I love my ipod. No, wait! I don’t love my ipod. I love my ipods I now have several ipods. I’ve downloaded an awful lot of music, but I love my ipod for more than that. I love downloading news programs and interview programs. Each Sunday after church I download programs like Face the Nation and Meet the Press. I also especially love to download interviews. One program that I particularly like is called Fresh Air. I like it because the interviewer is so good at respectfully listening to people from all sides of the issues, and of different perspectives.

The past few weeks I’ve been listening to two fascinating interviews. The first one is with an evolutionary biologist named Richard Dawkins. He is the author of The God Delusion, which you can imagine has to do with how those of us with faith are deluded into believing there is a God. The second one is with Francis Collins, who headed up the human genome project, which mapped out the human DNA sequences. He is an evangelical Christian, and author of The Language of God, who says that heading up the project deepened his faith.

What I appreciated in both interviews was that these scientists were struggling to make sense of Christian faith, a faith centered in the event we celebrate today: Jesus’ resurrection. Both were looking for answers to life’s deepest questions. And among the deepest questions is whether Jesus was really resurrected. Do you struggle with the whole idea of the resurrection?
A lot of people, even Christians, struggle with it, and their struggles are made worse by the fact that fundamentalists dominate the whole debate. I don’t mean just Christian fundamentalists. I mean fundamentalists of all kinds.
I believe that fundamentalism is a huge problem in the world, and not just religious fundamentalism. There are fundamentalist of all stripes, not just religious stripes. A fundamentalist is anyone who takes an absolutist, simplistic, black-and-white approach to life, and will not consider any views but his or her own. Being a fundamentalist doesn’t make a person bad or evil. Just limited.

There are many non-religious fundamentalist organizations in our culture. Most of them do good work and contribute to society. Even religious fundamentalists do good things and contribute to society. But what all fundamentalist groups are often missing is a sense of balance. As I talk about these organizations, I will ask you to pay attention to what I’m actually saying, and not what you may think I’m saying. I’m describing these organizations, but I’m not necessarily laying judgment on them, or on you if you are a member of them.

For example, the ACLU, or American Civil Liberties Union, is a “constitutional” fundamentalist organization. Their Bible is the constitution. Their gospel is protecting the sanctity of the constitution, which they read from a literalist perspective. It’s this literalist perspective that leads them to protect everyone from pornographers to klu klux klanners. Their fundamentalist stances lead them to believe in protecting absolute freedom of speech. They prosecute any perceived slight of the constitution. They are rigid in their passion for he constitution.

Another fundamentalist organization is the NRA, or the National Rifle Association. Again, by saying that they are fundamentalists is not the same as saying that they are bad or evil. They do a tremendous amount of good. But they are “second amendment” fundamentalists. They will not even consider the possibility of limiting gun use of any kind. Whether it is handguns, hunting rifles, or assault rifles, they protect that absolute right of people to own guns.
Another group that are fundamentalists are organizations such as Greenpeace. They are “environmental” fundamentalists. They tend to have one concept of what it means to protect the environment, and they are very literalistic in their approach. Again, they do a lot of good, but their beliefs are very much absolutist.

Fundamentalists exist throughout our culture. When it comes to understanding Jesus, the cross, and the resurrection, two fundamentalist groups basically dominate the debate. On the one hand are the religious fundamentalists who insist that there is only one way to understand the cross, and if you don’t agree you are going to hell. You know these fundamentalists, who are represented by figures such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell. They don’t allow for people to have questions and doubts. And they also reject much of science because it doesn’t come to their conclusions.

On the other hand, you have “scientific” fundamentalist who insist that the only truth is truth based on a purely absolutist scientific view of the world in which the laws of nature are their God. From their point of view, Jesus’ resurrection can’t be true because it breaks the laws of nature. Ironically, they never really consider the question that if God exists, why would God be subject to the laws of nature that God created? For them, scientific logic proves that God doesn’t exist. Science is their religion, and their gospel is the gospel of observable, empirical proof.

But there are serious flaws to their logic, just as there are for all fundamentalists. For example, what if there are things that can’t be observed and proven? They reject much of religious belief because it is not based on empirical proof, but instead is based on human experience. They reject human experience of religious phenomena, including the experiences of those who say they witnessed the resurrection, because they find no physical proof that resurrection could have happened.

Why is it that they can’t accept the proof of experience when it comes to religious phenomena, but they can when it comes to scientific phenomena. For instance, they accept that thought exists, despite the fact that thought can’t be proven. Internal, interior thought can’t even be observed. We can measure and observe behaviors that appear to arise out of thought, but we can’t observe the actual thought. We can demonstrate electrical brain activity that seems to demonstrate thought, but we can’t actually prove that this brain activity gives rise to thought. Scientists accept that fact that people think, but they can’t really prove it. Thought is an experience, as are our perceptions, including the perception that we can be objective. But we can’t objectively prove objectivity.

These atheistic scientists criticize Christian theology because it isn’t based on observable, empirical proof. But what if Christian belief is based on other proofs, such as individual experience? Christian proof is experiential proof. Scientists reject religious experience and theology, but not their own experiences and theology. Of course scientists don’t have theology. Instead, they call their theology “theories.” Theories are conjecture based on observations that often can’t be proved.

