in Mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was awarded a fellowship to the PhD program in Statistics at Stanford University. He eventually left the Stanford program with an M.S. in Statistics to earn his MDiv and eventually PhD in Historical Theology from Fuller. While at Fuller, he worked as an aerospace engineer. I caught up with Dr. Graves after he preached at chapel, and he agreed to an interview to discuss his own experiences of having feet in the two worlds of theology and science.

Reed Metcalf: You noted in your sermon that you received the call at a very young age. Why did you go on to pursue mathematics at MIT and statistics at Stanford?

Wilfred Graves: I was always a good student—I was valedictorian in high school—and I particularly loved math. I sensed God’s presence and movement in my life from a very young age, but I never saw a conflict between my love for God and my love for math. When it came time for college, math was the natural and obvious fit for me. As I kept moving along, though, climaxing in the PhD program at Stanford, the calling of God on my life be-

came so great that I came to a crisis of deciding where I wanted to spend my intellectual energy for the rest of my life. Did I want to be a professor of mathematics?

Did I want to be more directly involved in the ministry of God and the service of his people (not that He couldn’t use me in math and science)? But the calling was so great that I realized I needed to follow this calling with perfect fidelity. I applied to Fuller Seminary. There’s a lot that I am leaving out, but that overwhelming sense of calling drove me to choose ministry over math. I didn’t give up math—I worked as an aerospace engineer while at Fuller—but it was no longer primary.

Ministry was.

*Still of Charles Darwin (Paul Bettany) and a primate in the 2009 movie Creation.

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R M : While at MIT and Stanford, how (or did) you see your faith interacting with what you were studying?

W G : Of course, going to MIT and Stanford presented a lot of challenges. I was from the South, and both my parents were ministers. I was steeped in the church. As you might imagine, the world of MIT was far different from the world of Sunday School. I met a lot of atheists, secular humanists, pluralists…. But I don’t want to paint a picture of a world that was wholly hostile to my faith either. It was just a much broader world. I found that my faith was actually strengthened in that context. I drew on the strength I had in the Lord, I studied hard, and I did well. I thought to myself, “Well, I can actually be intelligent and be a Christian at the same time.” I graduated within the top ten of

a much broader world. I never found a conflict with my faith in all my studies, I just began to think about it in different ways. None of the science I encountered contradicted it. On the contrary, it was a positive thing for me to encounter so many people with such different experiences.

Interestingly enough, when I worked for Northrop Grumman as an aerospace engineer, many of the people I encountered there were strong Christians. I think you might find that to be more common across mathematics and engineering than in some of the other sciences—I would have to look at the statistics—but we also had a unique situation. We had a Bible study twice a week at Northrop Grumman; my mentor was both a physicist and a strong Christian. It was fascinating,

The majority of CHRISTIAN scholars in the Middle Ages, though, didn’t believe in a flat earth—they believed in a round earth. The top SCIENTISTS and intellectuals of the day were educated by and operated in the CHURCH. So we have this rewriting of history to try and get the sensationalized dichotomy that we see often portrayed in the media. my class, got the fellowship to Stanford, and continued to do well. I found I didn’t have to lay aside my faith in that context, but instead lean on it while in my studies.

Now when I came to Fuller, I was in a context that was, obviously, far less hostile to my faith than MIT or Stanford, but it was still different. Not everybody interpreted the bible the same way I did. Some were more politically or theologically liberal than I was, people worshipped God in different ways than I did…. It was, again,

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and my faith was definitely stretched and strengthened instead of broken.

R M: Is the scientific community really as atheistic and religiously-antagonistic as many of us have been led to believe?

WG : Good questions. As I see it, there are four ways of viewing the relationship between science and religion. The first is that the two are in conflict; this image gets sensationalized a lot in the media,

and much of it is based on some seriously flawed understandings of Christian history. You hear things like, “All Christians in the Middle ages believed in a flat earth.”

The majority of Christian scholars in the Middle Ages, though, didn’t believe in a flat earth—they believed in a round earth.

The top scientists and intellectuals of the day were educated by and operated in the church. So we have this rewriting of history to try and get the sensationalized dichotomy that we see often portrayed in the media. We also see a lot of polls—sta-

model or an integration model. In my own experience, I don’t see as big of a hostile climate as some would imagine. I certainly didn’t encounter overwhelming hostility in my environments. Is hostility out there? Yes, in pockets. Yes, we have some very vocal atheists who enjoy antagonism and ridicule. But the growing trend that I have seen is that more and more scientists don’t see science and faith as mutually exclusive. Doctors and mathematicians are still more likely than other groups of scientists to embrace belief. I think, though,

Yes, we have some very vocal ATHEISTS who enjoy antagonism and ridicule. But the growing trend that I have seen is that more and more SCIENTISTS don’t see SCIENCE and FAITH as mutually exclusive. tistics about who believes what, and these tend to bolster the idea that there is a conflict between science and faith. But I am a statistician, so I am very careful about these sort of things; when you dig a little deeper, you see the other factors that play into the equation: how those questioned were raised, their characteristics, that sort of thing. It might drive them to science, but science is not the reason they don’t believe in the first place. All things considered, the conflict model doesn’t help me sort out the two of them.

