TruthBook Religious News Blog

Scott Peck has a station-wagon with plates that read "THLOST" in his driveway. They speak of his lifelong journey as a self-described mystic.

Robert Epstein: Most people struggle with issues of spirituality in one form or another. Sometimes they arrive at a place of peace, and sometimes they don't. Must we go through this struggle, or can you point us to a shortcut?

M. Scott Peck: I do not think that everybody has to struggle. But to probably at least half of the people, it never seems to enter their minds that they might be engaged in a struggle or that there might be something to struggle with.

One of my shticks is about why we need to do hard scientific research on religion. A study shows that if you ask people whether they believe in God, probably 95 percent of Americans will say they do. And there is nothing particularly great about their mental health. But if you ask them whether they have ever had any personal experience with God, only about 15 to 20 percent will say "yes." Those few have also been judged as more mentally healthy than the others. And the experience is not necessarily one we choose. Everyone is different, so your spirituality is not going to be my spirituality; your wrestling match is not my wrestling match. But right off the bat, the wrestling match has been a gift of God to you.

Robert Epstein: In the 1970s, when you wrote The Road Less Traveled, where were you at spiritually?

M. Scott Peck: ...reading the Gospels at the age of 40. I lay in bed at night reading the New Testament. And just as I had felt with Jesus Christ Superstar, I was blown away. Now I think a small part of the Gospels is made up. But I found this incredibly real person. Jesus was lonely and sorrowful and scared-an unbelievably real person. And it was at that point that I began to take becoming a Christian seriously. Some people who arrive at Christianity start with Jesus' divinity, and some with his humanity. With me, it was his humanity. And only later did I begin to get in touch with his divinity, which was initially difficult for me to swallow.

Robert Epstein: You must have had some serious doubts.

M. Scott Peck: Are you familiar with James Fowler? He's the expert on the stages of faith development. I simplify them a bit. Jim's theory has six stages; mine has four.

1/ The fundamental stage, one I call "chaotic antisocial," is a stage of absent spirituality.
2/ The second stage is "formal institutional," in which the fundamentalists fall.
3/ Stage three I call "skeptic individual," where religion is either thrown out or seriously doubted.
4/ And then there is stage four, which I call "mystical communal."

To get from stage two to stage four-if you can in a lifetime-you must go through stage three. You have to go through a phase of doubting. One of the great sins of the Christian church is the discouragement of doubting. There's a limit to doubting. If you become really good at stage-three doubting, you begin to doubt your own doubts. And that's when you begin to move to stage four.

Most people achieve this without being in therapy.

Robert Epstein: Can you tell me more about the roots of your spirituality-about the intellectual and experiential side?

M. Scott Peck: All my work can be traced back to my Harvard college thesis, "Anxiety, Modern Science and the Epistemological Problem." I outlined three basic ways to try and look at things. They can be looked at as if they were caused by something external, or they were caused by something internal, or they were caused by relationships between things. Unfortunately, none of these three ways can answer all the questions we have. That is, our questions about the cause for intellectual anxiety. Increasingly, modern science is about our realization that we just don't know. Much of my life since has consisted of working out that thesis. The answer to understanding things is not one of those three, but all of them simultaneously. It's more than a paradox-it's a "triadox."

I am really an empiricist, a believer in the importance of experience. I've had all kinds of experiences with God in terms of revelation through a still, small voice or dreams or coincidences. Hundreds of them. Once, a secular Jewish woman wrote a negative review of me in The New York Times, ending it with the comment that unfortunately, most of us don't have a direct phone line to God. I wrote her back and said, "You know, please don't think that my phone works very well. A lot of times I can't get ahold of God, and sometimes the phone rings and I forget to answer. So I suspect there are a lot of people who deliberately leave the phone off the hook because they have these same experiences and they just don't recognize them as the miracles that they are."

