“We are trying to address one of the ‘black holes’ of contemporary culture,” explained Dr. Roberto Poli, director of the Mitteleuropa Foundation in Bolzano, Italy. He was describing the impetus for “Causality and Motivation,” an upcoming workshop organized by Mitteleuropa, a grant recipient of the Local Societies Initiative (LSI) program.

“For the most part, theological and ethical problems are separated into different academic ghettos,” Poli elaborated. “We don’t want to be confined in this way. We are trying to open a new path.”

Mitteleuropa’s is one of many new paths opening worldwide at the well over 200 Local Societies Initiatives in 37 countries. LSI members are scientists, philosophers, clergy and laity of all denominations who are committed to establishing a dynamic interchange between science and religion. The Metanexus Institute for Science and Religion awards $15,000 in matching grants over three years to carefully selected groups, and provides supplemental grants of $10,000 for particularly innovative and effective programs.

As director of the Local Societies Initiative, Eric Weislogel, Ph.D., is enormously pleased at the rapidly expanding worldwide network, and the way that new lines of communication are breaching personal, topical, institutional and geographic barriers.

“We learned quickly that there really is no such thing as ‘The Science-and-Religion Dialogue,’ as if it were a monolithic field of study. There are only sciences and religions—pluralities of pluralities,” Wieslogel said. “We help bring an order of sorts to the undertaking, not so much by standardizing the dialogue, but in the sense of securing a place at the tables of discussion for all competent and committed comers.”

A wide array of issues is slated for 2006. That’s because while all LSIs share the same sense of purpose, a need to convene arises from markedly different environments. These societies, in other words, are rooted locally, but think globally.

Listen to Michael G. Parker, who is assistant professor in the theology department at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, in Germany. Frankfurt has a long heritage of nurturing thinkers in the fields of science and religion—Paul Tillich, Martin Buber and Theodore Adorno, among others. Nonetheless, Parker believes Germany’s LSIs provide a much-needed antidote to an “atomized” academy.

“The system here is one where scholars are very much encouraged to pursue their own interests, working alone in their rooms. Research is deep, but communication of findings is often faulty,” Parker said. “Thanks to the John Templeton Foundation, we are able to form a network, a true forum for people to meet and share their discoveries.”

What’s occurring in Germany is of particular interest to Javier Leach, Ph.D., chair of science, technology and religion at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid. “Philosophy is very much present in Spanish culture,” he said, “but a science and religion dialogue is rather new.”

In the coming months, the LSI that Leach chairs will concentrate on human evolution, a sufficiently broad topic to attract participants from a variety of disciplines. “We belong to very different groups, math, physics, biology, neurology, and the human sciences like education and theology—but now we have a common project,” he said. Plans are underway to incorporate a network of LSIs throughout the Iberian Peninsula and Portugal.

Those involved have a palpable sense that this is a rare opportunity for interdisciplinary exploration. “You can always find critics,” noted Leach, “but dialogue is not so easy.”

When describing the LSI network, Weislogel likes to use the word “chaordic.” A neologism that combines chaos and order, “chaordic” suggests that institutional support serves best by organizing and broadcasting what results from completely unfettered research. Putting an LSI in Indiana in touch with an LSI in Indonesia can create bridges for shared research, or what Weislogel terms a “fusion of horizons.”

Cooperation is all the more crucial as fundamentalism is on the rise in many major faith traditions, including Islam, Judaism and Christianity. To combat the closing of minds that fundamentalism causes, one must actively seek opposing opinions, says Dr. Ron Numbers, a professor of the history of science and medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“Often I am at meetings, and I hear people say, ‘I wonder what they believe?’ Rather than speculating like this, isn’t it better to invite people to explain what they believe?” he said. “We’ve brought together self-declared atheists and evangelical Christians and everybody found it enormously refreshing. These are people who don’t normally talk to each other. That, I think, is the main virtue of these local societies. It can’t hurt, after all, to hear what the other view point says.” Numbers is currently making arrangements to bring a historian of science from Dehli, India to address his Wisconsin LSI.

With the same respect for contrasting viewpoints, the Life Sciences and Religion Community Forum in central Virginia concentrates on topics of concern closer to home. In 2006, they are concerned with matters of family and health: What is health and what does it mean to be healthy? What is the nature of family? Are there social situations that encourage or discourage violence? Their forum is open to the community at large and includes practitioners in the life sciences and social sciences.

An LSI at The University of the South at Sewanee is also addressing local issues, while examining the religion/science interface in the realm of environmental ethics. In a three-year program entitled “Dominion, Domain and Stewardship,” they are mindful of the sobering reality that homo sapiens is the only species on earth that has enough power to destroy the planet.

Moving quickly from theoretical to practical, their study seeks to develop environmentally friendly solutions for pending building projects, and to encourage sustainable living on Sewanee’s 10,000-acre campus, most of which is forest. Workshops will bring together land-use decision makers at the local, county and state levels, in hopes that ethical ecology as implemented at The University of the South can have a ripple effect across surrounding Appalachian counties.

This movement out of the so-called “ivory tower” and into the neighborhood is a prime motivation for Stuart Crampton, who is in the department of physics at Williams College, in Massachusetts, and director of the North Berkshires Center for Religion and Science.

“The goal for our LSI is to promote constructive discussion in the local community,” he said. “Science can and should promote wonder, awe and gratitude for all creation. Science emphasizes ideas that can be shared by all people, whatever their spirituality or religious belief. It should help us find common ground.”

Mitteleuropa Foundation’s Dr. Poli notes that the last twenty years have witnessed a huge expansion both in scientific knowledge and in what he calls scientific “attitude.” A traditionally analytic, positivistic way of doing science is now an approach, he feels, rather than the only approach.

“If the same thing could happen in theology, it would really help,” he concludes. “For a discussion to be real, both sides must be willing to change some of their ideas.”

Links of Interest
To learn more about the Local Societies Initiative opportunities, go to:: www.metanexus.net/local_societies.
Encouraging exchange of information within and beyond their local communities, many LSIs have created interesting websites, such as:: Life Sciences and Religion Community of Central Virginia:
www.vcu.edu/faithscienceforum.; The University of the South:
www.sewanee.edu/ENTREAT.; Yogyakarta Society for Science and Religion, Indonesia:
www.myia.or.id/profil.php.

Stephen Henderson is a freelance writer based in New York and a frequent contributor to Milestones.

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