Monthly Archives: February 2025

Sermons

The Art of Science

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Sermon Extracts from Dr. David Walker,
Bishop of Manchester and Visitor to the Society
Society of Ordained Scientists, Annual Retreat, 2017

Douglas Adams, in his Hitchhikers Guide, tells the story of a huge computer, which in a short time begins with “I think therefore I am” and deduced the existence of income tax and rice pudding. Adams appeals to a particular view of science as driven by logical necessity, one seen again recently when another atheist entertainer argued that 1000 years after an apocalyptic event science would have reinvented all that had been lost whilst previous religions would be totally forgotten. This view of science plays to the old image of the man (or just occasionally woman) in the white lab coat, holding a test tube. In the convention, that individual would have superhuman intelligence combined with the emotional and artistic capacities of an earthworm.

No doubt there are some scientists who are so coldly rational that they are capable of committing any conceivable act in the pursuit of their studies. The Nazi trials of 70 years ago threw light on some grave abuses of human rights that that took place, in the name of science, in camps such as Auschwitz. But that is not the way that science as a whole progresses. Outside the world populated by Adams’s fictional hitchhiker, there is no such thing as a truly rational rice pudding.

The scientific task is not just logical, it is aesthetic, artistic, moral and spiritual. Which is where you and I come in.

I discovered early on in my own research career, that the answers we find depend hugely on the questions we ask. It often takes far longer to find the right question than to answer it. Our choice of questions is determined to a large extent by factors such as what we think will be useful, what appears to have innate beauty, what may lead to morally good applications, and what funders are prepared to pay for. All of these are issues I face just as much in my day job as a bishop, and indeed they are matters we all face as Christian ministers.

So how can we use our grounding in both the fields of faith and science, so as to be a priestly people for the good of humankind? Rather than generalities, let me briefly look at three specific areas, but then the principles can be applied more widely.

Medicine and pharmacology
Statins and the CT scan. Why do I get offered a choice of treatment when many others don’t?

Misuse of antibiotics, the tension between now and the future.
Manchester story, how nineteenth century scientists began to study the diseases and injuries of the working classes.

Climate change and human sexuality
How do we deal with politically or religiously driven minority research?
When is a consensus a consensus?

Particle accelerators and space probes
How much of the science budget should be spent on going beyond the obviously useful?

The true rice pudding is much more than the logical consequence of heating up plant seeds in liquid. It’s a mouthwatering combination of flavours; it’s a means of feeding the hungry; it’s the use of a readily affordable crop that will grow well and cheaply in wet environments; it’s a lifesaver for those with wheat intolerance. And for you and for me, it’s something over which to offer thanks to God.

Sermons

Scientific Observations

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Sermon given by Bp. David Walker, Visitor, at the Annual Gathering 2016

In the time I have spent as Visitor to this society, it seems that I’ve observed three aspects of its role. And preparing for this few days with you it felt like I’d been around long enough to now begin to report back on my observations, and see if you agree. After all, moving from observed phenomena to the construction of a hypothesis lies at the heart of the scientific method.
To begin with, it exists to show that it is possible to be a person both of deep Christian faith and of sound scientific credentials. It meant a great deal to me, as a young student at Cambridge, to attend not only scientific lectures given by John Polkinghorne but also listen him address a Christian fellowship. If he, the Professor of Particle Physics could combine science and religion, then certainly a mere undergraduate in his department could do so. It was noticeable back then that the people who were most inclined to tell me that science and religion could not coexist tended to be not only irreligious but also non-scientists. The scientists, and the religious, knew better.
I suspect that this has, if anything, got harder over the intervening years. Firstly, there are probably fewer scientists today who had their upbringing in a church going family. It is always easier to be hostile or indifferent to something you have not experienced or that doesn’t touch the lives of your immediate relatives and closest friends. Secondly, the increased stridency of forms of Christianity that clearly despise science and will only give credence to theories that lie entirely within their theological framework, has discredited all people of our faith. W e are all assumed to subscribe to the doctrines of the most fundamentalist. And if we don’t, then that is taken as evidence that we are not really as religious as we pretend.
My worry is that we are less likely today, even than a single generation ago, to get near enough to many scientists to be able to demonstrate that we have the integrity that we do. That’s why I’m extremely grateful to David Wilkinson and his colleagues in Durham, for creating space in recent years for senior religious leaders and front line scientists to meet up and simply get to know each other through conference of a couple of days or so. The enemy of both science and religion is ignorance, and ignorance of each other risks making us enemies. I’m also grateful to programmes such as God and the Big Bang, which puts scientists of faith into sixth form classes, where they have a chance of engaging with at least some of those who will be professional scientists in future. W e need to support such programmes. The return on investment may not be immediate but the longer term impact may be vital. I was very lucky as a teenager to attend a school where nobody was allowed to do more than three A levels, and where the remainder of lessons were deliberately drawn from outside of the range being studied for examination. Those of us who were learning sciences were required to choose additional options that bent towards the humanities, and vice verse. I’m not convinced that many schools take that line today. Maybe, where we are school governors, we can at least ask the questions.
My second observation is that we exist to help the world of science. A good and current example would be that of climate change. The contribution of faith has been essential both to set a framework in which research into this topic has been widely supported and through which the findings of scientific research have been propagated and publicised. Modern science is not any longer carried out by parish clergymen with a university education and lots of spare time on their hands. It requires funding and funding requires political support. And that support is often resisted by those who have strong vested interests in the status quo. A good theology of creation and of stewardship has a vital role to play in maintaining the weight of public support that holds politicians to continue to let funding flow for the research, when private sector money is either not available or would corrupt the programme. And climate change is an excellent of example of how people of faith, led by good theology, have been at the forefront not just of practical action but of disseminating the findings of research. Again, too important to be left to the publicity machines of the commercial lobbyists.
But climate change is not the only area in which good theology can support and help good science. W e’re fortunate in having Bishop Lee Rayfield as one of our society members. Lee’s work, in the field of bioethics, is a great example to us. When science runs too far ahead of an ethical base, even more so when it denies the need for ethics at all, it not only risks prostituting itself to the basest customer, it risks losing the public support within which it must always operate. It isn’t
possible to separate the question of what can be done and what should be done within the world of research. And scientists are often not the ones best equipped to evaluate ethical considerations. What you and I know, and what needs to be at the heart of our particular contribution, is that in the absence of an ethical framework for scientific research being informed and influenced by theology that is friendly to the scientific quest, the framework that is set up will be influenced by theologies that are much less sympathetic.
My third aspect of our role ought to be the easiest, but I fear is perhaps the hardest of all. W e are to see that theology and religion does its work in a manner that understands science and incorporates best scientific practice. This isn’t just, indeed it is hardly at all about challenging the wackiest theologies that fly in the face of basic scientific consensus. It’s more about trying to encourage the church to do its own research and to base its decisions more solidly in evidence. One of the most important but grumbled about departments of the Church of England is the small national unit that works on research and statistics. Clergy moan more about filling in annual statistical returns than about almost anything else except their Parish Share. Last month I attended and presented a paper at the biennial conference of the International Society for Empirical Research in Theology. It was about the fifth such conference I’ve attended, and probably the best yet. W e had soundly researched papers on a wide range of topics that could and should be guiding churches in the establishment of their policies and practices. And yet all too often when research findings come up against previously held positions or personal preferences, it’s the research that loses out.
Many of you will know, we submitted a contribution to the Pilling group on human sexuality a few years ago. It set out where the overwhelming weight of scientific opinion lay, as well as where opinion remained divided. Nobody was suggesting that the ethical issues around same sex relationships could be entirely determined by the observation of similar behaviours in other mammals and primates, or by the majority view on nature versus nurture. But it was depressing to see that the report simply noting that as there were some scientists who took views contrary to the consensus, everything was still open for debate and the evidence could be largely discarded.
As a society we are better placed than most to be able to tell the difference between genuine areas of scientific disagreement, where much is still to be decided, and where the division is between a broad consensus and a resistant rump, the latter often having external reasons for the positions it holds.
Some harder today, for each member of the society, as we affirm our promises and commitment, as that each of us may find one of those three aspects of our life to which we can make a particular effort over these next twelve months. So that between us we can continue to further the cause of good science and good religion being good friends,

