Gospel of Karin

For the last few weeks, I’ve posted brief descriptions of Ian Barbour’s typologies of the relationship between science and religion. Today, I begin posting my critique of each category, beginning with Conflict. 

In reflecting on the Barbour’s typologies, I concluded that reconciling science and religion, whether it involves a respectful distance or a total synthesis, must have greater implications beyond the interests of either party. The question I became interested in is this: 

“What are the benefits of a harmonious relationship between science and religion?”

Or more specifically:

“What sort of relationship is good not only for science and religion, but also for humans, animals, and nature?”

The second question is central to my examination of the strengths and weaknesses of each of Barbour’s categories. 

Conflict

I have a difficult time identifying any benefits that views in this category might bring to science, religion, humans, animals, or nature. The best I can say is that some of the scholars that Barbour puts in this category seem well intended.

E.O. Wilson, for example, appears to genuinely believe that scientific explanations have the intrinsic power to lead humans to a more respectful relationship with nature. On the other hand, religious advocates who reject natural selection, for example, form a kind of resistance to an obsession with materialism that characterizes modern secularism.

Still, good intentions barely mitigate the fact that these are totalizing views that attempt to dictate the nature of reality and how we ought to live. Both are so committed to their own reductionist ideologies that they can’t even entertain the suggestion that the other might deepen their understanding about the complexity of life and living.

Regarding religion, I find the traditional image of God as an omnipotent and wholly transcendent being to be self-defeating. This view renders God irrelevant to the daily lives of people, and has proved for many to be disappointing in a world filled with suffering. It also sets up God to fail under scientific scrutiny, falsely divides humans from the rest of nature, and blocks us from understanding our place in the world in nuanced ways.

Image: “Creation of the Sun and Moon” by Michelangelo, face detail of God. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

A couple of days ago, Brian Greene of string theory fame contributed an op-ed for the New York Times called “Put a Little Science in Your Life.”

The subtext is overflowing with opportunities for interpretation about ethics, the place of humans in the universe, the nature of reality, theories of knowledge, and much, much more.

I responded with a letter to the editor (couldn’t resist!), which the Times ran today. See the last letter on the page.

Some questions:

Why does Greene assume that our engagement with the world as children makes us “little scientists.” Why not little poets, authors, artists, ethicists, or (gasp!) theologians?

Why does awe and wonder for the universe make one a scientist first?    

Photo: Henry David Thoreau, courtesy, Wikimedia Commons.

Last fall, I graduated from Boston University School of Theology with a master’s of theological studies. I was recently honored to have been chosen as the salutatorian of the class of 2008.

Below, I share with you an annotated version of the speech I gave at the school’s commencement ceremony at Marsh Chapel on Sunday, May 18.

***********

Thank you, and good afternoon everyone.

This speech represents the very last assignment I’ll receive as a student of the school of theology, and I’m excited to have been chosen to speak to you today.

Last month marked the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King.[1] As such, I feel it is both good and right to honor him by drawing from his work for the theme of my address today.[2]

Reverend King had a vision of beloved community. By this vision, people would one day recognize themselves as existing in an integrated society of brothers and sisters committed to peace and justice, and redeemed through the transformative power of love.[3]

Today, King’s vision continues to inspire others both here and abroad toward non-violent means of achieving social justice.

Great visions, however, don’t occur in a vacuum. They arise in community with others whose visions can ignite in us our own courage and passion.

King himself was inspired by another great visionary, a man named Howard Thurman. Thurman served as the Dean of this Chapel while King was a student at the School of Theology here at BU.[4]

Thurman had his own vision of community, one in which people of all faiths would connect with each other in a common ground of religious experiences.

These two visions became intertwined here at BU. They’re part of a tradition of hopefulness and imagination.

Many of us came to the School of Theology with our own visions about how we might better ourselves and, in turn, make life better for others. We’ve come from many different places in life and traveled down many different paths.

Some of us came directly from undergraduate programs. Others left jobs in search of a more meaningful way of life. Many arrived with the intention of becoming ordained, while others came to explore how they might minister to the world in a different sort of way.

When I entered the School of Theology in 2004, I was heartened by the diversity of people I met here. There are, of course, students of different races, ethnic backgrounds, faith traditions, and ages.

