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When faith and science collide

Elma Martens Schemenauer

Faith@Science: Why Science Needs Faith in the Twenty-First Century Denyse O’Leary. Winnipeg, Man.: J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing Inc., 2001.

Before reading Denyse O’Leary’s latest book, Faith@Science, I didn’t know that Hannah’s Prayer is an Internet resource for infertile Christian couples; that seed companies are working on a gene to prevent second-generation seeds from sprouting, so that farmers would need to buy new seed every year; that there is a brisk trade in eyes, livers and other body parts from aborted fetuses; and that sociobiology is an “academic attempt to apply beliefs about the evolution of animals to transactions in human society”.

Most of Faith@Science’s 50 short chapters first appeared as columns in ChristianWeek. They deal with what O’Leary calls “collisions at the intersection between faith and science.” These collisions are grouped under the following headings:

Moral problems are not solved by faster machines (genetic engineering, genome mapping, human cloning, high-tech reproductive technologies for infertile couples). How big are our footprints? (environmental destruction, genetically engineered foods, high-tech seed companies versus farmers and consumers, contaminated water, antibiotics in an over-medicated society). A theory so true that even falsehoods support it (the Big Bang theory, the theory of evolution, creationism, challenges facing Christian students and their parents, the possibility of life on other planets). The really difficult problems in faith and science (time travel, intelligence and gender, recovered memory, faith healing, the Bible code). Nature is a mirror – interpret at your peril (land mines, human embryo research, use of aborted fetuses’ body parts, exploitation of the Yanomami Indians of the Amazon).

Occasionally I questioned the inclusion of certain topics, or wondered why they were categorized under certain headings. I also noticed a few grammatical errors. However, these are small quibbles weighed against the book’s considerable strengths.

O’Leary writes in a straightforward, sometimes witty style accessible to adults with little science background, as well as to teens from about the age of 14 on. Her viewpoint is solidly Christian. She has done extensive research, quoting from interviews with experts, as well as recommending useful books and internet resources. Perhaps most importantly, O’Leary scares her readers. However, she doesn’t recommend that they hide their heads in the sand, comforting themselves with the thought that Christ’s Second Coming is imminent and this world is doomed anyway. Instead, she challenges them to weigh the issues, follow Christian principles, and make a difference in our morally illiterate society. In other words, she’s saying, “Please pass the salt.”

Elma Martens Schemenauer is a Toronto-based author.

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Last modified April 17, 2002.

© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
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