Thought for Today
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth,
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness
Mark 1:17 And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people."
2 Peter 1:16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.
My internet feed home page is one of the online news feeds. Recently, I have noticed a suggested link on that home page to an article purporting to offer the ‘real’ reasons why so many of our young people are not coming to church. I regularly receive communications from both the denominations I serve offering books and seminars on how to get young people to come to church. Some of the suggested reasons and some of the resources offered are interesting, some are even ideas for avenues we might wish to pursue. But, I believe the deeper reason why so many churches have so many empty pews is much deeper, more fundamental and complex.
First, we live in what is sometimes called a ‘post-modern’ world. Ours is a world shaped and developed by the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Our age is sometimes referred to as the Electronic Age, the Digital Age and even the Age of Technology. My generation has witnessed amazing advancements in technology; and, I believe, the rate of change of technology is increasing. I love to think about what future generations might have available to make life easier and more entertaining.
Science and technology have long had a troubled relationship. That is puzzling in the sense that so many of the forefathers of our modern technology were both scientists and theologians. Da Vinci, Galileo, Leibniz and Newton were all scientists and all were closely allied with the Church. But, even for them, the relationship sometimes proved fraught with problems. At times, church doctrine was in conflict with scientific discoveries.
Over the centuries, we have developed the idea that somehow, science and religion are and must always be in conflict. Many believe that they cannot be reconciled. Yet, I found in my own career that the majority of engineers with whom I worked for 40+ years were people of faith, Christians, Jews or Moslems. To be an engineer, one must study and understand math and science; one must deal with science and math almost continuously.
I have come to the conclusion that religion and science are only in conflict when one attempts to use one of them to answer the fundamental questions and issues addressed by the other. It is rarely, if ever, noted that science and religion each address different questions.
Science and engineering deal with questions like ‘how does this work?’ or, ‘how can I use this to make life easier?’ I wrote recently “we have truly learned a great deal about manipulating the basic forces of nature. We have to some extent tamed wind and fire; we certainly know a great deal about the use of electricity and magnetism to enhance our quality of life.” We have learned all of that through science and engineering.
I have a computer program installed on the computer I use to prepare and share these Thoughts each day. That program, employing some of what we have learned about manipulating all of those forces, allows me to search various translations of the Bible, in multiple languages including Greek and Hebrew. It allows me to do word searches, to find how often and where specific words are used in the Bible. It offers me multiple commentaries; it offers me multiple lexicons on Greek and Hebrew. And, interestingly, my particular program is so old now that it is no longer supported by the developer. Science and engineering have done a marvelous job of answering the basic questions in this field of endeavor which science and engineering are equipped to answer.
If I do a word search on ‘science’, on ‘technology’ or ‘mathematics’ using that software, I find that none of those words are used in the Bible. The reason for that is that religion is not about ‘how does this work’ or ‘how can I use this to make life easier.’ The basic questions addressed by our faith are ‘who’ and ‘why.’
The ancient Romans had wonderful technology. They built roads, aqueducts, harbors and other structures, some of which are still standing. Their military employed amazing technology. But the Roman ideas about ‘who’ and ‘why’, the Roman religion, are no longer. The Israel Rome conquered had virtually no technology. But, Judaism and Christianity still thrive. In part, because we answered the important questions. We just need to tell young people about the answers to those important questions.
Stay safe, use the technology, don’t let the technology control you, trust God,
Pastor Ray