How to Bridge the Worlds

On the mp3 player during the commute this morning was a talk by Darrel Falk, professor at Point Loma (I think), a Christian and biologist who writes about evolution. He first talked about the obstacles he faced publishing his book, and especially getting a prominent evangelical to write the forward to it. It seems there was a prominent leader who privately agreed with his book but wouldn't write a forward to it, even though they were good friends, because of the politics of the situation among evangelicals. Then a prominent ID proponent agreed to write a forward, was gracious in person, but ended up writing a forward saying that science and Christianity must "get a divorce," much the opposite of the book's own conclusion. So that wouldn't do either. Finally Francis Collins came along and wrote the forward.

After a story like that of frustration and private/public splits, I was expected a talk about the book itself. But that's not what Falk did. Instead he launched into a detailed, nuanced and sympathic discussion of why there is this split at all, with a focus on what kind of "loose ends" are so troubling in accepting science's view of the world. His tone and demeanor were the most Christian response I can think of (and, to my shame, they were not my automatic response when I heard his story!). He ended his talk with a discussion of how to bridge the worlds, that Christians with different views of the origins questions should deliberately get together and make videos or statements about what they believe and what they agree on. Now that would be right in line with what Jesus said about how the world will know us.

And then I realized another category of unity, perhaps the most essential one to the whole enterprise: if we are going the bridge the philosophical gaps between these two camps of Christians, the thing we need more than anything else is to worship together. All the manifestos and TV programs and everything would follow from that. If we spend thirty minutes, side by side, singing, reading, praying, then I think we'll find that the gap is not as wide as it looked before those thirty minutes. In fact, if we don't do that, I don't think we'll be able to bridge the gap at all.

This is what worship does, it brings us together. And that's why I think the worship part of the service is more crucial than the sermon, no matter how insightful or interesting the preaching. Worship is what we're about, and if it forms the foundation then we can do things where it looks like there's no hope, most important because we won't be doing it.

And while we're at it, bridging the worlds, let's pattern our worship off Revelation, to deal with the gaps in understanding that book too.