Sermons

Orienting Ourselves

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Sermon by Keith Suckling, Warden, at Annual, Sneaton Castle, June 2016

This sermon was greatly influenced by very recent events. The UK referendum on membership of the European Union had only a few days before the Gathering resulted in a small ‘Leave’ majority. This was a shock to many and very quickly became a major topic of discussion amongst UK-based members. Whether one supported the remain or the leave side, most of us were very disturbed at the tone of the debate that h ad taken place over the past weeks. Uniquely, it was necessary for the Gathering at Sneaton Castle to provide space for us to begin to come to terms with the new very uncertain situation we found ourselves in.

Almost as soon as I had arrived at Sneaton Castle I realised that I was going to have to re-cast my thoughts for my address at this closing Eucharist. Many of us are still in the process of re-orienting ourselves to the reality of a vote to leave the European Union and this has been accompanied by very intense feelings.
Over the past few days we’ve been hearing about the lives of the Northern Saints – people from around here who lived in very uncertain times and showed a leadership that offers encouragement today. So I’m going to try to follow a train of thought that will take us from where we find ourselves now back to the saints of the sixth and seventh centuries and perhaps give us a different vantage point from which to view the recent events.
So to start in the present. Even before the referendum vote a few days ago I, like many others, had been almost in despair about the conduct of the campaign. Politicians on both sides of the debate had been making definitive statements about things that could never be said with any degree of certainty. It’s not unique to the UK. There is a similar sense across the Atlantic as the Presidential Election approaches in the USA. Politicians everywhere seem to feel an imperative to show certainty even when it is clearly impossible. They can’t, daren’t, admit that they do not really know. As scientists, who understand data and how it is interpreted, we are immediately uneasy. For example, we know that economic models are just that, models and not the reality, and that their output depends upon their structure and parameterisation. As ordained scientists (unlike some other kinds) I would suggest that we are more sensitive to the distinctions between what we know, how much we know, and further we are able to sense how much we can know. It may not be easy to accept this all the time, but we need to resist the demand for certainty, required by a public driven by the appetite of the media for a new story every day (at the least).
Theologically we may note a similar pattern. Many of us are as uncomfortable with the over-definitive statements of some branches of Christianity as we are with those of over-ambitious scientists. As I’ve said before at these meetings, we need a degree of humility about what we can say scientifically and theologically. As we do this, we can make our journey into the past and find ourselves comfortably linked with the sixth century, this time with the Irish missionary, St Columbanus (543-21 November 615). He was a key figure in the Irish missionary activity in the early medieval period, founding a number of abbeys (e.g. Luxeuil in France and Bobbio in Italy). I’m always struck by how much some historical figures seem to have achieved. Apart from his travelling ministry, Columbanus left many writings and a few paragraphs seem to be exceptionally relevant 1500 years later. Here’s how he offers an understanding of God, and importantly for us, he relates it to our understanding of the natural world.
From the Instructions of St Columbanus, abbot
God is everywhere. He is immeasurably vast and yet everywhere he is close at hand, as he himself bears witness: I am a God close at hand, and not a God who is distant. It is not a God who is far away that we are seeking, since (if we deserve it) he is within us. For he lives in us as the soul lives in the body – if only we are healthy limbs of his, if we are dead to sin. Then indeed he lives within us, he who has said: And I will live in them and walk among them. If we are worthy for him to be in us then in truth he gives us life, makes us his living limbs. As St Paul says, In him we live and move and have our being.
Given his indescribable and incomprehensible essence, who will explore the Most High? Who can examine the depths of God? Who will take pride in knowing the infinite God who fills all things and surrounds all things, who pervades all things and transcends all things, who takes possession of all things but is not himself possessed by any thing? The infinite God whom no-one has seen as he is? Therefore let no-one try to penetrate the secrets of God, what he was, how he was, who he was. These things cannot be described,
examined, explored. Simply – simply but strongly – believe that God is as God was, that God will be as God has always been, for God cannot be changed.
So who is God? God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God. Do not demand to know more of God. Those who want to see into the depths must first consider the natural world, for knowledge of the Trinity is rightly compared to knowledge of the depths of the sea: as Ecclesiastes says, And the great depths, who shall fathom them? Just as the depths of the sea are invisible to human sight, so the godhead of the Trinity is beyond human sense and understanding. Thus, I say, if anyone wants to know what he should believe, let him not think that he will understand better through speech than through belief: if he does that, the wisdom of God will be further from him than before.
Therefore, seek the highest knowledge not by words and arguments but by perfect and right action. Not with the tongue, gathering arguments from God-free theories, but by faith, which proceeds from purity and simplicity of heart. If you seek the ineffable by means of argument, it will be further from you than it was before; if you seek it by faith, wisdom will be in her proper place at the gateway to knowledge, and you will seeherthere,atleastinpart.Wisdomisinacertainsenseattainedwhenyoubelieveintheinvisible without first demanding to understand it. God must be believed in as he is, that is, as being invisible; even though he can be partly seen by a pure heart.
Columbanus was a link between Britain and Ireland and continental Europe 1500 years ago. Since then the links have sometimes been closer, sometimes more at a distance. No doubt that process will continue its ebb and flow. We have heard in Rosalind’s talks of the many uncertainties of those earlier times. Now, similarly, we have the instabilities and uncertainties of our own time, ones of which we are particularly conscious at the moment. But look at what we have in common with those earlier times. The thought world is different in many ways, but it is also the same. Columbanus cautions us against trying to pin God down with too much certainty. That is an essential theological insight, supported by scripture and the early church. As scientists we may not always be at ease with uncertainty but at least it is part of our regular way of dealing with the world. As ministers of the church we gladly accept the ambiguities and are not trapped by the demand of the political and media communities for certainty. That is, as Columbanus says, because we do not ‘gather arguments from God-free theories, but by faith’. So as scientists and ministers we are in a unique position to understand the nature of the complex and contradictory situation we find ourselves in. ‘Complex’, ‘contradictory’, ‘ambiguity’ – all these words carry with them potential overtones of anxiety. I believe that reading the words of Columbanus, and others of his time, all these negatives are erased by the sense of the beauty of the creation which reflects the character of its Creator. It’s in that context, which has its own constancy and consistency, its own certainty, that we will be able to hold out a hand to accompany those we minister to through the many steps ahead which still have to be identified and negotiated.
Peace be with us all.

