Science and Faith part 2

In the December issue of Discover Magazine, a purely secular magazine with no particular affinity for Christianity, noted science writer Tim Folger writes about a painfully inconveneint truth that has emerged as a consensus in scientific circles... He writes:

“Everything bears witness to this extraordinary fact about the universe; its basic properties are unannily suited for life. Tweak the laws of physics in just about any way and life would not exist. If the protons in atoms were just 2 tenths of one percent heavier, atoms could not exist. A slightly stronger gravitational pull and stars and our sun would burn up too quickly for life. The sun is just exactly the right distance from the earth to support life. A little closer or farther away and all life would burn up or freeze.

In fact there are a lot of really, really strange coincidences and all of these coincidences are such that they make life possible.

But, Physicists don’t like coincidences. They like even less the notion that life is somehow central to the universe, and yet recent discoveries are forcing them to confront that very idea. Life, it seems, is not an incidental component of the universe, burped up out of a random chemical brew on a lonely planet to endure for a few fleeting ticks of the cosmic clock. In some strange sense, it appears that we are not adapted to the universe; but the universe is adapted to us.

Call it a fluke, a mystery, or a miracle. Or you can call it the biggest problem of physics.”

How could everything in the universe be so precisely fine tuned to support human life on this small planet?

I tell you how. There is a God who created this universe for us.

Not only did he make it to support life, but he filled it with wonders and beauty much of which is still undiscovered and beyond our wildest imagination.

Sunrises and starry nights, flowers and seashores, mountains, lakes and streams. From the farthest nebula that our telescopes can scan to the elegance of the DNA strand. God did it all.

And God did it for us - a gift that we could enjoy and carefully pass along to the next generation.

Almost exactly 500 hundred years ago, a scientist by the name of Copernicus put forth the theory that the earth was not the center of the Universe, and all these years we know he was right. Now, we also know that while the earth may not be the center of our solar system, it seems that human life is at the center of the universe.

Science and Religion

The ongoing battle between "faith and science" is absurd. Don't you figrure that all truth is God's truth and, as such, science and Christianity are completely compatible. Science can and does answer questions that the Bible does not address. On the other hand, The Bible seeks to answer questions that science can never solve. Questions of love, beauty, and morality can not be quantified or tested in a lab. These matters are outside the scope of science's capacity. Faith, Hope and Forgiveness can't be reduced to an equation or verified by measurement or analysis.

Much of the debate and heat surrounding the creation/evolution discussion is generated by people who are trying to push science or Scripture beyond what either are capable of addressing. When science or Christian faith are in conflict either the scientist or the theologian have misinterpreted their respective "texts."

I think evangelical Christianity has often sought to force bad science of the world in Jesus' name when the science should have driven us back to make sure that we have been properly interpreting God's Word.

I think some intellectuals are guilty of trying to use scientific tests to disprove the existence of God and when they do so, they usually become poor philosophers and do science no favor.


Ross Douthat blogging for Atlantic Monthly this month lays out a rock solid case for the validity of religious dialogue and the foolishness of trying to establish "science" as the only possible path to truth. Science does provide us some truth, but there are limits to its capacity. Not all "truth' can be tested in a lab. The fact that a thing can't be tested doesn't make such truths any less truthful.

http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/02/science_and_beliefs.php

Kurt and Brenda Warner

There are several great stories of faith tied to this weekend's Super Bowl, but none is more gripping than the tale of Kurt and Brenda Warner. For the past twenty or so years, God has guided their lives and transformed their character in a way that is truly remarkable.

My wife tells me that "getting to know about the players" is the best way to get her interested in the game. So, in an effort to help bring marriages together on Super Bowl Sunday (and justify big screen televisions around the globe), I want to offer up this article about Brenda Warner from the Arizona Republic.

This time, Warner's wife is ready for the limelight
by Craig Harris - Jan. 28, 2009
The Arizona Republic

As her husband leads another improbable team to this Sunday's Super Bowl, Brenda Warner has been thrust into the spotlight again.

It's not something she sought or desired. The last time it happened, she got burned.

But there was no way to dodge it, especially after her husband, Kurt Warner, sought her out for a post-game embrace after his Arizona Cardinals won the NFC Championship and will play in Super Bowl XLIII. Cameras captured that moment, and shortly after, the quarterback choked up - twice - during a news conference when talking about his wife.

"None of this feels as good unless you can share it with someone. I get to share it with my best friend and the person I'm in love with, and that happens to be my wife," Warner said later. "We have done this together . . . and I wouldn't do it with anyone else."

Brenda Warner's journey, however, hasn't been easy, but she feels much more ready for the limelight this time around.

With her then-spiky short hair and long manicured nails, her looks and bright-blue outfit with a boa were picked apart when Kurt led the upstart St. Louis Rams to victory in Super Bowl XXXIV nine years ago.

Over the next few years, she gained notoriety after calling St. Louis talk-radio stations to defend her husband, who by 2003 had gone from Super Bowl Most Valuable Player to riding the bench. She even suggested a trade would be welcome. Such talk from a wife is taboo in the professional sports world.

