 |
The
Episcopal Church Network
for Science, Technology, and Faith
Newsletter
| Volume
7-2 |
All
Saints Day |
November
2008 |
|
All Saints Day
(1511)
by Albrecht
Durer (1471-1528)
|
The Technology and Culture
Forum at MIT
|
Submitted by
the Rev. Amy McCreath
Back
in the early 1990s, then Episcopal Chaplain
at MIT, the Rev. Scott Paradise, reflected on his position. He referred
to himself as "the priest of one religion in the temple of another".
Certainly many chaplains at many universities have wrestled with how
best to make an impact and be comprehended in a landscape that is
generally indifferent to their presence or nonplussed by their basic
claims. Some have decided to simply be chaplains in the
literal
meaning of the word, "a clergy person attached to a chapel" -- someone
religious people go into the chapel to seek out. At MIT, the Episcopal
Church made a different decision -- a decision to walk out the chapel
door, into the hallways of the Institute and into the discourse of the
place.
In
addition to offering religious services and pastoral care to students
for over fifty years, the Episcopal Chaplaincy here has been actively
involved in the life of the Institute through a unique program called
Technology and Culture Forum (TAC), soon to celebrate its 45th
anniversary. TAC brings the values of the Church -- in particular, the
baptismal call to promote "peace, justice, and human dignity" -- to the
life of the lab and the classroom, speaking the language of the
scientists and engineers here, but challenging them to think deeply
about their vocational choices.
Back
in 1964, the Episcopal Chaplain at MIT, The Rev. Mike Bloy, realized he
had met quite a few faculty members who wanted a place to reflect on
the societal impact of the work going on at the Institute. In the midst
of the "military-industrial complex," the war in Vietnam, and the
post-WWII boom in technologists' authority in society, Bloy began
organizing brown-bag lunches and informal seminars where MIT faculty
and researchers could reflect together on these issues.
Through
the next decade, the program, which was called The Technology and
Culture Seminar grew and became more formal, with academic
papers
being presented at and sometimes published from the events. In the
early 1970s, Bloy's successor as Episcopal Chaplain, the Rev. Johnny
Crocker, decided that the questions the Seminar was addressing were
important enough that a larger audience should be invited into the
conversation -- especially students.
So the
Seminar "went public" and the format shifted to large public
discussions by prominent academics, business and political leaders,
attended by students, faculty and the general public.
The “Seminar” became the
“Forum” in the late 80s, but the basic format and
the mission remained.
Over
the decades, the content of TAC programs has varied, but its focus has
remained in three major areas: sustainable development, weapons
development and policy, and bioethics. Some of our most
memorable
events have brought together interdisciplinary panels to look at key
issues of the day, such as our forums What Good is Evil?, Technology
and Social Isolation, and The Ceaseless Society: What
Happens To Us
When We Never Stop. TAC has been a factor in shifting the
conversation
and the culture of MIT through raising questions others were
uncomfortable raising, advocating for reflection on ethical issues, and
helping students and others look at how their choices in the lab and
elsewhere really matter to society. This spring, we will be
working
within the MIT curriculum for the first time, offering an undergraduate
seminar called An
Ethics Learning Community, where we hope to invite
students into the important work of reflecting on their values and
experiences and introduce them to some resources for doing so.
Until
very recently, TAC was the only on-going venue for the discussion of
ethical issues at MIT. I am happy to say that is no longer true! And I
believe that our work and our witness have been a definite part in
bringing about a growing concern about ethics at MIT. What
remains to
be developed fully, I believe, is our impact on the Church. How can our
work at TAC be made more of a resource to clergy, adult education
committees, this Network, the EPPN, others? On a very small budget and
with very little staff, thinking creatively and finding out about grant
possibilities or other ways of leveraging resources would be very
helpful. For now, you can access audio, and in some cases, video
archives of our events for the past nine years at our website. And if
you know people in the Boston area who would enjoy being on our mailing
list, please refer them to us! We are at
http://web.mit.edu/tac
The
author can be reached at mccreath@mit.edu.
