Covalence year in review

Susan BarretoSusan is an author with a long-time interest in religion and science. She currently edits Covalence, the Lutheran Alliance for Faith, Science and Technology’s online magazine. She has written articles in The Lutheran and the Zygon Center for Religion and Science newsletter. Susan is a board member for the Center for Advanced Study of Religion and Science, the supporting organization for the Zygon Center and the Zygon Journal. She also co-wrote Our Bodies Are Selves with Dr. Philip Hefner and Dr. Ann Pederson.

Yes, we are all already to put behind us this year of pandemic, but for many faith has been a source of comfort and has led some to have even greater respect for the healthcare workers and scientists among us.

Looking back, we have seen in 2020 is confirmation that the faith and science dialogue and place in the national discourse is still on the upswing.

What follows is a snapshot of what the year has been for in our newsletter. Of course, we wrote a lot about the pandemic too, but we also gave a fresh look at other long-time touch points being discussed in faith and science circles across the U.S. — including the use of technology in worship, evolution and artificial intelligence.

Here again we include a link to our monthly issues and themes with a summary of each main feature.

Welcome to the (virtual) religion and science dialogue

Covalence is providing a beginners’ guide of sorts to some of the more popular events of recent months that have been recorded and are freely available.

Clergy embracing science – and making the world a safer, greener and better-informed place

Perhaps the most prevalent and most pernicious myth about the relationship between religion and science is the one that posits the two are at war with one another.

Scientific Psi? Neuralink and the smarter brain

What might Elon Musk do to your brain? He’s successfully demonstrated that a deep brain implant can monitor a pig’s health like the Fitbit on your wrist.

Pandemic, the virtual body of Christ, and the next generation of church leaders

Clergy, musicians, and youth leaders are reinventing church in real time to respond to our need to remain physically distanced from one another due to COVID-19.

Sophie’s Choice and the presence of God

The pandemic may seem far removed from the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, but they are interrelated in the Pieta image that describes our life today.

God’s will and the coronavirus

I don’t believe the Coronavirus is God’s plan. God is not causing a pandemic that kills some, makes many miserable, and has widespread adverse effects on society.

The use and limits of science in making ethical decisions

Editor’s note: This article originally was published in the January 2020 edition of the Journal of Lutheran Ethics and republished here with permission. As Christians, we have the ethical responsibility to be good stewards of God’s creation and to advocate for care of...

Evolution and mystery: Confessions of a Darwinian skeptic

The Darwinian mechanism driving evolution – natural selection acting on randomly produced variation in populations of organisms – I no longer accept.

Fighting over Evolution? Why?

Millennial young people, whom we do not see in our church pews on Sundays, frequently complain that the Christian religion is anti-science right along with being anti-everything else they take for granted. When it comes to the people who do sit comfortably in our...

Artificial intelligence, transhumanism, and rival salvations

Watching a seated cat ride across the living room carpet on top of a Roomba is cute because the cat is cute; not because the vacuum cleaner is intelligent. Much of what we call artificial intelligence (AI) or machine intelligence is so common that it prompts at best...