1. Religion and Science are the same thing: Just differing worldviews
2. Modern science has come to the belief that the only thing that controls life are simply material-mechanical forces, ones that the eyes can see in the world around us. Traditional religion has certainly acknowledged that there are things that respond to material-mechanical means of human activity ... but have recognized that there is something far higher that cannot be explained, something of a mystery, but very effective, and very real in terms of its impact on life. History bears testimony to that, over and over again. Sadly, modern science has won the day so that those who hold traditional religious viewpoints are mocked and scorned. But there’s tremendous truth in those ancient religious viewpoints.
3. Certainly there’s a lot of power in our human understanding of the material world and its mechanics, that has allowed us to accomplish a great many things. But unfortunately, to leave things at that doesn’t give us full understanding of what it is that has made for human greatness. Actually ... I like to watch the Band of Brothers, because it’s a series of stories about World War Two, and the bonds that formed among the soldiers ... something that was so powerful, they would give their lives for each other. This – we might call it "love" – this dynamic has nothing to do with the material world and its mechanics. It’s something higher, spiritually we might even say. And it’s powerful. And sadly, modern science - especially our devotion to just modern science – leaves us unaware of what this real dynamic is all about, and how it is that we should be achieving that today instead of just material success constantly. Love is an awesome thing.
4. Christianity is about moving through life with God in the lead ... and not about trying to be in control of life’s outcomes - either by science (anciently practiced by the Romans) or formal religion (praciced by the scribes and Pharisees) ... as Jesus himself demonstrated in his ministry.
5. As a "scientific" people, we prefer to look to science, with its focus on the "mechanical" operation of things, rather than to mystical religion (such as the early church practiced). But God is much, much bigger than these scientific mechanics, which he himself actually put into operation. God wants us to look higher – much, much higher – in taking on life and its challenges
6. We were crossing the barren Balochi desert (where Alexander the Great had lost most of his army in his retreat from the Indus Valley) and lost sight of the sand-covered road ... and were amazingly put back on course when we bogged down in the sand by two men (the only people we had seen that morning) who were working on the road a short distance away. How odd!
7. God saved the lives of Martha and me when we pushed into a snow storm in the mountains of Eastern Turkey, desperate we were to get back to Western Europe. We were most amazingly rescued by – rather than plundered by – a truckload of Turks ... the only people we had seen on that road all morning.
8. My Christianity as a youth was simply a well-programmed understanding of the rights and wrongs in life, in which following the "right things" led to the right results in life.
9. My rather programmatic Christian worldview was shaken deeply by challenges to our faith offered by my Biblical history professor at Hanover College ... a disturbed individual who went on that year to commit suicide. All of this left me with only a very confused, or very cautious, worldview
10. My summer spent in Europe would open up to my eyes new ways of going at life ... depending on what society or social circle you find yourself in ... or at least identify with personally. They are all "rational" ... though operating from different viewpoints on what exactly that rationality happens to be!
11. I would return to Europe a year later, this time to spend a full school year at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, becoming even more familiar with the diverse ways people understand life, its challenges, and the things we ought to be doing in response to those challenges. Closest to me were a group of young Germans ... who had the Nazi legacy of their parents to live down. It was most revealing how they lived in strong opposition to that parental legacy. I certainly understood why!
12. This was a story circulating at Peace Corps Headquarters in D.C. when I was employed there to help pay my way through Georgetown University graduate school. It was about a young volunteer who discovered that going to India to change their understanding of life and its challenges is a lot more complicated than he (or Americans in general) ever expected. Worldviews are not easily reshaped ... no matter how much "reason" is presented as a challenge. Actually the young man learned more from the experience than he was ever able to teach these Indian villagers!
13. My father, in helping develop the new field of pollution control, was to discover personally how the news media is more interested in political drama than it is in real "truth" ... because drama – even very false drama – sells better than truth.
15. God's intervention proved to be key to Martha and me as we finally settled in Brussels ... and tried to find employment to support our stay there. A work visa for me as a computer analyst was a problem, as the Belgian government insisted that the American companies recently resettled in Belgium could hire only Belgians as such analysts. Then IBM-Belgium (whom I had not approached, considering them to be well beyond my reach) mysteriously called on me to come to work for them ... clearing away all obstacles to my employment with them! What an awesome surprise!
16. IBM was wonderful but exhausting work ... so that I was unable to do the doctoral research on Belgian politics that had brought us originally to Belgium. Then an American school, connected to NATO, offered Martha a teaching job ... and a salary that we both could easily live on ... and let me leave IBM to do fulltime doctoral research. That too came as a wonderful intervention on the part of that Higher Hand in our lives ... something we had not actually counted on.
17. My very first day of fulltime research, conducted at the Royal Albertine Library in Brussels, opened a very unusual relationship with two other American students (Tulane University) also doing their doctoral research there. Our long lunchtime conversations aided us in getting very much deeper into our subjects, as we each brought together our own perspectives on the Belgian (and American) political dynamics. That was not just a chance encounter. One of those two happened to be Newt Gingrich.