Links for ASA and ASA 2019 Conference

Learn more about the American Scientific Affiliation here:
https://network.asa3.org/


Catch the livestream of plenary talks and the State of the ASA here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2QNJOvMjFVWaDFtT9VJG4w


View the schedule for ASA 2019 Conference at Wheaton College here:

https://network.asa3.org/mpage/ScheduleMicroTest

Confused to Confident

By Kristine Johnson

Kristine is a member of the American Scientific Affiliation and an aerospace engineer for Honeywell. She is featured at the BioLogos Forum "Believing Scientists Respond." What follows is a brief testimony.

I grew up in a wonderful Christian home and even attended a Christian school for several years. Unfortunately, a lot of the “science” at my Christian school was pretty inaccurate. When I was in high school I started having a lot of questions. My Christian school science teacher told me to stop asking. He advised me to skip college and just get married and have kids and be a stay at home mom/wife. I also attempted to ask my youth pastor my questions. He told me just to have faith and then he tried to avoid me.

On my way home from a short-term mission trip to Guatemala, I was praying and asking God for direction for my life. I had been studying aerospace engineering and mechanics and felt the Holy Spirit confirm that I was designed with math and science skills for the purpose of being an engineer and bringing my faith into the workplace to be a witness for Jesus to other engineers and people in the scientific realm. I completed my education and am currently working at Honeywell Aerospace analyzing signals from space and designing precision landing systems.

My degree and my work brought me into conflict with what I had been taught at the Christian school. I am incredibly thankful to have found resources like the ASA, Reasons to Believe, BioLogos, and my family to help me navigate through relearning what Scripture says and understanding varying interpretations, especially around creation. I’m so grateful for quality resources that bring nature and faith into harmony. I’ve become more passionate in learning theology, studying Scripture, and reading more diversely. Because of these organizations (and others), I have been equipped to help my own daughters with their tough questions. I’ve also been able to meet somewhat regularly with the youth pastor at my church to help him have tools to direct students who have science related questions. Over the last few years I have had the opportunity to share in the youth group a handful of times on science related topics. This spring, one of my daughters was talking with a college student from our church and she shared with my daughter that the information I had presented in the youth group helped her faith while she was in college (also studying engineering). I feel blessed to have helped her and look forward to future opportunities to share how God has been working in and through my experiences.

This week our family had dinner with one of the pastors from our church and his family. We had a lovely evening and out of our conversation, the pastor’s wife asked if I would ever be willing to teach in one of the adult Sunday School classes at our church. I’m already looking forward to this potential new opportunity. May Jesus Christ be praised in all I say and do!

The 2018 ASA Annual Meeting

ASA 2018, our 73rd Annual Meeting at Gordon College, will be here in less than three months. There is a buzz of activity here in the home office with the many preparations!

I'd like to bring you a couple of updates regarding this special conference taking place here in Boston.

$50 Night Owl Discount Now Available through May 31

We are delighted that we had 215 early birds register for ASA 2018, which is an outstanding response. We are excitedly expecting another terrific attendance.

For the rest of you procrastinators, don't worry because we are pleased to announce the night owl discount of $50 through May 31. Register before then and receive a $375 member rate for only $325 (or a $425 non-member rate for $375). You can find all details and registration link here.

Our goal is an attendance of 350, so we would appreciate your help with spreading the word. Please let your family, friends, colleagues, and students know that this top-notch conference is not to be missed.

Public Lecture with Francis Collins

We are delighted that Francis Collins has accepted our invitation to speak at ASA 2018 on Saturday evening, July 28, 7:30 pm, as part of our Annual Meeting. This lecture is open to the public and we would love to fill the seats of the Gordon College chapel. If you live in the Boston area and/or have friends, colleagues, or members of your church who are NOT attending our meeting but would be interested in attending the lecture, tickets can be purchased in advance for $10/person ($15/person at the door). Contact the ASA office for group discounts. Click here for more.

Promotional Opportunities

We have a number of promotional opportunities for organizations and/or individuals to enrich their professional life, promote their cause and network with a broad group of scientists. Would you or someone you know benefit from hosting an exhibit table, advertising in the program book, or sponsoring an event at ASA 2018? Click here for more information.

Student Scholarship Fund

Student members are the future leaders of the ASA, and we welcome them to the Annual Meeting. Would you help replenish the scholarship fund to make attendance possible for more student members? To date, we have provided 22 scholarships, with new applications arriving daily. Please consider donating to provide more opportunity for students to engage in the ASA! Click here to donate.

I hope you are able to join us for ASA 2018!


