NEWSLETTER
of

THE AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC AFFILIATION

VOLUME-17, NUMBER 2   APRIL 1975

BY NOW YOU SHOULD KNOW ...

... About the INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HUMAN ENGINEERING AND THE FUTURE OF MAN, to be held at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, July 21-24, 1975. This conference has been planned by nine major evangelical associations to provide systematic and constructive dialog leading to action by an interdisciplinary international commission. Six outstanding authorities will present papers for response by select panels of evangelical scholars and by the audience. Registered participants are restricted to those who can give affirmation of a personal faith commitment as indicated in the historic Apostles' Creed. (Non-participant observers need not be so committed.)

Registration may be limited by available space, so paid registrations ($60) must be received by May 20. Write to Registrar, ICHEFM, 5 Douglas Ave., Elgin, IL 60120 if you have not yet received a program and registration form in the mail. (Yes, the Registrar is ASA's executive secretary, Bill Sisterson.) Conference director is Craig W. Ellison of Westmont College.

... About the AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC AFFILIATION ANNUAL MEETING, to be held at the University of California in San Diego, August 15-18, 1975. This year's meeting will feature both a symposium of invited speakers on "What Is Man?" and an open program of papers on the relationship of science and Christianity. To complete the program, titles and abstracts must be received by Bill Sisterson at the ASA office in Elgin by April 15. JASA editor Richard Bube is organizing the symposium. Theologian Vernon Grounds has agreed present a paper at the meeting. MARK THESE DATES ON YOUR CALENDAR NOW. PLAN A FAMILY VACATION TO COLORFUL SAN DIEGO.

AFFIRMING CREATION AND HISTORY

A Public Colloquium at York University, Toronto, Ontario, on Friday, May 16, will bring together scholars from the Institute for Christian Studies (Toronto) and Regent College (Vancouver, B.C.) to discuss the theme: "Affirming Creation and History." The two institutions of Christian graduate education from opposite ends of Canada are getting together for this colloquium at the close of a Christian Leadership seminar of The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, held in Toronto May 13-16.

An afternoon session will be devoted to "God's Work in History" and an evening session to "The Word of God and Creation." An afternoon address on "The Doctrine of Creation in Contemporary Thought" by James Houston (Regent) will be responded to by Calvin Seerveld (ICS). For information on registration ($5), dinner reservations for  overnight accommodations, write to: Public Colloquium, Institute for Christian Studies, 229 College Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

A REQUEST FOR YOUR TESTIMONY

Sir Alister Hardy is an eminent oxford University . don and zoology professor-emeritus. He is the founder and former head of Britain's Oceanographic Institute. He is also a Unitarian who has become interested in "the spiritual side of man" and has begun a research program to investigate whether or not such a belief "may be regarded as reasonable." He requests "believers" to cooperate in his research as follows:

  Those who feel that they have been conscious of, and perhaps influenced by, some Power, whether they call it the Power of God or not, which may appear to be beyond their individual selves or in part outside and in part within their being, are asked to put down in writing as simply and briefly as possible, an account of these feelings and their effects.

All such records should include particulars of age, sex, nationality,' religious upbringing and other factors thought to t-e relevant and should be sent with the name and address of the sender to: The Director, Religious Experience Research Unit, Manchester College, Oxford, OX1 3TD, England. They will be regarded as strictly confidential and names will be suppressed in any published accounts of the research."

"John Amoore, his beautiful and movingly sincere young wife, Anna, Dr. Amoore's blind father, Ronald Amoore, long-time Quaker, and myself all appeared for · hospitable interlude. The wonderful thing is that Dr. Amoore belongs to

"...very special group called the American Scientific Affiliation, 1,500 of them, many with doctorates, who have all an interest in religion or the spiritual side of life as their main purpose for banding together. This group had not heard Dr. Hardy speak as yet on his recent American lecture tour and Dr. Amoore did not feel his society's journal was one of the twenty-six religious and other journals that had carried the appeal for samples-of religious experiences--or experiences often called 'spiritual awareness' by American youth--not of the 'mystic' but the more 'ordinary' kind.."

