One of my favorite television shows is the Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers on PBS. The episodes are short and very well done, told with humor and in a fashion that strips away the stereotypical white lab coat to show the human beneath. Each installment features a scientist or engineer who does something interesting in their off time. The talents range from blowing the shofar at the synagogue to professional wrestling. The program balances the scientific endeavors with a sometimes surprising avocation.
The first one I saw captured my attention for two reasons. The video thumbnail (the still image you see before you click on the play icon) showed a smiling, young woman standing between two symbols: a diagram of an atom and cross. This promised to be good. And it was.
Katherine Hayhoe is a climate scientist and a pastor's wife. She is bright, cheerful, and knowledgeable. It was good to see someone not ashamed of their faith or of their science. Over the years of my ministry and writing, I've encountered a great many people like Hayhoe. For some reason, the Western world is adopting the unfair and inaccurate belief that faith equals ignorance. There's another side to that coin. Some believers have adopted the idea that "scientist" and "atheist" are interchangeable.
They're not.
The community of faith is a composite drawn from all walks of life. In my pulpit days, I would stand to deliver my sermon and look over a sea of faces. Some I knew had the barest of education; others had graduate degrees in everything from education, to medicine, to engineering.
I suppose it is human nature to define ourselves by what we do. After nearly a decade of writing full-time I tend to identify myself as, well, a writer, a novelist, a nonfiction writer, but that's just what I do, it is not who I am.
It was also good to be reminded that there are Christains out there being the salt of the earth and appling who they are to what they do.
This is life in Edgeland.
Watch Katharine Hayhoe: Climate Scientist on PBS. See more from Secret Life of Scientists.
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