Sincerely in Christ,

Vicki L. Best
Director of Operations and Development
American Scientific Affiliation
218 Boston Street
Topsfield, MA 01983
(978) 807-5189

Faith Tucker on the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA)

Faith Tucker

I came to my first ASA meeting five years ago fresh out of college with a double major in astronomy and religion, a passion for the intersection of science and faith, and absolutely no idea what I was going to do with my life.

I had grown up with a love of science that started with digging up earthworms and looking through my granddad’s telescope. But that easy childhood enthusiasm became more complicated in high school. I was confused by the mixed signals my church and Christian school were sending me. I was encouraged to study God’s creation and told that science was an important part of my education, but in the same breath I was also warned of how science and scientists might attack my faith. I lost count of how many cautionary tales I heard of good Christian kids going to college, studying science, and consequently losing their faith.

Perhaps it was my own form of adolescence rebellion then that led me to study Astronomy and Religion at Whitman College, a decidedly secular liberal arts college in WA state. I knew I wasn’t in my conservative evangelical bubble anymore when in the first weeks of freshmen year a fellow student in a religion class concluded his biting critique of Genesis 1-3 with, “Therefore, it is clear that God is the source of all evil in the world and is himself evil!”

Over those four years, my love of science and my personal faith intersected with each other in ways I never expected. I came to find that science wasn’t something that undermined my faith, but actually sustained it. When God seemed distant and when my own brokenness was too much to carry, I would stand in the science building hallway in front of a massive poster of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field showing thousands of galaxies and think, “All this was created by the God that not only created me, but who knows me and loves me.” By the end of college, I knew that whatever I did, I wanted it to be at the interface of science and Christian faith.

And when I walked into that first ASA meeting, I quickly felt like I had finally found my people. People who took science just as seriously as their faith, and vice versa. People who fearlessly sought to learn about God through his creation. People who worshipped God and advanced his kingdom at the lab bench, in the classroom and even in their journal articles. I was inspired and excited by the possibilities before me.

I have since, rather miraculously, found gainful employment at the intersection of science and faith! I am a physics and astronomy teacher at a Christian high school. And every day I get to share both my faith and my love for science with my students. Instead of mixed messages and a sense of apprehension about science, I hope that they walk out of my classroom understanding that there is nothing to fear when we study God’s creation.

For the last 5 years, ASA has continued to be a source of personal and professional encouragement and inspiration for me. When I come to ASA meetings, I am reminded of the importance of fostering understanding between the scientific and Christian communities. And as wonderful as the plenaries and talks always are, my favorite part of these meetings has been the conversations I have and the friendships I’ve built with all of you.

I often have the feeling of being a fish out of water both as a scientist in Christian communities and a Christian in scientific communities – as I know many of you do as well. But at ASA, being passionate about the intersection between science and faith isn’t an unusual quirk, it’s the thing that ties us all together. And that common ground has laid the foundation for other connections. I’ve gotten teaching tips from experienced professors, found the perfect textbook for my class written by ASA members, discussed what it’s like to be a woman in the sciences, and so much more. Leslie and Vicki have even personally come to my school to share with my students how science and faith can coexist and even complement each other.

This last year, I have had the honor of serving on the ASA’s Executive Council as the Student and Early Career Representative. And while I confess council meetings do have their rather dry moments, my respect and appreciation for this organization has only grown as I’ve seen the faith, conviction and integrity that have marked both the history of the ASA as well as its direction going forward. I look forward to many more years with this organization as it continues to thoughtfully and boldly bridge the divide between the Christian church and the study of God’s creation. This is no small task indeed, but God has been faithful the last 76 years, and it is a privilege to get to participate with all of you in the work God is continuing to do in and through the ASA.

Leslie Wickman New ASA Director

Leslie Wickman succeeds Randy Isaac as Executive Director of the American Scientific Affiliation. Randy retired after 11 years of outstanding leadership of the ASA. In recognition of his years of service and his future involvement in the ASA as a volunteer, the Council has appointed him to the honorary position of Executive Director Emeritus.

Leslie brings a wealth of experience to the ASA leadership. She is a researcher, teacher, and administrator, both in academia and in industry. She received her PhD in human factors and biomechanics from Stanford University and most recently was Program Director of Engineering and Director of the Center for Research in Science, both at Azusa Pacific University.

Her industry experience includes work at the Aerospace Corporation, the RAND Corporation, and Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space. Her work centered on the U.S. human spaceflight program, and she is a trained EVA/IVA test astronaut with over 100 hours of test time in a NASA spacesuit and an FAA private pilot's license. Last, but certainly not least, Leslie has a passion for reaching the church and our culture at large with the message that faith and science, rather than being in conflict with one another, instead complement one another.

Along with the appointment of Leslie as Executive Director, Vicki Best has been appointed as ASA's Director of Operations and Development. Vicki is well known to the ASA family as Director of Business Development, where she has helped to manage the ASA's finances. The Council is grateful for her willingness to take on an expanded role in the organization.