Sermons

Scientific Epiphany

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Sermon by our Bp. David Walker, Visitor, at the 2016 retreat (US)

Today is probably the most auspicious date in the liturgical calendar for us to have our admissions and renewals Eucharist. The feast of the Epiphany could be said to be the moment when science and religion meet and greet.

The wise travellers from the East, using whatever mixture of astronomical and astrological calculation was current, have found and followed a star and arrived at Bethlehem. Not only that but they have the wisdom to know what gifts to bring with them, to offer to the infant Christ. All of that without any grounding in the Hebrew Scriptures. Their brief, one might even go as far as to call it diversionary, visit to Jerusalem only confirms what the star was already leading them towards.

There’s a lot of things to see up there in the sky. Even without telescopes, the lack of light pollution 2000 years ago would have given these stargazers plenty to look at. Their skill, the same skill needed by their descendants today, such as those who are seeking out new subatomic particles or observing the different constituents of a human gene, is to turn a massive amount of data into a much smaller amount of knowledge. Wisdom lies in being able to discern the value of the knowledge produced.

Both the scientist and the theologian work in a similar way. Existing theory is studied and tested. Patterns are observed in the world around us. Concepts and hypotheses are proposed and tested. Those that best fit reality survive long enough. So that in turn they become the progenitors of subsequent developments. You could say both science and theology are evolutionary processes. Which, as with modern evolutionary theories, have their moments of rapid breakthrough, as well as long periods of much slower change.

Both science and faith provide the means for producing practical benefits for human living. Whether it’s cellphones or support for refugees, both make a difference. And both are equally capable of being distorted in ways that damage the creation. The emergence of ISIS in the last couple of years has as much to do with their effectiveness in putting technology, such as social media, to evil use as it does to their warping and misusing one of the world’s great religions. When Donald Trump calls for blocking both Muslims and the Internet, he at least has cottoned on to the fact that both faith and science are being abused. Not that this would make me at all easy at the thought that you guys might elect him as your next president.

So let me, by way of evidence and example, suggest three particular areas where science and religion have overlapping and compatible concerns: one where there’s already plenty of good work, one that needs some attention, and one that we don’t seem to be tackling, yet in my view very much need to. Please excuse me for drawing much of my examples from the UK.

Climate change

I want to cite as a good example, response to climate change. Dean Mark Richardson drew our attention to his own experience of the Paris Summit this morning, and to the excellent encyclical produced last year by Pope Francis. Well, last summer the Ethical Investment Advisory Committee of the Church of England, of which I am a member, published, with the advance endorsement of the main church investing bodies, a policy paper on how to use our institutional shareholder power to press the energy supply industry towards a greener future. The paper behind the policy statement contained both theological and scientific argument. Not every scientist or theologian would necessarily agree with either part, but it worked with the broad consensus of both scientific and theological enquiry into the topic, and it gained very widespread and favourable report in the secular media as well as in church circles. It’s already making a difference. The main church investors, with about $15B at their disposal, have withdrawn from companies with more than 10% of their assets in tar sands and thermal coal, judging these to be the dirtiest forms of energy, and the companies to be those with little likelihood that they would diversify away. Pressure is now being put on oil producers, to become the kind of energy suppliers we will need in a much lower carbon consuming world.

Human genetics

To me that’s a good example of running the theology and science hand in hand in order to deliver a robust answer to a pressing issue. The advantage we had of course was that the work was ours. We could produce and refine it and only let it out into the public domain when we were confident it would stand up to any challenge

Last night Ted Peters spoke to us of his own work on issues of human genetics and especially stem cell research. It was good to hear of how a group had got together and been able to analyse the issues and arguments in advance of political decisions having to be made. However, my next example, from the UK last summer, shows how much harder it is when the requirement is to respond to somebody else’s initiative, with relatively little warning.

It came about when a group of British medical researchers issued a press release calling for permission to be given to produce embryos using DNA from more than two people. When a staff officer for the Church of England suggested that there might be significant ethical questions and that this wasn’t a matter to be left entirely to be decided by what was scientifically possible, it was immediately reported as evil religion attacking kind scientists who were simply trying to help couples have a healthy baby. It was an example, in Ted’s scheme, of the argument from beneficence. One of our Society members, Bishop Lee Rayfield, found himself having to explain the church’s position on the BBC, in particular to speak about unintended consequences. He made a good fist of it, and that aspect of the story fairly quickly died away. But damage had been done. The story had spread far wider than the rebuttal ever would.

It’s not that the churches in the UK hadn’t been thinking about human embryology issues. The problem lay elsewhere.

First, the story was always going to be about how medical science wants to help parents have babies. That’s how the group asking for change in the law were promoting it, and it ran much better in the media as a story about childlessness than one about academic science or ethical problems.

Second, we really do need to make sure that the first voice heard from the churches in such a debate is a positive one. As many of you know, Lee had been recovering after a period of serious illness, and I suspect someone thought it not necessary to put him up as spokesperson.

Finally, every journalist knows that a story is sharper if you can put up a contrary opinion. We fell into the trap of letting ourselves become that aunt Sally.

In future we need to be a lot sharper, to be clear about what a media story will look like and respond to it with a strong speaker and in ways that avoid a polarisation that puts us in the wrong corner. But let’s note, this wasn’t about science being always good and religion always bad. It was never really a science story, it was a “right to have healthy children” story. We missed the central point.

Fighting the memes

It’s been said once or twice over this last two days that the “science versus religion” polarisation is passé. Maybe it is among most professionals in both fields, but nobody seems to have told wider society, and that’s where it continues to live and replicate itself as a meme.

Several UK newspapers ran a story last week that originated from Colorado. Most ran with the headline “Religion has been causing conflict for over 2000 years, say scientists”. The headline did, in fairness, largely replicate that of the university press release, which was about as far as most of the media went in trying to research the story. The one paper that did bother to ring one of the researchers involved discovered that a team of anthropologists had studied two ancient societies. One of them had been unstable, the other had formed a long lasting stable state. In both cases they had argued that religion was at the core.

I presume that US universities, like their British counterparts, all have Public Relations departments dedicated to getting the institution noticed, so that more students will be attracted. I guess most researchers grimace at the headlines they write, just as much as many journalists despair over what subeditors do to their stories. And certainly a headline that read “anthropologists find religion sometimes made ancient societies more stable, and sometimes less” is not going to get much coverage.

But never mind the inaccuracy of the way in which the findings were reported. What inevitably struck me, just as I was doing my packing to come here, was that both the original press release and the subsequent reporting of it went for the “science attacks religion” meme. It’s just possible that the University of Colorado has a marketing policy that has identified it will best thrive by attracting students who themselves have negative attitudes towards religion. In a competitive market place for American higher education there must be room for that. What really frustrates me is that the headline so chimed with a conventional view among UK journalists that only one of them thought it worth a phone call to check the story out. More cynically, perhaps the others took the same line that one otherwise highly respected British Religious correspondent did a few years ago with a story. It was getting late in the evening. Her editor wanted her copy immediately. She had worked out that if she checked it, it would probably fall apart. So she submitted it unchecked. The editor was happy. And she got to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

“Science attacks religion” is the dominant version of the meme, but it also has an occasional converse side, “religion attacks science”, and not just over the stale issues of creationism versus volition.

