{"id":2994,"date":"2023-09-18T08:17:38","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T12:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2994"},"modified":"2023-09-18T08:17:38","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T12:17:38","slug":"the-quiet-service-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/18\/the-quiet-service-of-love\/","title":{"rendered":"The Quiet Service of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,<\/em>\u00a0click here<\/a>
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When Dr. Francis Collins was nominated in 2009 to head the National Institutes of Health, the USA\u2019s largest scientific organization, not everyone was happy.
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One scientist asserted that Collins suffers from dementia.\u00a0 Another announced, \u201cI don\u2019t want American science to be represented by a clown.\u201d\u00a0 Cambridge professor Richard Dawkins scoffed to Bill Maher on his HBO talk show: \u201cHe\u2019s not a bright guy.\u201d
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This was interesting, since Collins\u2019 achievements don\u2019t seem to evoke what one might associate with demented, clueless clowns.
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He has earned both a PhD and an MD \u2013 no small feat.\u00a0 He also directed the Human Genome Project, the epic scientific mission that successfully mapped all three billion letters of the human genetic code.\u00a0
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The problem, declared his critics, was his philosophical bankruptcy.\u00a0 To be specific, Francis Collins believes in God.
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In time, Collins won confirmation to the NIH post, as well as the respect of almost all his critics.
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That happened, to a large degree, because Collins makes a practice of listening to his intellectual sparring partners.\u00a0 He shares coffee with them.\u00a0 He learns about their families and their interests.\u00a0 He never disrespects them in public forums.\u00a0
\u00a0
Collins empathizes with his detractors\u2019 doubts and questions.\u00a0 That\u2019s because he has a living memory of his own atheism.\u00a0 As a young doctor, making rounds, he was startled by the resilient faith of many of his patients.\u00a0
\u00a0
When Collins came alongside an older, impoverished woman who was hospitalized with a serious illness, he was amazed at her heartfelt trust.\u00a0 \u201cWhat do you believe, doctor?\u201d she asked.\u00a0 He was caught off guard.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m not sure,\u201d he replied. \u00a0He decided it was time to find out.\u00a0 At the end of a serious personal quest, he surrendered to the infinite-personal God revealed by Jesus.\u00a0
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That conviction has transformed his relationships.\u00a0 In short, Francis Collins has learned that love has the power to turn enemies into allies.
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He went out of his way to cultivate a friendship with the militant atheist Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great.<\/em>
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When Hitchens was diagnosed with a fearsome variety of esophageal cancer, some Christians rejoiced.\u00a0 One spiteful believer wrote, \u201cHe got cancer in the one part of his body he used for blasphemy\u2026 THEN comes the real fun, when he\u2019s sent to HELLFIRE forever to be tortured and set afire.\u201d
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Collins chose to walk a different path.
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He called Hitchens and said, \u201cAs NIH director I approve many government-funded research grants, and I know about some rather cutting-edge approaches based on cancer genomics.\u201d\u00a0 Could he drop by Hitchens\u2019 house and talk about treatment options?\u00a0
\u00a0
The arch-skeptic welcomed Collins into his home and into his life.\u00a0
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His battle with cancer lasted 18 months.\u00a0 He died with his atheism intact.
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But before his death, Hitchens wrote a column in Vanity Fair <\/em>in which he described Collins as \u201cone of the greatest living Americans\u201d and \u201cour most selfless Christian physician.\u201d
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He went on: \u201cThis great humanitarian is also a devotee of the work of C.S. Lewis, and in his book The Language of God<\/em> has set out the case for making science compatible with faith\u2026 I know Francis, too, from various public and private debates over religion.\u00a0 He has been kind enough to visit me in his own time and to discuss all sorts of novel treatments, only recently even imaginable, that might apply to my case.\u201d
\u00a0
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who died in a Nazi concentration camp a month before the end of World War 2, felt strongly about how people of faith should engage those who write them off:
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\u201cThe quiet service of love is the best spiritual care.\u201d
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That\u2019s because love has the power to build bridges.\u00a0
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Even over the widest of gaps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0When Dr. Francis Collins was nominated in 2009 to head the National Institutes of Health, the USA\u2019s largest scientific organization, not everyone was happy.\u00a0One scientist asserted that Collins suffers from dementia.\u00a0 Another announced, \u201cI don\u2019t want American science to be represented by a clown.\u201d\u00a0 Cambridge professor Richard Dawkins scoffed to Bill Maher… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[637,104],"class_list":["post-2994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-atheism","tag-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2996,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2994\/revisions\/2996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}