Leslie's and Vicki's appointments will be effective April 1, 2016. As the ASA celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, the Council welcomes both of them into their new roles and looks forward to working with Leslie as she leads the organization into the next part of ASA's journey.

Visit Leslie Wickman's website where she writes on Science, Faith, Environment, Technology, Astronomy and Rocket Science.

Check out Leslie's new book, God of the Big Bang, on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or wherever books are sold. Also watch her recent TED talk.

Are Women More Sensitive to Bias?

Alice C. Linsley

It is popularly assumed that women are sensitive to social cues and nuance. People speak of "women's intuition" and indeed there is evidence that the female brain is hardwired to pick up on seemingly inconsequential data that men often miss.

This study of same-sex and heterosexual couples revealed that women and men were equally sensitive to interpersonal relations, but "mixed-sex dyads were more sensitive than same-sex dyads." This suggests that the natural gender relationship of male-female partners does involve greater sensitivity on the part of the female partner.

Feminists would have us believe that this is due to "the subordinate status of women in Western society."  Feminist scholarship, writes Jane D. Schaberg in her Biblical Views column for the November/December issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, aims to turn the old, male-dominated understanding of the Bible on its head and thereby reveal new insights into the lives of often-marginalized women in the ancient world.

Feminist readings of the Bible do not necessarily aim for complete objectivity, which Schaberg calls an "impossible ideal," but they show that women largely focus on issues that have been sidelined in biblical studies, like slavery, gender inequality, and sexual abuse. In other words, it appears that women are more sensitive to issues that pertain to injustice.

That said, Feminisim offers an unsatisfying explanation for the subordination of women. The Bible offers a more interesting and satisfying answer. It tells us the the equal dignity of men and women, which was the Creators' intention from the beginning, was lost when humans first experience fear, sin and death. Feminists argue that patriarchy is the result of universal oppression of women, but the Bible says that the woman chose to subordinate herself to the man when she became fearful. The effects of fear on men and women are different, as Harvard psychology professor Carol Gilligan showed in her seminal work In a Different Voice.

Feminists argue that patriarchy is the result of universal and systemic oppression of women. They want to make men the oppressors and ignore the effects of fear on males and females. In the biblical worldview patriarchy is the result of fear (Gen. 3:10) entering the male-female relationship. Because of fear, the woman's desire is for her husband and he "rules" over her. (Gen. 3:16)

As an anthropologist and a Christian, I have pioneered for more than 30 years a new field of science - Biblical Anthropology. Having lived abroad in different cultures and having traveled extensively since I was a young child, I am extremely sensitive to cultural differences and I naturally compare and contrast features of the different cultures I have experienced and studied. I am sensitive to cultural nuances and I explore these in my research. Many of the features I have identified in my work are distinctively African or have an origin in Africa.

It should be noted that both men and women respond positively to my research. The only opposition I have encountered has been from men in the American Scientific Affiliation who ignore anthropologically significant data or filter out the African cultural context of some biblical material. Alan Dicken told me at the ASA conference in Nashville that my research into Abraham's Nilotic ancestors was wrong and without substance. Asked if he had read any of 1800 articles on Biblical Anthropology, he admitted that he had not. Another ASA member Dick Fischer wrote to me: "Every one I know recognizes a Mesopotamian flood. Nobody puts the flood in Africa. Alice, you at least have to recognize the basics before you venture into speculative territory."

All of the men in the American Scientific Affiliation who have written on Genesis place Noah and Abraham in a Mesopotamian context, so the picture of Noah as a Proto-Saharan ruler and Abraham as a Kushite Habiru/Hebrew is bound to trouble them. They have criticized my research, but have not been able to refute it. I am not being overly sensitive to their criticism, but I acknowledge their bias as a fact.


Related Reading: Are Feminists Correct About the Church?; The Paradox of Feminism; Blood and Gender Distinctions; The Question of Patriarchy; The Bible as the Woman's Story; Re-thinking Biblical Equality; Adam According to Mesopotamian Tradition; Adam was a Red Man; The Age of the Earth and Evidence of Human Occupation; Gender Bias in Academic Philosophy

Scientist and a Christian: One Woman's Perspective

Lynn Billman

What If a Woman Wants to Believe in Both Jesus and Science?

This may seem a strange question to many of you, but it is not strange to a young Christian, “on fire for Christ” as we say, who is also on fire to know the what, how, and when about the natural world.   As Tim Stafford pointed out recently, such a young person from a conservative church background is at high risk to lose her faith in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. In fact, some bloggers or commentators today simply cannot understand how anyone with a rationale mind (i.e., a scientist) could accept the teachings and divinity of Christ or accept the Bible as a sacred and vital book.  

