It has been several days since we held the 2003 Glacier View Faith and Science Conference and I continue to marvel at what happened in the rarefied alpine air of the Colorado Rockies. No one with whom I spoke at the conference could remember the church's sponsoring or structuring a set of important papers on issues of such significance in a format which intentionally incorporated a variety of viewpoints ... ever.

While this format represented a major risk and did in fact generate moments of tension and angst, participants were for the most part gracious and understanding. Even in an ideal world, people will maintain varied perspectives and bringing them out into the open not only keeps everyone honest, it tends as well to enhance the quality of scholarship presented, because the audience includes more than the choir with which we normally discuss such things.

Besides, the fact that we are engaged in responsible dialogue among theologians and scientists suggests that we have taken our task as informed Christians seriously. Those who have written off scientists as the devil's agents whose only task is to undo faith in the Bible have no debate about these matters; all is settled. Neither do those who have written off "true believers" as somehow irrelevant and out of touch with the modern world. Perhaps the fact that we debate such issues with purpose and intensity is the best indication of our commitment to absolute honesty with what we see or think we see in the world around us as well as complete faithfulness to what we know or think we know about God through Scripture.

We thus find ourselves, happily I would suggest, celebrating certainties in faith and science surrounding issues we all can affirm, as well as curiosity about what we don't know or that on which we don't at present agree. My sincere thanks to Lowell Cooper of the General Conference and Ben Clausen of the Geoscience Research Institute at Loma Linda University for making possible and fostering a remarkable conference.

Douglas R. Clark

Walla Walla College