Let me give you an example of an accepted theory. You believe that planets exist beyond our solar system, right? So do most astronomical physicists. The problem is that they can’t prove it. Instead, they observe stellar activities among other stars beyond our sun, and based on these observations infer that planets exist. The stellar activity they observe is the wobbling of some stars. They look at certain stars and notice that there is a slight, barely perceptible wobble among them. They theorize that the wobble is due to the gravitational pull of potentially Jupiter-size planets as they orbit and exert force on the stars. They accept the wobbles as proof that other planets exist. They accept it as truth, but it’s not based on actual observation and detection of planets. It’s based on a theory that infers the existence of planets. They accept experience and conjecture based on theories. But they won’t accept experience and conjecture when it comes to Christian belief and experience. These scientists believe that by following their theories they discover truth. The problem is that they dismiss out of hand the idea that by following Christian theology we can discover truth.

The classic problem is that when we consider the question of faith, and of Jesus’ resurrection, it all comes down to what perspective on truth we take. Do we only accept one perspective, or can we accept other perspectives. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Have you ever seen a geode? It is a special kind of rock formation that from the outside looks like an ordinary rock. It’s not until you slice it open that you find a cavity filled with crystals. From one perspective it looks like nothing but rock, but from an interior perspective it is a beautiful, crystal-lined piece of natural art. To discover the interior you have to accept the possibility that one perspective is not enough to understand what it is.

In a similar way, science only looks at the world and truth from one perspective. It’s an important perspective, but it is limited to a physical perspective. What many “fundamentalist” scientist fail to understand is what “science” really is in the first place. The word “science” comes from the Latin, scientia, which means “knowledge” or to “know” something. Scientific inquiry is meant to understand or know something from all perspectives. Why is physical science the only way to “know” something? Aren’t their other ways of knowing? Why is it that so many have such a hard time considering people’s experiences as presenting at least possibilities, even if they are not objective proof.

The reality is that to believe in the resurrection, we have to be willing to accept evidence that arises out of human experience. These are experiences recorded in scripture. People struggle with whether or not these stories are true, but for me I’ve come to the conclusion that the people of the Bible believed they were true. For instance, why would the apostles lie about their experiences? Think about the payoff. The apostles, after the resurrection, were being persecuted for their faith. Some were arrested. All except one were eventually killed in a violent way, and that one exception, John, was sent to prison because of his belief. They were sent all over the known world to share their faith, and were often beaten and imprisoned for their efforts. Why would anyone hold onto this kind of lie? Would you have held onto it?

Think about the apostle Paul. He became a Christian after having a blinding experience on the road to Damascus. He was on a mission to persecute Christians. There was no payoff for him to become a Christian. He was giving up his career as a Pharisaic rabbi to become a Christian. He was trading in his role as a persecutor to become the persecuted. And even when he became a Christian, he wasn’t trusted by the other apostles for at least three years. He then became an evangelist in areas where he was persecuted, beaten, flogged, and imprisoned. He eventually was beheaded. Why would he maintain a lie through all of that? Nobody does. For me, I have to hold onto his experience, and the experience of the apostles and early followers of Jesus, as proof that Jesus was resurrected.

Extend experiences beyond Paul’s day. Millions of people over the past 2000 years have had personal experiences of the risen Christ. Just because we haven’t had their experiences doesn’t mean that they are all lying. Let me give you an example of what I mean.

You know Diane McCluskey. She has been our Prayer Minister, coordinating all of our prayer ministries. Diane had a very personal experience of the risen Christ, an experience she gave me permission to share with you this morning. It was an experience that happened to her several years ago. She was praying with a person, not a member of Calvin Church, who was struggling with the whole idea of Christian faith. As Diane prayed over her, she felt a hand on her head. It wasn’t a normal hand, but a hand that seemed to convey a sense of peace. She sensed out of the corner of her eye that it was Jesus standing behind her. She felt compelled to kneel as she prayed, and felt Jesus’ hands moving over hers as she prayed. As she told me, it was Jesus praying over her and then through her to reach this other woman.

Perhaps you can dismiss experiences such as these as lacking proof, but Diane is not alone. As I’ve mentioned, millions of Christians throughout the centuries have had other such experiences. Are all lies? Are all false?
So, how do you know what’s true? How do you know what is valid evidence? For me it comes down to really being a scientist—a true scientist. To be a scientist means to pursue knowledge in the best ways possible. Sometimes it is through physical evidence. Sometimes it means pursuing other evidence. I’m a scientist. I was trained as a psychologist. I learned a long time ago that sometimes, as a psychologist, we have to accept evidence that comes from someone’s interior thoughts. For instance, if I am working with a client in counseling, and the person tells me that she felt abandoned by her mother as a child and now feels depressed, I don’t respond, “Nuh-uh. You do not feel that way. You have to prove it to me physically before I’ll accept what you say.” I accept her experience as valid.

In the same way, if someone tells me about a deep experience of Christ, I’m reluctant to dismiss the experience just because the person’s experience doesn’t fit the world’s conceptions. The real question for us is, are we open to an experience of the risen Christ ourselves, and are we willing to accept its possibility?

Amen.