Science and Religion – and Religion and Religion
That’s the science part – Francis Collins, Director of the Human Genome Project, talking about his personal faith and the role of science – here’s the religion vs. religion part.
Eboo Patel talks about addressing “Q” – a gathering of Evangelical Christians “dedicated to exploring “the church’s role in positively engaging culture”.”
I think the first problem is confusing this group with the hard Religious Right, even if Chuck Colson and Leroy Barber were there. The idea of “positively engaging culture” simply wouldn’t fly in the conservative churches I’m familiar with. I don’t know how many times I heard, “If you have a problem with me; then you have a problem with the Bible – and that’s your problem, not mine.”
The larger problem is that people still conflate “Evangelical Christian” with “Religious Right”. Evangelicals, like pretty much everyone, come in all stripes – from uber-conservative to uber-liberal. It just so happens that the most strident voices have come from the Right and they had access to means of promoting themselves that others just didn’t seem to understand.
That, if anything, is what is changing. Sojourners has given moderate Evangelicals a voice and the success of Jim Wallis’ books and speaking tours has energized a generation of non-conservative Christians and made them understand that there is a market for their passion, too.
I’m working on collecting some of my early blog-posts and updating them. Maybe I’ll manage a bit of publishing. Who knows? Maybe you’ll see me on The Daily Show sometime next year. Eh, maybe not.
We’ll see.
Technorati Tags: Francis Collins, Human Genome Project, Eboo Patel, Evangelical Christians
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