I’m grateful to Westminster Presbyterian in Oklahoma City for inviting me to come talk with an adult study class about the Bizzell Bible Collection on Oct 9 and 16 to close out a 6-week series as part of their Midweek Manna program. Here’s the handout, and slides with prepared notes (although I ad-libbed quite a bit).
“And the Church must be forever building,
and always decaying,
and always being restored…” (T. S. Eliot, “Chorus from the Rock”)
I signed the Confession of Evangelical Conviction tonight. Upon first reading, it reminded me of the Barmen Confession, which Karl Barth drafted to call the German church to take a stand against the cultural idolatries and politics of fear in his time. It is so good in this time to see 300 prominent evangelicals create this statement against Christian nationalism, against a politics of hate, in favor of trust in Jesus alone and acting in love rather than fear. To be clear, this is a statement of conviction in the present moment, not a statement of faith or a creed per se. So many names of people I admire are listed among the initial signers, and now additional people are speaking out in support as well (e.g., Francis Collins, at the Trinity Forum last Friday). Hallelujah. Skye Jethani, one of the Holy Post anchors, initiated the project. Skye and several other signers appear in the “Press Conference” video, an explanatory video with Q&A, which is well worth watching. There are substantial resources on the website, including a National Prayer, a link to a superb five-part Bible study series (“God’s Good News About Politics,” free from InterVarsity), resources for worship (including an album already available at Apple Music and Spotify), and two videos for kids by Phil Vischer. Thank you to Skye and all the organizers and signatories for this gift to the church. May God renew his people in this country and around the world, to bring his peace, for the life of the world. Shalom.
It’s almost here: the new book by Francis Collins, The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust, ships this Tuesday and I can’t wait to read my pre-ordered copy. While waiting, I’ve enjoyed these previews:
What is wisdom? How do we find it? What are the roles of the four pillars mentioned in the subtitle? What does a search for truth look like? How do we need both science and faith today? How do we know who to trust?
I expect the book to develop in greater depth the themes and arguments Collins made in his superb lecture, “With All Your Mind: Finding Truth and Love in the Midst of a Pandemic,” given at the BioLogos Faith and Science Conference back in 2022.
As background for the book, I also highly recommend his recent conversation with Kizzmekia Corbett-Helaire, at the BioLogos Faith and Science 2024 conference, released on the Language of God podcast, April 25, 2024.
This new book is dedicated to Tim Keller, with whom he had a long-term friendship. I’m looking forward to a chapter in which Collins explores the paradox of why so many Christians have been vulnerable to misinformation and conspiracy thinking, when the Christian faith is grounded in principles of objective truth and ongoing cognitive repentance, the very tools needed to address the triumph of partisanship over the search for truth in our culture today. (And thank you, Francis, for your support of the recent Confession of Evangelical Conviction.)
Collins entered medical school an atheist and left as a Christian. A self-confessed evangelical, he has told the story of his conversion many times — including in his 2006 book, The Language of God, which remains one of the most helpful sources for any Christian exploring the compatibility of faith and evolution. He founded BioLogos, an indispensable resource for Christians engaged in the natural sciences and in science and faith questions. Any Christian unfamiliar with him will appreciate watching the full ceremony when he received the Templeton Prize in 2000, with tributes from N.T. Wright, Deborah Haarsma, Jane Goodall, Renée Fleming, and others (here’s another from Philip Yancey).
By any measure, Francis Collins is one of the most consequential scientists of the last 50 years. He first came to widespread recognition for his early work on Cystic Fibrosis, a fearsome, incurable childhood disease. In 1993 he succeeded James Watson (co-discoverer of DNA) as director of the Human Genome Project, an audacious “big science” project which critics at the time regarded as a mission impossible. Yet astonishingly, only ten years later, an initial map of the full human genome was completed, unlocking the potential for untold numbers of medical applications. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007, and was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Collins and his scientific collaborators successfully identified the specific genes responsible for Cystic Fibrosis, Huntington’s disease, neurofibromatosis, multiple endocrine neoplasia, and progeria (premature aging). In 2009, Collins became director of the National Institutes of Health, the country’s premier organization for medical research and public health. He served as NIH director under three presidents, and provided exemplary leadership throughout the Covid 19 pandemic. The mRNA platform made possible the amazing timeframe for the Covid vaccines — what would ordinarily take 5 years, at a minimum, was accomplished in less than 100 days, in one of the greatest marvels in the history of medicine. The same mRNA platform is now accelerating cancer therapeutics. He has tirelessly advocated for the healthcare needs of minorities and the global south (e.g., volunteering as a physician in a rural missionary hospital in Nigeria). He led genetic privacy initiatives which resulted in the Genetic Nondiscrimination Act prohibiting health insurance company discrimination on the basis of genetic information. In his current research, Collins is exploring cures for premature aging, and he is spearheading an initiative to eliminate Hepatitis C, a devastating disease which can now be cured. We can all thank God for his transparency about his prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment, in an effort to encourage many men to undergo PSA screening, and we pray for his full recovery. His article at Wikipedia only begins to summarize his story. (More posts here.)
