The Institute for the Study of Christianity in an Age of Science and Technology (ISCAST) is an Australian organisation dedicated to exploring the interface between science and the Christian faith. Its membership consists of scientists, theologians and professionals with standing in their own fields and a commitment to the Christian faith.

The rapid development of science has left many either to follow blindly where science is taking them or to crawl into a fundamentalist mindset. We argue there is a third way: a dynamic dialogue, critically reviewing both science and religion, allowing each to influence our understanding of the other.

Conference On Science And Christianity

Date: 19 – 21 July 2013

Venue: Tabor Adelaide, South Australia

Keynote presenter: Reverend Doctor David Wilkinson

Topic: “Faith, Hope and Quarks: Scientific and Theological Perspectives on the Future”

Registrations open!

Reverend Doctor David Wilkinson, astrophysicist and Principal of St John’s College, Durham University, UK and author of Christian Eschatology and the Physical Universe (T&T Clark 2010) and many other works on Christianity and Science in today’s world.

For more information visit the ISCAST (Christians in Science & Technology) website here.

If anything has annoyed me and turned me off North American Evangelical Christianity in the last year or so, it has been the staunch refusal of many (if not most) American Evangelicals to speak up and condemn the American obsession with firearms. In fact, because so many American Evangelicals seem so hopelessly deluded in their thinking that to be a ‘Christian’ means to be a right-wing, politically-conservative, libertarian Republican voter, they seem not only unwilling to be a rational voice amidst anachronistic Second Amendment rights madness, but are in a great number of examples completely complicit with the pro-gun lobby. In the NRA’s pocket, you might say. Not surprising really when you see how the same group of American Evangelicals have been so successfully manipulated by the political right.

Hence they seem not to see the irrationality of a world view which virulently opposes the killing of children in the womb, while limply shrugging their collective shoulders about the en masse killing of children in school yards by a madman with a cache of automatic weapons. If there is anything that clearly highlights the mistaken conflation of religious belief with political ideology, it is most certainly this issue.

Pro Life yet also Pro Gun. Fail.

To me, this is not just irrational. It is shameful. Irrational and shameful enough for me to lose almost all respect I had for American Evangelicalism as a worthy representative of 21st Century international Christianity. Here, it takes a secular philosopher like Jeff McMaham to be an uncommon rational philosophical voice in the gun control debate.

Listen to the podcast episode here.

In this interview, Professor Walton discusses approaching the Bible’s creation story from an Ancient Near Eastern perspective and why it is wrong to read Genesis 1 as a scientific text. In my opinion what is represented here is the most sensible, rational and informed manner in which to read and interpret the Genesis Creation Account.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Reverend Michael Dowd is a leading American evolutionary evangelist.

He is the author of the bestselling, bridge-building book, Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World (Viking: 2008, Plume: 2009) which has been endorsed by 6 Nobel laureates and other science luminaries, including noted skeptics, and by religious leaders across the spectrum. He and his wife, Connie Barlow, an acclaimed science writer and gifted evolutionary educator, have spoken to more than 1,600 religious and secular groups—from Catholics to Quakers, to Baptists to Buddhists, to college and university students—since launching their itinerant ministry in April of 2002.

Celebrated by conservatives and liberals alike, and uniquely gifted at building bridges between religious and non-religious people, Michael shares big history, the epic of evolution—humanity’s common creation story—in ways that uplift and expand heart, mind, and soul. His four-fold passion in life is…

1. Showing how an evolutionary understanding of human nature, death, and the trajectory of big history can inspire and empower each of us to live with greater integrity, joy, and zest for life.

2. Helping religious people of all kinds relate to scientific, historic, and cross-cultural evidence as divine revelation.

3. Offering his fellow Christians a way of thinking about physical, biological, and cultural evolution that is “God glorifying, Christ edifying, and scripture honoring.”

4. Evangelizing a sacred, science-based understanding of our inner and outer nature such that people of all backgrounds and beliefs are motivated to cooperate in service of a just, healthy, beautiful, and sustainably life-giving future.

More of Michael Dowd’s story here.

What Is Evolutionary Christianity?

EVOLUTIONARY CHRISTIANITY reflects all forms of Christian faith practiced by those who not only accept but cherish the scientific evidence of a cosmos and Earth billions of years old, in which life forms evolved via natural processes. The thought leaders in the Evolutionary Christianity movement share deep-time eyes and a global heart. All embrace scientific discoveries in meaningful, faith-enriching, life-enhancing ways. In their quest to bridge or integrate traditional wisdom with scientific revelation, Christian evolutionaries place immense value on nurturing fresh and inspiring interpretations of scripture and doctrines that arose in pre-scientific times.

Michael Dowd has interviewed 38 Christian luminaries from nearly every denomination—including Nobel laureates and Templeton Prize-winners. His quest? To learn how they are personally and professionally inspired by what God is revealing today—through science. What quickly became apparent was that, regardless of theological or liturgical differences . . .