The meme about science and religion being at war with each other, constantly launching attacks on the opposition, is one that this society has a prime aim in combatting. Our Members are men and women who have good standing in both the scientific and faith communities, through their academic qualifications, their practice and their ordination to the ministry of their individual denominations. We support each other in that task, uniting in a community that is mostly lived in dispersed mode, but where as many of us as can come together here and in the UK to pray, reflect and have a depth of fellowship that will sustain us for the lonelier tasks in our churches, universities and cities. Those being admitted today, and those renewing their promises, are making a serious commitment.

But let me suggest that in one sense the particular meme is not the problem. The problem is that of living in a society all too vulnerable to memes of all descriptions. Other memes have other victims. “Muslims are not loyal citizens” runs one. “Refugees are almost all young male economic migrants runs another”. “LGBTQ people are likely to prey on our children ” still gets an airing in the UK, I don’t know about over here. There’s a famous statement often attributed to the German pastor Martin Neimoller…..

Maybe our true task, is not to focus on one particular meme, but to be associate prepared to stand up to all who are the victims of memes. It may even encourage them to stand up for us.

Sermons

Science and Faith as Lenses

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Sermon by Lucas Mix, NA Provincial Warden, at the 2016 retreat (US)

C.S. Lewis wrote “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
Today’s gospel and our reflections over the last week have led me to think more carefully
about this concept of seeing and believing.
I wanted to say something about our role as ordained scientists,
and return to two insights that were deeply moving to me
as we shared our pilgrimage together this week.
One was our dependence on a community of scholars,
and the way we form a focal point as leaders in science and religion,
for a much bigger community endeavor.
The other was our need to deal with unsolved problems in applied science and,
dare I say it, applied metaphysics – the concrete needs of the world.

Matthew quotes Isaiah, but what does this mean that Jesus “will not wrangle or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets”? How are we to understand evangelism in light of Jesus ordering his disciples to remain silent about him?
Here, and even more so in the Gospel of Mark, there is a suggestion that some things
should be shared and some things kept quiet.

And who are we in this Society?
I do not think we are any more mediators of God,
or truth, or reality than any other child of God.
And yet we are mediators of knowledge, both sacred and secular.
We are authority figures, for good and ill, regulating what it means
to be in community and share a common understanding of the world.
We are asked to reflect and refract the wisdom entrusted to us.

Priests and deacons wear stoles to show we represent the larger church,
the authority, both power and responsibility,
that comes from speaking for a greater cloud of witnesses.
Scientists, too,
though the lab coat does not, perhaps, garner the same respect it once did,
act as experts in our society.
They have the authority, both the power and the responsibility,
to speak the truths revealed by our searching,
to be the face of inquiry and discovery in a society that deeply values both.
Our education and experience gives us a deeper understanding
of how the world works.

Mark Richardson suggested in his talk that we cannot truly be Evangelists
in the modern world
unless we can navigate the languages of science and meaning
that move our congregations.
And I think this must be true, that the vernacular is increasingly a scientific vernacular – our challenges, our hopes, and our fears are all tinged by science.
So we must do more than solve the abstract problems.
We must bring all that we are and all that we have to finding our way in the world
as communities.

My own passion, as most of you know, has to do with how we act responsibly
with both kinds of authority –
how we exercise this trust,
to always represent the best wisdom of both worlds,
or perhaps the best insights of both perspectives,
in all our interactions.
How do we fulfill the trust placed in us,
through our education, our opportunities, and our relationships?
It’s not just about finding truth,
it’s about cultivating common understanding
about the things that matter most,
ourselves, our world, and our meaning.

During the talks, I was reflecting on two images:
First the telescope, so often iconic in science.
Lenses focus our perceptions,
allowing us to distinguish details
or see patterns, large and small,
that we would otherwise miss.
Second, stained glass, so often iconic in Christianity,
breaking the light into colored fragments,
to harmonize, beautify, and order the light,
which shining alone is too bright and too full
for us to appreciate its depth.
Perhaps, too, stained glass and prisms reminds us
of the ways God uses our brokenness
as individuals and communities
as an opportunity for grace.
The multiple reflections and refractions
in a proper stained glass window allow
us to see the subtleties of light
in a way we never would,
when blinded by the full spectrum brilliance of God.

And I wondered, as I often wonder,
whether these are competing images,
whether they pull us in different directions.
I must honestly admit that a stained glass telescope would be a poor instrument,
at least in terms of the initial metaphors.
It would distort the image while constraining our vision.
It would, I suppose, be a kaleidoscope,
a wonderful thing in and of itself, but neither fish nor fowl.

This seems to be the fear of many faith/science discussions,
that somehow we will lose the utility of both,
if we attempt to put them together.
Obviously, I don’t think that’s the case.
I think we must bring our scientific and religious authority together
in our applied science, our applied theology, and our applied community.
But it may mean re-working my metaphors.
It may mean doing a new thing.
So I want to share a new image with you.

Most of us agree, I think, that there is only one light,
but we have trouble agreeing on what kind of lens we want to be,
and what kind of lens we should be,
for ourselves and for others.

How many of you are familiar with gravitational micro-lensing?
It sounds very complicated, but it’s a beautifully simple concept,
increasingly useful in astronomy.
For the most part, we can only see stars and planets in the sky
when they are exceptionally bright.
Mars is, on average, 225 million kilometers away from us,
but if you hook up a giant flashlight,
take 2 times 10 to the 30th kilograms of hydrogen and helium and set it on fire
– That would be the Sun –
and flash it at Mars, the light that comes back is bright enough to see.
Similarly, the Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light years away,
shows up because of the light of a trillion Suns’ worth of mass
all merrily burning in the night.
Other objects,
for example the light of tiny planets orbiting distant stars in the Milky Way
of the light of galaxies farther out than Andromeda,
may not be bright enough for us to see them,
even with our best telescopes.
They are too dim.

Yet we care about them.
We care about Orion and Pleiedes and the vast expanse of interstellar space.
We care enough to ask what they are made of and where they are
and whether they, like we, travel through the night.
And we have discovered,
that when the stars align,
the light from a distant star will bend around a star passing in between us and it
and that light passes on all sides of the passing star and focuses back upon us,
with much greater intensity
for a moment in cosmic time.
As it does so, we learn something profound about the distant source of light,
for we see it much more brightly,
and about the passing star,
for the way it passes the light onto us.
The gravity of the passing star, or even galaxy, forms a lens, a gravitational micro-lens.
And if we watch the distant star closely, and observe how the image changes
as is passes into focus
we can also learn about the lens itself,
the mass and properties of the star that passes in between.