I can remember years ago sitting on my bed and suddenly thinking, "I am God." And my next thought was that I better not go down to New Milford, Connecticut, and start talking to people about this. On further contemplation, I realized that, to a significant degree, it was my responsibility to decide who God was. And that, in some ways, made me God's creator. It was at that point that I began to feel sorry for God. I mean, think of the burdens that God shoulders with unfailing gaiety. That was the real beginning of my personal relationship with Him or Her. When I realized that we are "co-creators," for better or worse.

Robert Epstein: In The Road Less Traveled, you present us with an outrageous challenge: "God wants us to become himself or herself or itself. We are growing toward Godhood. God is the goal of evolution."

M. Scott Peck: That idea has been recognized for ages. Unification with God is the goal of contemplatives. St. Paul clearly expressed it when he said, "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

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Thursday, January 29, 2004

College students more spiritual than courses reflect, study says

Most American college students are more interested in discussing spiritual matters than are their professors, preliminary results from a massive nationwide study suggest.

Late last year, researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles' Higher Education Research Institute released results from the third year of a four-year study. The study has tracked the spiritual activities and attitudes of 3,680 undergraduate students at 46 colleges and universities across the United States since they enrolled in the schools as freshmen in 2000.

The preliminary results show that, while more than two-thirds of the students "demonstrate a substantial level of religious engagement and commitment," only 8 percent of the students reported that their professors encouraged classroom discussion of spiritual matters. Well over half -- 62 percent -- of the students said their professors never encouraged such discussion.

Nonetheless, 39 percent of the students said their spiritual beliefs had been strengthened by "new ideas encountered in class." Only 9 percent of the students said their religious beliefs had been weakened by ideas encountered in class.

More than three-quarters of the students reported discussing religious or spiritual matters with their friends.

The students also showed a steep decline in attending religious services over the years since beginning college. In 2000, 52 percent of the students reported frequent attendance at religious services. By 2003, that percentage had declined to 29.

However, the percentages of students counting it an "essential" or "very important" goal to integrate spirituality into their lives, develop a meaningful philosophy of life, and serve others in need increased significantly during the same period.

In addition, the percentage of students who counted being financially comfortable as an "essential" or "very important" goal in life declined from 71 percent to 63 percent during the three-year period.

The survey is being funded by the John Templeton Foundation. It involves students from different types of colleges, including public, private and religious schools of varying size, prestige and selectivity in admissions.

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Study: Religious seniors tend to be happier

Two Maine sociologists have confirmed that, at least for older people, being a religious believer can help you here on earth.

UMaine professors Steven Barkan and Susan Greenwood studied survey results from several hundred senior citizens across the country.

They found that people age 65 and up tend to be happier and more satisfied with their lives if they attend religious services more frequently.

The professors are not suggesting that all older people immediately convert to a religion, or that being a believer will guarantee good health.

But Barkan says institutions that work with the elderly should make religious activity available to those who might be interested.

Thee article reaffirms similar results found by authors of smaller, less random studies that go back for decades.

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Monday, January 26, 2004

Religion proves to be an eternal growth industry

Religion is always either a blessing or a curse.

Since 9-11, we have been made painfully aware that violence can be rationalized as a competition between religions. But religious faith has not suffered from that violence. If anything, it has strengthened its grip on believers. The lasting hunger for religious identity trumps all efforts to exorcise faith. Today, four out of five of the world's people are adherents of established religions, pursuing lives motivated by faith.

Year-end polls reveal that the religious faith of Americans, traditionally intense, has strengthened since the late 1980s. More than eight in 10 Americans today affirm that "prayer is an important part of their daily lives." Even more -- 87 percent -- insist that they never doubt the existence of God. Eighty-two percent of Americans told the Gallup International Millennium Survey that God is "very important" to them.

In Europe, by contrast, 49 percent of Danes, 52 percent of Norwegians and 55 percent of Swedes say God does not matter to them at all. When the European Union agrees on a constitution, it will likely dispense with any mention of God. The acerbic British critic A.A. Gill dismisses the Europeans' flirtation with secularism, knowing that people need more. "Christianity," he says, "started out with 11 members and was at its strongest and purest. If it goes back to being 11, or if I'm the only poor creature in the world still afflicted with it, it will make no difference. God will still be there and will still love us unrequited. The world was still round when nobody believed it."

