March 2009

Last month saw the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. This has attracted a good deal of media attention, not least in our area with his local connections. He has made a remarkable contribution to our scientific thinking and this has had consequences for everyone.

When I was first ordained over thirty-five years ago, I taught one day a week in a local primary school. Rather than teach RE, I asked to teach science and sport as well as leading assemblies, because the school had been used before to clergy teaching only RE, and I wanted to make a different statement.

One day a ten year old boy said to me, "I do not believe in God because I am a scientist!" He was a little taken aback when I told him that I also was a scientist with a degree in biochemistry, as well as a Christian and a priest.

It grieves me deeply that there are still people who mistakenly believe that science and religion are in some way in conflict. These are discussions, especially in relation to Darwin's views about evolution, which were resolved in large measure well over a century ago. We are committed as Christians to the search for truth, knowing that that truth has been revealed fully already by God in Jesus Christ. We continue to strive to discern that fullness, welcome it and live it. This involves every part of our being, every part of our life together, different disciplines of our learning, including science, and above all, of course, our study of the Scriptures, prayer, and life together as Christians in his church.

The Bible does not try to be a scientific textbook, anymore than it seeks to be a history book. It speaks of the truth of who God is, his relationship with us and, therefore, our relationship with him and one another, and his whole world. The language of Genesis chapter 1 is about our relationship with God and his creation, not about science or a timeframe. In fact the sequence of creation in the first of the two accounts at the start of the book of Genesis accords remarkably accurately with what we now understand more fully, scientifically, through the hypothesis of evolution, but that is not where its emphasis or focus lies.

It is no accident that it is in our western world, with its Christian heritage and commitment to truth and openness, searching and learning, that modern science has developed. We continue to seek that fullness of truth in Christ, and delight in the insights and learning of science and technology, while we also seek wisdom as to how to use that learning ethically for the good of the whole world and in our service of God and one another.