[Top]
The Extending Human Life
Report - Working Group on Faith and Genetics
|
Submitted by John Lewis
The
Working Group on Faith and Genetics
was started by the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts in 1997. Aware of
the stream of issues arising from the
burgeoning fields of genetic research and technology, the Diocese
wanted a resource, for itself and its parishes, for information on
the scientific dimensions of these issues. The group was to consist
of people of faith who seek to integrate their spiritual and
scientific views. The group was to be ecumenical, open to people from
any faith community.
The
first co-convenors of the group were the
Rev. Dr. Colin Gracey and the Rev. Barbara Smith-Moran. In the years
1997–2005, they led three studies: one on Genetic Engineering and Food for
the World, one on stem cell research, and one on The Science of Sexual Behavior
in Humans and Other Animals.
In
2006 I became Convenor of the group.
We decided to look at efforts to postpone, or even prevent, the aging
process in humans. Is there any scientific basis for hoping that
people could be enabled to live longer than anyone has ever lived
before? If so, what would be the implications for those people, and
for society as a whole? In brief, the group found no guarantee that
the human life span can be extended. But we realized that the effects
of the aging of our population will be felt throughout society
anyway.
In
discussing human longevity, it is
important to distinguish life span from life expectancy.
Life expectancy refers to the average length of a human life. It has
risen dramatically over the last century in developed nations. Life
span refers to the maximum possible length of a human life. Human
life span has not changed appreciably throughout history. But some
now maintain that it is now possible to find ways to extend it.
While
one can should never say never,
we found no conclusive evidence that a “fountain of
youth” drug
or procedure is possible. The only known, demonstrably effective way
to get animals to live longer is severe caloric reduction –
drastically reducing the level of food intake. Experiments on animals
have found that reducing their diet significantly tends to make them
healthier and live longer. It has not been proven that this works on
humans. Nor is it clear that humans would tolerate the
near-starvation diets necessary. In our have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too
society, there is research looking for ways to attain the beneficial
effects of severe caloric reduction while still eating at normal
levels. Some think that this is the most promising avenue toward
increasing the human life span.
Whether
or not a way is found to
increase human life span, our population will get older for some time
to come. Due to the increase in human life expectancy, compounded by
the fact that the “baby boomer” generation is
beginning to reach
retirement age, there will be relatively more elderly people in our
society. Consider this astonishing projection: whereas in 1990 there
were three working-age adults for each retired adult, by the year
2030 that ratio will have shrunk to one to one. The economic
challenge is obvious: relatively fewer working-age people will have
to provide goods and services – especially health
care-related
goods and services – for a significantly larger number of
post-working-age people. Resources could become scarce.
These
economic realities raise serious
ethical, moral, even theological questions. Who is responsible for
paying? The individual, or society as a whole? The generation of
elderly people, or the generation of younger adults whom the elderly
have raised? When not enough medicine is available, who gets it? Can
the cost of keeping a person alive, with a reasonable quality of
life, become so high that it is wrong to do so? These are not new
questions. What is changing is the frequency of their needing to be
answered.
We
considered these kinds of issues in
our report. We concluded that what is needed is much more dialog,
more interaction among people of different generations. And one
obvious place for this to happen is in our churches. The church is
perhaps the last place in our society where people of all generations
are brought together and expected to find common forms of expression.
Now the church has an opportunity to help ease the strains that come
with our aging population.
All
these issues are laid out in our
report Extending
Human Life: Scientific, Ethical, and Social
considerations; Challenges for the Church. The entire
report can
be downloaded from the website of the Diocese of Massachusetts. Click here for report.
The
author can be reached at ruthjohnlewis@comcast.net.
[Top]
Alban Institute Explores
Science and Faith in Parish Ministry
|
 |
Science
in Faith and Ministry
by
Larry Golemon,
Research Associate, the Alban Institute |
The
Alban
Institute is exploring ways to bring the rich dialogue in religion and
science to the ministry of local congregations. How, for example, can
pastors work with scientist-members and other laity to develop new
church practices enriched by this dialogue? Might our hymns and prayers
about creation be deepened by contemporary understandings of the
universe and its beginning? Might our appreciation for healing
ministries and prayer be more effective with a new understanding of the
mind-body relationship from neuroscience? Might we reach more youth and
young adults with preaching or curricula that bring contemporary
understandings of evolution and emergence into constructive
conversation with the Bible? This article highlights the
importance
and possibilities of how such ministries might evolve. If you have your
own ideas, please email me: lgolemon@alban.org.