The new book will be a gift to the public, to the church at large, and particularly to Christians working in or with the sciences. I thank God for you, Francis Collins, and for your faithfulness in the work. Hallelujah. Now… just waiting for the book to appear on my doorstep…
I’m so glad that I was asked to officiate the wedding of Chad and Mary on August 31, 2024, at beautiful Klondike Park in west St. Charles County. Here’s the script (PDF). Prayers and blessings for Chad and Mary!
Procession
Who presents this woman in marriage?
Answer (MB): “Her mother and I do.”
[Then MB sits down.]
Invocation
Dear friends who have traveled from far and near to be here today, we are gathered in the loving fellowship of each other, and in the joyful presence of God, to celebrate with Chad and Mary this dawn of their new life together, their union as husband and wife.
Mary, I’m so glad to have known you since you were a little girl with the curiosity and wonder of Kendra, who just carried in the flowers. You were and remain an utter delight to everyone who knows you. For all these years, your friendship, along with your sister and brothers, has meant so much to my family. Chad, I remember you said that finding Mary was like “meeting a best friend who I didn’t know, yet it felt so natural, I could be myself.” You’ve already taken me for a short spin in your wilderness-seeking Jeep. I can’t wait to hear of all the great times you two will have camping and traveling together as you journey on from this day.
Words on Marriage
For those who enter into it, the gift of marriage is a relationship like no other.
Chad and Mary: God is saying to you today, Surprise! See how much I love you. I have never forgotten you, I know you, I see you. You are not alone. From this day forward, whenever you look at each other, know that you are looking at a precious gift of God. You are looking at a beloved child of God, the beautiful one whom God has chosen as your companion on this journey of life. Today, God and all the holy angels are rejoicing, celebrating your love for each other.
The Triune God — Father, Son, and Spirit — are by their very nature an eternal communion of love. That is why Jesus honored marriage at the wedding feast in Cana. There, at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus changed water into wine. At the wedding party, Jesus brought the wine! And He is still doing so today. Drinking the wine signals that marriage, for all time, is a sacred and joyous celebration, an image of a future Day when He shall come for His beloved, His bride. All our earthly joys and longings dimly testify of that future Day.
For Love is forever. 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, says:
“Love is patient and kind. It is never jealous or envious, boastful or proud. It is never haughty, selfish, or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
Your love for each other will awaken you to a life of love and a love of life. In the Song of Solomon we read:
“Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death. Love burns like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away.”
When you truly love someone, you want them to live forever. To bring us life and love forever is why Jesus came, so that we too might participate in that eternal divine communion. Be confident that love never ends. Your journey here together is a beautiful beginning of everlasting love.
Chad and Mary, your love will wake something up within you. By entering into marriage, you will love more deeply than you ever thought it possible to love before. Your love for each other, and God’s love for you, will sustain you through unfathomed depths of sorrow and through unexpected heights of joy. In marriage, you are moving “further up and further in” to the everlasting mystery of love in the cosmos.
Declaration of Intent
Chad, do you take Mary to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, for richer or poorer, for as long as you both shall live?
[Chad: I do.]
Mary, do you take Chad to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad, for richer or poorer, for as long as you both shall live?
[Mary: I do.]
Vows Exchange
Join your right hands and give heed to the vows you shall make to each other: [Give microphone to Chad]
[Chad’s vows] [Give mic to Mary]
[Mary’s vows] [Replace mic in stand]
With this exchange of vows you are entering into communion with each other and with God. Though your way will not always be easy, the Lord in His grace will sustain your marriage. He will renew your love for one another, for He is the “giver of all good and perfect gifts.” A “threefold cord” is not easily broken.
Rings Exchange
As God pointed to the rainbow as a sign of his promise to Noah, have you a sign of your promise to each other?
[Chad and Mary:]
“We have these rings.”
[Chad and Mary take rings from their company, prepare to give to each other.]
