Science and the Spirit: A Pentecostal Engagement with the Sciences

230 Pages·2010·5.548 MB·English

by  James K. A. Smith (editor), Amos Yong (editor)

EDITED BY JAMES K. A. SMITH
AND AMOS YONG
Science and the Spirit
A Pentecostal Engagement
with the Sciences
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Science and the spirit: a Pentecostal engagement with the sciences / edited by James K.A. Smith and Amos Yong.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-35516-4 {cloth: alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-22227-5 {pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Religion and
science. 2. Pentecostalism. I. Smith, James K. A., [date]-II. Yong, Amos.
BL240.3.S3495 2010
261.5'5—dc22
2010001685
1 2 3 4 5 15 14 13 12 11 10
Preface vii
Introduction: Science and the Spirit—Questions and Possibilities
in the Pentecostal Engagement with Science 1
James K. A. Smith and Amos Yong
PART ONE • WHAT HATH AZUSA STREET TO DO WITH MIT?
THE BIG QUESTIONS
1. What Have the Galapagos to Do with Jerusalem? Scientific
Knowledge in Theological Context 15
Telford Work
2. Is There Room for Surprise in the Natural World? Naturalism,
the Supernatural, and Pentecostal Spirituality 34
James K. A. Smith
3. How Does God Do What God Does? Pentecostal-Charismatic
Perspectives on Divine Action in Dialogue with Modern
Science 50
Amos Yong
PART TWO • THE SPIRIT OF MATTER: QUESTIONS AND
POSSIBILITIES IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES
4. Does God Have a Place in the Physical Universe? Physics and
the Quest for the Holy Spirit 75
Wolfgang Vondey
5. Does the Spirit Create through Evolutionary Processes?
Pentecostals and Biological Evolution 92
Steve Badger and Mike Tenneson
6. Can Religious Experience Be Reduced to Brain Activity?
The Place and Significance of Pentecostal Narrative 117
Frederick L. Ware
7. Serotonin and Spirit: Can There Be a Holistic Pentecostal
Approach to Mental Illness? 133
Donald F. Calbreath
PART THREE • THE HUMAN SPIRIT: QUESTIONS AND
POSSIBILITIES IN THE SOCIAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL
SCIENCES
8. Can Social Scientists Dance? Participating in Science,
Spirit, and Social Reconstruction as an Anthropologist and
Afropentecostal 155
Craig Scandrett-Leatherman
9. Is Integrating Spirit and Sociology Possible? A Postmodern
Research Odyssey 174
Margaret M. Poloma
10. Is There Room for the Spirit in a World Dominated by
Technology? Pentecostals and the Technological World 192
Dennis W. Cheek
List of Contributors 209
Index 213
Contents
This book grows out of a multiyear, multifaceted research initiative, “Science
and the Spirit: Pentecostal Perspectives on the Science/Religion Dialogue,”
funded by the John Templeton Foundation from 2005 to 2009. Given that
Pentecostal engagements with science, and even the science/religion dialogue,
were nascent at best, the first task of the initiative was to find and assemble
a team of scholars from across the disciplines who were also familiar with
and/or working from within the Pentecostal and charismatic streams of Chris­
tianity. We thus launched our project by announcing a competitive request for
proposals in the fall of 2005 and gathered a team of experts to help us vet the
proposals.
In the spring of 2006, we selected a team of ten scholars who represented a
range of sciences and disciplines: Donald Calbreath (chemistry), Heather Curtis
(history of religion), Paul Elbert (physics and biblical studies), Robert Moore
(psychology), Margaret Poloma (sociology), Craig Scandrett- Leatherman (an­
thropology), Jeffrey Schloss (biology), Wolfgang Vondey (the ology), Frederick
Ware (theology), and Telford Work (biblical theology). While not all of their
work appears in this volume—due to the vagaries of theoretical surprises and
other obstacles—we are grateful for the contributions all of them have made
to this research initiative, launching a conversation that we hope will mature
and develop over the coming decade. Their contributions constitute the van­
guard of this emerging dialogue between Pentecostalism and science.
Each of these scholars engaged in independent research on a project at the
intersection of pentecostalism and science (broadly construed) during the
2006-2007 academic year. We then gathered together for a two-week, closed-
door colloquium at Regent University School of Divinity in the June 2007,
enjoying a period of intentional community as we lived, ate, worked, and
played together on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. Our colloquium was de­