When
I was a youth minister outside of St. Paul, Minnesota, some
years ago, the local lore included a story of how Post-it®
Notes were
conceived during church one Sunday. A 3M engineer named Arthur Fry was
singing in his church choir when the slips of paper he had used to mark
the day’s hymns fell out, causing him to fumble to find the
right
pages. During the ho-hum sermon that followed the choir’s
performance
the idea dawned on him. He could take an elastic copolymer adhesive,
developed by another scientist, and turn it into a tacky bulletin board
note that could easily be removed and even transferred to another
surface. This new idea of how to move from a polymer to a life-changing
product is, I believe, a helpful tale for religious communities today.
If the church, synagogue, temple, and mosque do not talk about and
utilize modern science in their religious life, it will seep into our
communities of faith anyway. People will bring the science they know,
work with, or learn about from popular media into the life of
congregations one way or another.
We
are fortunate to live in a time when the bridges between science
and religion are more numerous and robust than at any time in the last
century. Major contributors to this dialogue, like John Polkinghorne of
the U.K. and Ian Barbour of the U.S., have opened new paths of dialogue
and collaboration between these once antagonistic fields. The witness
of leading scientists, like Francis Collins, former director of the
National Human Genome Research Institute, to the compatibility of
orthodox faith with modern science was thought impossible by
fundamentalists and modernists alike in the last century. The openness
of the scientific community to new areas of research—as with
the Dalai
Lama around neuroscience and meditation—is a testimony to new
possibilities of mutual enrichment. And despite the media coverage
given to extreme positions on either side—be
it science-against-religion polarities like those
of Richard Dawkins or
creationist attacks on evolution like the new Creation Museum in
Kentucky—there are more constructive areas of dialogue
between science
and religion today than anyone thought possible a generation ago. The
range and depth of the areas of dialogue are daunting: evolution,
emergence theory, and theism; neuroscience, the mind, and the soul;
quantum theory, chance, and divine action; sociobiology, morality, and
religious sentiment; genetics, human nature, and free will—to
name but
a few. Even many secular scientists, like the famed biologist E. O.
Wilson of Harvard, realize the time has come for a new moral and
intellectual collaboration between science and religion to preserve and
honor the “depth and complexity of living nature.”1
What
amazes me is the lack of connection to date between this
productive religion and science dialogue and everyday religious
practice and ministry in local congregations. Occasionally,
congregations in Silicon Valley or in a research triangle will hear a
sermon affirming the growing links between science and faith. Clergy
who have scientific backgrounds may offer an adult education course,
and laity who practice in scientific fields may start study groups. Yet
how often do the discoveries and practices of modern science intersect
with everyday issues of religious practice and ministry? How often do
clergy consult with medical practitioners in the community around
end-of-life care for families facing chronic, degenerative illness? How
prepared are most religious educators or clergy to answer questions
brought by young people in a confirmation or bar mitzvah class about
the compatibility of evolution and belief in a transcendent God? And
how often do clergy invite lay members with scientific expertise to
bring their knowledge to bear on how Creation is depicted in hymns and
liturgy, how their health care ministry is going, or how a local
environmental ministry is being carried out? Do congregational Bible
studies encourage conversations about what Creation narratives tell us
that evolution may not, or how visions of the future and end times
might be informed by quantum theory or relativity?
At
Alban, we are interested in exploring the potential of building
greater scientific literacy among congregational leaders, especially in
ways that equip clergy and laity in the sciences to collaborate around
issues of faith and ministry practice. We believe a profound shift in
congregational life and ministry can be created if clergy and lay
leaders are better equipped to integrate scientific knowledge into
their religious practice and ministry. For one thing, churches,
synagogues, and other faith communities would become less reactive to
the religion-science conflicts that are endemic to the culture wars of
American society. But more importantly, clergy and laity will begin to
see the value that scientific knowledge brings to faith and ministry.
