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f’nf/t* 0, April 24, 1900
Career Fair attracts nearly 1000
Tenneco Oil
Mark Janek, a representative of Tenneco Oil, talks with an
Interested student about the corporation.
A company representative discusses career potential in
Brown and Root with several Texas A&M students.
Nearly 1,000 other students spent time last Thursday
visiting with the 37 corporate representatives who had
set up booths In the Memorial Student Center for the
College of Business Administration's First Annual
Undergraduate Career Fair. Obstensibly a function cater
ing to business students, the Career Fair attracted stu
dents from a variety of majors.
Photos by Kevin D. Higginbotham
Science vs. Religion
Local pastor attends conference
Houston Lighting A Power representative, Joyce Brown,
explains career possibilities to several students.
by Paul Barton
Ever since Copernicus over
hauled conventional notions of the
solar system, science and religion
have been on uneasy terms with
each other — some books have cal
led it warfare.
At least one local minister thinks
it is time to change that. The Rev.
Hubert Beck, campus pastor at Uni
versity Lutheran Church in College
Station, says scientists and theolo
gians need to cooperate in addres
sing questions posed by the com
plexities of the modern age.
Beck recently returned from a
consultation on "Faith, Science and
the Future” held at Harvard Univer
sity over spring break. The confer
ence was sponsored by the Center
for the Study of Campus Ministry of
the Lutheran Church, and Beck was
one of the eight campus pastors in-
vited to attend.
At issue was how scientific think
ing and technological advances
mold and give thrust to people's
thought. Churchmen are growing
concerned about the effects on hu
manity of a wide range of technolo
gical developments from In-Vitro
fertilization methods to nuclear
power.
In fact, a conference bearing a
similar title was sponsored last July
at MIT by the World Council of
Churches.
Although religionists are ex
pressing their interest in many sci
entific issues, not everyone seems
willing to listen to them.
"People are afraid of theolo
gians, afraid they are going to
preach," said Beck. "But one of our
jobs should be to help raise ques
tions. To help point toward deci
sions concerning values is one of
the historic tasks of theology."
Beck feels the prevailing influ
ence of scientific thinking is one ma
jor reason for the decline in influ
ence of religion in modern life.
"Because of the tendency to
think relatively about things, people
are hesitant to say something is
right or wrong," Beck said.
He added that the "faith dimen
sion" of reality is ruled out by many
because it is not observable or
quantifiable. Subsequently, a large
number of religious people in con
temporary society tend to indi
vidualize their faith.
“If they run into other believers,
fine, but for the most part they are
hesitant to speak out about it," he
said.
Similarly, Beck argues that the
church as a whole has lost its
prophetic voice.
"It's not addressing current
thought patterns," said Beck. "To
talk about God and heaven means
to take an interest in the here and
now as well as in the afterlife. The
church has tended to isolate itself.
You can't read the Bible in a
vacuum; it was addressed to a cul
tural setting.
"It’s how you look at reality that is
at issue. People in the Middle Ages
or even the 1930s had a much diffe
rent concept of reality than we do."
For example, he points to the
communications explosion that has
brought world events into the home
far faster than ever before.
Beck labels as misconception
the idea that science is value-free.
“That’s simply not true,” he said.
"Any set of facts has to be inter
preted and that brings presupposi
tions into play."
Beck himself is the author of sev
eral published papers on the re
lationship between religion and
technology and has a book entitled
"The Christian Encounters the Age
of Technology.”
He sees an increasing concern
among scientists for values in de
termining how to use new technolo
gies.
“I think the ecology movement in
the 1960s kicked off a lot of this
interest,” he said. "People started
to realize that manufacturing is not
value-free.”
Beck feels the church must play a
role in helping to determine what
values shape the use of these adv
ances.
"There is value for the church in
seeing the world God made through
the eyes of those who set them
selves to examine it in scientific as
well as in metaphysical ways,” he
said.