Speaker
The Future Of Science And Faith
September 21, 2017
How is the relationship between religion and science changing?
With a partial backdrop of climate change, accelerating technologies, and shifting demographics, the relationship between science and faith has been re-situated by many of the world’s faith leaders. Dr. Greg Cootsona has been exploring these changes, while observing the way students are transforming conversations about science and faith. Behind some of the straightforward statistics that describe science and faith in conflict and sometimes simplistic media portrayals of “the conflict between science and religion,” the lived reality for university students and young professionals is much more nuanced.
In this interactive lecture, Dr. Cootsona will explore markers of how the interface of religion and science might change in the coming decades.
Greg Cootsona is Lecturer in Religious Studies and Humanities at California State University at Chico and directs Science and Theology for Emerging Adult Ministries (or STEAM), a $2 million grant (aimed at 18-30 year olds) funded by the John Templeton Foundation and housed at Fuller Theological Seminary’s Science, Theology, and Religion Initiatives (STAR) office.
His books include Creation and Last Things: At the Intersection of Theology and Science (Geneva, 2002) and C. S. Lewis and the Crisis of a Christian (WestminsterJohnKnox, 2014). His newest book, Mere Science and Christian Faith: Bridging the Divide with Emerging Adults, will be published by InterVarsity Press in March 2018.
Greg studied comparative literature at U.C. Berkeley and theology at Princeton Theological Seminary (M. Div.), the Universities of Tübingen and Heidelberg, as well as Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union, where he received his Ph.D. And, he has just finished 18 years as Associate Pastor for Adult Discipleship at Bidwell Presbyterian Church in Chico and Fifth Avenue Presbyterian in New York City.
Greg has written for the Huffington Post, Zygon, Theology and Science, as well as the Wall Street Journal and Christianity Today. He has been interviewed by CNN and The New York Times, and has appeared on the Today Show three times. He and his wife, Laura, live in Chico, California and have two daughters (19 and 22). Besides hanging out with his family, he loves to bike, read (and write), and drink good coffee.