They can work together to build their own bridges of dialogue and
collaboration that explore more deeply the nature of the cosmos, human
beings, and the God who sustains and guides all that is.
If
you were to bring greater scientific knowledge to bear on a
specific area of ministry in your congregation or faith community, how
might you go about it? What area of ministry or faith might you choose,
and what kind of scientific expertise or knowledge would you want to
tap? We at Alban want to know, so we ask you to respond to
a brief poll
(see link below) to help us understand areas of religious and
scientific collaboration or dialogue that would make a difference in
your congregation’s faith and ministry. By answering
these questions
you can help us discern the areas of greatest potential for bringing
science to ministry in ways that can help deepen and transform the life
of faith communities.
Interested readers can participate in a short survey on this topic here.
printer-friendly
version
[Top]
Society of Ordained
Scientists Proposes North American Province
|
 |
To: North American Chapter Members and Associates of SOSc
From: Chapter Co-conveners pro tem., Dcn. Gail Phillips
Bucher and the
Rev. Barbara Smith-Moran |
Dear
Friends,
For
those unable to attend this year's Retreat and Annual Gathering,
we missed you. Dr. Denis Alexander presented excellent and provocative
meditations. The next issue of the Bulletin will catch you up on those
and other Society news.
Thank
you for your thoughts and suggestions regarding the formation of
a North American Province of the
Society. We are
pleased to
announce that the members assembled at the Annual Gathering at
Scargill House on July 10 warmly received our proposal (see
attachment) to create an SOSc Province in North
America. John Keggi
eloquently presented the proposal,
recognizing the Society’s need to expand its horizons to
include more
people from the US and other countries, as well as to host a
supplemental non-summer gathering in the US or in some other location
every few years. John was the right spokesman to present the
proposal
because he is so well respected in the Society and has, in fact, been
talking for several years about the benefits of such a move.
We
are happy that Bishop Rupert Hoare expressed his desire to be the
Visitor for a North American Province; he felt that this would provide
important unity for the Society. When the Visitor attends, new
members
can be formally admitted to the Society at a Eucharist of Admission in
the US if they are unable to travel to the UK in July.
Next
February, the Executive Committee will consider changes to the
constitution to enable the formation of a North American Province. Our
proposal will be presented a second time, along with the
constitutional changes, at the next gathering on July 9,
2009. Assuming adoption, we would like to plan a supplemental
gathering in the spring of 2010. One suggestion regarding
timing of
the supplemental retreat was to hold it in the spring after Easter,
perhaps at the time of the Ecumenical Roundtable on Faith, Science,
Technology and the Church, assuming that this body continues to meet
in the future.
Meanwhile,
we ask your
assistance in helping to recruit new members who could be accepted
provisionally until they could be admitted when the Visitor is
present. Each of you probably knows at least a handful of
others who
qualify for admittance and might be interested in applying. Email us
names and postal addresses, and we'll happily mail them a copy of the
spiffy new SOSc brochure--we brought back lots from the Annual
Gathering.
In
other news, after many years of strong advocacy and faithful
leadership, John Keggi said that he is retiring from his position as
Chapter Co-convener. Claire Lofgren sent word that she wants to step
down, as well--temporarily. The two of us (Barbara and Gail) agreed to
step in as Co-conveners pro tem., with Claire (and another, hopefully)
to come back into leadership when the time is right.
We
look forward to your continued support for the Society and ongoing
conversation. If you have questions or need more information
about the
proposal, please let us know.
Deacon
Gail Phillips Bucher can be reached at gailbucher@att.net.
The Rev. Barbara Smith-Moran can be reached at smithmoran@earthlink.net.
[Top]
Teilhard and Jung: A
Cosmic and Psychic Convergence
|
Submitted by Rev. Franklin E.
Vilas, D. Min.
The
attached paper was published earlier this year in Teilhard Studies, a
monograph series concerned with the future of the human in the light of
the writings of Teilhard de Chardin.
In this essay, the Rev. Dr. Vilas seeks to demonstrate how
the
thought and writings of Teilhard and Jung converge. In their common
interpretation of matter and psyche they saw the interior as well as
the exterior role of the process of evolution. Their concepts of libido
and radial energy led them to an understanding of the collective nature
of the human psyche, and its expansion in culture as the noosphere.
