Science and Religion Study Group

Since 1997 LOPC has sponsored a Science and Religion Study Group, where attendees have been working to clarify their own Christian faith and the bridge between Science and Religion. The only requirement to attend is to have an interest and a desire to understand.

Science and Religion meets from September to June on the 3rd Monday of the month 7:15 ‑ 9 p.m. in the Davies room. 

Beginning September 2008, the Science and Religion meetings will begin a discussion of topics—scientific, biblical and theological—bearing on the “End of the World.”  What can we understand and what is our hope “at the End of Days?” How should we understand the true nature of Christian hope? What should be our expectation of the attainment of God’s goal for history? In our religious tradition we are aware of God’s promise to us. As part of that, we believe in “the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.” In contrast, the scientific thinking about the future is not as reassuring. Based on the current ideas of the universe expanding indefinitely, the far future will be a situation of bleak and infinite emptiness. Closer at hand, the future of our sun is not encouraging. Current scientific models predict that within about five billion years the outer layers of the sun will expand to engulf the inner planets of the Solar System, reducing the Earth, the home of humanity, into a cinder. How are we to understand the apparent conflict between the prognostications of science and religious hope for redemption at the “End of the World?”

Resources to help our understanding are available from science and human intuition and experience, as well as Christian tradition and Biblical revelation. Initially, we will consider Cosmology, the scientific study of the origin and development of the Universe. After other topics in the nature of a scientific and cultural prologue, we will move to consideration of Biblical revelation and theological reflection on the nature of Christian hope.

In previous years the group discussed Determinism, Assumptions of Science and the Christian Tradition, Effectiveness of Prayer, Process Theology, Panentheism, Big Bang Cosmology, Evolution, Quantum Theory.  The group approaches these topics with the creed "Faith seeking Understanding".  Always the question is, "How can we best describe the God who is at work in this complex universe ‑‑‑ a universe in which there is so much beauty and so much pain?"

Please visit and participate in the discussion or contact one of the group's co‑leaders, Doug Clarke, Ed Schoenberger or Howard Robbins.