Another model: the two are independent. Science tells you about the physical world, faith about the metaphysical. I think this leaves out historical concerns: many people have been driven to appreciate God more as they study science, and vice versa; because God created the universe, let’s explore it via science. The independence model doesn’t consider these motivators.

I am much more in favor of a dialogue

that the media is still playing a big part in creating a specter of warfare. In reality, the situation is much more tame than we typically think.

R M: When they found out you were working as an aerospace engineer, did you have professors or fellow students ask you, “What on earth are you doing at Fuller?”

WG: You know, when I came here, I thought I would be odd, but I discovered doctors, lawyers, businesswomen—people from so many different spheres of society—and when I did, I felt much more at home and much less odd. Maybe not everybody shared my own background, but I came away with the conviction that God calls people from anywhere and everywhere to serve his purposes and ministries.

I have found that my math background actually helps my theology significantly.

In math, I start with a true premise. Other

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facts are then brought in to my thinking, and those combine to leads me to a certain conclusion. It’s very much based on mathematical processes. That’s basically how I write my sermons. My approach isn’t the only approach, of course, but I think it resounds with many people. We

start from false premises in either the science camp or the faith camp. I think it is important to communicate to our congregations, though, that both books really do have the same author.

After that, I think it is important to push for open-mindedness. For instance, we all

We are in a world that GOD has created. GOD has written this book of nature that we are reading.

The scientist’s pursuit is just one to enrich knowledge; if we start from that place, we understand it as a search for truth. If we believe the BIBLE is the Word of GOD, we are also pursuing truth there. think about some fundamentals, wrestle with them, bring in additional data, and come to a conclusion. Hopefully, my people’s faith is stronger at the end of that process.

RM: How do you communicate to your congregation and students—since many of us buy into the model that the media feeds us—that science and faith are not diametrically opposed? How can the rest of us help move our congregations to a healthier understanding of not being afraid of science?

WG: Yeah, big issues. Well, we are in a world that God has created. God has written this book of nature that we are reading. The scientist’s pursuit is just one to enrich knowledge; if we start from that place, we understand it as a search for truth. If we believe the Bible is the Word of God, we are also pursuing truth there. If we believe that the same author produced both books, then they really shouldn’t conflict. If they do conflict, maybe it’s just your interpretation of the data. It is a two-edged sword; you can

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understand that the earth revolves around the sun, not vice versa. But if Ecclesiastes talks about “the rising of the sun,” we don’t conclude today that the science is wrong and that the earth doesn’t revolve around the sun because the text says the sun “rises.” We instead understand that the text is speaking from the vantage point of an observer on earth, and we understand the idiom. There doesn’t need to be a conflict.

Of course, there were conflicts in history.

People think about Galileo. Supposedly Ptolemy’s geocentric view of the cosmos was embraced pretty adamantly, and Galileo got himself in hot water for adopting Copernicus’s view of heliocentrism. Even that story, though, is clouded by misinformation. Everybody involved in the debate was a part of the Church; it wasn’t secularists versus religious. Galileo’s attitude probably was part of what got him in trouble; I understand he remarked something along the lines of, “The Holy Spirit tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.” You know, he was being antiestablishment in many ways,

but the history is that Galileo’s findings riled other scientists. They went to the Church and said, “He’s challenging science!” and then the Church got involved and said, “Wait a minute—what is going on here?”

RM: Ah, so it was much more about the Church adjudicating between groups of scientists?

WG: Absolutely! It wasn’t some fight between enlightened scientists and dark-minded dogmatists, but that is how it gets construed. So when I talk to congregations, I try to show how there is histor-

ognize the pejorative language often used in demythologizing projects, where some say, “Because we can’t replicate this with science, it can’t be true.” Well, miracles fall outside the realm of science. If an all-powerful God accelerates a process or suspends some principle that we have typically held as scientific law—what we would call a miracle—science can’t speak to that. Both sides need to be honest to that.

Faith can also speak to science. Religion informs our ethics and our scientific ethics, because science without a set of morals can be horrific; one needs only think

But we can be honest that SCIENCE can flow out of faith. GOD’s voice from Job—“Prove to me—test all things—examine me”—these are scientific principles.