Lensing around galaxies, when we let one galaxy to magnify a more distant galaxy,
has allowed us to calculate galactic mass and understand dark matter –
or more properly understand how we don’t understand dark matter.
That is, it shows us galaxies far more massive than we would have guessed
Based in brightness alone.
Lensing around star-systems,
when we are lucky enough to watch a star and its planets
pass between us and a distant object,
has allowed us to find extra-solar planets, otherwise invisible.
As of last night, 43 planets had been discovered and reported on the basis of micro-lensing,
including some of the smallest and most Earth-like currently known.
The details are more complicated than I could hope to capture here,
but hopefully I’ve given you a taste of this wonderful insight,
I hesitate even to call it a technology,
for we have no power to align the stars ourselves
but we have this glorious curiosity that allowed
micro-lensing to be revealed to us
and allowed micro-lensing to reveal things we couldn’t have imagined.
And it is, very much, both a telescope and a stained glass window,
depending on your focus,
a great kaleidoscope that reveals and fractures a heavenly image.

And here I have waxed too poetic even for my own sensibilities.
Let me bring this digression back to the very concrete biblical exegesis,
and daily morality
that it has sparked in me.
Perhaps I can worry less about what kind of lens I am,
when I magnify and when I refract,
when I give a true image and when I break an image into it’s components.
Instead, I shall worry more about how God has placed me
between the light of Christ and the observer.
I shall think about how my life and my actions bend the world around me
in a way that can reveal a more distant light
a more distant truth,
and, for many, a brightness they had only dreamed of.
It is not so different a metaphor than that used by the Orthodox
speaking of icons as windows to divinity,
or Augustine speaking of the finger pointing at the moon.
Jesus may have taken the focus off himself,
precisely because he, as the incarnate Christ,
was the focus of a yet more glorious light,
a lens, through which, was focused the full intensity of God.

I don’t have that kind of intensity.
I don’t have that kind of mass.
But, returning to Marilyn’s insight from our very first reflection,
the community gathered together,
possesses a power
greater than its parts.
We are something when we gather here, at this table,
in prayer, in service, and in love.
Each of our ministries can be this,
and I truly believe each of our ministries is this,
a gathering of people through our authority as leaders in science and faith,
whether or not we wear a stole,
whether or not we wear a lab coat,
we have this power,
to gather light and mass around us,
to gather a community of knowledge and wisdom,
that bends the very fabric of the world,
and lets the light shine through.

Taken from Lucas’ Blog.

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Scientists and Sceptics

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Sermon by the Rt. Rev. Dr. David Walker, Visitor at the Annual Retreat of the Society of Ordained Scientists 1 June 2015, Scargill House

There are probably as many wildly inaccurate myths about scientists as there are about people of religious faith. As priests we are seen as only one step away from those who would walk into a seaside resort and fire bullets at the tourists. As scientists we are only the press of a button from blowing up our planet through a nuclear apocalypse or submerging it beneath a sea of grey goo. All such myths need to have some anchor in a small part of the truth, which is then distorted and expanded so as to assume itself to be the whole of the picture, but most of them are sufficiently laughable as to not impact on the way that we see ourselves. The danger comes when some part of the religious or the scientific community takes on board one of these exaggerations and distortions, and begins to define itself along the lines the myth sets out.

One of those myths is the notion that science must be rooted in scepticism. I was ordained on St Thomas’s day and I rejoice at having that connection with him. But Thomas is not primarily a sceptic, he simply wants the best available evidence, evidence his fellow apostles have already had, before his own eyes. We often forget that the encounter between Jesus and Thomas concludes with the Lord saying, “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe”.

If scientists were sceptics, scientific progress would be much slower than it is. The charism of a scientist is not to be one who doubts and distrusts, we can leave that to the most abstract of philosophers. It is to be a person who spots the recurrent patterns in the natural order, and then studies them. Sometimes that results in finding that a particular pattern has no apparent meaning or no discernible consequences, but it is through the developing and testing of apparent patterns that science, in all its many forms, progresses; because patterns provide predictability.

One of the great marvels of creation is that so much of it is comprehensible, and hence predictable. Why is it that the universe largely obeys some fairly simply written (if sometimes much harder to solve) mathematical equations? How is it that my brain recognises the sounds you are making, and finds enough similarity in the patterns of sound waves others have created to be able to abstract from them a series of words to which common meanings have been assigned? That sometimes we find we are misunderstanding each other because a particular word carries different connotations to us both, or because a concept is not easily translated from one language to another is not. Surprising. What is amazing is how little that happens. The great early twentieth century Christian apologist GK Chesterton marvelled at the fact that when he took his ride on the London Underground, not only did his train always pass through the same stations, but it passed through them each day in exactly the same order. A true sceptic would never dare ride the tube, for fear of arriving in some different and random destination every time.

Jesus again and again invites people to recognise the patterns in things. He reminds his hearers that they are accustomed to looking at the sky and predicting what the weather will be, but are hopeless at recognising the signs of God’s Kingdom coming among them. He describes patterns of human behaviour, such as that a man let off a huge sum of money owed will love the one who has remitted his debts more than one released from a far smaller sum. And he invites people to see humanity as made in God’s pattern, so that his stories tell us not only of how you and I behave but how God himself is too.

When I first moved from being a mathematician to a theologian and priest I was often asked if it wasn’t a very radical change. My early response was to say that I could now count the number of angels balancing on a pinhead from two different theoretical systems. Once I got immersed into public ministry though it was the experience of recognising patterns that stood me in good stead, it proved even more helpful than having learned the Greek alphabet in my previous career.

As a parish priest my work was grounded in the pastoral contacts and engagements I undertook. But meeting with people in their moment of need isn’t the full call of the ordained. I’ve become very fond of a saying coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. “When we’ve fished enough bodies out of the water it becomes time to take a trip upstream and see who’s throwing them in.” After a number of pastoral engagements repeated patterns begin to emerge, these can be identified and the pattern itself addressed rather than simply the individual circumstances.

Working repeatedly with young people unable to find accommodation we found that there were particular obstacles to landlords taking them on as tenants. We set up a local ecumenical organisation that was able to provide financial guarantees and tenancy support which made the prospective tea ants much more attractive give. We saved the landlords paying agents’ fee and we ensured the quality of the accommodation was up to standard. We addressed the pattern not just the particularity.

When we’ve heard a selection of stories we can also lay them alongside the narratives in our scriptures and church traditions. In another place we found that the coal mine, for 75 years the main source of employment for young adults, had ceased recruiting. This left many young people effectively rejected by society. We set this alongside the prophesy in Isaiah 65, that in God’s Kingdom people can build for themselves, not just for others. We trained ten young adults in the necessary skills, organisational as well as construction. They formed themselves into a cooperative and built a terrace of houses they could live in.

There’s a method of working here, which I hope any minister would be able to adopt. But for those of us who also have a scientific training, who are trained in this recognition of patterns from a discipline outside of theology, I think there is a particular role we can play in being exemplars of it. For, at the end of the day, to be a good priest and to be a good scientist is to spot the patterns in the world we are engaging with, and to act on them.

Sermons

World Views on the Macro and Micro Scale

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A sermon by the Rev. Dr. Keith Suckling, Warden at the Society’s Gathering at Scargill, July 2015

I was glad to hear in David Gosling’s talks at this Gathering his experience of aspects of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam which he shared from his periods of time in South Asia. It should not have been a surprise, but it was still very striking to see the differences in the world view of these cultures almost at first hand. We are of course familiar with the concept of world views and the conflicts that can arise when they come in close contact. The readings we have heard this morning give us a scriptural context. The story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11.1-9) can be seen as the point at which world views began to diverge. More significantly, Jesus points out to his disciples that the world view which he represents is fundamentally different from that held by the wider society in which we live (John 14.22-15.1).

