Science and silliness... Mystery and Wonder

Every now and then I take a look at The Onion and have a good smile.

This one really got me laughing - Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity... While nobody has gone after the theory of gravity yet, this does smack of the same kinds of pseudo-science and accommodation to Enlightenment Rationalism that lies behind most creationism and "intelligent design" theories. And we wonder why our science students lag behind those in most of the rest of the world.

I've been reading a little book by Marcus Borg called Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. Borg begins the book by sharing his story as he went from naivete, to criticism, to post-critical naivete. He shares a wonderful illustration of a native American story-teller who begins his tribe's creation story with the line - "Now, I don't know if it actually happened this way, but I know it is true." To the mind steeped in Enlightenment Rationalism and criticism that statement seems contradictory. The text must be literally accurate or it cannot be true. To a mind open to mystery and wonder, truth is an entirely different category than accuracy. As long as we read sacred texts as if they were physics or biology or even sociology texts, we will miss the point and miss out on the mystery, the wonder, and the awe. This makes me remember one more quote that I came across years ago in a book on Austrlia I think entitled Dreamkeepers... "once it stops bein' a mystery it stops bein' true" David Mowaljarlai - Ngarinyin Aboriginal Elder

So what do I say about my creation stories as a Christian? "Now, I don't know if it actually happened this way, but I know it is true." And evolution? I'm as sure as I can be that it pretty much happened that way... but that doesn't tell me very much about what is true.