It’s okay to let our FAITH lead us to SCIENCE. ically not a fight between the church and science. In fact, much of the best science at the start of the Scientific Revolution originated from the church and its emphasis on education and reflecting on the world that God has created.

I also like to remind us that science and theology help each other. As we learn more about science, it helps us better interpret texts. For instance, Genesis: we have such short statements about the creation account. Science helps fill in the gaps. I put that before the congregation: “This is all the text says here. Now how much are we inferring?” Finding those distinctions are often helpful. I also point out how much science and the scientific method have helped us thus far—what archaeology, geology, anthropology have contributed to historical criticism, for instance.

On the other hand, we do need to rec-

about Nazi Germany’s experiments at the concentration camps. Religion helps creates and inform boundaries for scientific inquiry.

But we can be honest that science can flow out of faith. God’s voice from Job— “Prove to me—test all things—examine me”—these are scientific principles. It’s okay to let our faith lead us to science.

Dr. Wilfred Graves

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Hey, Fuller!

Chinese Worldview Today Seminar

Strong Marriages/ Successful Ministries

June 21-July 9, 2014 in Beijing and Xian, China

SPRING GROUPS NOW OPEN!

Spend two weeks learning the teachings, history and development of China’s main religious and philosophical traditions. Learn how these traditions and Marxism influence Chinese thought and society today. This course is taught by a combination of Chinese and North American faculty and visits major historical sites in Beijing and Xian to learn both inside and outside the classroom. Credit available through Denver Seminary.

Enrollment is open for the Strong Marriages/Successful Ministries groups for the Spring 2014 Quarter.

Strong Marriages/Successful Ministries is a small group psycho-educational opportunity to enhance your marriage. Groups meet one evening per week for 9 weeks starting week two of the Spring quarter (week of April 7).

SEMINAR FACILITATORS: Dr. Diane Obenchain, Professor of World Religions, Calvin College and Dr. Kevin (Xiyi) Yao, Professor of World Christianity and Asian Studies, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

The groups fill up quickly as there are only four couples in each group.

Groups are filled on a first come, first serve basis. Receipt of payment will reserve your spot in the group. Total cost is $40 per couple. Contact Melinda Talley at melindatalley@fuller.edu to sign up.

NEW FOR 2014: Students will be paired with a graduate student with a religious studies major from Minzu University of China in Beijing for discussion and cultural exchange outside the classroom.

PROGRAM COST: $1850 – includes tuition, housing, visa, activities, Xian trip and insurance. Food is on your own (about $100). International travel not included. Partial scholarships may be available for seminarians or fulltime ministry workers. Scholarship deadline: 4/1/2014 TEACHING OPPORTUNITY: After the course, participants have the option to extend their time in China and do ministry by teaching English.

For information and application, email errc@errchina.com

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Spring quarter Strong Marriages/Successful Ministries groups:

MONDAYS 7-8:30PM Led by Sharon Hargrave TUESDAYS 6:30–8PM Korean-speaking group led by Sarah Jin TUESDAYS 7–8:30PM Led by Rick Jackson

CHECK THIS OUT! Field Ed Announcements pt. 1 Orientation to Theological Reflection - Spring 2014 FE501 and FE533 students are required to attend the Field Education: Orientation to Theological Reflection in their “A” Quarter of their internship. All FE500 students are required to attend during the quarter they are doing their practicum.

This Spring 2014, Field Education will hold one session: FRIDAY, APRIL 4TH, 2014 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm Payton Geneva Room

Field Education Announcements pt. 2 CHAPLAINCY INTERNSHIPS SUMMER 2014!

The following hospital and hospice chaplaincy internships* are being offered during the Summer Quarter of 2014.

Two-unit FE546 Hospital Chaplaincy internships are being offered at Glendale Adventist in Glendale, St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Children's Hospital of Orange County and Providence Holy Cross in Mission Hills.

Two-unit FE548 Hospice Chaplaincy internships are being offered through Roze Room Hospice and Mission Hospice.

These courses emphasize spiritual care training in a hospital or hospice setting. Students will learn how to be present to patients and/or their families during a crisis, as well as the preliminary steps in performing a spiritual care assessment.

Before registering for a chaplaincy course, interns must be interviewed and accepted by the prospective hospital or hospice chaplain. Start the process early! Depending on the site, the approval process can take from 3 to 8 weeks. *These are not CPE internships. If you are looking for CPE internships, you may find that information on our Field Education website.

Contact FEMF at 626-584-5387 or fielded@fuller.edu for more information.

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