News and Views

By Linda Worthington
UMConnection staff

March for Science Planned

Earth Day is April 22, and “scientists around the world will be marching,” said the Rev. Maynard Moore, Wesley Nexus founder and organizer of the event. Clergy are invited to join. Learn more

In an effort to explore the question, “Are Our Children at Risk?” through the sectors of food insecurity, climate change and racial bias, about 30 people gathered and many more participated online, as three experts brought answers to these questions Feb. 12 at the Baltimore-Washington Conference Mission Center. They were brought together for Evolution Weekend by WesleyNexus, Inc., which shares the conviction that science, religious practice and theological enterprise should not be at odds with one another.

The ecumenicity of the group was demonstrated by the leaders:  two were United Methodists, one a Quaker/Buddhist; and all were highly respected in their scientific fields and open to the perspectives of those who believed differently.

The meeting was opened on the anniversary of Darwin’s birth (Feb. 12, 1809) by Rabbi George B. Driesen of the Institute for Science and Judaism, now serving at a Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda.

Dr. Gary Sherman, a member of Bethesda UMC and currently at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, Va., pointed out that by 2050, the world “must sustainably feed 9.5 billion human beings” with no additional arable land or fresh water. That’s two billion more people than today. In less than 100 years 11.5 billion people must be fed.

He noted that 56 percent of Americans believe humans were created as they currently are 10,000 years ago, and corollary to that, 50 years or 1,000 years in the future, they will still be the same. To make it possible to sustain the expected growth in numbers of humans, science must be utilized, he said. “I want science to work the way it should, not to make the U.S. rich, but for the children.”

Alternative food sources, including the use of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) must be exploited, he said in response to an audience question. The food supply can be helped by genetics, but to advance GMOs, scientists need to inform the public more. He pointed out that any innovations in food and agriculture that goes through the USDA (Department of Agriculture) “is incredibly researched.”

Frank Niebold, the Climate Education Coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) monitors Earth’s climate through an international system of oceanic and atmospheric observing instruments. He recognizes that the climate is changing, as it always has, but at an accelerated rate compared to the changes in centuries or millennia past. “We must solve global warming, not climate change,” he stressed.

The climate scientists’ conclusion is that carbon dioxide is the crux of the problem – that CO2 levels have risen 40 percent since the human industrial revolution, and its levels have never been higher in the past 800,000 years. “All signs of a warming world are moving in the direction we don’t want them to go – up.”

Niebold purports that at this time, people can make choices on what to do, noting especially our use of fossil fuels which are a main cause of CO2. “If we work together, we can change,” he said.

The Rev. Amy Stapleton, a team leader at the General Commission on Religion and Race, pointed out the harm that is done by racial bias, saying that “black and brown bias is the main bias. ... (It) creeps up in every part of the community.” Everyone is susceptible to implicit (unconscious, internalized) bias and most people are not aware of it, she said.

The consequences of bias (racism) are in all parts of life, she said, in education, health care and criminal justice, where treatment in schools, emergency rooms and prisons is less for black and brown people than for white people. “We are embedding an underclass,” she said.

“We need to be more than an ally, but also an advocate,” she said. “We need system intervention for systemic problems.” She added, “We as church (or synagogue, mosque, temple) can open our doors.”

Following the presentations, Bishop LaTrelle Easterling of the Baltimore-Washington Conference responded to the remarks of each panelist.

“Neither science nor theology should make claims about the other,” she said. “They are compatible disciplines.”

Bishop Easterling gave an interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer, suitable for all religions. “It can be prayed by anyone ...  and orients us to relationships to the world and one another,” she said.

“Our Bible says God, not humans, created the heaven and the earth,” she said, and though creation is interpreted by white, male orthodoxy, we are all created in the image of God.

“Give us this day our daily bread” means that “food is not about hoarding and consuming. ... (It) is taking what you need today, but not hoarding the rest. If I take only what is necessary for me, the child in Africa will be fed,” she said.

Thy Kingdom come: “Abuse of creation is not part of this.”

Lead us not to temptation: Speaking to Stapleton’s racism presentation, Easterling said, “How can I be reconciled to you if I see myself as inherently better than you?”

Deliver us from evil: “Hell is actualization of human agency, access to power without regard for the Creator,” she said. The bishop contrasted the William Henley poem “Invictus” (“I am master of my fate, I am master of my soul.”) with the Wesleyan prayer, “I’m no longer mine but yours, O God.”

“We are connected, and we need to recognize the value each person brings to the conversation,” concluded Dr. Richard Ballew, a Certified Lay Servant and lay leader at Memorial UMC in Poolesville.