Around that time, she also put her foot down and said "no" when St. Louis fans wanted an autograph from her husband while the family was out for dinner.

Friends say that Brenda was just protecting her family and that her tough side emerges from being a former Marine who has overcome major heartaches.

They say she is a compassionate woman who still collects thousands of coats for low-income kids in St. Louis and rocks babies to sleep at a Phoenix nursing center for chronically ill infants.

Her supporters add that she has a deep loyalty for her friends. And even with the demands of seven children, they say, she makes time for those in need.

"She's guarded about her family because that is her world," said Tina Wilkins, whose husband, Jeff, was a kicker for the Rams. "People misunderstood her and thought she was too involved in her husband's life. But a lot of us wives want to make a phone call and tell it the way it is."

Jeff Perry, who was the Warners' pastor in St. Louis, said the criticism Brenda Warner received was unfair.

"There is no class on how to respond to escalating media pressure," he said. "She came out of an obscure place and just got slammed."

Since moving to metro Phoenix four years ago, Warner has kept a low profile. She says what happened in the past is just a life lesson.

"At that time, things happened good and bad, and you live and learn," she said. "I'm going to be 42, and we are at the Super Bowl again, and I'm just looking at the positives."

Growing up with faith
Brenda Warner's story is as compelling as her husband's rags-to-riches tale.

She was born to Jenny and Larry Carney on June 17, 1967, in Parkersburg, a northern Iowa community of fewer than 2,000. Her father made transmissions for John Deere.

At age 12, Brenda's life took a spiritual turn when she and the rest of her family became Christians. She began reading the Bible and proclaimed her faith all the way through high school.

"Jesus Freak. That was my name," Warner said with a slight laugh. "But I'm proud of it."

Brenda excelled as a high-school cheerleader and was honored as an All-American. She didn't go to college for financial reasons and enlisted as a Marine.

Shortly after her 18th birthday, she was shipped to Okinawa, Japan, and in the military, she met her first husband.

The marriage lasted less than four years but produced two children: Zack and Jesse.

The oldest child, Zack, suffers from brain damage and a loss of vision from a childhood accident.

Divorced with two kids, Brenda moved back to Iowa, where she relied on her parents, food stamps, low-income housing and government medical benefits to make ends meet.

"The Christian thing didn't stop me from going through tough times, but I had that faith to hold me up when things were really bad," she said.

In 1992, she started nursing school and, while at a country bar, met a college quarterback four years her junior. They danced all night, but when Kurt Warner walked Brenda to her car, she told him there likely wasn't any future.

"I said I was divorced with two kids and if I never see you, I understand. But the next morning, he shows up at my door," she said.

The couple would date for five years, but during the lengthy courtship, tragedy again would occur.

In April 1996, a tornado ripped through Mountain View, Ark., where Brenda's parents had retired, killing them both.

"It was heartbreaking for her," said Stacy Weinke, who went to nursing school with Brenda.

But Weinke said the challenging life experiences made Brenda compassionate. When Weinke and her husband were flooded out of their Iowa home, the Warners sent four boxes of clothing and household goods.

"It's humbling and hard to be on the receiving end when you know you can never repay them for some of the things they do," Weinke said.

A year after Brenda's parents died, she and Kurt were married, and he adopted the two children. Soon after, their lives would dramatically change.

About family
In 1999, Kurt Warner was a former grocery-store stock boy, ex-Arena Football League player and NFL backup who came out of nowhere to lead the Rams to a Super Bowl victory.

He graced the cover of magazines, and, during that time, Zack's teachers stuffed his backpack with those periodicals seeking autographs.

"My son walked with a limp and couldn't see and he's carrying home Sports Illustrateds for Kurt to sign," Brenda said. "That made me realize we needed to make rules and parameters for the kids to be safe."

It was then that the no-autograph policy when the kids were around went into effect. Jesse, then 8, was trying to tell her dad a story at a restaurant and Kurt was constantly interrupted by people seeking an autograph.

"He doesn't want to be the bad guy, and he's not a bad guy, and it's against his nature to tell anybody 'No,' " she said. "But we have to make sure our kids are our priority."

Inside the family's spacious Paradise Valley home, it's evident who the priority is.

While Kurt's Super Bowl MVP trophy is tarnishing and rests under a stairwell, there's a glass trophy case near the kitchen filled with art projects done by the couple's seven children, who range from age 3 to 19.

Kitchen walls are peppered with framed drawings of stick figures and squiggly red glitter art done by the little kids. In the nearby workout room are 38 large black-and-white family pictures, most of them portraits of the children that Brenda photographed.

The youngest ones, twin girls Sienna and Sierra, came after the Warners moved to Arizona.

Brenda had two miscarriages while Kurt played one controversial season for the New York Giants, where he lost his starting job.

Brenda, who had never miscarried before, said she was emotionally rocked.

"Little did I know Kurt was praying that God would restore what was lost. I wish he would have prayed to have one at a time, but God took it as twins," she said with a grin.

The twins also are part of the reason for Brenda's longer hair, a subject that has been bantered about on Internet chat sites.

Brenda said she had kept her hair short because that's the way Kurt liked it, but she grew it out while on bed rest for the final two months of the twins' pregnancy.

