Science, Faith, Vocation and Personhood
Catherine Crouch
I am the furthest thing from a scientist. I am quite happy in the humanities. That’s why I was surprised to find myself identifying deeply with some of the sentiments in this article, written by Andy Crouch. In it, Crouch describes his wife Catherine, an experimental physicist (that means about as much to me as “Hebrew Bible scholar” means to most people); not only her work, but her personhood, her vocation, her struggles and joys. Crouch sensitively portrays her journey in the academic and scientific spheres. And I was surprised at how much commonality I found between her journey and my own.
Additionally, I was struck by Crouch’s gentle yet pointed critique of the apparent inability of most of the sermons or church activities they attend to minister deeply to his wife particularly–to speak into the unique challenges she faces on a day-to-day basis. And Crouch suggests that it’s not because of her esoteric line of work; this is true of most people:
“Does the gospel really have nothing to say to our sense of wonder and delight in the world? Is it silent on how to manage competition and risk? Does it give us no guidance on the qualities that make for real, fruitful collaboration? To the contrary, all these are the soil where discipleship can grow, where grace can be discovered, and where real faith can be nourished. What other opportunities are we missing to name the ways that every vocation in our congregation points us toward, and indeed requires, the death to self and trust in God that are the essence of trust in Jesus?”
I can imagine that it must be very difficult for pastors, who are under constant pressure to deliver relevant, impactful messages every week to people with very different day-to-day challenges and situations. There must be the constant temptation to stay in the safe, bland territory of generalities; the mushy, easily digestible self-help sermon diet that so often becomes the default position. But is there a danger in becoming too abstract; too metaphorical? Crouch goes on to say:
Many people who end up in academic vocations are comfortable with abstraction. There is real intellectual leverage that can be gained by abstracting away from particular persons to talk about, for example, “personality”; to abstract away from a set of methods, practices, discoveries, and theories to talk about “science”; to abstract away from a set of beliefs and rituals to talk about “religion.” Yet ministry is one human vocation that dare not be abstract. The most fruitful ministry always is engaged with very concrete communities and persons.
Have a look at the article yourself. Think about the amount of time we Christians tend to spend defending abstract arguments, staking out turf, battling with competing ideologies. How many opportunities are we missing; opportunities to discover the infinite mysteries in one another? How much time are we wasting? It’s something to think about.
If there is one critique I have of this article, it is that Crouch perhaps too quickly sets the academic worlds of science and theology at odds with one another–in fact, I found myself surprised at how much the world he describes and the world I inhabit are not altogether that different. And perhaps in a way, that supports his ultimate point…
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