Chad and Mary, the ring is a symbol of the unconditional love you have for each other. Its unending circle represents the eternal quality of love, and the gold represents its purifying fire. As a ceaseless reminder of this hour, and as a seal of the vows you have taken, now give and receive your rings.
[Chad (prompted by Kerry):]
I give you my name
and this ring
to wear with joy
as a sign of my love and
vows before the Lord.
[Mary (prompted by Kerry)]
I receive your name
and give you this ring
to wear with joy
as a sign of my love and
vows before the Lord.
Pronouncement
Chad and Mary, it is not a minister standing before you that makes your marriage real, because marriage is the gift of God. Your relationship is part of the eternal YES spoken to you by the God who is the source of love. So in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and with the authority vested in me by the State of Missouri, we all here and now acknowledge that you are indeed husband and wife!
Chad and Mary, you may kiss your beloved!
[Kerry moves off to the side so photo may be taken]
[Presentation]
May I present Mr. and Mrs. Chad and Mary _______!
[Photos]
Recession
This October 4-6, Oklahoma City will welcome a firmament of stellar speakers and a Milky Way of radiant participants to the Painters, Prophets, Poets conference, subtitled “Imagining New Creation Together.”
Hosted by Travis Lowe and Hannah Anderson, speakers are Malcolm Guite, Makoto Fujimura, Haejin Shim Fujimura, Beth Moore, and Miroslav Volf. Around 400 people have registered from 30 states plus Canada. Most of the top 10 states lie between the Rockies and the Appalachians. An explicit goal is to encourage the growth of collaborative communities in the central plains.
Learn more and follow conference updates at Facebook and Instagram.
After registration, conference participants hear about various auxiliary events. One of those is touring the OU History of Science Collections…
Invitation:
Today, you are a researcher. This is a privilege and a dare.
Beware, the books will change you. Let him who has ears to hear…
I pray you will find one that speaks to you.
One that rouses your imagination like the Oklahoma winds.
One that strengthens you with the comfort of the companionship of a true friend.
Enter in hope, all ye who enter here.
Experiencing the History of Science Collections as part of this conference will not be like visiting a museum; our conversation together will be much more personal than that. Come with your heart open to allow the beauty of these physical traces to draw you into the invisible reality of the communion of the saints, the communities of scientists, artists, and lovers of creation who have gone before. Bring your journal notebook (pencils good, but no pens). Phone photos welcome. Space is limited. Register first, then you can sign up. With apologies, no rain checks; it is not available on other dates.
Recommendation: Download a copy before the tour, and read the first few pages to orient you to the History of Science Collections and what we’ll be doing. First we’ll enjoy a whirlwind tour; then after that you can go back and look at one or two books with greater care and attention (consulting the meditations if you wish just for those select items). This PDF contains all the meditations that are set next to the books during the tour, but don’t try to read them all at once.
In the weeks after the tour, read the meditations at leisure, like a book of poems, selectively, and as you have time to inwardly digest them.**
Then, as the desire to know and the love of understanding wells up as courage within you, come back, register as a researcher, and ask to see the original books in the Reading Room!
At the conference I look forward to meeting you in person. Before then, I hope to read your introduction on the private Facebook group. See you soon… I can’t wait!
** Note: The meditations are not written to be read in an informational mode like one might employ to scan an article at Wikipedia. They are not what Siri might speak back if you asked her for a caption. Read them like poems. Within the frame of a given form or structure the creativity of a poem emerges; it is the same for these reflections. Think of the materiality of the books and historical knowledge of the events as analogous to the form or structure of a poem. While writing within that frame to the best of my ability, these are meditations, interpretations, my gifts of gratitude to the speakers, organizers, and participants of this conference. Tip: You may find it helpful to read them aloud.
Become a researcher at the OU History of Science Collections:
Yes, you are welcome to come back as a researcher. You do not need to be an academic scholar. There is a registration process. After that, the books will be brought to you in the Reading Room (max of five at a time). It’s good to request the books in advance so they can be pulled and waiting for you. All this is explained on the web page for the History of Science Collections. The information at the top of each page in the reflections PDF is sufficient to make a book request. Go to the University of Oklahoma Libraries website (libraries.ou.edu) and navigate to the page for the History of Science Collections. There you can register online, request the books you want to see ahead of time, and ask any questions you have for Collections staff. And then come and sit with the books.