voted to discussion of a common set of readings on science and the Spirit, in­
cluding new work on emergence as well as other tradition-specific models of
theological dialogue with the sciences. During this time we also enjoyed con­
versations with two guest lecturers who spent the day with us in conversation:
Philip Clayton, a philosopher of religion at Claremont Graduate University
(then Visiting Professor at Harvard Divinity School), and Darrell Falk, a bi­
ologist from Point Loma Nazarene University. Both engaged us at length and
were willing to help us grapple with some of the specifics of a distinctly Pen­
tecostal encounter with the sciences. The bulk of our efforts over the course
of the two weeks were spent reading and discussing drafts of our individual
research projects with a view to further developing and refining them for
submission to peer-reviewed journals (see the introduction for further dis­
cussion). This give-and-take of mutual critique and encouragement was an
important incubator for the work that has emerged from this research team.
An important element of this discussion included the contributions from sev­
eral graduate students who enrolled in Amos Yong’s Ph.D. seminar on Re­
newal and Science: David Bradnick (who served as our note-taker for the col­
loquium), Malcolm Brubaker, Bradford McCall, and Stephen Mills.
In the fall of 2007, as we were further honing our research articles, we set to
work on a second aspect of the project: the creation of a book that would ad­
dress issues, tensions, and opportunities at the intersection of Pentecostalism
and science in a way that would be accessible to undergraduate students in the
sciences. Each of the scholars was commissioned to write a chapter that would
address a “big question” in their field. While there was inevitable overlap be­
tween our advanced research and this task of writing for students, the ideal of
accessibility meant that many of the chapters here look quite different from
related research published in professional journals. Once again, collaboration
and mutual feedback, including a one-day discussion after the annual meet­
ing of the Society for Pentecostal Studies in March 2008, was an important
element of this aspect of the overall project. In addition to detailed feedback
from the editors, authors received feedback from colleagues which helped to
hone and refine the chapters that follow.
x- x- x
A project of this scope incurs many of the sorts of debts that we happily
acknowledge. We are first and foremost grateful to the John Templeton Foun­
dation for their tangible support of the “Science and the Spirit” research ini­
tiative (Grant #11876). We appreciate their willingness to take a risk on an
emerging conversation because of their foresight regarding its global impor­
tance. We are also especially grateful to Paul Wason at the Foundation for his
help with our initial proposal for funding. Alan Padgett (Luther Seminary),
Donald G. York (University of Chicago), and Ralph W. Hood, Jr. (Univer­
sity of Tennessee at Chattanooga), made recommendations regarding the re­
sponses to the Request for Proposals we received and have served as consul­
tants at various stages of the project.
The administration of the grant and its early logistics were capably and
cheerfully managed by the staff of the Seminars in Christian Scholarship of­
fice at Calvin College. We are grateful to Joel Carpenter, current director of
the Seminars program, as well as to Alysha Chadderdon (former office coordi­
nator), Marilyn Rottman (former office assistant), and Mary Bennett (current
office coordinator) for their cordial assistance with logistics and reporting.
Steve Barkema and other staff members in the Communications and Mar-
Preface
keting department helped us with the website, and a team from Westmont
College, volunteered by Telford Work, provided and maintained the project
listserv.
We are also grateful to the administration and staff at Regent University
School of Divinity for their assistance. Dean Michael Palmer and adminis­
trative dean Joy Brathwaite have been supportive in various ways. Pidge Ban-
nin and Lelia Fry (administrative assistants); Eric Newberg, Chris Emerick,
Doc Hughes, and Renea Brathwaite (doctoral students); Elizabeth Keen (Re­
gent University Library circulation supervisor); and Mark Stevenson (media
services coordinator) were all helpful, especially in ensuring that our two-
week colloquium went smoothly. Finally, thanks to Timothy Lim Teck Ngern,
Amos Yong’s graduate assistant, who helped to finalize the manuscript and to
prepare the subject index.
Preface IX