Common understandings of the archetypes of evil and of the feminine
resulted in affirmation of the interior, spiritual drive underlying
human nature, with a valuation of the Christ image for Western culture
in its cosmic dimension through Jung’s archetype of the Self
and
Teilhard’s Omega Point. Their common vision, emerging from
the
struggles of the 20th century, has yet to be appreciated in its
application to the world of the twentyfirst.
Rev.
Franklin E.
Vilas, D.Min. is a priest in the Episcopal Church. With degrees from
Yale University, Virginia Theological Seminary, Andover Newton
Theological School, and New York Divinity School, he has served
as spiritual leader in parishes in the Northeast, including Trinity
Church and St. Paul’s Chapel in Lower Manhattan. While
serving in
New York City as president of the C.G. Jung Foundation, he joined with
Thomas Berry of the American Teilhard Association in 1975 to convene a
conference on the convergence of the works of Teilhard and Jung.
In the 1990's, as a delegate from the Diocese of Newark to
the
Ecumenical Roundtable on Science, Technology and Faith, Dr. Vilas was
instrumental with Rev. Barbara Smith-Moran in helping to form the
Episcopal
unit under the Executive Council of PECUSA.
Long a member of the American Teilhard Association’s board of
trustees, Dr. Vilas coordinated the 2005 memorial events on the 50th
anniversary of the death of Teilhard at the United Nations Center in
New York and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Inspired by the
works of Teilhard and Jung, he became active in the movement of
Spiritual
ecology in the 1980’s and represented the Interfaith
Partnership
on the Environment of the United Nations Environment Programme of which
he was a founder at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. He is
also a founder of GreenFaith , an
interfaith statewide organization on ecology in the state of New
Jersey, and the national Episcopal Environmental Network.
He is a member of the board of trustees of the Temple of Understanding,
one of the oldest interfaith organizations. Presently, Dr. Vilas is
retired and lives with his wife, Joyce, in Lakewood, New Jersey.
The author
can be reached at revfvilas@optonline.net
[Top]
Report from the American Academy of Religion
Conference
|
Submitted by Rev. Joel Daniels
The
2008 American Academy of Religion conference, held Oct. 31 -
Nov. 3 in Chicago, showed once again that topics in science and
religion have captured the imagination of religious scholars. The
sessions hosted by the Science, Technology, and Religion Group
have
become popular highlights of the conference, attracting dozens of
attendees on a diversity of topics. In addition to that program group,
there were sessions on evolutionary theory held by the Philosophy of
Religion group, others by a group dedicated solely to the cognitive
study of religion, and still others that focused on the philosophical
implications of the Transhumanism movement, the idea that
humans are
physically perfectible and, through the application of sufficiently
advanced technology, potentially immortal.
Much of the work in science and religion presented at the
conference involved ethics: its potential evolutionary roots and
neurological correlates. One of the most interesting projects involved
an inter-disciplinary study of ethics and cognitive science that
involved virtue theory. Virtue theory, as expounded most prominently by
Alisdair MacIntyre, prizes the practice of virtue as a way of building
character and the ethical life. Work done by a team that includes
cognitive psychologists and theologians has showed that the practices
themselves may affect the physical structure of the brain over time -
an interesting example of "top-down causation," a controversial but
promising idea in philosophy of mind.
In addition, there was a fascinating study of evil that drew
on
the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences' current project:
scientific perspectives on theodicy. While the theologians in the study
sought to clarify the relationship between the concepts of sin and
evil, the sociologist showed how perpetrators of school shootings, such
as those at Columbine or Virginia Tech, were described in the media in
a way that often conflated evil and mental illness, or supplanted the
former with the latter. Is evil treatable, she asked? Would it be
theoretically possible to eliminate evil acts with sufficiently
comprehensive medical care? Or does evil have some different status
that includes, but is not limited by, malleable mental states? The CTNS
project, of which this is but one piece, is an innovative way of
looking at one of humanity's oldest questions.
The Templeton Foundation also sponsored a lecture by Michael
Heller, winner of the 2008 Templeton Prize. Heller, a Roman Catholic
priest and cosmologist, writes about the origins of the universe: what
we can know through natural science, what we can't, and the
implications of both for a doctrine of creation.
