Bundrick, David and Steve Badger, eds. Proceedings of the Inaugural Faith & Science Conference. Springfield, MO : Gospel Publishing House, 2011.

“The students we teach and the congregations we pastor in the future will not be contented for us to put our heads in the sand or resort to simplistic preaching against science.” — Jim Bradford, General Secretary of the Assemblies of God USA

The uneasy relationship between faith and science existed long before church leaders censured Galileo for his defense of heliocentrism in 1633. The tensions that potentially exist between biblical faith and scientific advance can be perplexing and faith challenging. As today’s world grows more reliant upon scientific advancement, the Church is increasingly filled with scientifically literate believers who expect and deserve a prayerful, well-reasoned approach to the myriad ways in which science intersects with their faith. In recognition of these trends, the General Secretary’s office of the Assemblies of God recently sponsored a first-of-its-kind conference for the Fellowship. The Inaugural Faith & Science Conference took place on Evangel University’s campus in Springfield, Missouri, in the summer of 2011.

Drawing together a diversity of believers–including scientists, theologians, pastors, and teachers–the conference met with the threefold purpose to:

• Delve into the connections between faith and science
•  Explore the ethical and theological issues behind that discussion
• Equip teachers and spiritual leaders to better evangelize and disciple followers of Christ who are increasingly scientifically savvy.

Collecting the plenary sessions and a majority of the presented papers, this volume of conference proceedings is divided into five categories:

I. Integrational Approaches

1. The Relationship between Christian faith and Natural Science
Steve Badger and Mike Tenneson

2. Five Patterns of Relating Science & Christian Theology
David R. Bundrick

3. Science and Faith—Enemies or Allies
Jeffrey Alan Zweerink

II. Exegetical Issues

4. Genesis 1 and Science: A Case for Agreement
Hugh N. Ross

5. Review and Discussion of the Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton
Bob Stallman

6. Creation in the Cosmos: Evidence for Creation and a Young Universe
Nathanael Loper

7. Genesis and Cosmology
Danny R. Faulkner

8. Clarifying the Exegetical Options for the Creation Days in Genesis 1 and 2 in Relation to Science
Roger Cotton

9. An Examination of the Analogical Days View and Concordism of John Collins
Brad Ausbury

10. Biblical Content Informed by Ancient Contexts: An Example from Genesis 2:4-3:24
James R. Blankenship

11. Digging for Dinosaurs: Epistemology and Theological Interpretation of Natural Phenomenon
Walter A. Rogero II

III. Pentecostal Perspectives

12. Pentecostalism and Science: Challenges and Opportunities
Amos Yong

13. Perspectives on Origins: How Diverse Are Pentecostals?
Mike Tenneson and Steve Badger

14. Survey and Analysis of Pentecostal Biblical Creation Worldviews
Larry S. Kisner

15. A Historical Overview of Pentecostal Responses to Biological Evolution
Steve Badger and Mike Tenneson

16. Medicine Is a Good Thing: Assemblies of God Doctrine as Support and Limit of Medicine
Jeremiah Gibbs

17. Measuring the Spirit’s Move: The Boon and the Bane of Empirical Methods in the Study of Evangelism, Conversion, and Spirituality
Brian Kelly

IV. Philosophical Analyses

18. The Mind of God: On the Death of Philosophy and the Limits of Science
Chris Emerick

19. Revolutionary Discoveries in Physics and Cosmology
Stephen Frank Krstulovich

20. Affordance-Based Reverse Engineering of Biological Systems as a Framework for the Cumulative Case for a Christian Worldview
Dominic Halsmer and Taylor Tryon

21. Blind Spots: Examining the Presuppositions of Western Culture That Led to the Divorce of Faith and Science
Paul Scheperle

22. Understanding the Role of Assumptions in Science and Its Contribution to Differing Views on Origins
Jean K. Lightner

23. Re-visioning Theology and Science: Introducing the Pneumatological Imagination as an Alternative to Thomas Torrance’s Theo-Scientific Logic
Aaron Yom

24.Faith in Science or the Science of Faith: A Nonfoundationalist View of Natural Theology for the Church’s Essence in the Scientific Age
Andreá Snavely

