An account of the first ever global gathering of Provincial Lead Bishops for the Anglican Communion Science Commission.

I made a pilgrimage to the National Cathedral in Washington on All Saints Day. This was my first visit. If you stand in the very centre of the long nave and look east you will see this window. It’s the only Cathedral window I know dedicated to science and technology. If you know of another one, please let me know. The window was installed in 1974 and is called the Space Window (for obvious reasons). Embedded in the centre of the glass is a small fragment of the moon.

Standing in the National Cathedral, four days before a Presidential election was an opportunity to draw together the previous three days in Virginia: an in-depth consultation on science and faith with Anglican bishops from all across the world as part of my work as co-chair of the Anglican Communion Science Commission (ACSC).

The story so far…

Humankind is facing critical global challenges of disease; climate change; the responsible use of technology; care for the earth. Engaging effectively with these challenges demands deeper more confident engagement of all the faith communities with questions of science.

It is also vital for the scientific community to engage well with faith communities in order to develop solutions to global problems; it is vital for faith communities to engage with science and technology in order for the science to be used for the benefit of all.

The ACSC was established four years ago as a global commission of scientists and bishops to encourage all the churches across the Communion to give courageous and confident leadership on questions of science and faith. At the Lambeth Conference two years ago, the Bishops issued a call to the global church to engage with these issues. You can read the text of the call online.

Twenty-eight out of 42 Provinces have now appointed Provincial Lead Bishops to take this work forward. The aim of the Virginia conference was to draw these bishops together for the first time and to inspire and equip them to work locally to take the call forward. We were hosted, very generously, by Virginia Theological Seminary, just outside Washington DC.

Who came?

Twenty-two Provincial Lead Bishops gathered in Virginia from every region of the Communion together with Science Commissions, representatives of youth networks, interpreters and the core team – group of around 40 people. Around two thirds of the bishops present were from the global south. We worked together in regional groups for much of the time: two tables of bishops from Africa; one each from Asia and the Americas; and a combined Europe and Oceania table.

The conference aimed to be deeply contextual and deliberately built on three regional gatherings over the last year in Kenya (for Africa), Australia (for Oceania) and Jamaica (for the Province of the West Indies).

We worked intentionally in a pattern of theological reflection: listening to science and the scientists; listening to scripture and the tradition; listening carefully to each other’s experiences and seeking to develop wise plans and outcomes for every province represented.

Listening to science and the scientists….

We sat at the feet of two world-leading scientists, both committed Christians, working in turn on a very small scale and a very large scale. Francis Collins is currently the Science Advisor to the US President. He led the Human Genome Project and was director of the US National Institutes of Health from 2009 to 2021. Francis spoke openly of the integration of his faith with science throughout his life (he has written an account of this in the New York Times bestseller: The Language of God: A scientist presents evidence for belief). Francis spoke of the joy of reading God’s two books in creation and scripture (to use the language of both John Calvin and Francis Bacon). He spoke movingly of his conversion from atheism to Christianity through science. He encouraged the bishops to engage confidently with questions of science in the areas of gene editing; climate change and pandemics. One of his chilling statistics was that on his estimate around 230,000 people died from COVID in the USA because of a distrust of vaccinations or the vaccines available. Churches and faith communities are vital for the rebuilding of trust in scientists.

Our second guest was Jennifer Wiseman, a senior astrophysicist with NASA who has been very closely involved with studying the remarkable discoveries made through Hubble and James Webb telescopes. Jennifer described for us (with amazing slides) a universe which is beautiful, active, enormous and progressing – not static but living, changing and expanding. Jennifer too described her faith, the sense of an inner purpose to the physical universe and her fundamental response to these discoveries of awe and wonder at creation and the God who made all of this.

Our third input from scientists was a field trip on the second day of the consultation to the National Institutes of Health in Washington, a massive publicly-funded research centre and hospital with an annual budget of $50 billion (a larger GDP than many countries). We were met by the Director herself, Monica Bertagnolli and several senior members of her team and then in groups taken round working laboratories. My group met a research team who had been working for three decades on a cure for sickle cell disease and had made several recent and life-changing breakthroughs. The abiding message from the visit was that, again, the scientists urged the church leaders to find ways to engage, to build bridges, so that two knowledge systems of science and faith could speak to each other for the benefit of all.

Listening to scripture and the tradition

Each day began with worship with the VTS community and then with Bible study led by Katherine Grieb of the Anglican Communion Study Centre at VTS. We were led skillfully into Psalm 8, Jeremiah 4 and Job 38 as ways of exploring the themes of creation. Through careful biblical study our reflections were rooted in Scripture and we were led back to the themes of wonder but also (through Jeremiah) of the risk and threat of disaster expressed through the unravelling of creation and (through Job) of the majesty, transcendence and otherness of Almighty God.

