Dear WesleyNexus Colleagues,
Lately, I have been reading Deuteronomy. I usually don’t spend a lot of time there, even though it is considered one of the five books of Moses. Scholars, however, are pretty sure it is a post-exilic writing, compiled as it were as the Israel remnant was returning to Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity, facing a critical moment when the leadership had to forge a new community of the Jewish people. So Moses could not be the author –indeed, the final chapter of Deuteronomy records his death. In Chapter 34, verses 4-5 we read: “The Lord said to Moses, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants’; I have let you see it with your eyes but you shall not cross over there. Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab at the Lord’s command.”
Coupled with my reading of Deuteronomy, I recently watched all four episodes of the CNN special on the year 1968. That was wrenching for me, because I lived through those moments, both in the South and then in Chicago working in my doctoral program. I recall vividly the reports of Dr. King’s death as well as the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. It was a time when hopes across our country were dashed, and we were becoming mired ever more deeply in the Vietnam war.
The night before Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, on April 3, 1968 he preached to the sanitation workers protesting in Memphis. He told them that even in those turbulent times, he would not choose to live in any other time in history. He could see God working in and through the chaos. He could see his dream becoming a reality. He concluded his speech with these words:
“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t really matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop…And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we as a people, will get the promised land.”
Again: Deuteronomy 30:19 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”
My strong sense is that today we stand at the new crossroad, and our social construct also hangs in the balance. One road leads to more violence. One road leads to more compassion. One road is fueled by hate, one road is fueled by love and mercy. It seems so logical that we would choose life over death, blessings over curses. But if that’s the case, why do we continue to pick the wrong road?
Maybe we pick the wrong road because we don’t realize our choices matter that much. Our decisions are not life or death most of the time, just one small wrong turn after another until, confused, we are hopelessly lost. Or maybe we are following the crowd, and they picked a road so we just went along to feel safe. We want to pick life. We maybe even thought we actually picked life – until things begin to crumble.
Crisis moments help us see that our choices matter. In 1968, choosing war or peace had a clear consequence. One choice leads to certain death. But choosing peace doesn’t necessarily lead to life. Peace can’t just be the absence of war. True, lasting peace comes from reconciliation and respect, confession and forgiveness. And social justice, like peace, is one small choice after another that allows any relationship to grow and flourish.
Every day, in every moment, we can choose life over death when we choose to treat someone with respect instead of disdain. We choose blessings over curses when we are thankful for what we have instead of lamenting what we lack. These little choices become ingrained and infectious and soon we find that we are on a different path, and it seems to be good.
Like Moses, Dr. King led the people through the wilderness toward a promised land. They both challenged the power structures, led people to break free from societal enslavement and envisioned a just and merciful society. Through the long, winding road to freedom, the journey brought change – even progress – though progress did not transform the hearts and minds of some people, much less society as a whole. And on the last night of Moses and King’s lives, they saw the promised land, even if they knew they would not get there themselves.
We are in a time of great chaos and turbulence now. Cities are literally on fire as peaceful protest gives way under the deep injustice felt by many. Our earth is on fire as our leaders refuse to acknowledge the devastating consequences of a changing climate. Even the arctic is melting as temperatures rise. We long to hear words of assurance from a leader, telling us that we will get through this awful time and we are still on our way to a more just and merciful place. Really? We are both sad and angry, feeling helpless and hopeless, and very anxious about an uncertain future.
Like Dr. King, we don’t know what will happen now. We have some difficult days ahead. It is now pretty clear that those of us in the mature generation will not get to the promised land either, but, for the sake of our children, we can point in that direction and take another step forward toward justice, mercy, compassion and love for one another. Just one small step. That is the only way we can make any progress on the long journey ahead.
As always, our thanks go out to our generous contributors. We will continue to share this newsletter in the coming months and encourage you to share articles and insights that will help us all weather these difficult times.
Rick, Jennifer, Maynard, and the rest of the WesleyNexus team.
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UPCOMING IRAS WEBINAR: JULY 16TH, 2020 – 5:00 EDT
Theology & Covid-19: Etiological and teleological models at the nexus with science with Dr. Arvin Gouw, geneticist at Stanford University & affiliated faculty at Harvard Divinity School. The webinar will include a live Q&A session, with Dr. Ted Peters, Distinguished Research Professor of Systematic Theology at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA. Moderating the Q & A: Dr. Ron Cole-Turner, Distinguished professor Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
About the July 16th, 2020 webinar:
When humanity confronts a threat to life as we know it, including widespread human suffering and death, conventional perspectives on the nature of reality, including the divine reality, are thrown into a tailspin. This is the old theodicy question that troubles many faithful religious devotees, including Christians. Confronting the Coronavirus, the question across the globe becomes especially acute. Each of the world’s religions has their own answers to the question “Why?” Yet no answer seems satisfactory. In this talk, Dr. Gouw will present two complementary perspectives: an etiological model and a teleological model. One approach seeks to answer the cause of suffering; the other is focused on the purpose of suffering. We will explore what happens when these two distinctly different models meet at the nexus of science. Dr. Gouw writes: “At the end, you may feel that the original question still has not been answered, but the hope is, at least now, you will see that — even without an answer — we have no excuse for ignoring our responsibility. Human empathy still calls us to do all we can to ease the torment of those afflicted with suffering.”