It is a familiar picture, but sometimes small events bring the real situation into closer focus. Early in 2014 I received a completely unexpected invitation from the Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney to come to Fraserburgh in north-east Aberdeenshire as Priest in Charge of St Peter’s Church. It was the kind of email which demanded taking very seriously and after a period of discernment and the necessary visits Helen and I moved to Fraserburgh in October. There was a very strong sense of being led by the Holy Spirit, of which more towards the end.

Shortly after arriving I made contact with some local schools and some weeks later this was followed up by a request for a discussion with a sixth year student who was working on a project on assisted dying. Legislation was in progress in the Scottish Parliament at the time (although it subsequently failed). I had a good discussion with the student and she was grateful to hear a point of view which was new to her. She had carefully gathered views from her own circle, family and friends, and it seemed that most of the opinions she had heard came from a utilitarian and pragmatic perspective. We are familiar of the idea of a conflict model between religious world views and secular ones, but on the basis of this and related experiences, I think we need to replace it with the ignorance model. It may not be too extreme to suggest that in the Venn diagram of these world views there is practically no overlap.

And still the regular traffic of confused debate continues. The challenges of natural disasters and suffering remain, God is accused and answers are demanded, but we can only have a debate when there is some common ground to work on. Fundamentalist atheism is no longer respectable intellectually but still dominates media discourse. All these factors and developments suggest that the ground in which we operate has slowly been shifting and now is quite different from what it was 30 years ago when the ideas of forming SOSc were taking shape. If people don’t know what Christianity is they are not going to be particularly bothered about the subtleties of the science/religion debate. But the fact that some people pop up here and there who obstinately try to live fully within the

world view of a religion but who also accept and indeed celebrate the kind of data that the secular world needs to rely on sometimes stops the secularist short. Yes, amongst others, we are those people.

Christianity has to recover by people wanting to be part of it. You join a club, a sport or a society because it seems attractive to you. You don’t know everything about it at the time but you are prepared to give it a try. But it’s got to be attractive enough – to raise interest and curiosity. To those who follow a different world view, we are, using the word in a different way, curious people, but maybe we are ones who raise enough interest so that it gets to be followed up at some time in the future.

This continues to be our role in SOSc, and it is exactly as the aims of the Society were conceived 30 years ago. Perhaps some of the wider church is beginning to pay more attention. We continue to be, as I said two years ago, the data and the evidence. Or, put a little differently, we are and we inhabit and we have to remain the common ground, the more visible the better. In fact, we are getting some response to our publicity. In the past six months there have been more email requests for information about the Society with a view to membership than ever before. There is the unmeasurable but real trickle effect of people who have come into contact with our members telling others about us. Those of us who use social media can have an encouragingly wider impact.

Having made a major and unexpected move in the past year, and starting off with an agenda in mind containing far more things that could be done than are possible, I’m quite clear that we as a Society also have to continue to expect to be led. It’s that peculiar partly proactive and partly reactive state where we try, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to synthesise all sorts of inputs, some specific and defined, some vague and hardly sensed. It’s one that sees opportunities as they appear and, after appropriate discernment, takes them and manages to make progress without needing to have all the milestones defined in the way that we did for the kind of drug discovery programme I used to lead. Fuzzy. Often challenging to the scientific mind.

We can only be effective in taking the opportunities that offer themselves to us if our primary response is to God and to God in creation. This is what we share today as we celebrate the Eucharist with a eucharistic prayer from Operation Noah. I’ve talked mostly about the outward role of the Society, about our world view and others. But now as we worship together, this is the internal strength of our community. The real sense of community is never stronger than at this point in the Gathering. All that we stand for is enhanced and deepened and as always, I feel warmed and greatly encouraged by our time together.

Sermons

Believing in Evidence

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Sermon by Bp. David Walker (visitor) at the North American SOSc retreat, 2014

Nine months ago I was summoned to be interviewed for the post of Bishop of Manchester. It was quite an exercise. First I had to preach for five minutes on the readings of the day. Next I was required to produce a ten minute presentation on a subject chosen by the panel; which happened to be the theology of William Temple and its relevance for Manchester today. Finally, I was submitted to an hour of questions from sixteen people arranged in a large horseshoe. A few days later, by which stage I had been told informally that I was the preferred candidate, I bumped into one of the bishops who had been part of the panel. “You’re different from the rest of us, David” he said. “You really believe in evidence”. It’s possibly one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. And I think he did intend it as a compliment.

I also think that it’s a particularly appropriate compliment to pay to the Visitor of this society, because as ordained scientists, the members of SoSc are called to be people who weigh evidence and, along with that evidence and powerfully influenced by it, believe. So let me simply, for all of us here today and especially for those to be admitted to the society, offer some thoughts on what it may mean to be those who “believe in evidence”.

Painting with a full palette

The definition of an expert, as I imagine you are all aware, is that it is somebody who knows almost everything about almost nothing. Specialisation, particularly in science, leads to ever finer divisions into fields that can become so arcane as to be impossible even to state to an outsider. At the turn of the twentieth century, the great David Hilbert listed the top ten unsolved mathematical problems of the day. By and large they were all at least explicable in language an educated non specialist could understand: Fermat’s last theorem and the four colour problem being perhaps the best known. My recollection is that just one remains unsolved. Yet when another nine were added to it to create a top ten for the new millennium, most of them require a considerable amount of prior mathematical specialisation to even begin to understand what the problem means. The days of the generalist scientist, of whom so many were ordained, are long past.

Yet within this ever increasing specialisation are two countervailing forces. Firstly, we can note a dawning awareness that often the solutions to problems couched in the language of one particular field lie at least partially in another area of study entirely. The paradox is that to be fully effective within it, researchers need to engage outside their immediate zone of expertise. Secondly, once we pull back from the frontiers of knowledge and seek to live coherently within the world, we are immediately compelled to construct our attitudes and activities from theory and evidence drawn from many different disciplines.

For you and me there is a very sound reason for applauding this. When we read the gospels we see immediately how, for example, Jesus brings together deep knowledge of the Jewish scriptures, profound observation of nature, acute understanding of human psychology, all in order to address a specific subject. To the people who heard him it would appear to be this ability to synthesise that rooted his teaching in a holistic reality and gave it an authority that contrasted with that of his contemporaries.

The call to us then is to be like the good rabbi of whom Jesus speaks, who can bring out and put together the old and the new. It is to be those who are prepared to paint with the whole available palette of human wisdom. In particular, as a society we have the locus to offer our shared theological training and our very diverse scientific disciplines in order to address the issues of the day. And I do believe this takes us beyond the initial vision of our founders. We are more than a third force in a fruitless culture war between fundamentalist belief and reductionist science. We are a society of those who can individually and corporately make a powerful contribution in the public square. And whilst it is always a little invidious to single any of our members out, for the sake of examples (always important to a scientist) I would draw attention to the writing on environmental issues of David Atkinson, of Lee Rayfield on issues in medical

ethics, and the collection of essays on human sexuality submitted as evidence to the Church of England’s recently published report on the topic. In each case it is the ability to speak from a solid theological and scientific grounding, a belief in the evidence drawn from both, that makes the impact.

