Religion, Science & Education

Join us in celebration of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday and the
150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species.

Louise S. Mead
Teaching Evolution to Children
Wednesday morning, March 18, 2009
Using the Polebridge title, Stones & Bones—selected by BioScience magazine for its Fall 2008 Focus on Books, Louise Mead will demonstrate strategies for introducing children to the marvelous nature of science as they take a walk through time to learn about the evolution of their favorite animals.

Louise S. Mead is Education Project Director at the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California. A Ph.D. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology with a Master’s degree in Education, she is an experienced high school science teacher and university lecturer with a long-standing interest in the nature of science and science as a way of knowing, and a growing interest in how children construct their understanding of the natural world.

Michael Zimmerman
The Evolution/Creation Controversy
Why it Matters
Wednesday afternoon, March 18, 2009
Creationist strategies have evolved over time but one factor has remained constant: a single, narrow religious perspective has been passed off as science and as the religious norm. Michael Zimmerman will discuss how these efforts diminish science literacy and promote a false conflict between religion and science. And he will suggest ways scientists and clergy can join together to promote a shared sense of respect.

Michael Zimmerman is the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and professor of biology at Butler University in Indianapolis. A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he is the founder of The Clergy Letter Project and author of Science, Nonscience, and Nonsense (1997).

Mark Chancey
The Bible, the First Amendment, and Public Education
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Recently states have enacted legislation promoting Bible courses. Is this a positive sign that Americans are recognizing the importance of religious literacy for cultural literacy—or a troubling indication that the line separating church and state is becoming increasingly blurred? Mark Chancey will examine the academic, political, and constitutional aspects of Bible courses in public schools.

Mark Chancey is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2008 Samantha Smoot Activist Award for courage to speak truth to power from the Texas Freedom Network. His books include Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus (2005).

Keynote Address

Stephen J. Patterson
Re-Locating Jesus
Friday evening, March 20, 2009
The Gospel of Thomas tells few stories about Jesus, makes little of his death and resurrection, and perhaps most significantly, does not speak of Jesus or his followers as having “faith.” Why is this? The answer may lie in the difference “place” or “context” makes in the way the early Christian message was formulated. In an attempt to understand why Thomas is what it is, and is not what it is not, Patterson puts it in its place—Edessa, east of the Euphrates. As Thomas becomes more clearly a product of its place, he observes, the particular way the Christian message was formulated in the west will also become more clearly a product of its place. That leads to the question: Must Christian faith ever and always be about death and resurrection, about faith?

Stephen J. Patterson is Professor of New Testament at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, and Chair of the Jesus Seminar on Christian Origins. He is the author of several books, including Beyond the Passion (2005) and The God of Jesus (1998).

Seminar Sessions

The Seminar on Christian Origins

Early Christianity in Syria
Seminar 1: Friday, March 20, 2009, 9 –10:30 am
If Galilee was the birthplace of the Jesus movement, Syria was its first home. Mark, Matthew, and John were all written there; Paul spent 15 years there; and Antioch was arguably the most important Christian center in the Roman East. So why do we know so little about this place?  Susan Ashbrook Harvey, who probably knows more about Syrian Christianity than anyone on the planet, will speak on early Christianity in Syria.

The Earliest Christian Church
Seminar 3: Friday, March 20, 2009, 2–3:30 pm
When early Christians gathered, where did they meet? Prof. L. Michael White, consultant and co-writer for two PBS/Frontline documentaries, will lead an illustrated tour of the earliest known Christian building, a house that had been remodeled to include an assembly hall with baptistry. 

Early Christian Meals
Seminar 4: Saturday, March 21, 2009, 9–10:30 am
When early Christians gathered, what did they do?  The evidence suggests that, more often than not , they shared a meal. Fellows Dennis Smith and Hal Taussig will turn the spotlight on early Christian meal practices and their meaning. 

The Didache & the Eucharist
Seminar 6: Saturday, March 21, 2009, 2–3:30 pm
Scholars Clayton Jefford will discuss where to locate the Didache, the earliest known Christian manual, and John Riggs will analyze the significance of the Didache as the first text to describe a eucharist. 

The Acts Seminar

The Secret Gospel of Mark
Seminar 2: Friday, March 20, 2009, 11 am–12:30 pm
You thought the Da Vinci Code was controversial! It was just fiction. Secret Mark is not a fiction.Or is it?At least two recent books have argued that the gospel fragment discovered by eminent scholar Morton Smith is an elaborate hoax. Scholars Marvin Meyer, of the Gospel of Judas fame, Charles Hedrick, and Dennis MacDonald will take up the question of the authenticity of Secret Mark. To learn more about the controversy, read the story from the Fourth R .

We-statements in Acts
Seminar 5: Saturday, March 21, 2009, 11 am–12:30 pm
When a story switches from the third person to the first person, what does that mean? Is it an eye-witness account? Or is the shift merely an ancient literary device? The issue of we-statements in Acts will be discussed in papers by Thomas Phillips and Dennis MacDonald. 

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