Taiwan is one of the leading nations in scientific research and is also a multi-religious country. Studies on religious faith in Taiwan revealed that 33.6% of the people follow folk religions; Buddhists constitute 26.3% and Taoist about 12.7%. Christians are a minority with 4.8% follow Protestantism and 2.4% of Catholics. But the influence of the Churches on the social and political scene inTaiwangoes far beyond its numbers. The Presbyterian Church has been actively involved in Taiwan independence movement. The church leaders and faithful have been actively involved in different social and political movements. Through educational and medical institutions, the churches play an important role inTaiwansociety. Thus the voice of the Christian leaders are respected and heard in wider society of Taiwan.
In spite of scientific advances inTaiwan, the issues related to science have rarely found a place in discussions among Christians. One of the reasons is the lack of sufficient knowledge on science and lack of relevant literature on science-religion issues in Chinese. No formal program or any other forum is available to train clergy and leaders of Christian communities on integrating scientific issues with religious faith.
The aim of the project is to begin the dialogue between science and Christian faith among Christian leaders and to provide the resources and platform to enhance and strengthen the ability of the Christian leaders to lead their faithful in this modern scientific era. Though the project’s overall focus is to promote science-religion interaction among leaders of all the Christian denominations in Taiwan, for strategic purposes, the project will focus on the Catholic leadership.
The Catholic Church in Taiwan is about 150 years old and is served by both Chinese and overseas missionaries. There is also growing number of lay leaders, who are trained in Catholic theology. The Catholic Church continues to grow with new converts every year. Often the church leaders find themselves ill-equipped to answer the questions raised by the believers and others on science and faith related issues. This project aims to provide the leaders with resources and training needed to express their faith in the modern scientific age.
The project takes a three pronged approach to achieve its aim.
The first part of the project will focus on developing relevant literature in Chinese. This will consist of invited scholarly papers on special topics and translation of important books on science and religion. The main focus of the content of the papers will be to provide scholarly basis and information, which will assist the pastors and lay leaders to answer the questions posed by others on science and faith issues.
The invited scholarly papers on following topics are planned:
(1) The Basics
(2) Catholic Perspectives on Theory of Evolution
(3) Integration of Catholic Faith and Evolution
The scholarly papers will be peer reviewed and edited into a book which will be made available as reference material. As part of this project, two important books on science and religion will be translated to Chinese:
John Haught’s book provides an in-depth understanding of some of the important questions in Science and Religion using four distinct ways science and religion are related to each other, namely, conflict, contrast, contact and confirmation. This book can be a wonderful book for the beginners.
John Polkinghorne’s book is his seminal work which relates science to Christian faith. He uses the Nicene Creed to describes the challenges posed by science on Christian faith. This book deals with some of the topics this project aims to make the Catholic leaders aware of.
These books will be translated, printed and made available to the participants of the workshops and conference.
The second part of the project consists of three workshops and a day-long conference for Catholic clergy, religious and lay leaders. The aim of these workshops is to enable the church leaders to interact with scholars and to share their concerns. Three half-day long workshops will be conducted. The workshop will consist of 3 scholarly presentations followed by discussion. The participants will consist of priests and lay leadersof the church and students of theology. The first workshop will be conducted in the second half of the first year and other two workshops will be conducted in the second year of the project. The theme and the topics of each workshop are as follows:
Workshop 1: What a religious leader should know about Science
Workshop 2: Response of Catholic Church to Theory of Evolution
Workshop 3 : Science, Catholic faith and Human person
At the end of the second year of the project, a day-long conference will be organized for the priests and leaders of the church. The theme of the conference is “Catholic Leadership in an age of Science”. The conference will consist of local and overseas speakers. The conference aims to provide more practical ways of dealing with science and religion issues in pastoral setting. The conference will consist of two parts:
This part of the conference aims to provide the participants with practical tips on answering some of popular questions which are raised by both believers and others.
The workshops and conference will be conducted in Fu Jen University for strategic purposes. The information about these activities will be widely advertised among the Catholic clergy and lay leaders through local church media.
The third part of the project is to set up a website where the resources on science and religion issues will be made available. Currently CSSR-FJ has an active website (http://cssr.fjac.fju.edu.tw/), which primarily provides information on center’s activities. This website will be reorganized and expanded to provide resources on science and Christian faith in Chinese and English. The website will serve as a platform where further discussion on science and Christian faith can be carried out.