ORVILLE S. WALTERS SUCCUMBS TO CANCER

Orville Selkirk Walters, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.P., of Peoria, Illinois, died of cancer at age 71 on February 16, 1975. He was a graduate of Menninger School of Psychiatry and had long served as director of health services, professor of hygiene, and lecturer in psychiatry at the University of Illinois in Urbana. He had been an active member of the Christian Medical Society and was president of the Institute for Advanced Christian Studies at the time of his death. His articles on the interaction between Christian faith and psychiatry appeared in both secular and religious Publications, such as Journal of Counseling Psychology and Christian Century. His "Religion and Psychopathology," Christian Medical Society Journal 17., (No. 2) 11-20 (Spring 1965), was an abridgement from C2arehensive Psychiatry I (No. 1), 24-35 (Feb. 1964). He had presented a paper at one of the ASA annual meetings on a Christian view of psychology and psychiatry.

Orville Walters was a devoted Christian and a faithful member of the Free Methodist Church in addition to his witness through professional life. A copy of the Public Service of Christian Worship held in his honor on February 19 in the East Peoria Free Methodist Church was sent to ASA by Mrs. Walters. One of their sons, Richard P. Walters of Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a member of ASA. Richard has a Ph.D in counseling psychology and serves on the staff of the Christian Reformed Pine Rest Hospital and as acting director of the Family-in-Training program. We extend our sympathy to the Walters family.

SCIENCE FEATURED AT WHEATON FOUNDERS DAY

"Science and Christian Responsibility" was the theme of Founders Day at Wheaton College on January 17-18. The Wheaton Alumni Association event annually recalls the founding of the Illinois college back in 1860.

This year a number of ASA members played prominent roles in Founders Day. Wheaton's Perry Mastodon (see June 1974 ASA News, pp. 4-5) was dedicated in a ceremony in which associate professor Gerald Had7dTql~_r_e
presented Wheaton's geology department. (Geology chairman Donald C. Boardman, who had directed the restoration project, is teaching this year at the University of Peshawar in Pakistan.) Douglas Block of Rock Valley College, formerly on the Wheaton geology faculty, was there to describe how the bones were excavated by his student crews.

With its bones probably 11,000 years old, the mastodon deserved the accolades awarde6 it. But we congratulate some other "old-timers" honored on the same occasion: seven science faculty members, each of whom had served 25 years or more at Wheaton College. Four of the seven are currently members of ASA: John Leedy, professor of botany; Cyril Luckman, professor of zoology; Russell Mixter, professor of zoology; and Paul Wright professor of chemistry. The two-day festivities included a symposium, lectures on "Models in Science and Christianity" and "Science and Christian responsibility," and a panel discussion of "Christian Higher Educationt: Contributions to Science and Society."

MARIE H. BERG: FRIENDLY FIREPERSON

Several years ago, Marie Berg wrote that she was back in Germany attending "fire school." We were afraid unser Deutsch might be a bit schlecht. But now we understand, having seen a description of the two-year Fire Protection Program at Metropolitan Community College in Minneapolis. Marie has taught science there since "Metro" opened its doors in 1967. Her course in "Hazardous Materials and Processes"  encounter in a day of new chemicals and plastics. Marie is often the only member of das sch8ne Geschlecht in her classroom. Her students are mostly fire fighters, including fire chiefs, fire marshals, and fire inspectors. Her current class of 52 includes an architect, a sprinkler systems engineer, several safety engineers, and a surgical technician who has to handle burn cases. Insurance investigators and maintenance personnel have also completed the course.

Marie is a fine example of an ASA member using her technical skills to meet social needs. America has the worst fire record of all the great powers of the world, mostly because of our complacency in fire prevention. Even with the best fire fighting technology, we have more fires, more deaths from fire (mostly children and old people), and more money and property lost to fires. Fire prevention and fire fighting are complex fields that challenge an instructor to keep up to date. Marie spent this Christmas taking a look at the Los Angeles Fire Department, and this summer will return to England and Germany for more study of their "fire schools."

