Nature and Church, Biology and Theology: Closer than You Think

I have cycled across Canada, hiked the length of the Bruce Trail, and our family goes canoe camping every summer in northern Ontario. I take delight in being outdoors, but I also enjoy church. Some people, including myself, sometimes, say, “I get the spirituality of creation, and how we are all part of this beautiful, wonderful universe. I just don’t see how Jesus and all the blood and dying and rising fits with the world of nature. Nature is grand and near and experiential, and the cross is gruesome, historically distant, and rather theological.” The two seem to be two different worlds. Usually we leave nature to go into church and leave church to return to nature. In this talk I want to show that theology and biology, the Bible and creation, church and nature are actually on a similar wavelength. In theological terms, I will make a key connection between special and general revelation, and the link between the two is found in Jesus Christ.

Peter Schuurman (PhD U Waterloo, Religious Studies) is a former campus minister (Brock University) and now adjunct professor at Redeemer University and executive director of Global Scholars Canada. He wrote a book on Bruxy Cavey and The Meeting House entitled The Subversive Evangelical: The Ironic Charisma of an Irreligious Megachurch (McGill-Queens 2019). What happened after 2021 at TMH became part of his next book with Angela Reitsma Bick: Blessed are the Undone: Testimonies of the Quiet Deconstruction of Faith in Canada (2024). He lives in Guelph with his family and golden doodle “Blaze,” where he attends New Life Church.