Author to Speak on “A God That Could be Real”

Saturday, September 17, 4 p.m., Orcas Island Community Church

— from Michael Riordan —

Nancy Ellen Abrams

Nancy Ellen Abrams, an author and philosopher of science, recently faced a personal dilemma. A lifelong atheist, she began to embrace the idea of a higher power during her participation in a recovery community. Out of this intellectual ferment came the idea of an “emergent” God based on a leading philosophy of modern physics and consistent with what is known scientifically about the Universe.

On Saturday afternoon, September 17, Nancy will speak about her revelations in an Orcas Currents lecture “A God That Could Be Real” — the title of her recent book on this topic. This lecture will include a dialogue with Dick Staub, Pastor of Orcas Island Community Church, where the event will begin at 4 p.m. Admission is free.

Abrams is coauthor with her husband Joel R. Primack, a highly regarded cosmologist, of The View from the Center of the Universe and The New Universe and the Human Future. Together with him she taught a popular course on Cosmology and Culture at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has written articles on these topics and appeared on national radio and TV programs.

Cofounder of the Kindlings, a movement devoted to rekindling the creative, intellectual and spiritual legacy of Christians in culture, Staub hosted the nationally syndicated radio talk show “The Dick Staub Show” from Seattle and Chicago during the 1980s and 1990s before he came to Orcas Island to serve as OICC Pastor.

In her book, which includes a Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Abrams writes, “God persists and always will because it’s a fundamental characteristic of the connection between ourselves and the Universe.” She argues that God emerges in the world through our collective aspirations — and that we have a moral responsibility to improve this world for ourselves and future inhabitants. She focuses on climate change and environmental degradation, which can be countered by our thoughts and actions.

Embedded in these ideas is a “planetary morality” that emerges from a deep understanding of the Universe based on recent advances in cosmology. Among these are the omnipresence of invisible forms of matter and energy that make up the great majority of everything there is.
Please join Orcas Currents friends and supporters for an invigorating discussion of recent insights in science and religion.