Marie is also an example of the way so many of our members witness wherever their professional work takes them. She is well known at Metro as the founder of a Bible study group that is as old as the school. A story by Marilynn Blankenship in the February 13 issue of MCC Journal described the study as "a small, warm group of people who congregate every Wednesday noon in room 303 Memorial Hall, to discuss Bible verses and reason with each other. They believe the Bible is a guide for living."

The same article describes Marie as "a scientist with friendly eyes, a relaxing manner, and a very interesting past. Dr. Berg was born in Mannheim, Germany. At an early age, her grandmother began passing on her beliefs to Marie. By the time Marie was fourteen, she knew she would spend the rest of her life advocating Christianity. She had been interested in chemistry since she was eight, so she studied to receive a Ph.D. at the age of 25, the same year she married Kurt Berg, who was a professor. Just prior to WWII they were ordered out of Germany by the Nazis and moved to the United States.

"Dr. Berg states that more scientists are Christian than non-Christian. They are closer to the intricacies and wonders of life than the average person and have more occasion to wonder--who made it all? Dr. Berg feels that her way of life is not only interesting and exciting, but is real and is the only way to live."

DOING OUR HOMEWORK ON EVOLUTION

The current issue of Christian Scholar's Review, Vol. 4, No. 3 (1975), contains (pp. 211-230) a magnificent bibliographic essay by James R. Moore, who is completing his doctorate in ecclesiastical history this year at the University of Manchester, England. Entitled "Evolutionary Theory and Christian Faith: A Bibliographic Guide to the Post-Darwinian Controversies," it is likely to boggle the mind and humble the spirit of anybody who thinks he's already done all his homework on the subject.

Jim focuses on two basic questions that remain even after studying these hundreds of "essential references": (1) Does evolutionary theory offer an adequate explanation of the phenomena of life? and (2) Is the explanation compatible with the Christian faith? He offers his annotated bibliography "to enable creationists and evolutionists to give answers in the full light of history." Toward the end of his essay, he says that "special creationists (who commonly speak well of the Bible as a textbook of science and history) should be prepared to state whether their methodological assumptions in historical geology and , should be prepared to explain why the Darwinian method is theologically acceptable to them. "Paleobiology are also valid for the investigation of events in biblical history, and if not, why not Christian evolutionists, on the other hand.

There now, that ought to keep us all busy enough with our own problems to keep us out of arguments with each other. But if not, we should at least heed Jim's suggestion about the proper level on which to carry on discussion:

"It cannot be stressed too much that answers will never come by dealing superficially with the scientific data on the one hand or by making the Bible assume new harmonistic contortions on the other. The differences which separate special creationists and evolutionists are at root philosophical, and any attempt to assess the adequacy of prevailing evolutionary theory and its compatibility with the Christian faith which does not first deal with the problem at this level, in full cognizance of a century's debate over some basic issues in philosophical theology and scientific method, is predestined for egregious failure."

"There is no question that the time problem to which the fossil forests contribute has an important bearing on fundamental theological issues. We are entirely sympathetic with any thorough and careful effort to solve the problem by endeavoring to encompass earth history in a short period. Nevertheless, as we have carefully studied the fossil forest outcrops throughout the volcanic field and evaluated the converging lines of data bearing on their description, together with the broader geological picture in which they fit, the weight of the evidence has led us to conclude that successive forests are represented.

"This is not to imply that the inspired Record is wrong. But it is to suggest that our understanding of its essential message may not always be perfect or complete. It is to suggest that we Adventists, as conservative Christians, might well make a renewed search of both science and revelation to discover those subtle relationships and insights that may help to demonstrate the consistency and harmony that exist between truth from the two sources. We are confident that the ultimate resolution will require neither distortion of facts nor grossly unnatural interpretations in either science or revelation...

"Only let every man take heed, lest he comfort himself with the dangerous assumption that the factual and the firm elements of science are mere speculation, and thereby seek to escape the intellectual responsibility of facing the issues and the hard decisions that the times demand of conservative Christians."

NOTES FROM THE NATIONAL OFFICE