Tag: faith and science

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What I’m Reading – May 2025

What I’m Reading Now

Fiction – Plymouth Undercover by Pamela M. Kelley – Court Street Investigations #1

Nonfiction – The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis by Karen Swallow Prior

What I Recently Finished

Fiction

  • How to Get a (Love) Life by Rosie Blake
  • Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins – The Hunger Games #0.5
  • The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up by Laura Pearson
  • Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin
  • Lethal Prey by John Sandford – Lucas Davenport #35; Virgil Flowers #16
  • Billy Straight by Jonathan Kellerman – Petra Connor #1
  • Twisted by Jonathan Kellerman – Petra Connor #2

Nonfiction

  • The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You’ve Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky

Short Stories

  • The Bookstore Sisters by Alice Hoffman – The Once Upon a Time Bookshop #1
  • The Bookstore Wedding by Alice Hoffman – The Once Upon a Time Bookshop #2
  • The Bookstore Keepers by Alice Hoffman – The Once Upon a Time Bookshop #3
  • The One That Got Away by Mike Gayle
  • The Sublet by Greer Hendricks
  • The Fall Risk by Abby Jimenez
  • The Tomorrow Box by Curtis Sittenfeld
  • Giraffe & Flamingo by Curtis Sittenfeld
  • Sebastian and the Troll by Fredrik Backman
  • The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin

What I Added to my TBR

Fiction

  • How to Find Your (First) Husband by Rosie Blake
  • The Gin O’Clock Club by Rosie Blake
  • Lessons at the School by the Sea by Jenny Colgan – School by the Sea #3
  • Studies at the School by the Sea by Jenny Colgan – School by the Sea #4
  • Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages by Jenny Colgan
  • The Secret Christmas Library by Jenny Colgan
  • Betting on Good by Wendy Francis
  • Same Time Next Week by Milly Johnson
  • The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Lindz McLeod
  • The Many Futures of Maddy Hart by Laura Pearson
  • I Wanted You to Know by Laura Pearson
  • Missing Pieces by Laura Pearson
  • Nobody’s Wife by Laura Pearson
  • The Beforelife of Eliza Valentine by Laura Pearson
  • The Woman Who Met Herself by Laura Pearson
  • In the Woods by Tana French – Dublin Murder Squad #1
  • Storm Peak by John A. Flanagan – Jesse Parker Mystery #1
  • Avalanche Pass by John A. Flanagan – Jesse Parker Mystery #2

Nonfiction

  • How I Changed My Mind About Evolution: Evangelicals Reflect on Faith and Science by Kathryn Applegate (Editor) and J.B. Stump (Editor)
  • The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins by Peter Enns
  • Autism Out Loud: Life with a Child on the Spectrum, from Diagnosis to Young Adulthood by Kate Swenson, Adrian Wood, and Carrie Cariello

Short Stories

  • The Bookstore Family by Alice Hoffman – The Once Upon a Bookshop #4

TBR Stats/Goal Updates

  • I currently have 160 books on my TBR. Of those, 17 are nonfiction and 143 are fiction.
  • I finished 5 more of my 25 in 2025 list, bringing that total to 18.
  • I have read 46 books so far this year (my goal is 75).
  • One of my goals was to read 2 nonfiction books each month. So far this year I have read 1 per month.

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark?

Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark? The Bible and Modern Science and the Trouble of Making it All Fit by Janet Kellogg Ray

Summary

Janet Kellogg Ray, a science educator who grew up a creationist, doesn’t want other Christians to have to do the exhausting mental gymnastics she did earlier in her life. Working through the findings of a range of fields including geology, paleontology, and biology, she shows how a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis simply doesn’t mesh with what we know to be reality. But as someone who remains a committed Christian, Ray also shows how an acceptance of the theory of evolution is not necessarily an acceptance of atheism, and how God can still be responsible for having created the world, even if it wasn’t in a single, momentary, miraculous event.

Topics Covered

  • The Nature of Science
  • Young Earth Creationism
  • Old Earth Creationism
  • Intelligent Design
  • Theistic Evolution/Evolutionary Creationism
  • Naturalism and Scientism
  • The Age of the Universe and the Earth
  • The Flood and the Fossil Record
  • The Missing Link
  • Human Evolution
  • Leaving Creationism without Leaving God

My Thoughts

I grew up in a conservative pentecostal church and was taught to believe in a young earth and a literal six day creation period along with a worldwide catastrophic flood.  When I was a teenager in the 1980s, I was exposed to the Institute for Creation Research and became obsessed with their materials.  I even challenged a student teacher in one of my high school science classes once.  I am embarrassed now to remember how superior I felt knowing “the truth” that most scientists didn’t understand.

Over the last several years, I have come to the realization that this belief was rooted in fear.  I was afraid that if I listened to mainstream science, I would lose my faith.  It has taken quite a while to overcome these fears, but I no longer believe in a literal reading of the Bible as it relates to science.