Bishop's Column
Posted Wednesday, November 01, 2006
The Ultimate Paradigm Shift
November 2006With all wisdom and insight [God] has made known to us the mystery of his will … as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purposes of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will... [so that] with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you my know … what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints (Ephesians 1:8-11, 18).
The investiture of Katharine Jefferts Schori as our 26th Presiding Bishop this month is historic because she is the first woman to be elected to our church's highest office. Arguably she is also, of course, the first true westerner, the first mid-career cleric, and the first baby-boomer to become presiding bishop. But most ironic, and therefore most important, she is the first scientist to assume the role. People sit up and take notice when a community bound by certain beliefs chooses as its head a woman whose life has been spent in the pursuit of certain knowledge. With her leadership, I predict the Episcopal Church will:
Become more truly catholic:
Scientists observe and study whatever exists in order to determine its nature and systematize its relationship with the rest of nature. Their perspective is "catholic" – from the Greek kata holos, meaning "according to the whole." Thus the Austrian-born behavioral theorist Conrad Lorenz postulated what he called the "butterfly effect" – namely, that the wind created by a butterfly flapping its wings in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, affects the weather in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Thus J.P. Crutchfield, the Cal Berkeley physicist, argues that the final destination of a billiard ball rolled down a perfectly flat incline is determined by the gravitational pull of an electron on the other side of the galaxy. Thus, a truly catholic church sees how, despite differing beliefs, locales, and cultures, all creatures are interconnected. Led by an oceanographer who has been to the depths, and who is also an airplane pilot who takes to the heights, our church is likely to reach out as never before with a wide, catholic embrace.
Become more thoroughly practical:
Despite pressures to see the world through established paradigms describing how most people think it ought to be, at their best scientists seek true knowledge of things as they actually are. I say "at their best" because most scientists, Thomas Kuhn noted in his widely-read Structure of Scientific Revolutions, are conservative individuals who accept as a matter of almost "religious" faith what they have been taught and go about solving problems according to their set of received beliefs. The scientific community, Kuhn claimed, "knows what the world is like" and "often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments" But once in a while a particular scientist will see things in a new way and ignites a "revolution" with a "paradigm shift" requiring the reconstruction of prior assumptions and the reevaluation of prior facts" so that "one conceptual world view is replaced by another."
Become more persistently experimental:
Scientists pursue new knowledge not only through observation, but also through the experiments – from the Greek piri, meaning "to test" or "to try" or "to question." Great scientists are not im-perious or im-perial – refusing to be tested or tried or question. Instead, they relish trying this or trying that, until they find out what actually works. With a scientist as our presiding bishop we will probably become more experimental church.
Become more simply humble:
After Barbara McClintock, the great maize geneticist, received the Nobel Prize for her work, Marcus Rhodes, a colleague, asked her how it was that she was able to see in a cell what others had heretofore not seen. She replied that when she looked into the microscope she was able to forget herself completely and thereby get "a feel for the organism." We can anticipate that in the days ahead our church will more and more abandon a self-consciousness about its own identity, humbly surrender itself to the mystery of the world in which we live, and, led by the Spirit of truth, see visions hitherto not seen.
Become more fully free-thinking:
Ptolemy popularized the notion that the sun revolves around the earth, and this view was defended for centuries even in the face of conflicting evidence. According to Stephen Hawking, Galileo (1564-1642) probably contributed more to the creation of the modern natural sciences than anybody because in the face of the church’s authority he insisted on exercising freedom of thought. Adopting Augustine’s position that not every passage of Scripture is to be taken literally, Galileo trained his telescope on the heavens and subsequently defended heliocentrism – the doctrine that the sun, not the earth, is at the center of the universe – even though Psalms 93:1 and 104:5, and Ecclesiastes 1:5, speak of the "firm" and "established" position of the earth – arguments for geocentrism. The writers of the Scripture wrote from the perspective of the terrestrial world, Galileo argued, and from that vantage point the sun does rise and set. In fact, it is the earth’s rotation, he reasoned, which gives the impression of the sun in motion across the sky. The tension between scripture, tradition, reason, and experience will grow, I suspect, with a scientist as our presiding bishop.
Become more widely controversial:
The church ordered Galileo to stand trial for his views. He was required to recant his heliocentric ideas as "formally heretical." He was imprisoned. Publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future. But the church could not ignore his claims. They remained controversial until eventually the church received his views – through what the Eames’ Report on the Ordination of Women called "the doctrine of reception." In 1741 Pope Benedict XIV authorized the publication of Galileo’s complete scientific works. In 1758 heliocentrism was removed from the list of prohibitions. Finally, on October 31,1992, that Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the Galileo affair was handled. We can expect our church with Bishop Jefferts Schori’s leadership to be similarly engaged in a controversial process of reception over homosexuality, abortion, stem cell research, the environment, etc.
Become more deeply compassionate:
Scientific revolutions not only foster academic knowledge, but, far more importantly in a world where eight million people die every year because they are too poor to stay alive, they make possible the technological advances underlying modern economic development. The decisive breakthrough for Britain’s economic progress, unique in the world by the nineteenth century, Jeffrey Sachs notes in The End of Poverty, came about when Isaac Newton, in Principia Mathematica (1687), demonstrated that physical phenomena could be described by mathematical laws – producing the scientific revolution underlying the Industrial Revolution. Science and technology are the keys to eradicating poverty, hunger, and disease, both locally and globally, as advocated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) unanimously agreed to by all 191 UN member states in 2002. No wonder that in her sermon Saturday at the Washington National Cathedral Bishop Jefferts Schori calls on us to live the Gospel by achieving the targets set by these goals, thereby reducing poverty in half by 2015 and wiping it out completely by 2025.
The Ultimate Paradigm Shift:
In the pursuit of science, Kuhn observed, "novelty emerges only with difficulty, manifested by resistance, against a background provided by expectation." And yet, young scientists who are not so deeply indoctrinated into accepted theories - a Newton, Darwin, Lavoisier, or Einstein - can manage to sweep an old paradigm away. Katharine Jefferts Schori did. A scientist at mid-career, she began to look at creation through a Christian lens and make the ultimate paradigm shift. She made a commitment to the Crucified and Risen Christ, in whom things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which have grown old are being made new, and all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made.May we, with her, know more and more that "with all wisdom and insight [God] has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purposes of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will... [so that] with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you my know... what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints."
— Charles E. Bennison, Jr.