post-Veritas Forum #1

WOW - we did it. The Veritas Forum with Dr. Francis Collins was a smashing success last night!

We don't have official numbers, but the ~1800 seat auditorium was 80-90% full. I would estimate that we had 1300-1500 guests - a great turnout.

Dr. Collins is an excellent communicator, and a genuinely kind and humble man. I greatly enjoyed the conversation I was able to have with him while driving him around yesterday. In the coming days and weeks I should be posting pictures, more reflections, and hopefully the video to the event, but today, I just have one thought to put in your brains:

Dr. Collins receives thousands of emails from students and scientists, etc... regarding the supposed conflict between science and faith. He as a great concern for young people in the churches of America that are never prepared by the Church to encounter the kind of data they will encounter in the university regarding evolution and human origins. Too many young Christians are seeing their faith tailspin into crisis and worse as they struggle to reconcile the assertions of science and the strict literal interpretations of Genesis they are taught in Sunday School and youth group.

Dr. Collins is a devout follower of Jesus who also embraces the scientific theory of evolution with his mind. He acknowledges the contributions of Intelligent Design scientists, but sees the "gap" they hold on to for proving I.D. as ever shrinking and nearly gone. However, he is not out to convert Christians into believers in evolution. He is interested in helping youth leaders and others prepare Christian students with real investigation into the data in a supportive environment, so that their freshmen biology professor, who may well be an outspoken atheist, does not pound their faith into hiding, or worse.

This is part of our vision with Chi Alpha - to help students of faith work through the challenges they face in the university environment within the context of a supportive and loving Christian community.

I also hope and pray, with Dr. Collins, that our youth groups and churches will step up to the challenge of dealing with this difficult, but inescapable topic in intelligent and honest ways.

Maybe we can start a dialogue right here. Please, I encourage you, add your comments to this post, and let's see where the conversation goes.

Grace & Peace - and thank you to all who helped and prayed and gave to make The Veritas Forum a success.