I was once in that quandary – well, sort of, because my path was the other way around.  Science came first.  I loved science in high school, and graduated with highest honors in chemistry at UC Berkeley.   As a chemist, I loved working in the analytical lab of a major oil company, identifying unknown substances, trying to figure out why this engine part failed, and so on.  It was mystery, logical thinking, and discovery. 

But by mid-life, my personal life was in deep difficulty – unhappy marriage, three little kids, no help, nowhere to turn.  Churches were familiar from my young childhood as places of solace, although I never did get the Jesus “thing.”  When I finally tried church again in mid-life, people were indeed friendly, and someone watched the kids for an hour for free. Then, at a women’s retreat I was desperate enough to try, total strangers loved so unconditionally, in all my pain.  I decided then that I wanted to see what this Jesus thing was really about – this Jesus that the women claimed was the source of their love for me.

That was 24 years ago.  I began to read anything I could find on Christ, the Bible, and living as a Christian.  I dug into apologetics and the “5,000 answers to tough passages in Scripture” with the same fervor I dug into analytical problems in the lab.  I asked the tough questions – I still ask the tough questions --  and, yes, fundamental Christianity caused some cognitive dissonance.  I remember asking myself, do I have to give up believing that life evolved in order to have the love of Christ that I so craved?   

Through my journeying, I have found that I can indeed believe in the scientific process with its flaws, in the Christian church (writ large) with its flaws, and most wholeheartedly, in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.  But I no longer hold “religious fundamentalist” views, in the general sense of the term.  My constant seeking of Jesus has taken me to experience many different Christian traditions, and some non-Christian, and my spiritual views have broadened.  But I see myself as a good example of how it is very possible to be a Christian and a scientist, without schizophrenia or other dissociative disorders!

There are others of us, too.  More than ten years ago, I found the American Scientific Affiliation.  It is a great place for people like me. ASA is a fellowship of Christians involved in all areas of science, engineering, and related.  We don’t take positions on issues, but try to provide a place for respectful discussion and scholarly investigation of science and Christian faith.  ASA members include Nobel Laureates and common lab rats, students and theologians – but all Christians, and all doing or involved with respected science.  We even have a new group within ASA called Christian Women in Science (CWIS link), because Christian women have even more issues pursuing a career in science, engineering, and related than do Christian men. ASA has a scholarly journal; as an example, here is an issue devoted to papers on evolution.  We also have an e-zine on God and Nature, with many types of interesting essays and insights for the less scholarly reader.  Lastly, anyone is welcome to join us at our annual conference, held every summer over a weekend, with inspiring speakers from a variety of science disciplines (coming up:  July 25-28, 2014, Hamilton, Ontario  link). 

Also, another great organization for those who pursue serious science and serious Christian faith is BioLogos.  BioLogos differs from ASA in specifically focusing on the issues about evolution, and striving towards a mission “to help the church develop a worldview that embraces both of these complex but complementary ways of understanding the world and our place in it.” 

So if you want to believe in both science and Jesus, you’re not alone.  Come, join us for fellowship and shop talk!

CWIS-ASA: A Place to Connect

Lynn Billman

President CWIS

Do you want to get acquainted with other Christian Women in Science in your area? Would you like to connect with other ASA-CWIS supporters in your state? Would you like to connect with other Christian women chemists, astronomers, or physicists? 

As a professor at a Christian college, would you like to know other Christian women professors near you?  Well, you can do all that and more by searching the ASA Membership Directory at the ASA website. 

The ASA Membership Directory is for members only and only appears when you sign in. It is not public information and this is the membership data the search engine depends on. So, if you are not receiving information from ASA or CWIS it may be that your addresses are not current. Check out the Membership Directory and update your ASA profile.

The search fields I find most useful are:

Name – to find one person

Location (i.e., State) – to find who is in my state

Profession – to find someone in the clergy, medical, government research,  and other professions.

Discipline – to find people in biology, astronomy, engineering, or other areas

After you decide how these search elements may be helpful to you, you have a choice of searching the entire ASA membership list, or you may search “Affiliate:  Christian Women in Science.”  Checking CWIS will help you find others who have signed up as members of our ASA group, thereby demonstrating their interest and commitment to the challenges faced by Christian women in STEM. 

While you’re at it, check out the ASA website in general. You’ll find a lot of interesting information – major science headlines, God and Nature magazine, information on the upcoming ASA annual conference (July 2014 in Ontario), and loads of great articles, blog posts, news feeds, etc., on science and Christianity. Check it out today!  And use the ASA Membership Directory to find other CWIS members in your area.

Related reading:  CWIS Charter, CWIS Board, CWIS is Here for You!