And indeed, religion worldwide is a growth industry, favoring the far left and the far right -- ecstatic Pentecostalism and rigid fundamentalism. The perennial pull of religious faith owes much to what it promises. Secularism teaches that each individual is autonomous. Faith teaches that God does not change, and that people must. Religion is characteristically conservative, carefully preserving its treasure -- a caring God who listens, a sense of the sacredness of life, eternal hope and the solidarity of humankind. Religious faith is even reactionary, in the sense that it seeks to recapture the innocence and integrity we believe the Creator intended when he conceived of human nature.

This helps explain the resurgence of fundamentalism in the world's great religions. Those faiths that demand the most of their adherents in belief and behavior thrive and will thrive because they deliver confidence and inspire hope and trust -- what the psychologist William James called religion's "cash value." The danger within fundamentalism is its temptation to be certain that God is always on its side.

The enduring power of religious faith is that, when humbly sought, it can offer direction, integrity, the realization of one's innate worth, the sense of being at home with the universe and, not least, the need to commit to loving service.

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Friday, January 16, 2004

Meditation Has a Place in Helping Patients Improve Health, Doctors Say

As patients and doctors seek answers other than medications to treat illnesses, some are finding that meditation can be strong medicine.

More doctors have opened their minds to the idea of meditation as complementary therapy as more studies emerge linking better health and meditation, said Dr. Roger Walsh, professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Irvine. Walsh has published research on meditation and teaches the practice as an elective to medical students.

Among the latest findings:

-A pilot study led by Walsh suggested that meditation is useful in understanding the effects of anti-depressants and might be useful as maintenance therapy for depression.

Researchers found that meditation - like anti-depressants - fostered a state of equanimity.

This is the ability to tolerate and not be disturbed by potentially provocative or stimulating thoughts, events, encounters or experiences. The study appeared recently in the Journal of Mental and Nervous Disorders.

-A study presented at a recent American Heart Association meeting found that transcendental meditation, or TM, reduced the severity of risk factors in metabolic syndrome.

This syndrome is a collection of conditions that lead to heart disease, such as high blood pressure and increased blood-sugar levels.

People who practiced TM significantly decreased their levels of blood pressure, blood sugar and insulin, said Dr. Noel Bairey Merz, study author and medical director of the Preventive and Rehabilitative Cardiac Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Merz continues to study the effect of meditation on heart disease.

-Preliminary results of a study on meditation and binge-eating disorder showed that meditation can help people "reconnect" with their mind and body to understand when to eat and when to stop.

Mindfulness meditation can help those with the disorder gain control over their eating habits, said Jean Kristeller, professor of psychology and director of the Center for the Study of Health, Religion and Spirituality at Indiana State University in Terra Haute, Ind.

This research joins an increasing body of knowledge based on science rather than on religious beliefs, whether rooted in Buddhism or Christianity. Religious elements can be present in meditation, but it's also possible to practice meditation without them.

Some meditators in hospital settings say the turning point for meditation in medical practice came after 1975, when Harvard University researcher Dr. Herbert Benson first wrote about the value of meditation in treating illnesses in the book "The Relaxation Response."

A common mistake some novices make is to try a type of meditation and not like it, then give up without experimenting with other ways.

Not surprisingly, time - not motivation - is the biggest obstacle to maintaining the practice of meditation, said Dr. Wadie Najm, associate professor of family medicine at UCI. Longtime practitioners recommend meditating twice a day for 20 minutes each time. "It's not as quick as taking medication," said Najm, who has recommended meditation to some patients. It requires a time commitment, much as exercise does.

Sometimes, meditation helps the body and mind so much that patients can reduce their dosage of medications, such as drugs to reduce blood pressure or stress and anxiety, Najm said. In a few cases, meditation has proved so effective that it picks up where medication leaves off.

