Have You Found Jesus, Yet?

"Excuse me. Have you found Jesus?"
"I didn't know he was lost!"

I can guarantee the first person I heard that joke from was my father. He's a high school science teacher and renowned for his love of puns.

Whenever I think about questions of science versus faith, dogma versus adaptation, or Christianity versus whatever, I think about my Dad. He was a missionary in Turkey for 11 years with the Church World Service, has been a high school science teacher for 30 years, and always has a way of making things seem very obvious and simple. His perspective on controversial topics (like evolution, Islam, full acceptance of homosexuality, sex-ed, capital punishment) is that we know what the right choices are because we understand many view points. It doesn't mean you have to agree with others, but the more you know about those other viewpoints, the more you know about your own beliefs.

When people ask my Dad questions like "how do you reconcile science and your Christianity?"

He looks at them quizzically. "I don't understand what you're asking. Everything I learn through science enhances my faith, brings me closer to Christ."

He has a way of making it sound like he just said "Why am I wet? I only got splashed with water."