"How many people care about my hair?" she said with a laugh. "I find it trivial. I am more than my hair."

One place no one bothers to ask about her hair is Hacienda HealthCare, a 24-hour care facility for medically fragile children near South Mountain.

Staci Glass, Hacienda's marketing director, said that, for the past year, Brenda Warner has quietly checked in nearly every week and rocked infants. She recruited seven other Cardinals players' wives to go to the facility, and she donated eight rocking chairs.

Warner said her time at Hacienda allows her to just be herself.

"The football stuff is what people find exciting, but the real-life stuff to me is what means so much more," she said. "When football is all over, there will be another chapter. We are not done with what's important."

--- So there you go.  Pretty great story. 

For another look at the Warners' faith in action see this ESPN video.

Go Cardinals!

Mr. Lincoln and God's Place in the Public Square

Mr. Lincoln has been all the vogue this past week and today, as we seek a new beginning as a nation, I couldn't help but recall his call to prayer in March of 1863.  Six months before the Emancipation Proclamation, the President look to God as the source of our collective blessing and future salvation. 

“We have been the receipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too pround to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”

May we have the grace and wisdom to do the same.

Hardin-Simmons

There is hope for the world.  

This week we were asked to lead the "Cornerstone Lecture Series" at HSU.  As the world bemoans the crash of the stock market and the collapse of the finance sector, God is quietly working to provide the world with future leaders.  

All week I have been impressed with the passion and vision of the next generation at HSU.  Young men and women who have great insight into the most important things in life and a heart for their world have graciously welcomed us onto the campus.  The student body as a whole has been attentive and insightful as they have listened.  Their response has been kind and refreshing.

There is an important role for Christian education in our nation.  Schools like HSU serve as places where teenagers can become adults as they grow in their understanding of God and his plans for their future.  It seems to me that HSU provides the right balance of challenge and protection.  Instead of fighting their professors and fellow classmates, (and God knows that there will be plenty of time for fighting those wars after graduation), students at Christian schools can deepen their faith and explore a wide variety of ideas with guides who share their worldview. 

When I was growing up we used to plant a garden every spring.  My dad would spend the winter saving coffee cans, (remember those?), in preparation for planting day.  Dad would carefully cut out the ends of those cans and place one around each of tomato plants as we placed them in the ground.  He knew that the West Texas winds who whip all through the spring.  The cans would provide a little protection for the young plants while they established their root system and the stalks grew thick.  A day would come when he felt comfortable removing the cans, but by that time, the plants had grown strong enough to stand against the wind.

That's what I have discovered at HSU this week.  Not a group of students hiding from the world, but instead a group of men and women who are preparing to change it.  I know that Christian students have a role at state schools, but I like what happens to those who choose our Baptist universities.

Global Peace

So today, Steve and I are in South Bend, Indiana for a conference on missions in India.  All across the nation local churches are launching into a new season of mission work.  The shrinking of the planet has opened up opportunities that have never existed before.

We "do" missions for three reasons...

1.  God is worthy of the worship of all peoples in all places

2.  Lost people matter to God and their eternity is at risk

3.  The "least of these" need help that we should provide

The unique strategy of PEACE is that local churches connect with local churches across the world to help them reach those near them.  American churches make indigenous churches the "heroes" in their community.  We can do this.  

More to come...

A Civil Forum at Saddleback

There have been times, many times, when I have been a little embarrassed by my "baptistness." Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for the baptist distinctives; priesthood of every believer, authority of Scripture, etc.  I am proud of the mission work we do together around the globe, and our connections with Buckner benevolences and Baylor hospital, but honestly, our baptist "brand" has been badly tarnished.  When everyone from Jesse Jackson and Jimmy Carter to Jesse Helms and Bob Jones call themselves Baptists, your brand has ceased to signify anything specific about who you are.

When people read "Baptist" on the sign outside our church, they read meaning into our name based on their past experience with another baptist in another place or time... and honestly, who knows what that might have been?

So, this past Saturday night was like a breath of fresh air.  In primetime on CNN, Fox and MSNBC Dr. Rick Warren, Baptist, led a civil forum between our two presidential candidates at his church in Lake Forest, California.  He was kind, affable, gracious, and for the most part, so was the Saddleback congregation.  He didn't shriek, belittle, or deride anyone.  He asked intelligent and probing questions.  He listened respectfully for insightful and thoughtful answers.

He did not compromise our faith or mitigate his values or beliefs. He did not make a fool of himself or embarrass Christ on national television.

He even concluded the evening with the rather Christlike assertion that God intends for us all to be civil to one another in spite of our differences. He called on all Americans to join the political debate with kindness and civility as our companions.

I was inspired.  Not so much with American politics, which still seems pretty dicey this cycle, but I was inspired by Warren.  Maybe Baptist doesn't have to be a bad brand after all. Perhaps a new generation of Baptists will emerge who will demand that Baptist be synonymous with Christ-like living and being instead of aloofness, judgementalism, and ignorance.

For my part, I think I'll try to aim that direction, too. Perhaps together, we baptists, can redefine the term in this generation.

If you missed the Civil Forum, I've included a link to get you started...