The Language of God

I am reading a wonderful book on the reconciliation of science and faith by renowned scientist and longtime head of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins, entitled, "The Language of God." I find it fascinating. Always having been a person of faith, I admit to an ever-growing struggle with the findings of modern science over the past decade of my life. It's not that I don't believe in a billions of years old earth, or in evolution and such matters (though I did deny both when I was younger), but not fully understanding the details, the explanations and the ramifications of these theories and how they could live peaceably beside my faith in God was troubling.
There is rather fierce debate in many evangelical Christian circles over the literal versus allegorical interpretations of the first two chapters of Genesis. It used to really bother me, this apparent denial of the "validity" of scripture, but I now see it from a totally different perspective, one not cowed by scientific discoveries, but rather enlightened by them and freed by them from fear and doubt on both the scientific and theological fronts. What really bothers me now are those who will put their interpretation of scripture before scientific fact and try to form this always enlarging body of scientific knowledge to their will. The earth simply cannot be billions of years old, so we need to come up with the science to support our belief! Besides being unwise and untruthful, I find this behavior detrimental to the positive view the Church wants to portray in our needy world. We already look ignorant and judgemental (just look at our president), so why heap injury upon insult by refusing to even consider the overwhelming evidence for commonly accepted science? When Galileo announced that the sun did not revolve around the earth, the Catholic Church condemned him as a heretic and forced him to recant. Everyone knew that the earth was the center of the universe, based upon the literal interpretation of scriptures such as Psalm 93:1 "The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved" and Ecclesiastes 1:5 "The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises." Yet, no one questions Galileo's description of a sun-centered system today, despite what the Bible says regarding an immovable earth. And, of course, these verses can no longer be interpreted as literal, so there you have it.
Christians who belong to the young earth creationism view believe Genesis 1 and 2 can only be taken literally, as creation happening in six 24-hour "days", and are often entirely sincere in their stance. Collins writes that if their "claims were actually true, it would lead to a complete and irreversible collapse of the sciences of physics, chemistry, cosmology, geology, and biology." I could go on and on about this engaging topic, and probably will in posts to come, but for now I highly recommend the book for anyone interested in or struggling with matters of popular science and faith. Collins' genetics background lends itself especially well to the theory of evolution. Evolution almost put my faith under, but now it is once again freed to a new level, a new understanding, and a new and more vigorous appreciation for the complexity and utter beauty of God's creation.