While the topics varied as widely as the religious
convictions
of the presenters, it was clear that issues of religion and science are
firmly in the mainstream of academic religious study, and that there is
a great deal of interest in moving forward with research
projects
across disciplines. If this year's AAR Conference was any indication,
these projects will lead to ever greater insights into the physical
world and its religious inhabitants.
The
author can be reached at joelcdaniels@gmail.com.
[Top]
Book Review - If This Is The Way The World
Works
|
 |
If
This Is The Way The World Works
William
O. Avery and Beth Ann Gaede
Alban
Institute, 2007
ISBN-13:
978-1566993555
Alban Institute
Amazon.com |
Submitted by Ray Spreier
This
work is
aimed towards those involved in congregational or organizational
leadership, with the premise being that organizations are dynamic,
self-organizing, n-body systems, and are, therefore, subject
to
the same principles that apply to other self-organized systems found in
nature. The hypothesis is that when faith communities align themselves
with the way that the universe - God's universe - works, then the faith
community will thrive and be in a better position to carry out
its
vocation as a reconciling witness and servant in the world.
Through this lens, we can also examine, and redefine when
necessary, our ideas about congregational leadership or notions about
what constitutes a "healthy" congregation.
The applicable principles that Avery and Gaede identify are:
- openness
to new (and often disturbing) information,
- complexity,
- diversity,
- interrelatedness,
- and
process.
The
book acknowledges and draws heavily on Margaret Wheatley's Leadership and the New Science:
Discovering Order in a Chaotic World,
as well as others who have explored organizational dynamics and
leadership, including Ronald Heifetz of Harvard, Robert Greenleaf of
the Quaker tradition, Peter Senge, Peter Block, and Jim Collins.
I have to admit that I was already predisposed towards agreement with
the author's premises, and so found myself drawing analogies between
the book and my own experiences in rural ministry and as an executive
in several large commercial firms over the past years. I've
found
that every organization or community is always in the process of
becoming something new - whether that is driven by internal or external
forces, and that a sense of interrelatedness allows the organization to
align participants and internal processes toward that goal.
The Malcom
Baldrige National Quality Program
draws from the same set of concepts, and this approach has been
historically shown to be a recurring trait of top performing
organizations in the world.
For me, the key concept that the authors present is the openness to
internal and external feedback about our self-image that might
challenge our preconceptions about who we think we are as a community,
who we appear to be to the larger world around us,
and
whether those two images are in harmony. The most healthy
congregations I've been involved with are those for whom no issue is so
sacred that it cannot be examined, debated, or challenged.
I also found that Professor Donn Morgan's (CDSP) recent work,
Fighting With the Bible,
provides an excellent set of ideas for creating the social mechanisms
and processes to ensure diversity and that all dissenting voices are
heard from and honored as part of that process. I would
submit
that one aspect of the 'controversial' dialog taking place in the
Anglican Communion is the willingness of some bodies in the Communion
to entertain new and potentially disturbing information,
while other communities are perhaps less willing or able to do
so
at this time.
As the authors point out, leadership in such an environment becomes
fluid, akin to the many situational leadership models that abound in
the commercial world. I would think that in larger
congregations,
leadership tends to already become decentralized through the
empowerment of the laity and the many ministry groups that may be in
existence. It is in the smaller, rural congregations in which
I
participate where I believe that the style of leadership has a greater
inhibiting or nurturing influence. The small congregations
I've
experienced that adhere to a closed self-image with strong centralized
leadership tend to be those that are fighting for existence and
relevance as the community grows around them. On the other
hand,
I also serve a small congregation, which also struggles financially,
yet embodies many of the principles put forth by the authors.
Distributed, situational leadership that seeks to empower
others
and develop capacity is a necessity. But by embracing such an
approach and welcoming all voices, the congregation maintains a role as
a credible, energetic witness in the community.