To maintain the state of equanimity that sometimes results from meditation, meditators have to "Meditation is not about getting rid of difficult experiences or feelings. It's about learning to cope continue practicing throughout life. Even longtime meditators are never completely rid of intrusive thoughts and distractions, but with practice, are better able to deal with them, Walsh said.

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Saturday, January 10, 2004

Nuns Keep Alive a Chain of Prayers, Nonstop Since 1878

With so many requests from around the globe, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in La Crosse, Wis, hours would seem to be filled with nonstop praying - and indeed, at the chapel, prayer never ceases. For the past 125 years, since 11 a.m. on Aug. 1, 1878, the sisters have been praying around the clock, in rotating shifts.

The up-to-the-second Perpetual Adoration Clock at www.fspa.org is ticking at more than 45,800 days. With at least two people always praying, it is the nation's longest uninterrupted prayer, the sisters believe.

An informal nationwide search by Sister Maria Friedman in La Crosse earlier this month turned up only a handful of other American convents that practice nonstop prayer.

The prayer requests keep coming. "Last year at this time, we were getting about 25 prayer requests a week; now we're getting about 25 a day, and they come from around the world," said Sister Ronalda, citing attention surrounding the 125th anniversary, when the convent spread word that such requests were welcome.

Why invite requests?

"Just sending the prayer request connects that person with God," said Sister Malinda Gerke, a sister for nearly 50 years. "It is one act, one step of faith. If they didn't have that much faith, they wouldn't even ask or try. That is the seed planted in the soil. When we receive these requests, my first reaction is, thank God that people have that much faith that they believe in the power of prayer," she said.

Do their prayers work?

"Whatever the divine plan is, will be," Sister Malinda said. "Some sisters recite a formal prayer for each request, but I have a very personal kind of style with God and say, 'Now, God this is yours. I have called your attention to this.' "

The work can be riveting. "Every time I go to pray, there are 100 or so requests, and I feel the anguish of the world as I read through them," said Sister Maria Friedman, who noted that many people write after receiving bad news. "I picture the person making the request reeling from this new calamity and wondering how to cope." She prays for the best solutions, for hope and for support from professionals, family and friends.

It would require an extraordinary disruption to halt the ministry. In 1923, the sisters continued praying despite a fire that stopped at the chapel doors, Ms. Custer said. And in 1968, some members took to praying eight hours each day, when other sisters were hit by a flu epidemic. "This practice is central to the identity of the congregation, and members are very serious about doing the utmost to see it continue," she said.

Today about 90 other people who have been trained by the sisters join the sisters as prayer partners, a practice instituted in 1997.

Indeed, perseverance is in the roots. In 1878, after the bishop in La Crosse refused the requests of Mother Antonia, the congregational leader, to begin perpetual adoration, the sisters tried it nonetheless, demonstrated that it was not too burdensome, and have continued ever since, Ms. Custer said.

Holding vigil is rooted in tradition, according to the Rev. Dr. Edward Foley, professor of liturgy and music at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. "Perpetual adoration reflects a convergence of the need for tangible encounters with God and an instinct to keep vigil, like standing guard outside Buckingham Palace, rain or shine," he said. "Those are human instincts across civilizations and religions."

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Tuesday, January 06, 2004

God bless the Internet!

According to a report in Sydney Morning Herald' a new survey on internet use in the United States, has revealed that more than a third of all Americans wired to the Web, use it to get closer to God.

The survey observes that a total of 126 million people as of August 2003, have been accessing the world wide web to access religious and spiritual information.

This compares with 40 per cent of American internet users who have searched the web for political information, and 66 per cent who have sought health and medical data.

While, the number of people using the web for seeking political information and medical data increased by 57 per cent and 59 per cent respectively, 'religion surfers' almost doubled in number over the same period, from 18 million to 35 million, or an increase of 94 per cent.

Moreover, there has also been a significant increase in the daily use of the Internet to access religious information. While the overall numbers remain low, they nevertheless did climb from 3 million in 2000 to 5 million in 2002, an increase of 66 per cent.

