In My Opinion
By Lynn Paris    

Living Together: Faith, Science, and Politics

I had an interesting email from my brother the other day in which he remarked that he felt my views had “softened” on several issues where, in his opinion, I used to lean far to the right. What he meant (I think) is that he used to consider me a “right-wing Christian fanatic,” and now that I’ve shown myself to be enlightened in some areas, something BIG must have happened.

I wrote back that my views hadn’t softened; they’d simply evolved. But it made me think about the issues of faith and politics, or faith and science, and whether or not they could live together peaceably in the same mind.  

I guess the closest analogy I can make to my “evolution” is to compare it to my marriage. During our courtship, and the first year or two of my marriage, my husband and I were zealots in our love and lust for each other. Frankly, we couldn’t stop touching—we were “on fire” with the discovery of each other. I guess one might say we were crazy, madly in love. That evolved over the years to something different, something quieter but just as intense in its own way.

It’s now an enduring love, not as passionate perhaps, but every bit as strong, and something more. It’s reliable; I know with every fiber of my being that I can count on it forever.  In the beginning, too, I saw my beloved through the rosiest of glasses; the flaws emerged later, as I’m sure mine did for him. By then it was OK; we knew we had to have faults and flaws and we loved each other enough to accept them.  We could disagree on specifics without fearing that an argument could cause a rift in our relationship. We could disagree with words or actions without disagreeing on the only essential that counted: our undying love.

Much the same thing has happened with my religious beliefs. When I became a “born again” Christian, that meant that I wanted a deeper relationship with God; I had newly discovered Him and I was a true zealot. I was on fire for Jesus. To be born again was to proclaim that desire to embrace God in an official, intentional way, like my wedding vows made our love official and intentional. It also meant I accepted the divinity of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit to dwell in me to guide me and give me strength. I still believe those things, more quietly, but just as intensely. To me, they are enduring and constantly reliable.

But as I’ve also written in a previous column, I “met” God in a particular church with a particular set of doctrinal beliefs. It could have happened anywhere; it just happened to occur there. So in the beginning, I was madly in love. I couldn’t disagree with anything without fearing an irrevocable argument that might somehow sever my relationship with God. Slowly, though, I began to grasp the truth, the very truth that appears in the Bible. All humans are fallible, riddled by our faults and flaws, often making terrible choices, and only saved by God’s grace.

And I had experiences common to almost all believers. I realized that human beings, in fact other believers, would let me down and disappoint me with their choices or their actions, and that was as it was supposed to be. We are imperfect. It might have hurt, but it didn’t hurt my relationship with God. Eventually I began to question some of the positions taken by the church leaders, as well as some members of my congregation. Much to my surprise, I discovered that I was not alone, and that many good, loving, practicing Christians shared my views. I’d love to find a church where everyone agreed with every single one of my opinions, but I’m afraid that’s not possible. After all, that’s why God made us all free to choose. So, we exist together in our love of God, and in our right to disagree on just about anything else.

Here are some of the areas that seem to cause the most confusion, especially for those looking in from the outside. I believe that life begins at conception. But I also consider this a religious belief formed after my reading and understanding of certain passages in the Bible. It’s not the belief I had before I became a Christian. But it’s also not a scientific belief, because science can’t prove when, exactly, human life begins. Scientists disagree with each other on that one. So, since I also believe that the person who has to swear to “preserve, protect and defend” our constitution has to do just that, I don’t see how any president (or political party) can impose his or her religious beliefs on the entire nation. The constitution strictly prohibits that, as far as I can tell.

I have many Christian friends who believe that you have to vote Republican—assuming a conservative Republican is running on a conservative platform—because of one reason, and one reason only. Conservative Republicans are pro-life and they’ll appoint pro-life judges to the Supreme Court, thus eliminating the need to worry about all those judges who can’t wait to kill babies. I don’t honestly believe that if it could be scientifically proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that life begins at conception, that anyone would support killing off the unborn. I don’t even think there would be such a thing as “pro-choice” if it could be proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt. It’s just that my proof comes from the Bible, which is good enough for me. But I can’t ask everyone in this country to accept that as absolute proof.

I don’t believe the earth is 6,000 years old either. My pastor does. He was raised to believe that, taught it again in seminary, and his views have never changed. Now here’s an area where, in my humble opinion, science trumps religious doctrine. In the face of staggeringly overwhelming evidence that contradicts my pastor’s belief, I have to go with the scientists’ views on this one. But that’s OK; we may disagree by a few million or billion years on the timing, but we agree that God created the universe.

For some reason that I can’t quite figure out, my pastor is also adamant about the fact that human actions do not cause climate change. He prefers to believe that it’s all part of a cycle of warming and cooling planned perfectly by God. After a great deal of research on the subject, I, along with the world’s scientific community, have come to accept that humans are at least partially responsible for directly causing the climate change now known as global warming, and as our reliance on fossil fuels and the world’s population growth continues, the increases in carbon emissions will become intolerable, making Katrina seem like a little storm.  If my pastor were in charge of public policy, I would challenge him on the grounds that if he doesn’t acknowledge what causes global warming, how can he fix it. But as it is, I know he’s a responsible steward of the environment and cares about taking care of the earth and its resources, if only because God commands it. In the end, he and I will both probably do our part although neither of us will have much say in the matter.

On the other hand, if our next president (and his team, which includes the vice president) doesn’t understand the causes, and doesn’t make radical changes in both our environmental and energy policies, then we won’t be following either scientific, or Godly principles, and our children and grandchildren will pay the awful price.

I guess the bottom line of all this is that I have never been one to cling rigidly to a belief in the face of overwhelming evidence against it. And I’m not one to abandon a belief because it might be unpopular with some of my friends or family. I just try to take it all in and do a whole lot of sifting. I try to do what’s right in the eyes of God, not out of blind faith or ignorance, but by using the intelligence, and relying on the faith with which He has blessed me. And out of all that, somehow, faith, science, and politics can all live—if not entirely peacefully at least harmoniously—together. At least in my mind.

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