The bottom line for this reader, is that I believe this work has done a
good job of identifying the core principles that one also will find in Baldrige, Good to Great,
Ken Blanchard,
and other systems that have long been successfully applied in the
business world. What I like about this work is that it
asserts
that what has made these popular systems successful is that they draw
on core principles already
at work in the world around us, and
recognizes that operating in harmony with these principles is akin to
operating in harmony with the Creator. Our faith brings a
special
set of premises and filters to applying these principles such that the
goal is always servanthood and witness in the world, as opposed to
profitability or organizational health per se.
At about 160 pages, it is a quick read, and I believe should be a
staple for every vestry.
Reviewer
can be reached at Ray_Spreier@ecunet.org
[Top]
New Members In The Spotlight
|
The
Rev. Joel C. Daniels
Priest,
The Church of St. Barnabas, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York
I
am currently the Associate Rector at the Church of Saint Barnabas, in
Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. In addition to my pastoral and
liturgical
duties, I also pursue an interest in topics in the field of religion
and science. At the General Theological Seminary, from which
I
graduated in 2007, I wrote my master's thesis on emergence theory,
neuroscience, and their relationship with the traditional Christian doctrine
of the soul. While my background is not in science, I've found the
recent developments in brain science, in particular, to be very
compelling, as they affect our very understanding of ourselves as people.
Issues of free will, the development of consciousness, and the status of
our relationship with the rest of creation are hugely important
subjects for religious-minded people to address as we go forward
into the 21st century. This is especially true for Christians: as a
people who are deeply incarnational, we are also aware that any changes to
our understanding of what human nature is will then also affect our
understanding of who Jesus Christ is.
I
can be reached at joelcdaniels@gmail.com.
[Top]
The
Rev. Kay Rohde
Wind
and Wings Mission Developer, Diocese of Wyoming
| I
currently work for the Diocese of Wyoming as the Wind and Wings
Mission Developer. I work with congregations to discern and
develop
their ministries in mission, how to get out of the pew and out the
doors to be Christ’s hands and heart in the world. Wind and
Wings
is focused on youth issues. I help congregations discern the needs of
youth in their local communities, providing resources that can help
them to establish projects that benefit young people and help them to
know that they are loved by God. |
 |
I
recently retired from the National Park Service after 31 years of
working in some of the most special places in our country, including
Everglades, Carlsbad Caverns, Shenandoah and Wind Cave and Rocky
Mountain. I spent the last 18 years as the Chief of Interpretation at
Lake Mead National Recreation Area. My job was to help visitors
understand the “story” of the parks and their
resources. By
offering visitors opportunities to interact with the park resources
(walks, talks, environmental education), they can become a part of
the story. Stories connect us. When we listen to another’s
story we
can find ways to connect with our own stories, then we begin to
understand. When we begin to understand, then we begin to care about
that other thing. When we care about something, then we want to take
care of it. My job was to help visitors connect their stories to the
stories of the parks and reach the place where they wanted to help
take care of these special places, and then to help them figure out
ways to take action. I was also actively involved in establishing
and working in environmental education programs at National Parks.
I
was discerned for the priesthood by the congregation of the church in
Boulder City, Nevada and ordained in 1993. Since Nevada is a Diocese
that lives out Total Ministry, or Ministry of the Baptized, I was a
part of congregation that understood that each member had a gift for
ministry and that my
role as priest was not to do it all and be in charge, but to
encourage and let the others use their gifts.
I
grew up on the redwood forests on the north coast of California, and
graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with a BS in Recreation
Administration. I love exploring new places and learning the
“stories”. I enjoy hiking and bicycling, but
especially just
meandering, (with plant book and camera in the pack) and
watching/discovering. My love is geology – learning the story
of
the land – and how it connects to other places and how it
connects
to the plants, animals and history. I love to tell the stories, and
help others find their place in the story. And that rolls over into
my work with congregations – it’s all about finding
ourselves in
God’s story. Connections!
I
have a son, who is a History student at the University of Nevada,
Reno. He is a seasonal Park Ranger at Yosemite National Park
– the
next generation is telling the stories!
Kay
can be reached at kay@wydiocese.org.
[Top]
News and
Other Items of Interest
|
CDSP
Awards Honorary Doctorate Degrees
CDSP - Church
Divinity School of the Pacific awarded honorary degrees to
three
distinguished former students at its annual Alumni Convocation on
October
9.
