Science and the humanities

I was intrigued to come across these sentences in Don Carson’s latest book, The God who is There (sounds familiar doesn’t it!). ‘I have spoken at many universities, and one of the interesting things I discover is that if I attend nearby local churches and meet some of the faculty in the universities who belong to these local churches and who are committed believers, their numbers tend to be made up of more science and math professors and the like than arts, psychology, and English literature professors. It is simply not the case that anyone who is a scientist cannot be a Christian.’ I am sure that this is true. In my own experience there have been a few PhD’s in the churches I have pastored and, unless my memory is seriously wrong, they all had science degrees. My own brother was an English literature professor and though, on returning to the Christian faith after years as an agnostic, he stopped short of becoming an evangelical, I know that he found considerable opposition amongst many of his peers. But though Carson’s comment sounds optimistic, it actually reveals that studying arts, psychology and English literature presents more challenges for believers than most of us realise. I am not sure that many pastors are able to help and advise students in these subjects like this.