The Luminous Web: Essays on Science and Religion
by Barbara Brown Taylor
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Description
In these essays on the dialogue between science and Christian faith, Barbara Brown Taylor describes her journey as a preacher learning what the insights of quantum physics, the new biology, and chaos theory can teach a person of faith. She seeks to discover why scientists sound like poets and why physicists use the language of imagination, ambiguity, and mystery also found in scripture. In explaining why the church should care about the new insights of science, Taylor suggests ways we might show more close the gap between spirit and matter, between the sacred and the secular. We live in the midst of a "web of creation" where nothing is without consequence and where all things coexist, even in such a way that each of us changes the world, whether we know it or not. In this luminous web faith and science join on a single path, seeking to learn the same truths about life in the universe. "For a moment," Taylor writes, "we see through a glass darkly. We live in the illusion that we are all separate 'I ams.' When the fog finally clears, we shall know there is only One." show lessTags
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Member Reviews
While I always enjoy Taylor's clear prose and heart-centered theology, I found this slender volume to be a bit thin on content. She makes some important (and probably in some circles radical) connections between Christian belief and the latest scientific thought, but without a broader background in science (and especially chaos theory) she can't go very far. Still, worthwhile.
Wish I had read this earlier; but then, I might not have been ready to understand.
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Author Information
31+ Works 9,401 Members
Barbara Brown Taylor is the author of the New York Times bestsellers An Altar in the World and Learning to Walk in the Dark, which was also named one of Publishers Weekly's Best Religion Books of 2014, as well as Leaving Church, which received an Author of the Year award from the Georgia Writers Association, and many others. Taylor is an Episcopal show more priest and the emerita Butman Professor of Religion at Piedmont College. She lives on a working farm in rural northeast Georgia with her husband, Ed. show less
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2000
- Dedication
- To Edward
My closest kin and most trusted advisor - First words
- I'm not a scientist.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)As far as I know, she never caught a single spark, but neither did she ever stop trying.
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 261.5 — Religion Christian organization, social work & worship Social theology and interreligious relations and attitudes Christianity and secular disciplines
- LCC
- BL240.2 .T29 — Philosophy, Psychology and Religion Religions. Mythology. Rationalism Religions. Mythology. Rationalism Natural theology Religion and science
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 228
- Popularity
- 142,975
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.12)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 2
