Science is not a danger to the faith of Christian youth. In fact, Sara Sybesma Tolsma, an award-winning scientist, and Jason Lief, a leading practical theologian, argue that youth ministry needs science to help young people explore their relationship to God and engage their world faithfully. Jesus Loves You and Evolution Is True invites the church and its leaders to open their minds and hearts to what science can tell us about our human lives and our connections to, and role in, our natural world. But it does not stop there: evolutionary science is theological, argues Lief and Tolsma, and so it must have a central place in the day-to-day work of youth ministry. If the church wants to help youth develop robust spiritual lives and prepare them for the challenges that life will bring them, pastors, faith leaders, and youth workers must not only engage science but embrace its lessons for the life and practice of Christian faith today.
Sara Sybesma Tolsma is professor of biology at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa. Her research into cancer genetics and cell biology has been widely published in scientific journals and has received a number of awards. Jason Lief is associate professor of practical theology at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa. He's the author of Poetic Youth Ministry and Christianity and Heavy Metal as Impure Sacred Within the Secular West: Transgressing the Sacred.
Introduction: Asking Good Questions 1. Making Connections: Science and Faith 2. Basketball and Barth: Why Youth Ministry Needs Evolution 3. Adam and Lucy: What Evolution Says about Being Human 4. The Cross and Creation: St. Francis, Evolution, and the Love of God 5. Tending the Garden: What Evolution Says about Our Future 6. Jesus Can Hit a Curve Ball: What It Means to Be Made in the Image of God 7. When Darwin Wept: Redeeming Suffering and Death 8. Embracing Our Animal: Youth Ministry in a Secular World Epilogue
"Sara Sybesma Tolsma and Jason Lief remind us that, indeed, Jesus loves us and that, at the same time, evolution may offer us the best picture of the origins and continued diversity of our material existence. Believing this doesn't oppose a deep confession in the love and mystery of Jesus Christ but can, with imaginative integration, take us somewhere deeper." --Andrew Root, author of Exploding Stars, Dead Dinosaurs, and Zombies "Lief and Tolsma address some of the key stumbling blocks science presents to religion to show how clear scientific explanation actually can enhance and deepen our understanding of God's work in creation. This book is helpful in a wide variety of educational forums, from high school into adult life." --Ilia Delio, Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University