About the July 16th, 2020 presenter:
Dr. Arvin Gouw is the vice president for research and development at the Rare Genomics Institute (RGI), where he oversees the Rare Genomics Task Force (RGTF) and the BeHEARD Challenge (Help Empower & Accelerate Research Discoveries), which provide grants globally to rare disease researchers, foundations, and patient families. Dr. Gouw is also a research fellow in Oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine and an affiliate scientist at UC Berkeley/LBNL, developing cancer drugs and drug screening platforms, and serves as affiliate faculty at the Center for Science, Religion, and Culture (SRC) of Harvard Divinity School. Dr. Gouw holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, an M.Phil. in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in theology from St. Mary’s Seminary and University Ecumenical Institute of Theology, and an M.A. in endocrinology and a B.A. in molecular cell biology–neurobiology from UC Berkeley.
The program will begin at 4:00 PM CDT, 5:00 EDT, 2 PM PDT, 10 PM BST (UK). This IRAS webinar is FREE but registration is required.
Please register using the link below.
If you have questions, contact CJ Love: carolynjlove3@gmail.com
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kYBHzHW1TJiJ6JHTSHocWw
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Initial IRAS webinars: June 29 & 30, 2020 – presentations available
Will Modern Civilization be the Death of Us? A two part series
Part 1: Does our modern techno-industrial society destroy the biophysical basis of our existence? with Dr. William Rees.
William Rees is a population ecologist, ecological economist, Professor Emeritus and former Director of the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning. His research focuses on the biophysical requirements for sustainability and on the implications of global ecological trends for global civilization. Dr. Rees is perhaps best known as the originator and co-developer of ‘ecological footprint analysis’ (EFA), a quantitative tool that shows the extent to which humanity is in ‘ecological overshoot’. Overshoot poses a serious challenge to policies promoting the continued growth of the human enterprise—we would need almost five Earth-like planets to support just the present world population sustainably.
Part 2: Envisioning Tomorrow’s Earth with Ruben Nelson.
Ruben Nelson, Executive Director of Foresight Canada, is an internationally respected futures researcher and practitioner of strategic foresight. He was first to apply the concept of ‘paradigm change’ to whole cultures in 1975. He coined the term ‘civilization overshoot’ in 2018. He explores the new reading of human history that will enable us to see why our Modern Techno-industrial cultures are almost wholly blind to (1) destroying biophysical existence (2) the emerging reality that the Modern Techno-industrial civilization has already entered a long, irrevocable decline (3) accepting that Modernity is our past, but not our future, and (4) realizing that our new work is to transcend our past at every scale, from personal-to-civilizational, becoming Consciously Co-creative.
Both sessions were moderated by Dr. Ron Cole-Turner who teaches at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, where he holds the H. Parker Sharp Chair in Theology and Ethics, a position relating theology and ethics to developments in science and technology. He is an ordained United Church of Christ minister and a founding member of the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR).
Each program spanned 90 minutes, including the Q & A session, and each can be found linked from the IRAS website, with visuals included: go to www.IRAS.org.
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Teilhard, Original Sin, and the Possibilities of Matter
Friday, July 24th, 4:00 pm – 5:30pm, ET USA (UTC/GMT-4)
(Click here to find the date and time in your time zone)
- “If we have evolved out of stardust, where do ‘souls’ fit in?”
Many Catholic theologians today, in line with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. (1881-1955), seem to have no problem reconciling Christianity with evolutionary biology. But what kind of theology can we make out of evolution? If God pronounced the creation ‘very good’, why are there evil and sin in the world? And if God is all-powerful, why doesn’t God do something about it? What can ‘Original Sin’ mean today, and why could Teilhard not persuade his superiors to accept his evolutionary view of it? Did Teilhard really not take sin seriously? If we have evolved out of stardust, where do ‘souls’ fit in?
What if there are no “souls” in the traditional sense—radically separate and separable from our bodies? Is “mind”, as the activity of the material brain, a sufficient substitute for an immortal soul? If Spirit and Love are the essence of reality, how are we to regard “mere matter”? Does it bother you to think that all you are—mind as well as body—might be “just” matter and the activity of matter? What might all this mean for the “resurrection of the body”, let alone other Christian doctrines? The answers might surprise you!
Join us online on July 24th for a thrilling conversation with Daryl, where we will explore souls, spirit and the very possibilities of matter!
