Medicine,
electronic communications, space travel, genetic manipulation...these
are the miracles about which we now tell our children. These are the
miracles we herald as proof that science will bring us the answers. The
ancient stories of immaculate conceptions, burning bushes, and parting
seas are no longer relevant. God has become obsolete. Science how won
the battle.

Science may have alleviated the miseries of disease
and drudgery and provided an array of gadgetry for our entertainment
and convenience, but it has left us in a world without wonder. Our
sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The
complexities of the universe have been shredded into mathematical
equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been destroyed.
Science proclaims that Planet Earth and its inhabitants are a
meaningless speck in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident. Even the
technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now
electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone.
We are bombarded with violence, division, fracture, and betrayal.
Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has
become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more
depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history?
Does science hold anything sacred? Science looks for answers by
probing our unborn fetuses. Science even presumes to rearrange our own
DNA. It shatters God's world into smaller and smaller pieces in quest
of meaning...and all it finds is more questions.

The ancient war
between science and religion is over. Science has won. But it didn't
win fairly. It has not won by providing answers. It has won by so
radically reorienting our society that the truths we once saw as
signposts now seem inapplicable. Religion cannot keep up. Scientific
growth is exponential. It feeds on itself like a virus. Every new
breakthrough opens doors for new breakthroughs. Mankind took thousands
of years to progress from the wheel to the car. Yet only decades from
the car into space. Now we measure scientific progress in weeks. We are
spinning out of control. The rift between us grows deeper and deeper,
and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual
void. We cry out for meaning. And believe me, we do cry out. We
see UFO's, engage in channeling, spirit contact, out-of-body
experiences, mindquests -- all these eccentric ideas have a scientific
veneer, but they are unashamedly irrational. They are the desperate cry
of the modern soul, lonely and tormented, crippled by its own
enlightenment and its inability to accept meaning in anything removed
from technology.

Science, you say, will save us. Science, I say,
has destroyed us. Since the days of Galileo, the church has tried to
slow the relentless march of science, sometimes with misguided means,
but always with benevolent intention. Even so, the temptations are too
great for man to resist. I warn you, look around yourselves. The
promises of science have not been kept. Promises of efficiency and
simplicity have bred nothing but pollution and chaos. We are a
fractured and frantic species...moving down a path of destruction.

Who
is this God science? Who is the God who offers his people power but no
moral framework to tell you how to use that power? What kind of God
gives a child fire but does not warn the child of its dangers?
The language of science comes with no signposts about good and bad.
Science textbooks tell us how to create a nuclear reaction, and yet
they contain no chapter asking us if it is a good or bad idea.

To
science, I say this. The church is tired. We are exhausted from trying
to be your signposts. Our resources are drying up from our campaign to
be the voice of balance as you plow blindly on in your quest for
smaller chips and larger profits. We ask not why you will not govern
yourselves, but how can you? Your world moves so fast that if you stop
even for an instant to consider the implications of your actions,
someone more efficient will whip past you in a blur. So you move on.
You proliferate weapons of mass destruction, but it is the Pope who
travels the world beseeching leaders to use restraint. You clone living
creatures, but it is the church reminding us to consider the moral
implications of our actions. You encourage people to interact on
phones, video screens, and computers, but it is the church who opens
its doors and reminds us to commune in person as we were meant to do.
You even murder unborn babies in the name of research that saves lives.
Again, it is the church who points out the fallacy of this reasoning.

And
all the while, you proclaim the church is ignorant. But who is more
ignorant? The man who cannot define lightning, or the man who does not
respect its awesome power? This church is reaching out to you. Reaching
out to everyone. And yet the more we reach, the more you push us away.
Show me proof there is a God, you say. I say use your telescopes to look to the heavens, and tell me how there could not
be a God! You ask what does God look like. I say, where did that
question come from? The answers are one and the same. Do you not see
God in your science? How can you miss Him! You proclaim that even the
slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would
have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather that our magnificent
sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see God's hand in this?
Is it really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right
card from a deck of billions? Have we become so spiritually bankrupt
that we would rather believe in mathematical impossibility than in a
power greater than us?

Whether or not you believe in God, you
must believe this. When we as a species abandon our trust in the power
greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faith...all
faiths...are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand,
something to which we are accountable... With faith we are accountable
to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. If the outside
world could see this church as I do...looking beyond the ritual of
these walls...they would see a modern miracle...a brotherhood of
imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a
world spinning out of control.

Are we obsolete? Are these men
dinosaurs? Am I? Does the world really need a voice for the poor, the
weak, the oppressed, the unborn child? Do we really need souls like
these who, though imperfect, spend their lives imploring each of us to
read the signposts of morality and not lose our way?

We are
perched on a precipice. None of us can afford to be apathetic. Whether
you see this evil as Satan, corruption, or immorality...the dark force
is alive and growing every day. Do not ignore it. The force, though
mighty, is not invincible. Goodness can prevail. Listen to your hearts.
Listen to God. Together we can step back from this abyss.