Auxiliary educational resources for the weeks AFTER the tour:
If your time among the books on this visit prompts you to explore further, numerous excellent educational resources are available online and in your library and local bookstore. Depending on your interests, I’ll be happy to make some recommendations if you want to get in touch. To help you get started diving deeper into any of the topics raised by these books, the following educational resources of my own are keyed to the number of the book as indicated in the meditations PDF.
General resources:
None of my own educational resources above, including the meditations PDF, represent the University of Oklahoma. The views and interpretations expressed are all my own.
University web pages:
All rare book images in the meditations PDF are from the History of Science Collections and the Bizzell Bible Collection of the University of Oklahoma Libraries.
Jens Rud Nielsen (1894-1979), who joined the OU Physics Department in 1924, was an undergraduate student of Niels Bohr (1885-1962) in Denmark.
Bohr, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, made two trips to the University of Oklahoma, first in 1937 and again in 1957. During the latter visit, on December 13, 1957, Bohr gave a public lecture entitled “Atoms and Human Knowledge.” It was delivered on the OU campus, in Holmberg Hall, Norman, Oklahoma, under the auspices of the University of Oklahoma Public Lectures Committee and the Frontiers of Science Foundation of Oklahoma.
Bohr’s 1957 lecture was recorded by then Professor of Physics Chun Lin and transcribed by Nielsen. Lin’s original reel-to-reel tape is in the OU History of Science Collections. The OU physics/astronomy program is now housed in two beautiful buildings on campus: Nielsen Hall and Lin Hall (completed 2018).
In 2010, Robin Noad, then Director of the Media Resource Center, Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts, digitized the original reel-to-reel tape, which enables us to make a .wav file available online:
In the recording, Bohr begins at 6 min, 45 sec. He is preceded by an introduction delivered by Jens Rud Nielsen.
Bohr gave the talk before he had recovered from jet lag; as a result, his speaking voice becomes quieter over the course of the lecture. To partially compensate for this, I edited the audio file to progressively increase the volume as the talk proceeds, with an increase of up to 5.8 dB toward the end. The mp4 file reflects this editing; the wav file conveys the talk as recorded, without adjustments.
Bohr’s lecture was published as a booklet by the Frontiers of Science Foundation of Oklahoma, Inc. The Foundation has generously granted permission to distribute a scanned version online (download pdf, 2.9 MB).
An earlier version of the above post was originally part of a series celebrating the centennial of the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy. It was posted August 25, 2010, on a now-defunct blog of the History of Science Collections. I’m re-posting it here with a few updates and new links to the resources.
2024 is the 200th anniversary of George MacDonald’s birth (1824-1905). The George MacDonald Society and the Marion E. Wade Center of Wheaton College sponsored a conference, “George MacDonald and the Prophetic Imagination,” May 29-31, 2024.
As with the centenary celebration in 1924, this bicentennial conference explored MacDonald’s imaginative vision through formal papers and presentations integrated with music, drama, art, and conversation over mealtimes. With eschatological hope and ecumenical hospitality arising from the love of the Father, it was a community-forming event as much as an academic conference. As one coming from dust-in-the-wind Oklahoma, who greatly appreciates allergy-free clear water, it felt to me as restorative as swimming in a clear mountain lake. As Malcolm noted in the final session, its ramifications will ripple out over years to come.
Here’s Malcom’s evening keynote from the second day of the conference.
At the conference, two more GMD bicentenary events were announced which will happen at the end of the year:
Dear [friend in a dark time],
You might be interested in a letter written during WW2 by a leading British radio personality (Dorothy L. Sayers). She spoke to fellow Brits about a Christian perspective on suffering.
I know you yourself are Catholic. But I would add that I think it may actually be fortifying for those in other faith traditions as well. I hope its Christian perspective won’t be off-putting for our Jewish friends, because the same principle — that the life of God is a pattern of suffering, and so all history shares in it — resonates with equal power and depth within the Jewish religious tradition. Substitute “story of the Jewish people” for the “story of Christ” or “going to Jerusalem” for “going to Calvary” and you have the same point.
Something like this — a robust attitude toward our calling to suffer in unity with the sins of our fellow humans, citizens, and communities — may paradoxically become welcome news in dark times. It is good news for those who suffer that by doing so we are sharing in the very life of God. In this way lies hope.
Some quotes from Sayers’ letter:
“They could not understand why earthly hopes should turn out to be illusory, human ideals issue (in practice) in hideous travesties of themselves, ‘progress’ turn round and go backwards, the old brutality burst up under the crust of civilization, and chaos appear to have come again. It was not only that they suffered – they were dumbfounded, and the bottom of their universe had fallen out.”
