In other words, scientists are reasonable to acknowledge the usefulness of religious people to address the environmental crisis to which their scientific data clearly points. But too many scientists are still too often unwilling to acknowledge the possibility that religious people may in fact be more than useful: they may in fact be right and true in their central affirmation - that the universe has meaning and sacred value because of something true about its origin, purpose and destiny, something connected to a Creator - a possibility that can't be proven or disproven through scientific method alone, but which requires humility and faith.

Economist Herman Daly says it well: in the view of many scientists "there is no such thing as value in any objective sense, or purpose, beyond short-term survival and reproduction, which are instinctual and thus ultimately mechanical." He adds, "Calling for a moral compass in such a world is as absurd as calling for a magnetic compass in a world in which you proclaim there is no such thing as magnetic north"

(Beyond Growth, Beacon Press, 1996. p. 19-20). Thankfully, increasing numbers of scientists are, I believe, are opening themselves to this previously impossible possibility - the possibility that the reductive, mechanistic naturalism that has been in their creed may be in need of reformation, that someone needs to open up with laboratory windows for a fresh breeze of the Spirit.

Speaking of reformation, on the religious side, the possibility of alliance for the protection of life on the planet also depends on a reformation, specifically in the way many people read the Bible.
Ironically, in fighting what used to be called "modernism" -meaning a reductive, mechanistic naturalism that a priori excludes the possibility of God - many religious people fell into a different kind of modernism, where the Bible only had value if it spoke the same kind of "objective truth" in the same way as newspapers and high school science textbooks supposedly did.

The kind of profound and sacred truth that comes to us uniquely through poetry, vision, parable, prophecy and story was largely discounted, but this is exactly the kind of truth Scripture brings us, no less true than so-called objective truth, but true in a way that defies being shrunk and shrink-wrapped so as to be measured and plotted on a graph or proven in a test tube or lecture room.

The wooden literalism with which the Bible is still too often read leads to the kinds of religious dysfunctions I describe in my most recent book, "Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope." It leads too many religious people to argue endlessly about the origin of the species while doing precious little about the extinction of species "on our watch." It fights about the date and method of the creation of the earth, but seems relatively unconcerned about the destruction of the earth that is aided and abetted by a lifestyle which we all share. Speaking of lifestyle, this way of reading the Bible highly agitates people about the so-called "gay lifestyle," but doesn't agitate them much about a militarist lifestyle or a consumerist lifestyle into which all of us are being sucked like a proverbial black hole.

Both sides, then, need a deep shift in my opinion, otherwise, we are in deep ... otherwise. And thankfully, this shift is occurring. That's why I thank God for scientists like Dr. Wilson who want to talk to people of faith, and vice versa. If the recipient of Dr. Wilson's letter doesn't respond, I hope he'll give me a call, because I can introduce him to more and more Christians - Catholic, Mainline Protestant, Evangelical (including growing numbers of Southern Baptists), and none-of-the-above - who want to build mutually respectful alliances with everyone one we can on behalf of our shared planet and its diversity of life, all of which we hold to be truly, truly sacred.