But I also found that our experiences of BU have been varied as well. They’ve occurred in different contexts and on different schedules.

Many of us were full-time students who continued to stay involved in a range of social justice activities. Others worked part-time jobs while tackling demanding academic work loads, and maintaining close ties with our churches.

Some went straight through their programs without a break. Others took time off to tend to ailing family members, to earn money to pay the bills, or just to breath. Each of us has our own story.

King knew that achieving the beloved community involves a diversity of people, with a variety of life experiences and sometimes conflicting ideas. We here at BU haven’t always seen eye-to-eye. We’ve had our struggles and heated disagreements.

But on balance, we’ve been blessed in many ways—with new friendships, with a caring administrative staff, and with an amazing faculty of professors.

We’ve been enriched by new members, and diminished by the loss of others, such as our dear professor Simon Parker, who we sadly miss.[5]

Along the way, we’ve inspired and challenged each other to think more critically about what we presume to be absolute and true. We’ve perceived the plank in our own eye, and in doing so have learned to see ourselves and others more clearly.[6]

There are those who say that love is an unlimited resource. That there is enough love in the world to help everyone. A cynic might respond to this by saying, “Yes, but time is limited. Therefore, some must take priority, even if others are left behind.” [7]

I hope you don’t know anyone like that. But if you do, you might ask them, “how much time does it take to put your hand on someone’s shoulder and say ‘Great job. You’re making a difference.’”

Showing support often requires only a generous spirit towards those who’ve heard the divine call to minister to the world in their own distinct ways. Community must be built in different places, by different people, with different visions.[8].

The beloved community then, is about unity in difference. It’s about individual, embodied spirits who share a common commitment to achieving the peace of God which transcends all understanding.[9]

St Francis reminds us too that the beloved community need not be restricted to humans, but is a mixture of people, animals, and the natural world.[10] God’s blessings are more beautiful and diverse than we can ever know.

We need each other just for a glimpse.

When you leave here today, take a moment to step out into the plaza, and stop at the monument to Martin Luther King.[11] Think about the way you’re called to build the beloved community, and about all those who have inspired and supported you. May you, in turn, inspire and support others in pursuing their visions.

Say thanks to our merciful God that you are privileged to stand in a long tradition of unity, common ground, shared dreams, and hope.

God bless you all. I’m honored to be part of this community.

Thank you.
______________________________________________

1. King was assassinated April 4^th, 1968 in Memphis Tennessee. He was there to support striking sanitation workers.
2. A special thanks to Steve Chase, Director of Antioch University New England’s Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program. It was his enthusiasm for King’s legacy, and especially for King’s vision of the beloved community, that inspired the theme of my speech. Steve recently wrote a great essay for the Practical Ethics blog, Ethos, about Martin Luther King. You can read it here: “The Dream Reborn.”
3. The King Center website provides a nice introduction to the concept of the Beloved Community.
4. King received his Ph.D. from Boston University on June 5, 1955. Thurman was the first African American Dean of Marsh Chapel and a mentor to King. See Religion and Ethics News weekly for a great feature about the life and thought of Howard Thurman.
5. Simon Parker was a professor of Hebrew Bible studies who began teaching at BU in 1981. He passed away on April 29, 2006.
6. See Matthew 7:3–5.
7. Here I’m alluding to Mary Midgley’s argument that compassion is not a “rare and irreplaceable fluid” that must be reserved for humans to the exclusion of animals (I substituted the word ‘compassion’ with ‘love’). Instead, it is a “habit or power of the mind, which grows or develops with use” (see Midgley, Animals and Why They Matter, p. 31). I’ve read and heard more times than I care to remember variations on the uncharitable and morally hollow response referenced above.
8. This is a quote from professor Norm Faramelli, a highly respected lecturer of ethics at the BU School of Theology and other Boston-area seminaries. Norm generously offered his time to help me brainstorm ideas for this speech.
9. See Philippians 4:7.
10. For more on the concept of the mixed community of people, animals, and nature, see Midgley, Animals and Why They Matter, chapter 10.
11. A beautiful sculpture, Free at Last, erected in honor of Martin Luther King, stands in the plaza in front of Marsh Chapel. See http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/491106232/ for more information.