The Rev. Josephine (Phina)
Borgeson, vocational deacon, educator, and
correspondent
for Episcopal Life,
and the Rev. Jack Hilyard,
canon for
program
and planning for the Diocese of Oregon, were awarded the Doctor
of
Divinity degree. Barbara
Borsch, longtime community activist and
advocate
for religious education, received the degree of Doctor of
Humane
Letters.
In
his sermon, President and Dean Donn F. Morgan said, "While Barbara,
Jack,
and Phina each bring special and different messages for us, what
they
share is equally powerful.Through their deep convictions and
passion
about education in a wide variety of times and places, they
would
strongly affirm the need for an educational vision ... In creating
and
sustaining such a learning community, they would urge us to pay
attention
to developments and disciplines and institutions outside the
church,
even outside the influence and interest of religious cultures."
Full
story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81831_101494_ENG_HTM.htm
Subscribe to the Episcopal Life
newsfeed in your email.
Church
of England Issues 'Apology' to Darwin
By Mary
Frances Schjonberg
Episcopal News Service -
A spokesman for the Church of England has said
the church misunderstood Charles Darwin's work nearly 150
years ago and
that "by getting our first reaction wrong," has continued an on-going
misunderstanding.
At
the end of an essay titled "Good religion needs good science," the
Rev. Dr. Malcolm Brown, the Church of England director of mission and
public affairs, addressed Darwin directly, saying that nearly 200 years
after his birth "the Church of England owes you an apology for
misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong,
encouraging others to misunderstand you still."
"We
try to practice the old virtues of 'faith seeking understanding' and
hope that makes some amends," Brown wrote. "But the struggle for your
reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious
opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own
interests. Good religion needs to work constructively with good science
-- and I dare to suggest that the opposite may be true as well."
Full
story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_100750_ENG_HTM.htm
Subscribe to the Episcopal Life
newsfeed in your email.
Worshiping Online - Is it Really Church?
By Lisa B.
Hamilton
Episcopal Life -
After Compline, the cathedral is hushed. Some kneel in shafts of light
tinted by stained glass. Others leave quietly, a few stopping to light
a candle on the way out.
In the courtyard, the mood is lighter. "Nice outfit. How did
you
get it?" "How did you get it? Shouldn't the question be where?"
This
is the Anglican Church in Second Life's virtual cathedral, so
the answer involves computer keys and Internet links. And those who've
stopped to chat do so in the form of animated characters -- many
elaborately costumed -- they've created to represent themselves on the
computer screen.
All
it takes is an Internet connection to download a free program
that lets one participate in the virtual world. Anglican Church in
Second Life was developed in 2006 by users of an interactive website
called Second
Life cathedral who
desired an Anglican presence. The Second
Life cathedral
has 400 to 500 members, mostly from the United States, United Kingdom,
Australia, New Zealand and Canada, with a sprinkling from Europe and
Asia. Each week, 80 to 100 members attend one of five online worship
services, a Bible study or a discussion group.
Click here for remainder
of story
[Top]
The
Episcopal Church Network for Science, Technology, and Faith
|
The
Episcopal Church Network for Science, Technology, and Faith is an
organization open to all Episcopalians interested in the interaction
between the Christian faith and science, technology, and medicine.
The Network intends to:
- Facilitate
dialog between members of this Church and members of the scientific,
technical, and medical communities;
- Be an educational resource for this Church, its seminaries, and the
wider Christian community; and
- Provide guidelines in Christian ethics for use in everyday decisions
within contemporary American culture.
For additional information on the Network, its work, and membership
please refer to the Episcopal Church USA website.
You
may also download brochures about the STF Network in English
or Spanish
(Adobe PDF).
Newsletter
The ST&F Network newsletter is published two to three times
per year.
Comments and news items may be sent to the Newsletter Editor, Ray J. Spreier,
postal address 20780 Ranch Village Ct., Bend, Oregon 97701.
This edition of the Network Newsletter is available for download in Adobe PDF Format.
Previous issues of the Network Newsletter may be downloaded from the Episcopal Church USA website.
[Top]
This
newsletter was last modified on 6 November 2008.
