Recently in GCI Weekly Update, we’ve looked at the related topics of creation vs. evolution and science vs. religion. These topics are being widely discussed and debated in the media.
A recent article in Christianity Today reported on a study of scientists in the United States initiated by the NAE. Whereas the media often portray scientists and Christians as incapable of peaceful coexistence, the NAE study suggests that the two are not as incompatible as one might think. In fact, 2 million out of nearly 12 million scientists are evangelical Christians. Were you to bring together all the evangelical scientists, they could populate Houston!
You can read the CT article at www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/february-web-only/study-2-million-scientists-identify-as-evangelical.html.
It is encouraging to read about such studies. History is witness to a long list of brilliant scientists and artists who were Christians. So, in all humility and imperfection, we can claim to be in an illustrious company. There is certainly no shame in being identified as persons of faith.
Sample of Famous Artists and Scientists who were Christians…
Sir Frances Bacon,Robert Boyle,George Washington Carver,Samuel Taylor Coleridge,Nicolaus Copernicus,Leonhard Euler,Michael Faraday, Johannes Kepler,Father Georges-Henri LeMaitre,Carolus Linnaeus, Matthew Fontaine Maury,James Clerk Maxwell,Gregor Mendel,Samuel F. D. Morse,Sir Isaac Newton,Blaise Pascal,Louis Pasteur,Sir James Young Simpson,Nicolaus Steno,Johann Sebastian Bach,J. R. R. Tolkien,T. S. Eliot,Rembrandt van Rijn,Antonio Vivaldi,Georg Friedrich Handel,Van Gogh,Antonin Dvorak,Alessandro Manzoni,Felix Mendelssohn,Leo Tolstoy,Fyodor Dostoevsky,Michaelangelo,Isaak Levitan
and many more …
There is certainly no shame among fellow scientists or Christians if a Christian is a professional scientist. Sadly though, there is shame among Christian scientists, if a professional scientist, offers his or her scientific opinion, that the diversity of biological life observed on earth cannot be accounted for through a macro-evolutionary mechanism. In fact, most likely once this non-conformity in exposed in the guild, he or she will end up expelled from his or her professional ranks. Christian or not, apparently one must be an “evolutionist” to survive professionally as a research scientist today.
I wonder how many of the 2 million are Young Earth Creationists? This statistic may actually be dismaying if broken down further.