Language of God

Language of God has hosted many great guests already in its first season but as hard as we try, we can’t always get to all your questions. So while we’re between seasons, we thought we’d open the phone lines. Jim Stump, host of Language of God, and a few BioLogos staff members sat down to try and wrestle with some of the questions we received. Here’s their conversation.

Read Joel Duff’s article mentioned in the conversation on our website.

Ask your own questions to a community committed to exploring topics of faith and science at the BioLogos Forum

BioLogos is not the only organization tackling issues of science and faith today. Today’s episode features a panel from Science and Theology for Emerging Adult Ministries (STEAM), a project from Fuller Theological Seminary which offers resources to help teens and young adults to think through issues of science and faith. The panel discusses their project and lessons they have learned along the way.

Special thanks to Greg Cootsona, Kate Vosburg, and Len Tang.

Find more resources like STEAM in our Resource Center.

This bonus episode highlights a few favorite ‘Cool Creations’ of people in the BioLogos community. From walking whales to the largest organism on earth, these astonishing snippets of God’s creation offer a reinvigorated view of the world around us.

Special thanks to: Ryan Bebej, Jeff Schloss, Rick Lindroth, Kate Vosburg, and Praveen Sethupathy.

Original music from Carp.

Rick Potts has always had an interest in origins. As a kid, exploring the origins of musical instruments and the solar system fascinated him. In high school he stumbled upon the study of human origins; he has not stopped investigating since. Dr. Potts tells Jim stories of excavations in China and southern Kenya and of people encountering the exhibit on Human Origins around the US. Reverberating throughout their conversation is the question, ‘What does it mean to be human?’

Dr. Rick Potts is a paleoanthropologist and curator of the Hall of Human Origins at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Before coming to the Smithsonian in 1985, he received his Ph.D. in biological anthropology from Harvard University and taught anthropology at Yale University. He has lead excavations throughout the East African Rift Valley as well as in southern and northern China. His research focuses on human adaptation to environmental change.

Find a conversation about this episode at the BioLogos Forum.

The Christian story is both universal and individual, all-encompassing and intensely personal. A robust theology holds the two in tension, weighing the church body against the single sanctuary. In this episode of Language of God, Dr. Elizabeth Conde-Frazier joins BioLogos President Deb Haarsma to discuss the growth of a Latino/a theology which expresses the community’s experience in all its rich variety. Dr. Conde-Frazier speaks to life in the US with immigrant parents, the troubled history of race and science, and the importance of mentorship and role models for young people looking to careers in science.  

Dr. Elizabeth Conde-Frazier serves as Coordinator of Relations with Entities of Theological Education at Wesley Theological Seminary. She is the author of Hispanic Bible Institutes and A Many Colored Kingdom and has written extensively on multicultural education, Latin feminist theology, academic spirituality, and education for justice. She received her Master of Divinity from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary and holds a PhD in theology and religious education from Boston University.

How do we live when we don’t have all the answers? How do we find answers amidst Biblical contradictions? Theologian Peter Enns refuses to shy away from asking the larger questions about Christian faith. He brings these questions to his conversation with Jim, wrestling with how the Bible relates to our lives today. They explore the potential behind reading the Bible creatively, the dangers of our modernist sense of truth, and the growing desire for spiritual authenticity.

Theologian and Biblical studies scholar Dr. Peter Enns is Abram S. Clemes Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University. His research has focused on a broad variety of topics such as Old Testament interpretation, hermeneutics, and the relationship between science and scripture. In addition to writing and teaching, he hosts a popular podcast called The Bible for Normal People. Peter received his B.A. from Messiah College and an M.Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Find a conversation about this episode at the BioLogos Forum.

In today’s episode, Jim talks to evangelical theologian Dr. Richard Mouw. Rich shares his experiences from working in interfaith dialogue and lays out a compelling vision for Christian civility. Reflecting on his career, he finds our polarized cultural environment is not new—we’ve been stalwart in battling over big questions for decades at minimum. Looking ahead, exciting avenues of progress and growth are entangled in the corrosive arms of static certainty. The first step to a greater humility is greater understanding. Mutual understanding helps us reckon with what we stand to gain by drawing closer to those we disagree with.

Richard Mouw is a theologian, philosopher, and former president of Fuller Theological Seminary, where he now acts as Professor of Faith and Public Life. Hoping to help resolve deep conflicts, his work often wrestles with interfaith issues and he has long been in dialogue with the Mormon and Catholic communities. He received his BA from Houghton College, an MA from the University of Alberta, and his PhD from the University of Chicago.

Find a conversation about this episode at the BioLogos Forum.

One of the foundational practices of faith, prayer is an essential part of Christian life. But what is prayer? How does it work? Can we see its effects? Does science have anything to tell us about prayer? In this episode on prayer, Language of God producer Colin Hoogerwerf explores the relationship between science and prayer with Dr. David Myers, journalist Barbara Bradley Hagerty, author Philip Yancey, and Dr. Jimmy Lin. They discuss a 1997 Harvard experiment meant to measure the effects of prayer, the findings of neurotheology, and why we should pray at all. By melding their personal prayer lives with their research, our guests find a more robust understanding of the sacred practice.

Read David Myers’ response to the Harvard Prayer Experiment here.

Find a conversation about this episode at the BioLogos Forum.

In this week’s episode, Language of God host Jim Stump is joined by Dr. Bethany Sollereder to wrestle with the problems of natural evil and the origin of death—topics Bethany addresses in her new book God, Evolution, and Animal Suffering: Theodicy without a Fall. They delve into the traditional answers to these questions, probing their strengths and deficiencies, and grapple with challenging Biblical passages on these issues. Bethany discusses the possibility of animals going to Heaven and what that would mean for how humans interact with them now. In all, she hopes to uncover how evolution is suffused with God’s love.

Dr. Bethany Sollereder is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Science and Religion at Oxford University. Her research focuses on theology regarding evolution and the problem of suffering. She received her PhD in Theology from the University of Exeter after earning an MCS in interdisciplinary studies from Regent College in Vancouver.

Original music from Carp.

Find a conversation about this episode at the BioLogos Forum.

In the second half of our conversation with Francis Collins, he recalls writing Language of God over ten years ago and how the excited public response to the book sparked his idea for BioLogos. We reflect on the early days at the organization as well as Francis’ departure to become the head of the National Institutes of Health. Despite his departure from BioLogos, he still shares a firm commitment to gracious dialogue, to finding common ground with those with whom we disagree. Francis hopes we can learn to approach each other with respect and spend time with people who are different from us. We discuss the perception of religion in the scientific community and which questions science can answer and which ones it cannot. Finally Francis looks forward to the future of science—the exciting new horizons afforded by single-cell analysis, cryogenic electron microscopy, and treatments for genetic diseases.

Dr. Francis Collins is a physician and geneticist known for spearheading the Human Genome Project and for his landmark discoveries of disease genes. Collins founded BioLogos in November 2007 and served as its president until August 16, 2009, when he resigned to become director of the National Institutes of Health. You can find his landmark book on science and faith—Language of God—on Amazon.

More information on the concern about gene editing of human embryos can be found at the following links:
Call for a moratorium on heritable genome editing in the journal Nature
Francis Collins supports international moratorium on germline editing

Original music from Carp.

Find a conversation about this episode at the BioLogos Forum.