Faith and Science

Every great once in a while, my father, the late great Champ Ruffin, would decide it was time to get a new used car. He had one main criterion for any vehicle he purchased: it had to have four doors. The reason was that we transported “the ladies” (as he called them) to church every Sunday. There were three of them and three of us. I’d sit in the front seat between Daddy and Mama, the ladies would sit in the back, and off to Midway Baptist Church we’d go.

One fine Sunday morning in the late 1960s, one of them, inspired by what she’d been seeing on television, said, “Mike, do you believe those men went to the moon?” “Sure I do,” I said. (I was an eleven-year-old expert on such things.) She said, “I don’t.” “Why not?” I asked. “Because they show the ship flying through space. They couldn’t do that.” “But,” I replied, “it says ‘simulation’ right there on the bottom of the screen.” “Uh-huh,” she said.

That afternoon, my father said he wanted to talk with me about that conversation. “First of all,” he said, “she doesn’t know any better. There’s no point trying to talk her out of her opinion.” “Okay,” I said, “but shouldn’t she at least see that the image is a simulation, like it says right there on the TV screen?”

“Mike,” Daddy replied, “she can’t read.”

I was surprised to hear that. She took her Bible to church every Sunday. But I understood what my father told me. Some people’s limited experience lessens their ability to acknowledge what science accomplishes and teaches.

It’s not like I understand quantum physics.

Were you to ask me today if I “believe in” space travel, I’d say no. I’d also say no were you to ask me if I believe in evolution, in human contributions to climate change, or in the wisdom of being vaccinated against diseases. I don’t “believe in” any of those things.

But I don’t have to believe in them. I don’t have to take them on faith. Science verifies all of them, and that’s good enough for me. So while I don’t “believe in” any of them, I accept all of them because scientists tell me that the evidence supports them.

I am very concerned about the seemingly increasing rejection of science among some of our leaders. I hope such rejection doesn’t spread. I hope we elect science-affirming leaders who appoint and nominate other science-affirming leaders. We need more science, not less. We need to approach our difficult situations through rational problem solving, not through irrational posturing.

But science doesn’t tell us everything we need to know and it doesn’t help us become everything we need to be. There are ultimate matters that go beyond what science can tell us. I believe in the God who created what we study through science. I believe in the Savior who shows us how far God will go to be with us and to love us.

I accept science, but I trust in the Lord. Some people say you can’t do both. My experience, and the experience of many other people, says you can.

I started out talking about the lady who told me she didn’t believe those men went to the moon. She was wrong about that. I’m told that some years later, they found her kneeling beside her bed, where she had died while praying.

If I had to choose, I’d take such trust in God over acceptance of science.

But I’m glad I don’t have to make that choice.

Mortal Love

I offer the following observations in light of this year’s confluence of Ash Wednesday, which reminds us of our mortality, and Valentine’s Day, which celebrates human love. Let me define my terms. In the statements below, “mortal” means “human” and “love” means having attitudes and carrying out actions that are other-affirming, other-focused, self-emptying, and self-giving.

To be mortal is to be temporary, which makes love valuable. We are on the earth for just a little while, so we get to love each other in these fantastic earthly ways for just a little while. When we know the time will come when we won’t have something, it becomes much more valuable to us. Life is that way. Love is that way. So we should treat our beloved ones with the honor befitting their value.

To be mortal is to be frail, which makes love graceful. To be mortal is to be breakable. We get hurt, sometimes in our bodies, sometimes in our minds, sometimes in our hearts, and sometimes in our spirits. Sometimes we hurt those we love by not taking our commitments seriously or by not embracing our relationships enthusiastically. At such times (at all times really, but especially at such times), love saves us by its grace. By “graceful” love I mean love that is full of grace, which is the ability and willingness to accept each other in our frailty and to lift each other up when we fall.

To be mortal is to be dying, which makes love lively. Each passing moment brings us a moment closer to death, so we want to live lives that are as full of purpose and meaning as possible. Love contributes to such fullness. By “lively” love I mean love that is life-giving and life-enhancing. If love becomes stronger as our bodies become weaker, we become more alive even as we move toward death.

On this Ash Wednesday, we remember that we are mortal. On this Valentine’s Day, we remember that we love and are loved. Mortality and love make a wonderfully risky combination. If we embrace it fully, we’ll be alive for as long as live.

The Middle

Ever since I voted in my first election in November 1976, I’ve considered myself a political moderate. Now, I acknowledge that I usually vote for one party’s candidates because that party’s perspectives and policies for the most part align better with mine than those of the other party. But I’ve always wanted the elected representatives of both parties to put the good of the nation (or the state, county, or city) ahead of a particular political agenda. I’d like them to negotiate and to meet in the middle in order to do all they can do to help us be all we can be.

I don’t think bipartisanship and compromise are cuss words—I’ll say them right out loud, even at church.

One thing I regret about the current state of our politics is that the middle has pretty much disappeared. And as that has happened, those of us who have long sought the middle ground have been forced toward the extremes.

Picture a ring in which a boxing match is about to begin. After giving instructions, the referee says to the combatants, “Go to your corners and come out fighting.” We have our corners. We have our political, philosophical, religious, and social corners. It can be tough to come out of them and engage in the struggle, but that’s what we need to do. That’s what our political leaders need to do. Instead, we go to our corners and stay there. We shout at each other across the ring, but we don’t engage. That’s easier, but it’s not productive.

I realize the flaws in my analogy. One flaw arises from the fact that the point in a boxing match is for somebody to win and somebody to lose. But every once in a while a match ends in a draw, even though one of the fighters is in worse shape than the other. I think the goal for our representatives should be to get in there and slug it out to a draw. One side gets more of what they want than the other, but at least progress will have been made. 

Another flaw in my analogy is that we don’t have two clear-cut sides (Republican vs. Democrat; liberal vs. conservative); there are many sub-groups. A better analogy for our situation might be a wrestling ring in which a thirty-person battle royal is about to take place. Still, no matter how many people, positions, and perspectives there are, if all we do is stand in our respective corners and shout at each other, we end up—well, pretty much where we are. And we really need to move past there.

The poet Robert Frost once said, “A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.” I admit to having been guilty of that at times. I also admit to being willing to listen to almost anybody. I try to take people’s positions seriously and I want them to take mine the same way. But I do have my convictions. And I’ll admit that there are some folks whose positions are as far from being worthy of consideration as Hog Mountain is from the Matterhorn. So far as I’m concerned, racists, sexists, and xenophobes have nothing constructive to contribute to any civil discussion; they lack the basic humanity that is, to my way of thinking, the starting point for any helpful approach to the issues at hand.

Still, I think that our goal should be to make as much progress as we can. I understand that some folks will say that the issues are too important to compromise on. I’d like to be a purist too. But reality won’t allow for it. We live in a diverse nation that is going to become much more diverse. Our representatives need to put people ahead of positions and do all they can to help us move forward. Sometimes that means making compromises. It means searching for the middle. It means taking small steps.

The last presidential election pushed us farther into our corners than we’ve been at any time in my lifetime. During that election, some of my acquaintances (and even a couple of my friends) thought I went too far in resisting the eventual winner’s campaign. I felt that I had no choice. And now I’m not sure that some dangerous policies can be resisted from any position but the extreme opposite one.

Long term, though, we’d better find a way to resurrect the middle. I’m going to hold onto hope that we can.