Gowland lecture: ECLAS co-director speaks on the future of science-religion engagement

Recorded at the Science and Religion Forum’s 50th Anniversary Conference: “Revisiting and Reimagining the Relationships between Science and Religion”, May 2025.

Lecturer: Rt Revd Dr Richard Cheetham & Revd Dr Muthuraj Swamy (Responding)

Most of the literature on the relationship between science and religion has been produced in a Western context with an emphasis on the Christian religion. However, there is increasing awareness of the wisdom and insights generated in many different contexts, cultures and religions, including indigenous knowledge. There is also a growing appreciation that some of the major issues of the 21st century (e.g. AI, genetics, climate change and biodiversity loss etc) require far more than a narrow focus scientific analysis from a predominantly western viewpoint.

In a globalized, hyper-connected world, these issues need to be explored with ethical, philosophical, spiritual and theological lenses. It is crucially important to pay close attention to the effect of context on how the science and religion relationship is understood.

This lecture will explore how such an inter-contextual approach is working in the Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science (ECLAS) project and also in the work of the Anglican Communion Science Commission, and outline some principles for a genuinely fruitful science and religion relationship in the future.