Tim Stafford's 2012 CT cover story profiled a young-earth creationist and a proponent of theistic evolution. For nine further dispatches from the crossroads of science and faith, check out his new book.
The Adam Quest: Eleven Scientists Explore the Divine Mystery of Human Origins
Tim Stafford (Thomas Nelson)
We hear all the time that a debate is raging between two abstract entities called "science" and "religion." We even hear sometimes from actual people purporting to represent one camp or the other. But we hear rather less from those who, straddling both worlds, tend to undercut the reigning stereotypes. CT editor at large Stafford set out to discover how 11 Christians in the sciences reconcile their research with their faith convictions. Though they "hold strong opinions" on various points, he reports, they "aren't quick to condemn others" and "admit to seeing weaknesses in their own arguments. Fundamentally, they take seriously the reality that we, the human race, are still learning."
The Mormon Image in the American Mind: Fifty Years of Public Perception
J. B. Haws (Oxford University Press)
In the years between the failed presidential bids of George Romney (1968) and his son Mitt (2008 and 2012), Mormons and their beliefs have been thrust into the public spotlight on many occasions. In The Mormon Image in the American Mind, Haws, professor of church history at Brigham Young University, looks at the events and personalities that have shaped American attitudes toward Mormons over the past half-century. Mormons, he claims, "must contend with a theology and a history that arouse suspicion and discontent," and "the challenge . . . has been to navigate the American mainstream as a 'peculiar' but not 'pariah' people."
Is Reality Secular? Testing the Assumptions of Four Global Worldviews
Mary Poplin (InterVarsity Press)
As a professor in the secular university context (Claremont Graduate University in California), Poplin has an ideal vantage point from which to examine the worldviews that enjoy a taken-for-granted status today. Here, she examines the assumptions and implications of four dominant perspectives (secularism, naturalism, humanism, and pantheism), showing where they overlap—and where they clash—with the bedrock beliefs of Christianity. Knowing where our worldviews come from and where they lead "makes us less susceptible to the strong ideologies (left and right) of the media, education, and government of which we are often not consciously aware."
Teenagers Matter: Making Student Ministry a Priority in the Church
Mark Cannister (Baker Academic)
In this book, part of Baker's Youth, Family, and Culture series, Cannister, professor of Christian ministries at Gordon College, warns church leaders against neglecting teenaged members of their congregations. "We can choose to value teenagers and applaud the life-giving breath they bring to every aspect of the church," he writes, "or we can choose to lock our teenagers away in a youth program for seven years so that they don't mess up anything. Too often we have chosen the latter approach: we develop wonderful age-appropriate programs for teenagers while isolating them from the greater community of the church."
