The idea that you must choose between faith and science is newer than you would think — and it is not a choice Methodists have ever asked anyone to make.
Somewhere out there is a person who quietly loves both the night sky and the church they grew up in, and has been told, in a hundred small ways, that they have to pick one. We would like to gently hand that choice back. Curiosity about how the world works has a long, warm home in our tradition.
A founder who loved a good experiment
John Wesley, the preacher whose movement became the Methodist church, was fascinated by the science of his day. He wrote a plain-language health handbook, Primitive Physick (1747), to get medical help to poor people who could not afford a doctor.1 He was so taken with the new science of electricity that he called it nearly “a universal medicine” and set up machines to give free electrical treatments to the poor.2 Some of his cures did not pan out, of course — but the instinct behind them is telling: for Wesley, taking the physical world seriously was part of loving his neighbor.
You do not have to leave your biology textbook at the door.
Loving God with your mind includes the lab
When Jesus named the greatest commandment, he included loving God “with all your mind.”3 Studying the universe — its physics, its deep time, its living things — can be one of the most honest ways to love the One who made it. Wonder and inquiry are not the opposite of faith. They can be a form of it.
What the church actually says about science
This is not just a personal opinion. The United Methodist Church has long held that faith and science are “complementary rather than mutually incompatible” ways of understanding the world, and that scientific accounts of evolution need not be in conflict with theology.4 In other words, you are welcome here with your questions and your science — both are safe.
Room for wonder, and for the hard questions
Science is very good at answering “how.” Faith spends its time on the harder, human questions of “why,” and “what is this all for,” and “how then should we live.” The two are not rivals fighting over the same ground. A community that loves God with its mind can hold real awe at a Hubble image and real reverence in a hymn — and can sit honestly with the questions neither one fully answers. If that is the kind of space you have been looking for, so is our piece on why questions are welcome here.
Questions people ask
Does the church accept evolution?
Yes. The United Methodist Church has affirmed that science and theology are complementary and that evolution need not conflict with faith.4
Do I have to choose between science and faith to belong here?
No. You can love both, and you will not be asked to check either one at the door.
Was Wesley really into electricity?
He really was — enough to offer free electrical treatments to people who could not afford medical care.2
If a thoughtful faith that takes the real world seriously sounds like home, you would be welcome to visit us on a Sunday — curiosity encouraged.
Sources
- “Primitive Physick,” Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland. dmbi.online
- Paola Bertucci, “Revealing Sparks: John Wesley and the Religious Utility of Electrical Healing,” Yale History of Science and Medicine (on Wesley’s free electrical treatments for the poor). hshm.yale.edu
- Matthew 22:37 (New International Version): “…with all your mind.” Bible Gateway. biblegateway.com
- “Doctrine of The United Methodist Church on Faith and Science” (Social Principles: science and theology as complementary; evolution not in conflict with theology), Alabama-West Florida Conference of The United Methodist Church. awfumc.org
