Science and the Bible

“What draws me to science in general is this notion of continual betterment that ultimately everything is peer-reviewed, and no one is perfect and that just through this process of criticism, it gets better and better and better. And that’s what science has over the Bible, which is the Bible is just written. There’s not going to be any updates, there’s no new chapters. No one’s going to account for any of the things we learn. And so I just think that anything you would hope to believe in or look to for answers should be something that implicitly is designed to evolve and continue to take on new information and react to that.”

Dax Shepard

This is a quote from Dax Shepard’s podcast “Armchair Expert,” so he was speaking off the cuff. Since it was off the cuff, I’m not interested in picking it apart and criticizing him for his logic or word choices or anything like that (although obviously he should have compared science to religion or theology instead of the Bible). I actually have a lot of respect for Dax. I watch his movies and listen to his podcast. He seems to be a very smart, funny, thoughtful person. His performance in the TV show, Parenthood, was beautiful and real. But this quote I think touches on something that is happening within our current culture that I think has very negative momentum. For whatever reason, people are moving away from religion and toward science. And I do think in many cases, it has something to do with the perception that religion is unable to change with the times. Religion doesn’t adapt or self-correct. It just is what it is, and you have to either believe or not regardless of how culture or knowledge, or the world changes around you.

And I get where this perception comes from. Just look at the state of the Christian church in America. The church is reluctant to change. They’re the last to move the needle on women’s rights, sexual identity, and pretty much any other issue you can think of. But anyone who perpetuates the perception that Christianity doesn’t adapt or evolve or self-correct, doesn’t understand the history of Christianity. Christianity is all about transformation.

But my first point is to say that we live in a time when change is a kind of constant. Things are changing so fast that it’s nearly impossible to keep up. And it seems to me that in a time like this, it’s absolutely crucial to the culture to have people and institutions who resist change and fight to preserve the current culture. There should be just as many smart, capable, caring people who resist change as those who fight for it. That’s what makes a society great, being able to hold those tensions and have unity without uniformity.

But I would also argue that the history of Christianity is overflowing with examples of change and transformation. And that that history is a foundation upon which the contemporary Christian church should continue to build. Let’s go all the way back to the story of the Exodus. God’s people cry out, and God releases them from their oppression under Pharoah. He dismantles the established order, transforms the culture, and creates something brand new for the Israelites. And then hundreds of years later, the Israelites are conquered again and sent into exile or held under the thumb of another civilization and along come the Old Testament prophets. These prophets ached for change. They call back to the Exodus story and explain that the Israelites have basically become their own Pharoahs. That a new Exodus is required. That things must change and everything must be made new. Tearing down the established order and beginning again is the only hope for a better future.

And then Christ came, and he changed everything. He broke all the laws. He challenged established religion (Pharisees and Saducees) and the lawmakers of the day (Great Sanhedrin). He disrupted the current state of his religion. It was never the same. He changed the way we think about ourselves, about humanity, and about God. He changed the world.

And Christianity continued to change. It changed when it became the official religion of the Roman Empire. It changed when the early church fathers compiled the canon of the Bible and established creeds. It changed in the Middle Ages when it converged with Greek philosophy. It changed in 1054 when the Eastern church split from the Western church. It changed in 1520 when Luther challenged the established church and new denominations began springing up. I mean, the protestant strand of Christianity has the word “protest” embedded in their name.

And it continues to change today. Paul Tillich, a twentieth century German theologian, coined the term “Protestant Principle” suggesting that everything in life, in religion is reformable and that religion is always reforming. Christianity changed at the turn of the twentieth century with the Azusa Street Revival. The Catholic Church introduced Vatican 2 in 1970, which ushered in a more progressive era. New denominations of Protestantism continue to spin off to this day. The emergent church has been working to unspool and redirect the current church. Progressive Christians fight to change the church with the current times. Radical Christians work to combine Christianity with postmodern culture. There are Pastors and Theologians on the forefront of helping us all change our minds about the things we thought we knew.

Even though the Bible is an ancient text and will never change, the entire story of Christianity is about transformation. The old Rabbis would call this “turning the gem.” The Bible is so rich and bold and creative. It’s like a gem that refracts the light in an infinite number of ways and from an infinite number of angles. You can keep turning and turning it and turning it your whole life and continue to see new angles of light and new ways of seeing it and thinking about it.

And by the way, who the hell says that science is so perfect and self-correcting and adaptable. I’m not saying science isn’t adaptable and doesn’t change. It absolutely does. All the time. Science is constantly changing. Consider the marshmallow test. In the 70s, 80s, and 90s, schools were building curricula around it. Now, it’s basically defunct. Science is always changing. No doubt. And so I don’t understand anyone’s confidence in the findings of science today when they will most likely be amended at some point in the future.

But if it’s so perfectly self-correcting, then why the hell didn’t we already do something about global warming and greenhouse gases, and air and ocean pollution and fossil fuel consumption? Why didn’t science correct those things long ago? Why did we continue down this wrong path for over a hundred years?

I think we all need to step back and think sometimes and then rethink. Science is no less dogmatic than religion. In fact, I would contend that science is a religion, but that’s a whole different topic.

But if you think that Christianity is bunk because it can’t ever change and science is the bomb, because it constantly self-corrects and evolves…then I think you need to stop listening to those science evangelists on every corner nowadays and do some thinking on your own Maybe you’ll come up with a different conclusion than me, and that’s ok. I would just encourage you to seek and explore, because the answer is far less established than you might think.