Photo: Martin Luther King, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

I came across this comment today, which was posted in response to an article called “Faith of Our Fathers” by Timothy Egan:

The author lays out the quote “Religion has always been about faith and a certain degree of mythology” as if it were revelation. Subsequent sentences show that the author doesn’t know what a myth is. A myth is not something “untrue” in a theological context. It is something that explains the way things are. Theologians talk about the creation myth without implying a lack of truth.

A legend is the tale of a great hero of the past.

So the story of the parting of the Red Sea, and the story of the miracle at the wedding in Canaa should be called “legends” if one isn’t approaching them from the standpoint of belief.

A myth would be “how the leopard got his spots.” A legend would be “how Ulysses got home from the Trojan War.”

Both myths and legends can be full of truth, more true than the mere photographing and cataloging of observable facts.

— Posted by WDannen

I found the distinction the author makes between myth and legend to be quite interesting. I do, however, wonder whether you can make such a clean separation of the two. The legend of Ulysses, for example, says something about “the way things are” from a certain cultural perspective. But it also gives us insight into contemporary human experience.

As a theologian, I read Biblical stories keeping in mind that they say something about the ways things were and, to an extent, about the way things are, although, both are always interpreted from the standpoint of our values and presuppositions. And so, I think the author may be oversimplifying the role of the theologian. Still, I find the distinction useful for thinking about the significance of Biblical narratives.

I also think the author’s last sentence is spot-on correct. Myths and legends can lead us to a more thorough grasp of what is real, beyond what we experience through our basic senses. This is one reason why I find so-called literal readings of the Bible so troubling. They miss the deeper meanings, complexities, and beauty of the texts.

For a related discussion, see “Seeing the Sacred.”

Photo: My cat, Shimsi, pondering the difference between legend and myth.

I no longer recall why the train stopped. Mechanical failure? Track maintenance? In any case, it did, for a good forty-five minutes one warm spring evening about two years ago.

I was traveling home from class at Boston University on one of Boston’s “T” commuter rails. There were just a few passengers remaining in the train car, all of us, as usual, keeping to ourselves: reading, sleeping, emailing.

Over the loud speaker came a voice telling us that the train was experiencing a brief delay, and that we’d be on our way as soon as possible. A good fifteen minutes passed until people began to noticeably squirm in their seats.

A soft breeze drifted through the car. The train’s outside doors were open, and someone had pulled back the sliding doors in the compartment to free the stifling air. Soon, people began looking upward as if anticipating that the voice might come back at any minute to break the silence as well as the stop, which for we frenzied commuters, was already beginning to feel interminable.

It’s not as though we were running out of things to do. Personally, I was so overloaded with assigned readings that I could have stayed on that train for days without finishing my work. Yet, here we all were, suddenly disconnected from our routines and suspended in time.

We gradually began to make eye contact as if each of us was searching for an anchor. And then there were the shoulder shrugs, the half smiles, and finally circumspect laugher as we began to engage in small talk, dipping our toes into the proverbial water.

Those farther back in the train began to move forward. We turned our bodies toward each other. What could possibly be going on? Wasn’t this so typical of the T? Geez, we may be here forever! Then we were exchanging names, talking about our day, where we lived and worked, and who was waiting for us at home.

The smiles were now full, and I began to feel surprisingly happy that the train had stopped for a reason I can no longer recall.

My post the other day on sheep shearing made me think about the ethics of the practice. I’ve heard mixed reports about shearing. Some say it’s cruel, others say it’s necessary for the comfort and health of the sheep (they can overheat and get insect infestations).

I wondered whether it was inherently inhumane under any circumstances.

As luck would have it, a friend of mine has three sheep who were scheduled to be sheared this week. She and her husband adopted all three from the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA). She graciously invited me to witness their annual de-wooling.

Here are a few photos I took (the last photo is of an affectionate goat who head butted me and nibbled my clothing as I watched the shearing process):

The shearer is a thirty-year veteran who trained in Ireland, and who clips the old-fashioned way using hand shears. My friend warned me that I might be a bit startled by the way he handled the sheep. He needed to muscle them around a bit to get them in position. I found that I was unbothered by it because he seemed no more assertive than necessary to maneuver a 200 pound sheep. I’ve made similar moves just trying to wash my dogs’ ears.

