Reanimating the World: Advancing Latter-day Saint Conversations Around Science and Religion

Mormon theology carries within it the potential for a profoundly rich and dynamic relationship with science. But so far, that potential has not been realized. We seek to advance Mormon conversations on religion and science through a series of powerful and generative conversations, commissioned essays and public events that will explore the relationship between science and faith (theology, spirituality, values) and help tell new stories about creation, human nature and consciousness, and God’s work in the world. This project is needed because in LDS culture (and beyond), the stories of religion and the stories of science are generally kept separate, too often only interacting for shallow skirmishes or tepid handshakes. The result is a lifeless religion and a meaningless science. Our vision is to develop a new story of humanity large enough to encompass all truth, whether revealed by prophets or discovered by scientists. This project is also needed because there really isn’t any other Latter-day Saint institution capable of holding such conversations. The official Church organization does not engage in this kind of public conversation. And while there are some activities in this domain that occur at the LDS Church’s flagship university, BYU, it does not have the interdisciplinary infrastructure to pursue such conversations in an ambitious way. Faith Matters has the passion, experience and capacity to develop, produce, and distribute these conversations and essays. We have a large, engaged audience curious about ideas and interested in their transformative potential. We imagine that this project will serve as a foundation for additional substantive work in this area in the coming years and catalyze a new set of conversations and explorations that we hope will profoundly enrich Latter-day Saint and general Christian intellectual, cultural and theological life and help bridge the unnecessary chasm between religious and scientific inquiry.