Sandra Harding's work is useful, not only as a critique of the scientific method and its epistemological constructs, but also in providing new energy and insights to the discussions about epistemology between theology and science.Feminist theory has been critical of the worldviews inherited from the Enlightenment. No longer is there one unambiguous way of knowing ourselves and the world around us, a single vision of reality. Feminist philosophers of science like Sandra Harding and Donna Haraway have redefined the scientific method (...) and its analytic categories. They have contributed significantly to this discussion by moving the Enlightenment epistemological issues into the arena of politics and ethics. Feminist theory continues to remind us that what is important is not only how or what we know but what we do with that knowledge and how we use it. (shrink)

What is embodiment? And how does this notion apply not only to science qua science but also to the conversation between religion and science? I offer a descriptive analysis of an embodied conversation between religion, science, ethics, and technology. The domain of embodiment is one in which the participants practice humility in the face of others, become aware of their own limitations and finitude, bear witness to the other's finiteness and limitations, take account of the sociocultural atmosphere, and acknowledge the (...) ethical weight of the conversation for all involved. I offer examples of how this tangled knot of emergent practices is put into play, examples that expand upon some notions of what conversations between religion and science should be like. (shrink)

To write about the disease of breast cancer from both scientific and spiritual perspectives is to reflect upon our genetic and spiritual ancestry. We examine the issues involved in breast cancer at the intersections of spirituality, technology, and science, using the fundamental thing we know about being human: our bodies. Our goal in this essay is to offer close readings of women's spiritual and bodily journeys through the disease of breast cancer. We have discovered that both illness and health come (...) within the stories of particular people and particular disciplines. And to learn more about breast cancer, both scientific and spiritual aspects, one must be attentive to such particularities. Medicine and religion are bodily experiences, and being a body-self is what it means to be human. (shrink)

James Huchingson's book, Pandemonium Tremendum: Chaos and Mystery in the Life of God, is an artistic improvisation on recurrent themes in the dialogue between religion and science. Around the cantus firmus of the Pandemonium Tremendum Huchingson composes a grand metaphysical composition that is glorious in its detail, magnificent in its overarching themes, and careful in its attention to context. Much like a suspended chord between two different harmonies, Huchingson's theological composition dangles the reader in the tensions of religion and science, (...) modernity and postmodernity, particulars and universals, God and the world. Although this book is surely a cutting‐edge development in the ongoing corpus of religion and science, I am most excited about its constructive theological provocations. This is a work in progress, a composition in the making. (shrink)

Karl Peters's book Dancing with the Sacred brings together his insights from evolutionary biology and ecology, world religions, and process thought into an integrated autobiographical reflection on his thoughts, teaching, and life. The book simultaneously engages readers in their own reflections about religion and science and reminds them that their reflections are freighted with moral responsibility. For Peters, self‐understanding correlates with understanding the world. The celebration of diversity coincides with the universal concerns that all face living together on this planet. (...) Our future depends on how we live in the present tense. (shrink)

Abstract.Telling the tale about South Dakota's recent legislative ban on nearly all abortions gets messy, complicated, and dirty. There are no innocent subjects and no simple plot lines. The story reveals other stories underneath and over the top of the others. Stories counter stories, revealing who is in the know and who does the telling. To “tell the old, old story,” as the song goes, is not as simple as it may seem. Religion and medical science are caught in the (...) politics and cultural wars about abortion. (shrink)

Abstract.What we urgently need at the beginning of the twenty‐first century is a christological vision that can shape and inform a new and powerful way of helping humankind to interpret their place within the universe. A christological vision that is unintelligible and uninteresting can have a profoundly deleterious soteriological implication: the orbit of God's saving grace will not be wide enough to encompass the universal place of humankind. Arthur Peacocke's move is clear and to the point: Only when the foundations (...) and universal scope of God's grace are fully established for all of creation, only then can the importance of God's specific work in Jesus the Christ be established. (shrink)