Customer Reviews

The Luminous Web: Essays on Science and Religion

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In The Luminous Web, Barbara Taylor describes her own journey as an Episcopal priest (holding the Harry R. Butman Chair in Religion and Philosophy at Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia) trying to learn what the insights of quantum physics, the new biology, and chaos theory can teach the Christian believer. In explaining why the church should care about the new discovers and insights into the physical world that modern science has to offer, Taylor suggest ways that Christians might close the gap between spirit and matter, between the secular and the sacred. The Luminous Web is profoundly rewarding reading.

For those who love to read Mrs. Taylor's books or meditations in Christian Century will be in for a surprise. This is a collection of essays (4) that provide an excellent, easy to follow blend of scientific theory with theology. Taylor simplifies difficult scientific theories for the average person. For those of us trained as scientist with a strong faith based on personal encounters with the "awe" (Taylor's description of God), it was comforting. Her verbal dexterity expresses for me the many ideas and thoughts that I have pondered. I kept wanting to say "yes! that's what I would have said, if I had not been so limited by language deficit." Another must read book of her's is When God is Silent.

After hearing Prof Taylor's sermons and lectures, I needed to wade thru her Essays on Science and Religion. Especially true, when I read three widely divergent reviews ... It seemed that any review title using the Metaphor of "Like a Black Hole," was a bit too outlandish for anything our knowledgeable Prof. Taylor could conjure up to print!

In my first encounters with references to Albert Einstein, then Robert John Russell and James McCord before noting Sir John Templeton on the same page... she then uses humorist Will Rogers' quote, "We're all ignorant, just on different subjects." She introduces Richard Feynman, one of our century's charismatic physicists, plus one of my generation who is familar to any native of Oak Ridge, Tennessee! She then proceeds to move thru the shortest chapter "The Evolution of Praise" heavy with the writers of Science.

My favorite, most heavily under-lined Chapter is, "The Physics of Communion." After her statements from Albert Einstein, Galileo, Copernicus and Newton, she touches upon Niels Bohr, George Johnson, Fred Burnham, John Polkinghorne, even Alan Watts, Bennett Sims and Paul Tillich. How's that for a multi-colored team of biologists, mathematicians, physicists, philosophers, theologians and scientists? When Professor Taylor does her homework there is no such metaphor as that Black Hole!

For me it is her 'Way-Out-of-the-Box' book worth 5 golden stars!

One of the most lucid and reasoned disussions of science and religion that you'll find. I've read a number of the new science books, but by the end she had me. Not just a reasoned approach but a personal and moving account as well.

This book is by Barbara Brown Taylor, and I highly recommend it.

Taylor is an Episcopal priest who has made a study of certain frontier areas of science like evolution and cosmology. In this book, she looks at what she learned from the perspective of how science and religion interact or the boundaries separating them (if any).

It appears to me that she sees less separating than a lot of scientists might. I am on her side on this.

Although I really liked the book, I did find that the last chapter went off the edge a few times. For one thing, she seems to equate Heisenberg's principle with the observer effect which I think is scientifically incorrect. Fortunately, this does not seem to prevent her from reaching some reasonable conclusions.

Despite a few flaws, the book does raise many interesting questions and even suggests some answers of sorts that greatly satisfy. Highly recommended!

Looking to further your faith? Do NOT read this book! Looking to further your understanding of string theory, quantum physics or chaos theory? Do NOT read this book! As a Christian with an avid interest in the great science of the past century, this book was trite and terribly unrewarding - either scientifically or spiritually. I think she could have saved a lot of words and just wrote: "Gee, I don't understand it, but isn't it neat?" This book will not reward you with strong arguments to further your conviction that there is a God. And, it oversimplifies the body of science it discusses to the point of inaccuracy. If you're searching for "proof" of God, you'd be far better off to read "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis, for a philosophical perspective. If you want "proof" scientifically, you're better off with Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe," in which the quest to find a unifying theory is clearly explained - and allows you to marvel at the intricate and elegant design of our physical world. At that point, it truly is a leap of faith: you either believe God has to be the designer who came up with the "theory of everything" in the first place, or you choose to believe that there is a random or singular physical cause that triggered the creation of the universe. Neither can be proven, so faith and science do meet after all.