- About Daryl Domning
Daryl Domning is a paleontologist studying fossil marine mammals, and a professor of anatomy at Howard University in Washington, DC. He has an additional interest in the theological implications of evolution. In 2006, with the late Catholic theologian Monika Hellwig, he published Original Selfishness: Original Sin and Evil in the Light of Evolution.
- Registration
Registration includes access to a recording of the Zoom meeting, which will be available within three weeks of the live event
| Ticket Type | Price | Cart |
| Teilhard and Original Sin – Zoom | $25.00 | Add to cart |
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The Kent Weaver Lectureship
As many of you know, Kent H. Weaver, a dedicated lay person at National United Methodist Church in Washington DC, served for over ten years as a member of the WesleyNexus Board of Directors. Kent died late in May 2020 after a heroic battle with abdominal cancer, and our Board members are joining with other colleagues in the congregation and persons in the Science/Religion community to fund a lectureship at the National UMC in Kent’s name. Toward that end, we are receiving donations from some of you in the WesleyNexus community to add to this fund. This way, Kent will be honored each year with a presentation open to the public by a renowned scientist and/or theologian. Checks as donations, should be payable to WesleyNexus, Inc., with specific reference on the memo line: K. Weaver Lecture Fund“…, and mailed to our home office:
c/o Rick Barr, Secretary/Treasurer
24500 Fossen Road, Damascus, MD 20872
Don’t forget the notation on the memo line.
A special memorial service was live streamed on June 13 with access from the website www.nationalchurch.org/live . If you missed the service live, it is still accessible on the nationalchurch.org website for several more weeks. Once you click open that link, on the top menu, click the “search” button, type in the name Kent Weaver, and the first notation under live stream allows you access to the Memorial Service. Many thanks.
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SPOOKY’ QUANTUM MOVEMENTS SEEN SPOOKY’ QUANTUM MOVEMENTS SEEN SCIENTISTS SAY by Andrew Griffin
Scientists have seen “spooky” quantum behavior happening to objects at the human scale, according to a new paper.
Researchers have seen quantum fluctuations “kick” large objects such as mirrors, moving them by a tiny degree but one big enough to measure.
Such behavior has previously been predicted by quantum physicists. But it has never before been measured.
To see the rest of the article: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/quantum-human-scale-ligo-mit-nature-a9596056.html?fbclid=IwAR20NNiQoh1ItDLTAfcgKxWDnYJ8NFn6XwC99nqSTz6-9exIaaf7bVDAJyQ
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Climate change is also a racial justice problem by Sarah Kaplan
Amid our ongoing national reckoning with racism prompted by the unequal impacts of the covid-19 pandemic, the recent killings of African Americans at the hands of police, and 400 years of history — this was the question on my mind.
If humanity is going to effectively tackle climate change, scientists and activists told me, it’s a question we have to answer. You can’t build a just and equitable society on a planet that’s been destabilized by human activities, they argue. Nor can you stop the world from warming without the experience and the expertise of those most affected by it.
To see the rest of the article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2020/06/29/climate-change-racism/?fbclid=IwAR3y7amfbhmuSkHEZPLVlXpJlqKTcqVJMQnggKCcEcGINxzDjSpRRnjhmQI
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How Artificial Super-Intelligence Is Today’s Tower of Babel by Joanna Ng
We are free to choose a strikingly better trajectory for AI. If “better” is defined and measured by the number of people benefited and the magnitude of the benefits, then we may assert that blessing humanity is a better AI agenda than creating a singleton to supersede humanity.
The author of this article in Christianity Today, is Joanna Ng, Master Inventor; she has 44 patent grants, with 12 pending; and has published 2 computer science books and 20-plus papers. Ng says it is up to us to step up to subdue the earth as beings of love, by creating and applying AI technologies, such as augmented cognition, for the blessings and the betterment of others: better management of resources entrusted to us, healing the sick, offering cognitive relief to the stressed out workforce, and more. She continues:
“Setting an AI trajectory in alignment with God’s prescribed hierarchical order, with his heart to love and to serve under the lordship of God, gives us access to his divine wisdom for our AI work to bring wise solutions to solve critical problems that are also dear to God’s heart. It is far more intriguing for mankind to be the embodiment of God’s divine wisdom (DW) than AI as the embodiment of mankind’s intelligence…. Psychologist Mark McMinn calls out critical wisdom as “embedded in complexity and paradox, requiring exceptional discernment and creativity,” compared to conventional wisdom as “living a good and effective life.” Adding to McMinn’s critical wisdom, divine wisdom is the spirit of mankind receiving God’s revelations, the “secret and hidden wisdom” (1 Cor. 2:7, ESV), the “great and unsearchable things you do not know” (Jer. 33:3), through the Spirit of God that God promised to generously grant to those who call on him and ask in humility.
Read the article here: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/june-web-only/artificial-intelligence-todays-tower-of-babel-ai-ethics.html?fbclid=IwAR3sllN0zGwrGk679gezrCrOb5CKWbymcNe1ObB64xp8hSLFP2Ld-z7PP94