Friday, March 14, 2025

It is the 14th of March 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

I reserve the right to make Friday’s whatever they happen to be, they tend to be the last show I write in a sequence and that’s where I can get a little loose. And holy cow, what a Friday- it’s 3.14 which comes after 3.10 which means nothing unless you call it MAR 10 then in looks like Mario.. and today, 3.14 is Pi day as in Pi, the house with the squiggly hat that equals 3.14159 ad infinitum… I’ve got nothing there- please oh please tell me someone has done a study on how the trinity isn’t exactly 3 but 3.14 etc…. And therefore it proves the eternality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…. It would be ridiculous, but still.

Speaking of Pie, this is also the day that Oreo cookies were patented— little pie-like cookies. But this does nothing for me here on a Friday almanac. But speaking of math, you know who was born today? Albert Einstein- and while he was not a Christian (and the stories that paint him to be are pious but false) there are few people I hear referenced in Christian circles more- and it makes sense, our view of the universe is shaped in large part by Einstein- the biggest name since Newton. And unlike Newton, Einstein didn’t write any unhinged commentaries on the book of Revelation and we are thankful for that.

But what might we think, in honor of Einstein’s birth on this day in 1879, of the image of the modern genius and his impact on Christian thought?

First, please run, don’t walk past any stories that try to say “actually, he became a Christian on his deathbed”- this kind of conversion does happen but it sometimes strange Christian propaganda. Einstein was not a Christian but his thought can be helpful for the church.

Einstein famously wrote “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind”- not “lame” like we Gen-Xish folk said meaning “not cool” but instead, unable to move. Science and religion need each other, Einstein supposed. He didn’t mean any particular formal religion, but instead the general sense that there is more out there than meets the eye. Some in the Enlightenment, with their certainty about the material being all there is, can take a hike.

It was his special theory of relativity that helped turn the world of Isaac Newton on its ear. Not abolish Newton and his laws of motion, but Einstein’s work suggests that the impregnable “laws of nature” might not be as ironclad as we once thought… weird stuff can happen in this universe. And as our culture has reverted to some kind of enlightenment materialism, Einstein can help us say “we understand less than we’d like” and that is a good starting point.

But lest you make Einstein into some post-modern relativist where “anything goes” we also do well to hear Einstein on the fundamental truths he did hold  about the world.

Firstly, that the physical world is real and the belief in an independent physical world (not a hologram, or just perceptions of individuals) are the basis for the whole scientific endeavor. Secondly that the world is orderly and rational and this leads us to his third point that the world is understandable.

Ok, the universe is not the watch of the blind watchmaker, the older idea that everything was set up by God and then left to its own devices and natural “laws”. But it is still intelligible, the natural world is speaking, and those of us who listen to the Apostle Paul would affirm with both him and the Psalmist that the natural world shouts out to us the truth of God’s existence and power.

The trick is to get from the awe-inspiring God and his holy law to his mercy, namely through his Son, and this is of course the mission of the Church and her Gospel. But we should welcome those ideas that help us understand the natural world, see the God of nature (and then work to the God of special revelation).

And so, sure it’s Pi day and that little trick is something I suppose- but let’s give old Albie a shout out on his birthday- 3.14.1876.

 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary, and the Psalms are always a good place to go in the Lenten season: this from Psalm 27: 

Hear my voice when I call, Lord;
    be merciful to me and answer me.

My heart says of you, “Seek his face!”

    Your face, Lord, I will seek.

Do not hide your face from me,

    do not turn your servant away in anger;

    you have been my helper.


Do not reject me or forsake me,

    God my Savior.

Though my father and mother forsake me,

    the Lord will receive me.

Teach me your way, Lord;

    lead me in a straight path

    because of my oppressors.

Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes,

    for false witnesses rise up against me,

    spouting malicious accusations.

I remain confident of this:

    I will see the goodness of the Lord

    in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord;

    be strong and take heart

    and wait for the Lord.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 14th of March 2025 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose gonna stop you right there and answer before you ask: it’s the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter: he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who will do the same… it’s because it’s like two lines, like you’re drawing a house, and then the squiggly line on top, it’s just what it looks like… I’m  Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.