Chris Mulherin, who is the Executive Project Officer for ISCAST.org http://iscast.org/about (Christians in Science), spoke at the CMS Victoria Summer Under the Sun conference in January on “why there is no conflict between Science and Christian faith”.

I have copied part of his talk below, but you can find the full article here.

In the early 21st century, Christians find themselves in a profoundly important cultural space as they defend the credibility of their faith. It is an increasingly global and secular scientific culture the cutting edge of Christian engagement is the conversation between science and Christian faith. It’s good that Christians preach the Bible faithfully (my first love) but while the Bible contains all things necessary for salvation it doesn’t give people the tools to deal with the cultural forces that want to write off Christian faith as fundamentalist, unscientific nonsense.

Globalisation and the spread of techno-scientific thinking are advancing a secular scientific worldview to all corners of the earth. This view, most aggressively championed by the so-called New Atheists, challenges all non-scientific thinking.

Today the right to be heard depends partly on getting along with mainstream science, and, in a sense, that is as it should be. But that means that the credibility of Christianity depends on the way people view its relationship with science.  And if people are convinced that there is a fundamental conflict then there are no prizes for guessing which side most will vote on.

In the minds of believers and unbelievers, a lack of integration between science and faith can be one of the destructive forces working against Christian belief.  We need to prepare people to talk with non-believers for whom science is the model of truth and knowledge.

So, in the face of this changing balance of cultural forces, and views about what is credible and what should be relegated to in-credibility, what are the options open to Christians?

One option is to give up: it is to allow secular norms to dictate the nature and boundaries of truth. This path would accept that science and faith are in conflict and that faith can make no serious truth claims.

A second option is to beat a retreat to the Christian ghetto, boldly asserting a naïve biblical literalism and seeing much of science as deluded and as the enemy of faith.

But there is another option: a way that has been the orthodox manner of engagement since the beginning of the Christian era.

It is to follow the path trodden by the great Christian scientists and thinkers of history and to thoroughly affirm that all truth is God’s truth. It is to affirm the two books of God – the book of his Word and the book of his works.  It is to affirm that science and Christianity are complementary: they answer different types of questions, look for truth in different areas, and neither can claim a total grasp on knowledge.

The time for simplistic belief and unbelief is over.  Fundamentalists of both faith and non-faith varieties must give up their ground to an understanding that keeps science in its rightful place, as servant of a broader worldview – Christianity in its fullness – which offers the framework out of which modern science arose.

There is no conflict between science and Christianity.  In the words of Galileo, “The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”

See also, Conference: Science and Christianity 2011  and  Science and Faith