25. Developing a New Model for Diagrammatic Reasoning
Leonard Salvig

26. Science, Religion, and Racial Justice: A Multicultural Critique of the Theory of Evolution
Jason Eden

V. Ministry Applications

27. Science and the Pulpit: Ministering to Scientifically Literate People
Christina M. H. Powell

28. Teaching the Genesis 1 Cosmogony to Your Congregations
Michael D. Sharp

29. Creation Crisis? Proclaim God’s Wonders!
Nicholas J. Tavani

30. Churches That Push Scientists Away: Restoring Engagement with Scientists (While Reassuring the Faithful)
Philip M. Wala

31. Reconciling the Faith: Christian Students Who Move from Fear to Engagement with the Sciences
Dan Guenther

32. The Journey of a Christian Layman with a Science and Technology Background: How Can We Bring Science-Educated People to Christ?
Lowell Nystrom

These provocative and insightful sessions and articles are invaluable tools for preparing readers to effectively minister to those who desire a Christian theology that can engage science meaningfully and constructively.

-Adapted from back cover.

Paperback, 348 pages. $19.99 retail. Order from: Gospel Publishing House.

Chaplain Williams has served as an endorsed healthcare chaplain with the Assemblies of God since 1988 and currently lives in the Atlanta, Georgia area. This interview covers not only his recent chaplaincy ministry, but also his Pentecostal background in San Francisco, California. As a youth, he grew up in the church pastored by Cornelia Jones Robertson, and he is also a close friend of her godson, Bob Harrison. Robertson became, in 1923, one of the earliest African Americans ordained by the Assemblies of God. She is remembered for the rescue mission that she pastored in the Barbary Coast area of San Francisco, known as the Pacific Street Mission, and she later pastored the Emmanuel Pentecostal Holiness Church, which was successively affiliated with the United Holy Church, Mount Calvary of the Pentecostal Faith Church (a New York based church led by Mother Horn), and the Open Bible Standard Churches. Harrison is best known for breaking the color barrier in the Assemblies of God in 1962, when General Superintendent Thomas F. Zimmerman invited him to become an ordained minister, thus overturning a longstanding policy denying ordination to African Americans. Williams also describes his own decision to remain in the Assemblies of God despite racist attitudes he experienced.

Part 1

Part 2

Lois Hodges (1908-2011), the widow of leading Assemblies of God missiologist Melvin L. Hodges (1909-1988), sat down with Darrin Rodgers, director of the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center, and recorded an oral history interview on November 13-14, 2008.

The interview was recorded in two parts. In part one, Sister Hodges discussed her childhood as well as the background of her husband. Melvin Hodges ’s father, Charles, was a 1902 graduate of Boston Theological Seminary (now Boston University School of Theology), the oldest Methodist seminary in the United States. While pastoring in Washington State, he grew disenchanted with “ecclesiasticism, ” cast his lot with the Pentecostals, and ultimately joined the Assemblies of God. His son, Melvin, was called to the ministry at age 10, learned Greek from his father at age 13, and matriculated at Colorado College at age 15. A precocious young man, Melvin’s theological knowledge and preaching skills became widely noted, including by a young woman name Lois from Fort Collins, Colorado. Melvin and Lois married in 1928.

In part two of the interview, Sister Hodges recounted her life and ministry with Melvin, telling stories of how they had to live by faith during the Great Depression, when they did not have a regular income and food was scarce. They pioneered churches in Colorado and Wyoming until leaving for the mission field in Central America in 1935 with three young children. The Hodges returned to Springfield in 1954. From 1954 to 1973, Melvin Hodges served as AG field director for Latin America and the West Indies. He then became a professor of missions at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary. He was a prolific writer, and many of his publications deal with missions, church growth, and the indigenous church principle.

Missionary Harold Carpenter interviews Henry and Sunshine Ball in Springfield, Missouri, about their work among Hispanics, April 11, 1985. They discuss their early lives as well as ministry in Chile, the Mexican border, and establishing Latin American Bible Institute (San Antonio, TX) and VIDA (now Life Publishers International).

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