The survey also found that those people accessing web-based religious information were evenly distributed across educational and socio-economic groups. The more experience one had on the Internet, the more likely one was to use it to search out religious material.

Only 19 per cent of people who had been wired for a year or less used the Internet as a source of information on religion. For those with six or more years of experience, the figure was closer to 40 per cent, suggesting that the volume of religion-related traffic on the web will continue to grow.

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Monday, January 05, 2004

Award Given For Insight Into Divinity

Every March, the winner of the most lucrative award on Earth -- about $1 million -- is announced. The Templeton Prize is given not to artists or peace activists but to "entrepreneurs" working to "expand human perceptions of divinity and to help in the acceleration of divine creativity," according to the John Templeton Foundation, which awards the prize.

For the first 18 years of its existence, the Templeton Prize was given to well-known religious figures such as Billy Graham and Mother Teresa. But three years ago, the focus of the prize was changed to reflect an intense interest of the foundation's benefactor, retired financier Sir John Templeton. It is now given to a figure who has contributed to the dialogue between science and religion. In 2003, it was given to the Rev. Holmes Rolston, a pioneer in the field of religion and ecology.

"The big questions are: Does the universe have a purpose? How do you understand agape, or altruistic love?" said Charles Harper, executive director of the foundation.

The foundation has not been stingy in promoting efforts to discover the answers. Within the next few months, if anticipated gifts materialize, the foundation will have assets of about $2 billion, Harper said, and including the Templeton Prize it dispenses about $25 million a year in grants and program monies.

"One cannot minimize the effect of $20 million a year in one field, especially in the humanities, where funding normally comes in the tens of thousands of dollars," said Philip Clayton, professor of theology at Claremont (Calif.) School of Theology, who directed an eight-year, $5 million project funded by Templeton, Science and the Spiritual Quest. "On the positive side, the funding has allowed people to explore questions they otherwise couldn't have explored."

Almost single-handedly, say those who have labored to reconcile science and religion, John Templeton has boosted into prominence and credibility a field that was previously obscure and treated with skepticism.

The Rev. Philip Hefner, former director of the Zygon Center for Religion and Science at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, praised the Templeton Foundation, especially for coaxing scientists to discuss their personal beliefs, something they might have been unwilling to do previously.

"It's made a tremendous impact for the good, although it's not clear how much of it is lasting. It's encouraged so many people to come out of the woodwork," he said.

Templeton also advocates what he calls "humility theology," which disregards doctrine in favor of a complete openness to ideas about God. Some Templeton Prize winners, such as Freeman Dyson, have proposed concepts long considered heretical to monotheistic traditions.

"Sir John is a boundary-pusher," Harper said. "He has hopes that religion could have the kind of dynamism that science and business have, if people are serious enough to seek it. He looks at religious disputes and says those should be solved. Religion should be more of a force for good in the world than polarized and ethnically balkanized."

Hefner expressed admiration for Templeton and his use of personal wealth to improving life.

"He has a stubborn, persistent, common-sense concern for religion and spirituality making an impact on the human condition. He's on the side of the angels, as far as I'm concerned," he said.

Among other projects promoted by the Templeton Foundation is research on forgiveness, which Harper said has applications for all kinds of disputes from local to international.

"Science includes monstrous things and wonderful things. We're particularly interested in people who have integrated into their lives the best of both worlds," he said.

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More women leaving jobs for 'callings'

A growing number of midcareer women - typically 40 to 55 years old - are chucking successful careers, including possible advancement, to pursue their passions.

They're starting new careers and businesses, becoming activists in their communities and returning to school to earn advanced degrees.

Some were waiting for their kids to be grown. Others were fed up with office politics or bumping up against the glass ceiling and decided to put their skills to work in more meaningful ways.

"There's a tendency for women to take on a calling, rather than 'work' work," said Amy Lynch, founder of "Ourselves," an online newsletter for women in midlife.

