Can Liturgy Be Empirically Tested?
What happens in our bodies and in our brains when we join together in a communal liturgy, where people sing or dance or celebrate together?
The Reverend Zachary Jackson is the pastor of Community United Church of Christ in Reading PA as well as an adjunct professor of theology at Palmer Theological Seminary. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Ancient Languages from Wheaton College and a Masters of Divinity from Palmer Theological Seminary. As a child, Zack dreamed of being a rocket scientist, but after being accepted to several engineering schools, he felt an unmistakable call to ministry instead. Throughout Zack's ministry, he seeks to explore how scientific inquiry and the scientific method can inform a more humble, reverent, and honest faith in God. To that end, Zack writes a science and faith blog (http://musicalspheres.blog) and is one of the organizers for the United Church of Christ's Science and Technology Network. He is also on the UCC's Environmental Justice Team and is particularly passionate about how climate change and environmental damage disproportionately impact the poor and underrepresented in our world.
What happens in our bodies and in our brains when we join together in a communal liturgy, where people sing or dance or celebrate together?
What is the interplay between the things that make us human and the things that make us superhuman?
If humans aren’t self-contained units, what’s our responsibility to the other elements that we’re connected to?
How we can teach so many of the complicated nuances of genetics to laypeople, clergy, students, and others who may be new to the big debates?
We’re not even aware of how often it is that we use the scientific process to make decisions in our lives – even in our faith lives.
Since 1970, trust in science has decreased significantly among conservatives and regular churchgoers, and as a pastor and former evangelical, I need to know why.
Big Stories, like the ones forged by religion, could be a powerful motivator for climate action. How might we use this way of thinking to spur action while staying scientific?
When you use God to explain all the things that you can’t currently understand, then you are setting God up to be gone one day, when we do understand those things.
We are what happens when the dirt gets a voice, when the earth gets a conscience, when the world has arms and legs and a thinking, rational mind that can relate to the Creator.
Answering difficult questions about the world and comforting people in a time of need requires the best wisdom from both religion and science.