“All living is a desperate adventure, and there is no point at which we can sit back and say ’the war is over.’… You are perpetually walking along a razor-edge of peril.”
“You are going to Calvary. Everything that is of God in you is going to be crucified; and everything in you that is of corruption is going there to crucify the good part.”
“In great things and small, it is all the same story: the men who fell before Dunkirk without the weapons that could have saved them were bearing in their bodies the sins of the whole world – the neglects and egotism and the self-seeking of the rulers and voters and citizens… who let that situation come about; whether they knew it or not, they died as God died for the sin and folly of those to whom they were bound in the unity of the flesh…. The weariness of waiting in queues, the stuffiness of the black-out, the irritation of saving fuel and paper, are little hourly crucifixions by which the innocent redeem the waste and destruction of the guilty. We take each others’ sins – Hitler’s, the Government’s, the Church’s, yours and mine – everybody’s – up into our own lives, and by great or small acts of suffering make the damage good… It is the pattern of the life of God.”
“You have got to choose between crucifying God and being crucified with him; no other choice is open to you or me or any man.”
The entire letter (9 pages, printed) is published in Suzanne Bray, ed., Dorothy L. Sayers: The Christ of the Creeds and Other Broadcast Messages to the British People during World War II (Dorothy L. Sayers Society, 2008), pp. 76-84.
In 1943, Sayers wrote in reply to a letter she received from Stephen Grenfell, a junior employee of the BBC. At this time she corresponded regularly with the Religious Broadcasting Department of the BBC. Given the positive reception of her own earlier radio talks, and the relationships she had developed there, her views helped shape religious radio programming during WW2. Portions of this letter, with Grenfell’s permission, were anonymously broadcast on air. (See Suzanne Bray’s comments on the letter, pp. 22-23.)
The original of this document, and the letter from Grenfell which prompted it, are kept in the remarkable Marion E. Wade Center Special Collection at Wheaton College, in Illinois. They have an enormous collection of Sayers correspondence and other primary source materials. The co-director of the Wade, Crystal Downing, is a Sayers scholar.
Dorothy L. Sayers is best known for writing the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries and for her translation of Dante for Penguin (which kept the rhyming pattern and relentless pace of the original). She was a noted mid-20th-century playwright, and delivered a number of broadcast talks for the BBC during WW2. Her friend C. S. Lewis re-read her play on the gospels, The Man Born To Be King, every Lent for the rest of his life. Sayers was among the first women to receive a degree from Oxford — awarded five years after the fact, for when she completed her course of study with first class honors, Oxford had not yet begun to award official degrees to women. An excellent biography is Catherine Kenney, The Remarkable Case of Dorothy L. Sayers. (Here’s Sayers’ Wikipedia page.)
I hope these words of Sayers’ and the example of her faith during WW2 might paradoxically be of some encouragement to you in these difficult and dangerous times.
“The Son of God suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their suffering might be like His.”
George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, First Series, sermon #2, “The Consuming Fire” (1866). C.S. Lewis chose this quotation as an epigraph to place at the beginning of The Problem of Pain (1940).
“Regnavit a ligno Deus” — God reigns from wood of the Cross.
“But this ‘dominion’ over the peoples of the earth has lost its political character. This king does not break the peoples with an iron rod — he rules from the Cross, and does so in an entirely new way…. communion with the Crucified, who reigns solely from the wood of the Cross.” Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, pp. 321, 338, 339.
Candace and I listened with rapt attention to “You Do Not Walk Alone,” a moving choral piece by Elaine Hagenberg, at the OKC Civic Center “For All the Saints” Irish concert last week. It prompted us to browse Elaine’s website and discover her many other compositions, which we are so thankful to begin to make a part of our lives. We are now searching out her music on various albums and collections — such as “Modern Choral Anthems” performed by the Beckenhorst Singers (Apple Music). What a beautiful gift to the world she is.
You Do Not Walk Alone
Love That Will Not Let Me Go
Deep Peace (related post)
As the Rain Hides the Stars (related post)
My Song in the Night
Caritas
This is My Father’s World
All Things New
Explore many more compositions, with lyrics, sheet music, and other resources at www.elainehagenberg.com.
Video of the Inverness book launch event for Bruce Ritchie, James Clerk Maxwell: Faith, Church and Physics (Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 2024); #2024-br-1.
My video recommendation (above). For those who want more, below is a longer video review (21 mins). But watch Ritchie’s lecture from the book launch first!