While the women come from disparate income groups, they are dropping out of corporate America at the top of their game.

The trend may make it even more difficult for women coming up, says Liz Ryan, president of WorldWIT, an online organization of professional women in technology and business. Ryan said employers may begin to question the determination of women workers.

"The status quo will remain the status quo as long as women are not there to change the paradigm," she said.

Some women prolong terms in jobs they no longer want for fear of ruining it for other women following in their footsteps.

In a recent survey by the National Association for the Self-Employed, 85 percent of new women business owners surveyed between the ages of 45 and 54 said they left corporate jobs.

Only 3 percent said they would go back if they had the chance.

Some women opting out of corporate America do so because they have achieved financial stability.

"The trend is happening among people who can afford it," said Sherry Saunders, spokeswoman for Business and Professional Women USA, an advocacy group. "It shows they've already become incredibly successful so that they can walk away from something and say, 'I'm going to do X.' If you have a lot of bills, you can't do that."

If anything, the trend of women taking on second careers and working later into life is gaining momentum as men move in the opposite direction. The Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that labor force participation rates for women 45 to 64 will continue to rise through 2025, while rates for men are expected to shrink.

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Sunday, January 04, 2004

Scientists Seek Place for God While Embracing Reason

"Ultimately the issue is whether we live in a world that makes sense not just now, but totally and for ever. . . . Christian belief provides the essential resource for answering this fundamental question."
-- Sir John Polkinghorne, Anglican priest and former particle physicist, in "The God of Hope and the End of the World"

"(Religion) seems to me a kind of wishful thinking that human beings ought to have outgrown long ago."
-- Nobel physics laureate Steven Weinberg

Order or chaos? Purpose or meaninglessness?

Was the physical universe -- all we see around us -shaped by the hand of God? Or are we just the product of pure chance, double sixes in a cosmic roll of the dice?

Preachers would proclaim yes to the first question. Empirical scientists might scribble equations to demonstrate the accuracy of the second. Trying to reconcile the two would seem a fool's errand.

But consider these efforts -- some of them controversial -- to broaden the intersection between science and religion:

# At Florida Southern College in Lakeland, a recent forum sponsored by Consilience, an organization that explores issues between religion and science, examined ethical questions about the construction and use of weapons of mass destruction. Assistant professor of religion Sara Harding and associate professor of biology Nancy Morvillo formed Consilience after teaching a course together. They are not trying to discredit science or religion, they say.

"It's just as bad for science to say `We have no need of God' as for theology to say `Science isn't right.' Most people are somewhere in the middle," Morvillo said. "Did God design the world through evolution? Did he make up the rules and disappear? Where is his hand?"

# In June, Professor Philip Clayton of Claremont (Calif.) School of Theology completed an eight-year, $5 million project, Science and the Spiritual Quest. Funded by the Templeton Foundation, which has become a major force in the reconciliation of science and religion, the project brought scientists together for private discussions about the role religion plays in their work and personal lives.

"Scientists are rediscovering their own beliefs and spirituality. Unbelievable things happened at these meetings. One famous neuroscientist said, `I was brought up Jewish, but for the first time, I have a sense of what it means to be a Jewish intellectual,' " Clayton said by phone from his home.

# More than 200 people gathered in a hotel ballroom in Lake Mary in October for a symposium sponsored by Science Speaks, an organization of Orlando-area lay people, who are interested in one of the more controversial approaches to science and religion, Intelligent Design. Like spiritual crime scene investigators, followers of Intelligent Design look for scientific evidence -- an equation here, a tell-tale chemical interaction there -- to demonstrate that God left his fingerprints on the world.

"The Bible is not a science book. I agree that God can't be proved scientifically," said Craig Spearman, president of Science Speaks. "However, a number of us believe God has to be approached from a rational basis. There's sufficient circumstantial evidence that would bring any reasonable man to conclude we're not here by accident."