* They all see no conflict between faith & reason, head & heart, Jesus & Darwin.
* They all value scientific and historic evidence as divine communication.
* They all share a commitment to a just and healthy future

Michael Dowd was inspired to make this breakthrough series available in a way that makes it easy to facilitate individual reflection and group discussion. The audio series features compelling interviews with a widely diverse group of leading Christian thinkers:

Nobel Prize Winning Scientists
Charles H. Townes, William D. Phillips
Templeton Prize-Winners
Ian Barbour, John Polkinghorne

Roman Catholics
Joan Chittister, John F. Haught, Richard Rohr,
Ursula King, Kenneth R. Miller, Ilia Delio,
Diarmuid O’Murchu, Gail Worcelo,
Gloria Schaab, Mary Southard, Linda Gibler

Mainline Protestants
John Shelby Spong, Matthew Fox,
John Cobb, Philip Clayton, Joan Roughgarden

Evangelicals
Karl W. Giberson, Denis Lamoureux,
Owen Gingerich, Edward B. (Ted) Davis

Emergent / Postmodern Evangelicals
Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt,
Spencer Burke, Sally Morgenthaler

Progressive / Integral Christians
Gretta Vosper, Tom Thresher,
Ross Hostetter, Jim Burklo, Paul Smith

Evidential Mystics
Kevin Kelly, Michael Morwood,
Bruce Sanguin, Ian Lawton, Michael Dowd

Visit the Evolutionary Christianity blog here.

Order the full or part set of The Advent of Evolutionary Christianity audio interviews and transcripts here.

Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

View all my reviews

Darwin’s Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get It Wrong
Author: Conor Cunningham
HARDCOVER; Published: 12/3/2010
ISBN: 978-0-8028-4838-3
580 Pages

According to British scholar Conor Cunningham, the debate today between religion and evolution has been hijacked by extremists: on one side stand fundamentalist believers who reject evolution outright, and opposing them are fundamentalist atheists who claim that Darwin’s theory rules out the possibility of God.

Both sides are dead wrong, argues Cunningham, who is at once a Christian and a firm believer in the theory of evolution. In Darwin’s Pious Idea Cunningham puts forth a trenchant, compelling case for both creation and evolution, drawing skillfully on an array of philosophical, theological, historical, and scientific sources to buttress his arguments.

About the author:

Conor Cunningham is assistant director of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham, England, author of Genealogy of Nihilism, and coeditor (with Peter M. Candler Jr.) of the Interventions series. Cunningham also wrote and presented the acclaimed BBC documentary Did Darwin Kill God? which originally aired in March 2009.

WLC’s main point is this: if you are careful to define terms such as “random” and keep evolutionary biologists to the actual verifiable scientific claims of evolutionary theory — and not allow unwarranted atheistic philosophical overshoot and naturalistic metaphysical extrapolation — then there is nothing in standard evolutionary theory that is inherently incompatible with Christian theism. Philosophical naturalism is at odds with Christian theism, not evolutionary theory properly stated.

First Alvin Plantinga, now WLC. Eminent Christian scientists, theologians and Christian philosophers around the world who consider theistic evolution to be a valid mechanism for God’s creative exploits can’t all be dismissed as liberal heretics.

WLC has it 100% correct when he pleads with fellow evangelicals to stop shadow-boxing with evolutionary strawmen as defined unilaterally by atheists. A full frontal assault on inaccurate notions of evolutionary theory is a waste of time and energy – and does little to commend the Christian faith to seekers with an understanding of the science. Be prepared to ‘die’ for truth by all means, but not on the wrong hill!

But watch the priests of YEC and devotees of ID tear at their robes and demand the stoning of WLC as a heretic!

Listen to Dr Craig discussing his views on evolutionary theory in Part 1 of his podcast here.

I recently wrote and article for Ethos, the  blog of EA Australia (Centre for Christianity and Society) . The article is called Seeking Life on Other Worlds – And What It Means for Life on This One”.

Read the full article here.

FROM THE DUST: Conversations in Creation

(Highway Media & The Biologos Foundation, 2012 – DVD/BRD, Runtime:   66 min)

Genre:   Faith/Science.

The question of where we come from is a mystery man has explored throughout human history. As Charles Darwin composed his theory of natural selection, he began defining for the modern generation a suitable, if altogether scientific answer for the origin of man. While this theory has gone largely unchallenged scientifically for the past 150 years, there is one segment of society that has been consistently uncomfortable with its revelation — the community of faith.

Does the Bible provide a narrative of mankind’s material origins? What is the real source of controversy surrounding evolution vs. creation? How do we reconcile scientific discovery with a loving, universal, Creator-God?

Highway Media has partnered with The BioLogos Forum and director Ryan Pettey to create a documentary that seeks to reopen the dialogue between science and faith. With fresh insight from some of the great theological minds of our day, and a candid examination of the Biblical creation narrative, From the Dust creates an unflinching context in which to view this classic debate.

Featuring Rev. Dr. N.T. Wright, Dr. Alister McGrath, Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne, Dr. Rick Colling, and Dr. Ard Louis.  Directed by Ryan Pettey.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Browse the From the Dust website here.

Related Resource: Test of Faith (The Faraday Institute)