In short, that’s the true reason why I’ve been going to the hogback so often lately. I’ve been going to the hogback to wrestle with God. Or, perhaps more accurately, try to figure out how my faith in God and my knowledge in science can be intertwined.
I know there are many Christians (and people of other faiths) who believe in both God and science. I’m friends with a few of them. But, outside of those few people, I don’t know anyone who believes in both science and God. And, that worries me.
In fact, that’s bothered me for over a decade at this point.
When I first learned about evolution sometime in elementary school, my crisis of faith commenced, fueled by my tumultuous family situation and my (losing) battle with Cystic Fibrosis. By the time I reached middle school, I was an angry agnostic with a great deal of cognitive dissonance between science and God.
Ironically, it was my experience at the private Christian school in 10th grade that turned me into a fervent anti-theist. Why? Because they not only failed to address the contradictions between the theory of Evolution and Genesis, but they called the one Christian biologist I knew of a heretic, simply for stating the fact that humans and apes share a common ancestor at a science symposium hosted by Front Range Christian school.
When that domino finally fell, the rest followed.
It took several years before I was willing to entertain the possibility of there existing a God, let alone a God who loves us, and actively cares about us and His creation. Even then, I was (and still am) extremely wary of God.
During my gap years between high school and college, I bought and read many theological books in hopes of “rediscovering” God. First, I started with memoirs such as “On Her Knees” by a progressive Christian Youtuber, Brenda Davies, I briefly watched during the pandemic, “Native” by Kaitlin B. Curtice, and “Educated” by Tara Westover, among several others. Then, I got into heavier theological books, such as the “Unseen Realm” stuff by Dr. Michael Heiser, and “How the Bible Actually Works!” by Dr. Peter Enns.
I watched a lot of Youtube lectures given by various theologians, pastors, and scientists between books, too. In fact, whenever I was playing video games or making art, those lectures served as background noise to drown out the political chaos brought in by the pandemic.
By the time I was getting ready to move back to Colorado after spending a very dark winter in Washington state, I’d surrendered myself to Christ once more. It wasn’t a spectacular event, really. I just kind of… realized… over a period of a few weeks, that I was a Christian once again. But the faith I now professed was very different from the faith I was brought up upon.
That said, I still believed (and believe) that Christ is the Son of God who lived and died for our sins. I believe in the Trinity; that God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the same, but different. I really wish I had the words to explain what that means.
But, aside from that, I really struggle to reconcile my Christian faith with the conservative, fundamentalist faith I was taught by my mom and grandparents. Even today, I struggle to talk about God with my Christian family members- despite the fact that we’re all Christians- because of how different my faith is compared to theirs.
