Again with his permission, I pass on to you some thoughtful ideas from
Jon Clarke.
-- James and Florence Mahaffy 712 722-0381 (Home) 227 S. Main St. 712 722-6279 (Office) Sioux Center, IA 51250 --------------CAD4BECE4C81B2CAD1091EC6 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inlineReceived: from mail.alphalink.com.au by mtc1.mtcnet.net id aa19803; 30 May 1999 17:09 CST Received: from alphalink.com.au (d16-as0-can.alphalink.com.au [203.37.51.16]) by mail.alphalink.com.au (8.9.3/8.6.9) with ESMTP id IAA00285 for <mahaffy@mtcnet.net>; Mon, 31 May 1999 08:08:36 +1000 Message-ID: <3751B830.504BF9FE@alphalink.com.au> Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 08:14:08 +1000 From: Jonathan Clarke <jdac@alphalink.com.au> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: James Mahaffy <mahaffy@mtcnet.net> Subject: Re: Feedback on what makes SCP good. References: <3751A9F4.E024E66E@mtcnet.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Dear James
What makes any Christian professional have an impact in the secular world, including the academic one is three fold. I would not like to say which is more important to the watching world!
1) Quality of work. Without high quality teaching, publication, research, etc. the person will not be taken seriously as a scientist. The scientific research must be published in recognised academic literature (not creationist journals, for example).
2) The person must be known as a Christian. It is no good being a gun scientist if you hide your light as a Christian under a bushel.
3) Personal integrity. If a Christian has no personal integrity then they will not be taken seriously as a Christian, not matter how good their research is. This includes their integrity as people, how they treat their colleagues and students, how they fulfil their responsibilities and how successfully integrate their science and their faith. If a Christian geologist is known to believe in a young earth but publish research which is old earth in flavour, then their reputation is toast.
The same applies to Christian organisations on the science faith interface.
1) Their work must be top quality.
2) The people must live, work, and relate to others in a way that is Christian (the flavour of some recent posts to the list is most disapointing in this regard).
3) Successfully relate science and faith in some way that allows science and faith to flourish. The one thing that is disallowed is to have science and faith saying inconsistent things, or have faith constrain science in matters of science (as opposed constraining it in matters of ethics, philosophy, etc.).
4) The organisation and its work must be known in academic circles, as well as Christian ones.
In other words we must all see that all our work is for the Lord, and not be satisfied with second best in our research or the way we deal with our students or colleagues.
I think the ASA still has something of an image problem. It is still listed at times as a creationist organisation, both by Christians and non-Christans. Even Numbers' otherwise excellent book on the history of creationism in the US makes this error. Only commitment to excellence, integrity, consistency, and communication to the church and the academy will overcome this.
God Bless
Jonathan Clarke
James Mahaffy wrote:
> Folks, > > I am not a philosopher but a biologists (with an interest in > perspectives), who teaches at Dordt College, a college with a strong > emphasis in philosophy. > > The reason for my posting is to ask for feedback on how either the ASA > or Christian biologist organizations (and or lists) could have more of > an impact on the academic world. > > I have an impression that SCP has a real impact on academia. I am not > sure why. It may be in part because of some individuals active in it, > but I suspect there is more to it. Is there anything that the Christian > biologists or ASA could learn from you. Do any of you have an idea of > why the impact of this Christian discipline group is greater than some > others. I know the ASA is concerned about this and it is on the agenda > of their annual meetings. I also sponsor the list of the Affiliation of > Christian Biologists so will cc this on to the lists of both groups. In > looking at your archives at calvin, even your list seems to be a bit > more like the good professional lists (paleonet or mammal-l are two in > my area that come to mind - but I am sure there are lots more). I do > not want to cause digression in the list so you are welcome to reply > privately to me and I will summarize it to the lists if you have some > good suggestions. I probably will not join scp but will read the > archives if you respond to the list. > > While an important focus of Christian affiliations is to support members > it would be nice if they had an impact similiar to that of "secular" > oranizations. > > I do have a bunch of ideas ranging from the empiricism of the sciences > to stuck on origins debates that might be part of it but I don't want to > prejudice your responses. > -- > James and Florence Mahaffy 712 722-0381 (Home) > 227 S. Main St. 712 722-6279 (Office) > Sioux Center, IA 51250
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