CREATIVE NONFICTION 25cameras, and my questions were as simple as
I could make them: Is the rift between those
who favor science and those who follow
religion as real and as wide as some suggest? Is
there room for more complex, more nuanced
views? If so, what do they look like?
one damp winter evening, I visit
the Mills family in central Pennsylvania, a
conservative swath of largely white, religious
counties that consistently challenge the
liberal vote tallies emanating from large urban
outposts such as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
The Mills are devout evangelical Christians,
meaning for them the Bible in the ultimate
authority on all matters, every word true, a
direct message from God. I join the parents,
Don and Rhonda, and two of their three
children in the family’s living room, in chairs
prearranged into a conversational circle.
The two sons are just home on spring break
from Grove City College. The older of the
two, Samuel, plans to follow his father into
engineering, while the younger, Isaac, a
sophomore, is double majoring in biology and
Biblical and Religious Studies, a combination I
admit to finding surprising.
“Science and religion go hand in hand,” Isaac
assures me. Confident and well-spoken, Isaac
has close-cropped blond hair, the wide, square
shoulders of a disciplined weightlifter, and just
the hint of a beard. “There have always been
strong Christians who are strong scientists.
And those scientists could prove the theories
that they came up with.”
He looks over at this brother and they
both nod.
“In more recent history, though, there is
the idea that you don’t have to prove what
you believe in order for it to be true,” he
continues. “Darwin, for example. He really
was never able to prove each step in what is
called evolution.”
Rhonda leans forward. “In today’s day and
age,” she interjects, “opinions weigh more heav-
ily than truth. Well, I hate to be a bearer of bad
news, but not everybody’s opinion matters.”
“People follow what seems more exciting,”
Isaac continues. “You know, is it exciting to
think that something came out of the primor-
dial ooze and changed to this and changed to
that, as opposed to something being created? I
mean, yeah, it seems exciting, but there’s not
the evidence.”
I could argue that the idea of an all-
powerful, white-bearded Creator waving his
hands and fashioning all of this in seven days
is just as electrifying as the idea of protohu-
man tadpoles crawling out of ancient muck.
They’re both rather amazing, when you come
right down to it. Isaac’s idea, on the other
hand, that those who support evolution are
merely caught up in the allure of the idea,
seems to ignore most of what science knows
about biology.
Isaac’s older brother, Samuel, anticipates my
unspoken objection, jumping in to point out
that scientific certainty can change over time.
“During the Middle Ages, people thought
mice came from grain, because whenever they
opened a sack of grain, they saw mice running
out. Today, that idea seems silly.”
“Another good example would be the Ptol-
emaic model of the solar system,” Isaac follows.
“We thought the Earth was at the center, and
then Copernicus came along, had the exact same
data, but came to a different conclusion.”
Grove City College advertises “an
academically excellent and Christ-centered
learning and living experience,” so I feel safe
guessing that Isaac and Samuel are presenting
ideas learned in the classroom. They’ve paid
attention, obviously, a fact that warms my
professorial heart.
“Science is right, and the Bible is right,”
Isaac explains further. “If they seem to
disagree, it’s because our interpretation of the
data is wrong.” He pauses briefly. “Or maybe
our interpretation of the scriptures is wrong.”
This is some of the nuance for which I’ve
been looking. Isaac is perfectly at ease with
science, yet still holds the firm faith of an
evangelical. Whatever problems that poses can
be solved, in his view, with patience.
The father, Don, has been sitting quietly at
the edge of the room, watching and listening.
But when Samuel, a few months from gradu-
ation and looking locally for jobs in engineer-