For the John Templeton Foundation, I wrote about the initiative to integrate more scientific knowledge into Christian seminary education.
Today the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the John Templeton Foundation announce a $6.1 million grant to expand their work with the Association of Theological Schools to make more scientific material available to Christian seminary students in their core courses. The major dollar investment is matched by a five-year time commitment — both on the high end of the Foundation’s usual grantmaking practices — because of the strategic success of the project’s first phase, as well as the exciting prospects for its second phase.
When American Christians have questions about the implications of a new widely reported scientific discovery or technological advance, the person they reach out to for advice is often a pastor or religious leader. But seminary curricula have not traditionally offered much training for such a scenario — for many seminary graduates, the most recent science course they completed may well have been in high school.