Harding, Morvillo, Clayton and Spearman are part of a growing movement to bring together the material and the metaphysical, the seen and the unseen, in new ways. As believers who embrace science and as believing scientists, they are at a minimum trying to make a place for God in the warp and woof of the universe without excluding the results of scientific inquiry.

For example, scientists have long known of certain mathematical constants, such as the speed of light, upon which the laws of physics depend. Some scientists now calculate that if any of these constants were different by only a few percent, life as we know it would not be possible. This has been dubbed the "anthropic principle," which holds that the structure of the universe itself is friendly to life.

"Although the universe appears to have been lifeless for the first 11 billion years of its existence, there is a real sense in which it was pregnant with the possibility of life from the very beginning," writes the Rev. John Polkinghorne, who turned to the Anglican priesthood after spending his early career on a team of scientists that discovered the quark.

Debates about the origins of the physical world and the life on it tend to generate the most controversy -- and publicity -- in science and religion debates. But in quiet ways, the search for common ground has moved beyond haggles over cosmology and evolution into other fields. Some of them include:

# Neuroscience and the cognitive sciences, which have been looking for the connection between the physical properties of the brain and mystery of human consciousness. Theologians like Nancey Murphy, professor of Christian philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., are excited that discoveries in this field could lead to dialogue about the holistic nature of people -that our hopes and faith are part of our physiology.

# Genetics and bioethics, which include ethical issues of cloning and gene therapy to treat disease.

# Spirituality and health, which study how spiritual practices such as prayer affect a patient's overall health and recovery from illness. A recent cover story in Newsweek cited a National Institutes of Health report that found people who regularly attend church live 25 percent longer than those who don't. More than 70 of the nation's 125 medical schools now offer courses in spirituality, up from three a decade ago.

"So much of what we learn from science ends up in medicine. That's where John and Jane Doe come into contact with it . . . and that's where it comes into the realm of ethics," said the Rev. Philip Hefner, recently retired director of the Zygon Center for Religion and Science at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago.

It was easier, in an age of belief, to reconcile the discoveries of science with religious doctrines. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), a deeply religious thinker, discovered many of the laws of gravity and motion, which he ascribed to the work of an orderly creator God. In the ensuing 300 years, science pursued an increasingly independent course, unconcerned of the impact of its discoveries on believers.

Science's superior attitude as the final arbiter of knowledge began to unravel in the 1960s because scientists began to encounter limits to what they could discover, Clayton said.

"Scientists couldn't see themselves as little knowledge gods. There's nothing like encountering your own limits to wonder what might lie beyond," he said.

Harding, who is married to a United Methodist minister, also favors bringing the two disciplines together.

"Science can inform your theology, your understanding of how things work, your understanding of God. There's a sense of wonderment. You think of the created universe, and if that's not an overwhelming sense of the divine, I don't know what is," she said.

Morvillo, a member of Resurrection Catholic Church in Lakeland, said she doesn't see conflict between science and religion, although she does see them as separate.

"I think they're two different ways of viewing the world. They're asking different questions and going about answering them in two different ways. One is not more right than the other," she said.

Fifty years ago, there were few scholars actively working to bridge the gap between science and religion, but especially in the last decade there has been new interest. "Research News," a publication of the Templeton Foundation, lists 50 academic conferences worldwide between Nov. 1 and Feb. 1 that touch on some aspect of religion and science.

The renewed interest, and a number of those conferences, are due in large measure to the deep pockets of the Templeton Foundation, which is now directing about $25 million a year into research projects related to science and religion.

The course taught by Harding and Morvillo at FSC in the spring of 2001 was developed by a $10,000 grant from the Templeton Foundation. An honors class for freshmen, it was part of a program by the foundation to encourage 100 new college courses per year in science and religion. The two are now developing a course for upper-level students to be offered this spring.

Said Clayton, the Claremont professor; "The question about the ultimate significance of the universe is not decided by new facts. The question of significance is not reducible to facts. Even if everything was known about the universe, you can still watch a sunset and hold a baby and sense the presence of God."

By Cary McMullen
Ledger Religion Editor