The measure of doubt

I was privileged as a young undergraduate to be on friendly terms with a then elderly philosopher, among whose claims to fame was that in his rooms at college a fierce debate had once taken place on the subject of belief and evidence. He described vividly the moment, late in the evening, when Popper refused to accept the existence of the fire poker and Wittgenstein threatened to strike him with it.

I am always amazed at the mental gymnastics employed by some atheist friends in the scientific world who spend their lives not believing they have any free will and yet act constantly as though they did. Those with a sense of humour smile and say they have no choice in the matter. I am equally amazed at those religious fundamentalists for whom it seems to be precisely that their beliefs clash with the entirety of the evidence available and require equally implausible mental gymnastics such as imagining God creating the fossil record to fool us, which attracts them to their faith.

You and I are called to have evidence and to believe. Just as there are different standards of proof for a criminal trial and a civil lawsuit, so we are required to weigh the evidence and determine what an appropriate threshold for belief might be in any particular instance. As in the legal example, an important factor is what the practical consequences of belief or disbelief might be. We need to be far more sure before sentencing someone to years in prison than we need to be before deciding which of two protagonists to believe in a dispute over a commercial contract.

You and I, trained in the scientific method, do not believe lightly. The fact that we believe, and believe enough to base our lives on acting in accordance with our beliefs, stands witness to the plausibility of our faith under challenge. Especially it witnesses to the enduring plausibility of faith under scientific challenge. Faith asserts that we must all live by unproven hypotheses, but hypotheses that remain reasonable in the light of all we know.

Worshiping through the wonderful

For my final point I want to go back to the impact on us of being those who grapple with scientific evidence.

The story is told of two astronomers at a Cambridge college who, every time they felt they were thinking too highly of themselves, would go out into the main court at night, look up at the stars, recite a litany of how small humans are in comparison with the visible universe, and then return duly humbled to their port and Stilton.

Whatever our individual disciplines, whether we study the very large or the very small, the very concrete or the very abstract, we are those who have been privileged to glimpse something more than most people can of the sheer size and complexity of the universe. Like those college dons we are drawn to a profound humility. What then distinguishes us from them though is that as “believers in evidence” we are also drawn into a profound wonder that expresses itself in worship. Like Job, at the end of the book which bears his name, we see the glory of creation, and fall on our knees.

Yet what distinguishes the members of this society even further is that we are also those set apart to be leaders of worship among communities who are not scientifically trained or scientific practitioners. In our society liturgies we express a more profound engagement with the creation than is common in standard church services. That is right and proper. But I hope we can also take something of the spirit of worshipping through the wonderful back into our home churches. I’ve witnessed too many Christian communities for whom worship is about escape from the realities of daily life. For those who experience

daily living as oppressive and rejecting, that is to some extent understandable. But how much better it would be to enable them to worship in a way that by its very connectedness with creation calls up a more profound awareness of a God who is so greater than their oppressors that in his strength they can refuse to accept their oppression. Maybe that is a work for this society, and especially for those being admitted

Sermons

BICEP

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Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Barbara Smith-Moran, SOSc, Annual Retreat, 26 June 2014, Whitby

Almost 100 years ago, Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in his Theory of General Relativity. His equations showed how gravity waves are generated by highly energetic events such as the explosion of supernovae or the collision of neutron stars. Einstein also thought that gravitational waves of cosmic origin would be so weak by the time they reached Earth that they would be undetectable. Now thereʼs a challenge, and from Einstein, no less! But, in 40-odd years of searching, direct observation of gravity waves has proven elusive. But the theory is robust, so physicists persist in the search, the way they do, and keep themselves hopeful with successive generations of ever more sensitive detectors.

Meanwhile, though, a team of astronomers have been searching for indirect observation of cosmic gravitational waves. Theyʼve been looking for the effects of the gravitational waves that accompanied the inflationary period of exponential expansion of the universe in the blink after the Big Bang. And last week, the much-heralded paper was published announcing the discovery of what theyʼve been looking for. The interpretation is controversial and awaits confirmation, as always.

So how did the astronomers do that? Well, they built a special microwave telescope at the South Poleʼs Amundsen-Scott Research Station. They built it there because the very cold air is very dry, minimizing microwave emission from water vapor. That first telescope was called BICEP, an acronym for Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization. Its detectors were sensitive to the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background, which is the 3-degree remnant of the light from the Big Bang.

Quantum theory says that by the time that Big Bangʼs light became observable (after 380,000 yrs), it had been imprinted by the gravitational waves of the faster-than-light cosmic inflation and polarized in a particular way. BICEP was designed specifically to pick up the so-called B-mode polarization, a signature of inflation in the super-early universe (10-32 sec). I canʼt possibly explain what the B-mode is, and I refer you to Garth Barber or Cyril Challice or another physicist.

So BICEP stared into space for 3 winter seasons, beginning in 2006, and it found—well, not much of anything, nothing to make headlines. But the theory is robust—or at least tantalizing—so the physicists persisted in the search, the way they do, keeping themselves hopeful with ever more sensitive detectors.

They built a second generation BICEP. So by 2010, they had BICEP2, a bulked-up version of BICEP1, with a bigger aperture and 10 times the sensors at 150 GHz.

After three seasons of observations, the results from BICEP2 really were something to write home about. The research team, led by Harvardʼs John Kovac, made big headlines last March when they announced their results. Their paper came out last week. The polarization effect is only 1 part in 108, incredibly, incredibly subtle.

I want to know why BICEP1 didnʼt see the signal that BICEP2 saw. The answer is that it did see it, but it just didnʼt recognize it in all the background noise it picked up. BICEP1 needed some “tutelage” from BICEP2 in order to know what it was seeing. The astronomers took the BICEP1 spectral data and mathematically correlated it with the BICEP2 data to produce a third, called the cross-correlation, and there it was—out of the noise jumped something similar to the signal seen by BICEP2. Cross-correlation did the trick. Itʼs a really powerful technique.

…………

So, that very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. We know that our Gospels contain two kinds of parables: parables told by Jesus, and parables told about Jesus. Todayʼs story of the Road to Emmaus is one of the latter; itʼs a parable about Jesus. It works on two levels, as parables do. And to press cross- correlation into service as a scientific metaphor, let me retell the Road to Emmaus story this way.

Cleopas and his friend were walking together, traveling away from Jerusalem on the Sunday after the Passover. Both of them had been in the company of other Jewish followers of Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth. They had heard and seen something of the things that were being reported about Jesus: especially that he was dead on Friday and alive again on Sunday. Both of them had experienced something of the energy that began to polarize the Jews into resurrection believers and resurrection deniers, into Jesus-is-Lord believers and Jesus-is-Lord deniers.

So on their way out of the center of Passover activity, on their way home, perhaps, to Emmaus, these two are talking. Letʼs suppose that Cleopas was rather animated. Perhaps he had been calling himself a disciple of Jesus ever since he had heard him preaching his own compassionate take on the Law and the Prophets. Cleopas heard Jesusʼs words as a refreshing rain, and he yearned to hear more. But then those insistent kill-joys, the Roman authorities, had killed Jesus right at holiday time. That was only last Friday; and today, Sunday, the most incredible news had been spreading through Jerusalem: the news that many had seen Jesus alive again, and walking among them, talking and eating with them. Cleopas is confident that the reports are true. He understands the excitement of many of the disciples, and he thinks, cautiously and privately, that he may have seen his own evidence of the Risen Jesus. He felt uncomfortable in the company of those others who had thrown caution to the winds, so he and his friend leave the excitement and confusion of Jerusalem behind and head out.

