The Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overlapping_magisteriaJanuary 22, 2022  •  Eve of the Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Saint Michael’s Mission Church, Weimar, Germany

Text: Psalm 19:1: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament his handiwork.”

I am going to begin with a guess; and the guess is that most of you are not familiar with the work of, or have ever heard of, a writer named Stephen Jay Gould. In his day, which was not so very long ago, and in his place, which was the United States, he was well known as both a scientist and a writer. 

Gould was both a paleontologist and a historian of science, and his research and writings made major contributions to the field of evolutionary biology. He argued that natural selection was not the only factor that shaped the path o of evolution, and famously used an analogy to architecture—the idea of the spandrels that form where arches support a dome—to describe how some of the things we observe in nature came to be for reasons other than the reasons we suppose.

Professor Gould taught paleontology at Harvard, and together with Harvey Cox from the Divinity School and Alan Dershowitz from the Law School once developed a course called “Thinking about Thinking,” a seminar for undergraduates exploring different ways of reasoning and exploring the difference between understanding and meaning. It became a course that filled the largest lecture hall on campus every time it was offered.

I’m telling you all this about someone you don’t know to set us up for explaining the irony behind one of Gould’s most lasting ideas. 

Gould always described himself as an agnostic. He said of himself that he was a skeptic, but also felt that the only honorable position for someone with a scientific mind was to be an agnostic—because there were questions that religion addressed that science simply could not.

That got him a lot of critique from his scientific peers. But it also led to one of his most lasting ideas, something he wrote about in his 1999 book Rocks of Ages. Gould’s idea was that the so-called conflict between religion and science was based on a false premise—the claim that each possessed tools for analyzing the ideas and processes of the other. 

Instead, Gould wrote that religion and science were, in his phrase, “Non-Overlapping Magisteria.” What Gould meant by a magisterium was “a domain where one form of teaching holds the appropriate tools for meaningful discourse and resolution.” He went on to set the terms in these words: “ The magisterium of science is the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry.”

Now, we might immediately contend with that claim; it seems clear that there are in fact places in which these basic approaches to understanding do overlap, most obviously in the case of medical ethics. But I will end this long introduction by sharing the irony I promised. 

Stephen Jay Gould wasn’t just a scientist and an agnostic; he loved singing, and especially singing in groups. In fact, this incredibly accomplished scholar made time to sing in a community chorale called the Boston Cecilia. And while he couldn’t always participate, there was one piece in the repertoire that always got him to participate, no matter what else had to be canceled or set aside: Franz Joseph Haydn’s great oratorio The Creation. 

The oratorio tells the Genesis story of the seven days of creation, day by day. And if you know the piece you know that right at the very midpoint of it all, on the Fourth day after the lights of the sun and moon are set in the sky, the chorus breaks forth with one of Haydn’s most glorious compositions for voices, drawing on the words of Psalm 19: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; the wonders of his work displays the firmament.”

I love the idea of the great scientist who gave us non-overlapping magisteria, the man who steadfastly held on to his agnostic identity, standing on a chorus riser and belting out those words.

I’ve taken us on this long excursion to bring us to a very specific Epiphany point. Because whatever else these long, miserable months of the pandemic have meant for our societies, at least this much is true: These have been months, and now years, where science has been far more present in the lives of most people than at any previous moment. 

The science of epidemiology has helped us understand how fast and how far the virus and its variants have spread. Medicine has found new ways of treating Covid patients and greatly increasing their chances of survival. Geneticists have been at the forefront of exploring new technologies for creating vaccines able to protect us against a randomly deadly virus.

In the midst of all of this, some people are asking new questions at the intersection of science and faith—or perhaps more accurately, old questions expressed in new terms. How could a merciful God permit such suffering and devastation to affect so many people? Why would a God we proclaim as almighty not exercise some of that power to protect us?

At the very same moment, new questions have emerged about the very science that has become so much a part of our daily awareness. Is the virus merely a terrible hoax? There are some who think so. Are the vaccines to be trusted? There are voices of suspicion claiming Bill Gates or George Soros or some other nefarious actor is planting microchips in us, or changing our DNA, or some other creative evil. Does wearing face masks and having to show the proof we’ve been vaccinated actually do anything to save lives or stop the spread of infection? There are thousands out in the streets who don’t believe we should have to behave that way.

It’s not just that the pandemic has caused some people to question faith in God. It has also caused some people to doubt their faith in science. What this time of trouble has revealed most clearly about humanity is that faith is hard—and holding on to it, keeping it at the still center of our souls, demands something of us when our usual way of life and our sense of social connection is thrown into disorder by a pandemic—or worse. 

So in this season of manifestation, in this season where the practice of the church is to bring back before us all of the ways in which Jesus becomes manifested to the world as the promised Messiah, and confronts more and more people with the necessity of having to choose what to believe, here’s a question for you: How’s your faith?

What do you have faith in? What do you most deeply believe in? Has your faith—or maybe your capacity for faith—been damaged in these last years?

When you come right down to it, most of what we believe in is ourselves—our capacities, our abilities, our knowledge, our opinions. Most of what life hands us we have confidence we can handle. What we believe in, what we depend on, is ourselves.

But of course, that isn’t really faith. In that kind of life, faith is something more like a fashion accessory. There are things it goes with, and things it doesn’t go with. 

Where faith comes in is the point at which our capacities, our abilities, our resources, our talents hit their absolute limit. And ultimately, of course, our mortality. We find out what we really have faith in when we are suddenly thrown out of the world we think we can control. When we suddenly must confront our dependence on something beyond ourselves.

You are all just about the newest mission of our Convocation. We are immensely proud of you. We delight in seeing your growth and your excitement as you build this community. In fact—here it comes—we have faith in you.

We have faith in you because we have no other presence here. We have no other voices to speak God’s hope in this place to God’s people here. We know that God is working through you to bring something new into being here, and we simply have faith in that, and in you, because it’s not something we control, or determine.

We have faith in you. And so the Epiphany question, as you are manifesting Christ’s hope in this place, is—what do you really have faith in?

People everywhere have responded in many different ways to the challenge these years of pandemic have set before our sense of ourselves. Some have been angry, some have been suspicious, some have been despairing. 

But for us, for people of the Christian faith, this is a moment of recalling just what our faith is supposed to be about. It is time to remember that God’s magisterium encompasses the whole of our being, not just as individuals but as the societies and cultures we create. And it is for us now to find ways of sharing with the world around us the outrageous hope that faith has to offer in a world that feels tempted to spiritual despair and social indifference.

So let us be that light in this world. Let us reclaim the gift of that faith, given to us in our baptism, that surpasses and sustains us through the chances and changes of this world. And let us share with joy the hope of that faith with those who come seeking, and questioning, and doubting—because God knows we do all those things, too. Amen.