Earlier this week, many people
enjoyed the day off in remembrance of Columbus Day. The famous Looney Toons cartoon depicts Columbus
trying to convince King Ferdinand of Spain that the earth is “round, like the
apple.” The king responds, “She’s flat,
like the panake.” Columbus retorts,
“She’s a’round, like my head!” In
response, the king hits Columbus on the head with a mallet and says, “She’s
flat like your head!” The Looney Toons
version of the story (which many of us learned as historical fact), depicts
Columbus claiming the earth to be round, unlike most in Christendom, making him
a hero for proving a new theory about physics and geography. Actually, most people in the late fifteenth
century already knew the earth was round—it was the circumference of the earth
that was in question. In fact, it was
fiction author Washington Irving (Rip Van Winkle, Legend of Sleepy Hollow), who
depicted church leaders warning Columbus that he might sail off the end of the
earth. This comes from literary myth,
not history.[i]
Even today, many want to paint
Christians as being ignorant, anti-education, and anti-science. The term “flat-earther” has been used to
describe creationists and others with a conservative standpoint. Yet, the Bible doesn’t teach that the earth
is flat. In fact, Isaiah 40:22
(Douay-Rheims Bible) says of God, “It is
he that sitteth upon the globe of the earth.”
“Also, Luke 17:34-36 depicts Christ's Second Coming as happening while some are asleep
at night and others are working at day-time activities in the field—an
indication of a rotating Earth with day and night at the same time.”[ii] The fact is that there are many places where
the Bible and science agree. This should
bolster our faith and give us confidence.
Yet many people try to make the Bible speak as if it’s a scientific
textbook when its purpose isn’t to teach science at all. Attempts to try to make the Bible say what
it’s not trying to say simply discredit the source of our faith.
Science is the search for fact, and
religion is the quest for truth. Science
uses the scientific method, which works repeated experiments until a theory is
proven or disproven and fact established.
Religion uses a different method—that of finding God within the Bible, creation,
and the inner self—to discover ultimate Truth (with a capital T). Faith and reason are not mutually exclusive,
as many believe. Too many religious
people discount science, and too many scientific people abandon faith. In reality, it’s when we use our brains in
church and our faith in the classroom that we become the most well-rounded people,
able to understand fact and truth.
In John 18:19-24, 28-40, fact and
fiction are figured, and truth is put on trial.
When Jesus stands before the High Priest, He knows he’s condemned even
before the trial. He knows that false
witnesses have trumped up charges, so He says in verse 23 (NLT), “If I said anything wrong, you must prove
it. But if I’m speaking the truth, why are you beating me?” Jesus stands
for Truth, but His accusers want nothing to do with the Truth. They want only to prove about Jesus the things
that they erroneously believe.
Later, on trial before Pilate, the
Roman governor investigates whether there’s anything behind Jesus’ charge of treason. Pilate cares nothing for the charges of blasphemy—these
are accusations based on the Jewish religion, about which he knows next to
nothing and cares even less. But
Pilate’s job is to determine the facts of the case. Does Jesus, indeed, claim to be the King of
the Jews? Verses 37-40 (NLT) say:
Pilate said, “So you are a king?”
Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came
into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that
what I say is true.”
“What is truth?” Pilate asked. Then he went out again to the people and told
them, “He is not guilty of any crime. But you have a custom of asking me
to release one prisoner each year at Passover. Would you like me to release
this ‘King of the Jews’?”
But they shouted back, “No! Not this man. We want Barabbas!” (Barabbas
was a revolutionary.)
Pilate’s powerful words, “What is
truth?” still ring clearly today. It is,
perhaps, one of the biggest questions of this generation. It seems like ultimate and objective Truth is
hard to find in an age of uncertainty and rhetoric. In a time when the President talks about
“fake news,” we must wonder if there’s a source of “real news” anywhere. If conservatives only watch Fox, and liberals
only watch MSNBC, then it seems like both groups are looking for “news” stories
that simply support their preconceived notions.
Like the people who conducted Jesus’ trial, we’re often far less
interested in discovering the truth than we are having our opinions
reinforced. But perhaps Fact and the
Truth are out there, for those who use both their faith and their brains. In fact, good Christians must employ both their intellect as well as their belief if we are
to understand God and our world.
While it’s untrue that the Church
ever taught that the world was flat, it is true that we believed in a geocentric,
rather than heliocentric solar system.
In 1543, Copernicus was made famous by teaching the theory of the Roman
Ptolemy, who believed, contrary to popular opinion, that the earth orbited the
Sun instead of the other way around.
Later, Galileo adopted both the opinions of Ptolemy and Copernicus. Adding the evidence that he gathered with his
invention, the telescope, Galileo began to teach as fact that the sun is the
center of the solar system. In response,
the Roman Catholic Church subjected him to the Inquisition. Journalist Alan Cowell writes:
Summoned to Rome for trial by the Inquisition one year later, Galileo
defended himself by saying that scientific research and the Christian faith
were not mutually exclusive and that study of the natural world would promote
understanding and interpretation of the scriptures. But his views were judged
"false and erroneous." Aging, ailing and threatened with torture by
the Inquisition, Galileo recanted on April 30, 1633.
Because of his advanced years, he was permitted house arrest in Siena.
Legend has it that as Galileo rose from kneeling before his inquisitors, he
murmured, "e pur, si muove" -- "even so, it does move."[iii]
Interestingly,
Galileo remained condemned by the church until Pope John Paul II issued a
retraction in 1992. Even though so much
evidence pointed to the fact that Galileo was right, the Church was more
interested in their version of the Truth which said that if humanity is the
crowning point of creation, then it must be at the physical center, and
therefore the sun must revolve around the earth. That theology, plus Joshua 10:13 which
records a day when the sun stood still in the sky, made the Church sure of this
“truth,” which was nothing more than a misunderstanding of the scriptures and a
denial of objective fact.
Today,
if the Church is going to survive in an era when people are searching for the
Truth, we would do well to also be on the side of fact. We must make sure that we don’t check our
brains at the door when we enter the sanctuary.
We must also be certain not to check our faith at the door when we enter
the classroom. Galileo was right—science
and faith are not mutually exclusive, and we can learn about God from observing
creation. Whether it’s in the science
classroom or in the news room, whether we’re in church or anywhere else, let’s see
if we can look for fact instead of fiction.
Instead of washing our hands of the Truth like Pilate did, let’s embrace
Truth in all its forms, so God can speak to us, and through us, to a searching
generation.
[ii]
“Who Invented the Idea of a Flat Earth?”
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c034.html. October 11, 2017.
[iii]
Cowell, Alan. “After 350 Years, Vatican
Says Galileo Was Right: It Moves” The
New York Times. October 31, 1992. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/31/world/after-350-years-vatican-says-galileo-was-right-it-moves.html?mcubz=1. September 8, 2017.
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