The Evolution of Belief: A Christian Perspective for the Future

The Dalai Lama once said that when science demonstrates something in opposition to a religious tenet, the religious belief must step back. Yet Christianity has often been resistant to such an approach, and many modern, educated Christians find themselves stuck at the intersection of science and traditional religious dogma and doctrine.

The Evolution of Belief provides new ways of thinking about essential items of Christian belief, and the modern Christian is invited to move ahead in a credible way with the use of new analogies applied to creation, incarnation, redemption, and other Christian beliefs and practices. Author J. Gregory Steiner shows how a so-called baggage of beliefs, hung on the clothesline of ones faith, needs to be continually cleaned out and rejuvenated, insisting that traditional understandings of Christianity should be made more palatable and accommodating of the discoveries of science and technology.

Viewed from an ever-developing saga of historical influences upon Christian belief and the evidence provided by science, there could very well be more questions generated than answers. But this can result in a positive experience, because credible insights into this novel perspective will truly lead ones faith further into the unending discovery of God.

Gregory Steiner, a former Jesuit for 19 years, has postgraduate degrees in biology and theology, and during his career he taught science and religion at the high school level. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, with his wife, Carol, and he has two adult children and four grandchildren. Now retired and seeing the Christian religion positioned on the precipice of irrelevance, he used his professional background to inform The Evolution of Belief, in which he proposes some radical and shocking changes in traditional Christian theology and philosophy. In the meantime, he enjoys hiking, fishing, and having fun with his grandchildren, who are the peaks of his life.