Walking toward Emmaus now, Cleopas, the more extroverted, does most of the talking. Both of them have been through the same Jerusalem Passover and post-Passover experiences. His friend—letʼs call her BICEP—isnʼt so sure. BICEP is skeptical about the eye-witness reports she heard. She is not easily carried away. She maintains that God has never answered any of her prayers, though she keeps praying. Influenced by Cleopas, BICEP wants to believe, she wants and needs Jesus to be Lord, but she doesnʼt see it, not yet.

As they go over and over their shared Jerusalem experience, Cleopas interprets it in such a way that he, at least, is convinced he can see the hand of God at work. Reviewing the words of the prophets about the coming Messiah, it dawns on both of them, as never before, the relevance of these words to Jesus. The signal just pops out of the noise—and there is

Jesus himself, walking beside them. Both of them see him, walking and talking with them.

BICEP is positively aghast at what she now sees in front of her eyes. How did she miss that before? Apparently, it was there all along, but she couldnʼt see it on her own. It was buried in the noise of coincidence. She needed to be tutored in order to see it. She needed the fellowship of Cleopas. She needed that cross-correlation so the Risen-Lord truth could pop out of the noise of random circumstance in her life. I believe thatʼs how the Counselor, the Holy Spirit often works to guide us into all truth, and tutor us all things, as Jesus says in Johnʼs Gospel, and remind us of all that Jesus has taught us.

When they get to Emmaus, they invite Jesus in and break bread with him to celebrate their experience of his living presence. Then, exhilarated by their discovery, Cleopas and BICEP have no choice, no choice at all, but to turn around and head right back to Jerusalem to hold their own press conference about their experience of the Risen Lord. As the Epistle lesson says, “That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us, . . . with the Father and with his

Son Jesus Christ.”
In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer, and Cross-correlator. Amen.

Sermons

“Show me the Data”

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Sermon by Warden Keith Suckling at the SOSc retreat 2013, Scargill House

I had a colleague based in the USA who ran a department similar to mine. I would visit him every so often and I was always amused to read the slogan over the door of his office which proclaimed ‘show me the data’. He wanted to slow down the natural enthusiasm of his colleagues who would come to him with exciting and significant conclusions (as they thought), very often the ones they wanted, but his prime question was – do the data support the conclusion?

I think we would all agree that we should look at the data first, but this obvious and rigorous approach is not practiced as widely as it should be. It is easy to jump to conclusions before absorbing the data, even being selective with the data themselves, neglecting sources of error or ignoring ‘unhelpful’ statistics. Often the conclusions end up reflecting our own preconceptions and prejudices. That is serious enough just for one dataset from one experiment but if we want to construct a wider description, theory, model or narrative, it is important that the data hold together and provide a coherent picture.

So when we come to try to provide a basis for a coherent world view, in our case a theistic one, it is particularly important that we are able to make clear what the data are before applying the conclusion. In our case as ordained scientists we have a conclusion that is hard to appreciate and understand without reference to the basic data, and of course others may choose to interpret the same data in different ways. What data do we have available? Let’s look at some of it.

Over the last couple of days, Ruth has provided us with a fascinating and inspiring overview of that sense of wonder and awe which unites science with a sense of the divine. The data are indisputable. They are the shared experiences of us all. These natural experiences we all have directly from nature and from life provide an agreed starting point from which we can begin to develop our interpretation.

But in our worldview we have sources of data which take us further, beyond the observation of the natural. Taking the lead from Ruth’s synopsis, our readings this morning illustrate how scripture enriches our sense of wonder. Curiously, beauty in the wide sense we understand it now does not seem to be a major strand in the Bible. The sense of awe or even fear is much stronger, but hidden away in the book of Wisdom (Wisdom 13.1-9), we find the broad sense of beauty being referred and related directly to God, almost as a correction to the more fearful interpretation. It is curious that the more contemporary romantic-derived sense of the beauty of nature coincides historically with the beginnings of the historical-critical approach to scripture.

There is always a great sense of beauty, wonder and peace when we read the passage from Revelation (Revelation 21.1-4). For many it is one of the most comforting and beautiful in all scripture. Coming after the chaos of the last battles it offers us a sense of peace, beauty, comfort, wonder, care and love all at once. It reaffirms the goodness of creation with which the Bible begins.

Ruth talked about Jesus’ parables being an example of creativity, the mark of a good teacher. Here (Matthew 13.44-50) we see a number of very concise examples with different images to illustrate the same thing. At least one image, the pearl of great price, is intrinsically beautiful as well as valuable. The robustness of the parables to telling in many different ways emphasises the power of the images and of imagination.

Much of what we have shared over the past couple of days relates to experiences that everyone has access to, so these are excellent data for us to build on. But I’d like to add one further element to the dataset which we partially referred to in our discussion yesterday when we talked about presenting science and religion in the church community and wider. The further element in the data is ourselves and our Society. It is an inspiring thought for us that for many people we are part of the data, part of the evidence. People say when they hear about SOSc that they did not realise such a thing was possible. It means that those who have

divided their minds so that science and religion are kept safely apart may now find themselves able to be conceptually integrated people. Then they can’t stop telling others about us.

Let me tell you a story of how this works. We have friends in the North East of Scotland and on one visit I was introduced to a very charming family. The father was a very experienced teacher with a strong Christian faith. He was curious but wary about my position as an ordained scientist. I can’t say anything more about his views because we did not discuss it. I think he was, like many people who hear about us, impressed that we exist but cautious about the potential challenge to his position. So we had a delightful visit but did not discuss any theology.

Quite recently a friend of the teacher was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The friend had a technological career but no background of faith and was clearly desperately trying to find a meaning that gave his condition a context he could accept. Our teacher friend thought of us and asked if he could have a copy of the SOSc Anniversary Collection book for his friend. He had seen the book on one of our visits. I posted one to him right away.

I don’t know how the story has progressed, but I am moved and impressed that someone who has a theological position that we probably would not agree with has been sufficiently struck by our existence to be willing to offer our perspective to help in a case of deep pastoral need. This is perhaps the strongest example I have come across, but I know of many similar situations where just our existence has been significant point. No detailed debate was necessary.

This is why I think we need to be as aggressive as we can in making people aware that we exist. I don’t mean going out recruiting, though we do need to keep that going. I mean simply saying clearly ‘here we are’. We know we don’t have a final and definitive model based on all the data that we have access to. We don’t all express the model in the same way. Some of us, including me, would want to say that the limitations of our language and intellect prevent us from getting a anywhere beyond a deep sense of longing. Yet that too is coherent with scripture and so can be part of the overall story.

As we drive away this afternoon there will be many things we will be thinking about from what we have shared together, and no doubt we will share them with others when we get home. I hope it is not too fanciful for us also to amuse ourselves with this thought: we are the data. We as individual people and as a Society support the model. When we show the data, which is ourselves, to others we hope and pray that they will come to the right conclusion.