The sheep were a bit nervous as they watched him prepare. (They looked like me when I’m waiting to see my dentist.) During the shearing, they groaned a little when placed in less than graceful positions, but they never cried in pain, even when they were nicked, which happened only a couple of times.

It was interesting to witness how the sheep behaved out of concern for each other. For example, one of them would lightly touch his nose against the nose of the one being sheared.

Afterwards the sheep were let out of their pen into the yard. They spent a great deal of time smelling each other (the goats joined in as well). The most dominant of the three also tried to mount the others. My friend told me there’s always a bit of upheaval afterwards as the animals adjust to the new scents.

Overall, my experience was that hand shearing is completely humane if done by an adept and respectful handler (which this man was). I asked my friend what she knew about electric shearing. She told me that her sheep had only been sheared this way once, and were stressed out by the noise. She thinks this is because they’re used to being hand sheared.

At the same time, I can easily see how electric shearing in intensive agriculture could be stress filled and painful for sheep, particularly with hasty or insensitive handlers. However, I need to do some more homework here.

I also can see how sheep shearing contests judged primarily by speed could be largely inhumane because of the sensitivity of the sheep, but again, I need to research this a bit.

See also:
Talk to the Animals
Finding the Way Back with Animals
Meeting God in Relationship with Animals

The other day, Dan Schnur had an op-ed in the New York Times on Barack Obama’s suggestion that working-class voters in Pennsylvania “cling” to religion, guns, and xenophobia to cope with bitterness over their economic conditions.

His basic argument is that the Democratic party is “continually vexed” by people who vote according to their values, even to the detriment of their economic interests. According to Schnur, Obama’s recent gaffe in Pennsylvania demonstrates that he doesn’t get it either.

Usually, I disagree with Schnur, but in this case, I think he’s right about one thing. Democratic candidates are not particularly good at understanding the relationship between values and actions.

Democrats, and in general liberal and progressive groups, tend to respond to issues. They adopt causes, which is very important. But they generally avoid investing in long-term programs focused on making sweeping shifts in individual and social values. Conservatives, on the other hand, have been putting money into think tanks for the last 40 years to do just that (the Heritage Foundation is a good example). Their patience has paid off.

I think many liberals and progressives also tend to make a sort of ’scientistic’ (not to be confused with scientific) mistake. That is, they believe that if most people were to view the ‘facts’ on the ground—the so-called practical matters—from a purely objective perspective (presumably their perspective), they would no longer be ‘distracted’ by things like religious values. Meanwhile, the values implied in their own views go largely unexamined.

Furthermore, what is practical is often narrowly construed. Thus many people (not just liberals and progressives) overlook the practical nature of values. How can values be practical? Because our values say something about what we believe it means to live a good life. And, when our values are aligned with our actions, it feels satisfying. We feel whole. Living by one’s values is so important to people that it can override some very pressing material concerns. This is true not just for the wealthy, but also for people who struggle to pay the bills.

With respect to religion in particular, I’ve spent the last three years in seminary studying a wide range of theological viewpoints. No doubt there is a coping component to religion. But many people err in assuming that that’s all religion is about, and in turn, belittle religious experience. For many people, religion is not merely or even primarily functional. It is redemptive. The feeling that one is recovering one’s spirit to become a whole human being is a powerful motivator, particularly when it so often feels like life chips away at our souls.

All that said, I doubt Obama intended to demean religious faith, and I think that the press has generally over-reacted to his comments. But unfortunately they did come across as a little condescending and maybe a bit too progressive in the sense described above.

For more on the shortage of liberal think tanks, see:

Democratic Think Tank Taking Shape (CommonDreams.org)
Rich Liberals Vow to Fund Think Tanks (Washington Post).
The Rockridge Era Ends (Rockridge Institute)

Photo: Barack Obama Shaking Hands, copyright Trilobite | Dreamstime.com

I talk to my dogs frequently and unabashedly. Once, an electrician working on my house overheard me talking with my two labs in the back yard. Later he said to me “Wow, I talk to my dogs, but not like you do!”

I wondered, why not? I’m convinced that these “conversations,” have resulted in my dogs being much more perceptive of me (and I of them) than they otherwise would have been.