Two guest theologians brought their own insights from the tradition. Norman Wirzba, Professor of Theology and Ethics at Duke University, spoke of a crisis of seeing in the world which lies underneath the great crises we face. What difference does it make to see every person in creation as a child of God and more than a consumer, a voter, an economic unit? He spoke of creation as a garden, of the importance of taking care of the earth, of the connection between the biomes in the soil and the biomes in the human digestive system (connecting again for me the name of Adam with the Hebrew name for earth, Adamah).

Ian Markham, Dean of VTS, spoke of the ways in which science has advanced beyond popular understanding of a mechanistic universe. The Church has become disconnected from the sciences because of our lack of confidence. But recent discoveries in biology and quantum physics make it clear that a mechanistic, materialistic account of the universe is now implausible from a scientific perspective. Christian theologians should not hesitate to engage with contemporary cosmologies – indeed our perspective is needed.

Listening to the Bishops…..

A whole afternoon of the conference was spent listening to the three groups of bishops who had already worked together in the regional conferences in Jamaica, Kenya and Australia. This work was presented by Dr Jacquie Bay who had led these conferences with a team drawn from the Science Commission and the church in each region.

These conferences were deliberative: a form of dialogue designed to go beyond consultation to recommendations and conclusions. Each regional gathering had emphasised the importance of bringing together the different knowledge systems of science and faith not in competition but collaboration for the flourishing of all. Each also emphasised the vital importance of the local and of listening to indigenous communities and knowledge to build wisdom and trust. The Bishops spoke of the fragility of the earth in the face of climate change, an every present thread in our conversations. Each gathering has produced a range of recommendations to be taken forward by the Bishops themselves. The final version of the report will be developed further in the next three months and brought to the next meeting of the Science Commission in December but these gatherings were a key building block towards the Virginia consultation. We listened in this session also to the voices of young Anglicans and to research which underlines the vital importance of science and faith questions to those under 35 and the importance of including young Anglicans in all we do in these areas.

Jacquie’s conclusion to her session echoed the insights of the United Nations and the International Science Council, both of which have called on scientists across the world to engage seriously with churches and faith groups and with indigenous knowledge systems as a vital way to build trust and wisdom for the application of scientific discovery.

Developing wisdom…..

The first two days were largely about listening. The final day was given to supporting each Provincial Lead Bishop to develop a plan of action. As a core team we were unsure how this final day would go. Would colleagues be overwhelmed by complexity or by the scale of what we were attempting? Time and space was given to develop individual plans and commitments and then to share those first in regions and, through flipcharts, with the whole group. There was a pooling of resources to take all of this forward produced by ECLAS in the UK and by other groups worldwide. There is plenty of good material available.

The outcomes were inspiring. The plans are detailed, deeply contextual, very different from each other. Some Provinces will develop their own science commissions and dialogue between church leaders and scientists. Some will take a project approach. Some will focus on schools or theological education. Some had brilliant ideas (Cathedral services; an annual science Sunday; involving schools). There was immense energy and creativity in the room. There was a strong sense of solidarity and mutual support across the regional tables and a desire to share good practice and encouragement. All of the plans will be recorded and collated and made available to the participants. The core team will be developing ways of keeping in touch with the Provincial Lead Bishops and communicating what happens locally and across the Communion over the coming months.

On the final afternoon, Linda Nicholls, recently retired as Primate of Canada, led the group each to say what they had valued and appreciated: there was so much encouragement and energy and confidence in the room and in the messages sent by WhatsApp the following day.

The Space Window…

So there was a huge amount to give thanks for as I made my pilgrimage to see the Space Window on All Saints Day. The sliver of moon rock embedded in the glass is a symbol of a massive feat of science, endeavour and leadership to put a man on the moon, an event I remember watching live from my school classroom in 1969.

The Anglican Communion Science Commission is in a similar way shooting for the moon. Helping the Church across the world to engage confidently with questions of science and faith for the sake of the whole world is a huge endeavour and will be at least a ten-year project. But we came a little nearer seeing that dream become a reality. By the grace of God we are drawing together threads of progress woven in many different places. We look to Almighty God, maker, redeemer and sustainer to guide and prosper this work in the years to come.

With thanks: to all the participants who made the journey; to the core team who designed and constructed the programme: Andrew Briggs, Heather Payne, Stephen Spencer, and Katherine Grieb; to our administrative support Rachel Parry and Hester Wensing; to all our guest speakers and the team at NIH; to Dean Ian Markham and VTS for their generosity; to my co-chair the Revd Professor Kwamena Sagoe and to Archbishop Justin Welby for his vision and unfailing support for this venture.