I was equally curious when I found out recently that some novice sheep shearers are themselves sheepish about comforting nervous animals while shearing them. With a shortage of shearers in the American west, a growing number of folks, from ex marines to psychiatrists, are taking up the profession as a way to a more natural and sustainable way of life.

Many are sensitive as well to the emotions of the sheep. Good thing. For despite their reputation as virtual automatons who would follow their flock off a cliff, ethological studies have shown that sheep are actually reasonably intelligent. They have, for example, sophisticated memories and respond emotionally to familiar faces.

And yet some shearers in training are a bit shy about talking to sheep. Here’s an excerpt from a New York Times article on the subject:

For some students, empathy was an issue, if mostly unspoken. Are the sheep stressed?…

Meagan Rathjen, 22, a ranch hand at a sheep spread near Missoula — she came west from small-town Iowa, interested in helping support sustainable agriculture — nicked her first sheep. It was nothing too serious, but enough to draw a small trickle of blood, which looked stark and red against the yearling’s white skin.

So quietly that almost no one else could hear, Ms. Rathjen bent down over the half-shorn animal, and apologized.

Why so quiet? I suspect it may have something to do with a fear that, despite the evidence of sheep intelligence and their obvious expression of certain feelings, such behavior may be criticized as inappropriately emotional. Like my electrician thinking I was a bit eccentric for speaking so enthusiastically to my dogs, it may seem slightly nutty to apologize to a frightened sheep.

A completely reasonable response suppressed. This may be partly due to a cultural suspicion of empathy for animals, handed down through scientific and religious traditions that view them as instinctual, instrumental, and soul-less.

Sources:
“Work as Every Bit Wild as It Is Wooly,” New York Times.
“The ‘intelligent’ side of sheep,” BBC News.
“Study Shows Sheep Have Keen Memory for Faces,” Scientific American.
“So who’s being wooly minded now?: Other animals could learn something from an intelligent flock,” New Scientist.

See also:
Finding the Way Back with Animals
Meeting God in Relationship with Animals

On a recent trip to my hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania, my family and I paid a visit to the Tom Ridge Environmental Center at the entrance of Presque Isle State Park on Lake Erie. The photo to the right is of a placard at the top of the Center’s observation tower, which overlooks the lake.

I found this quote from Antoine de Saint Expury’s The Little Prince inspirational, as well as reminiscent of the concept of emergence in biology, which I’ve written about in previous essays. Essentially, the tree is greater than the sum of its parts; it is an “enduring force straining to win the sky.”

Ethically speaking, the quote suggests that the tree has intrinsic value, and that we, in turn, have moral responsibililties to it. Environmental philosopher Holmes Rolston would say the tree possesses intrinsic value by virtue of innate properties that it defends in the interest of its own survival. (For more, see my essay “Did You Remember to Turn Off the Plants?“)

Whatever you may take from it, it’s a beautiful quote I thought I’d share with you.

So many people encounter the sacred in the world. I’ve read statements by the staunchest of rationalists about how the universe fills them with a sense of awe and wonder.

Often, however, it’s these same people who either deny the “reality” of these experiences or simply brush them aside as unimportant in light of the “brute” facts of life (what “brute fact” means is a topic for future discussion).

I thought of this one night after, of all things, a trip to the grocery store. As I walked to my car, wind gusts blew bits of litter across the pavement and shook the branches of trees. A storm was brewing.

While driving home, the heaviness of the rain clouds was both beautiful and a bit frightening. They seemed especially ominous because they were juxtaposed with clear sky in the distance.

It occurred to me that, even though I knew there was a scientific explanation for this phenomenon, that there was no exasperated storm god planning to bring a flood down on humanity, the spiritual experience of it was irreducible. The presence of divinity transcended and made sacred the simple observation.

This dimension of life is as much part of reality as seeing the storm in a very basic sense. It informs the way I see. I can see “just” a storm, or I can see the beauty, grace, and divinity that conveys itself during the encounter.1

Notes
1. I consider this an I-Thou experience wherein God’s eternity is glimpsed in the between of the encounter. See my earlier essay on I-Thou relating for more.

Painting: “Rainstorm off the Coast at Brighton,” John Constable. Courtesy Mark Harden’s Artchive, www.artchive.com.