The origins of MIT in its modern iteration reach back
to the 1930s and Karl Taylor Compton. Compton was from Princeton, trained in Physics. His contributions to the war effort during
World War II were matched by his vision for MIT as a world class
institution. Compton’s roots were deep
as well in the reformed Christianity practiced at Princeton. Members of the
family served as missionaries in India and his wife
spent much of her time at MIT seeking space for a chapel.
His successor, James Killian, built the chapel she
dreamed of and laid the foundation for an even more robust MIT, one that had
room and purpose for the liberal arts.
In the chapel is a plaque designating the space as the symbol of the MIT
commitment to creating an environment where students might explore the meaning
of religious faith.
So they have done since the building was opened in
1955. The notion of educating “A New MIT Man” was Killian’s in the aftermath of
the war. The suggestion that science had been
hijacked in order to win the war without appropriate
attention to ends and means stung. The use of the atomic bomb was a case in
point. In response, Killan thought an MIT student should be as concerned with
implications of a scientific advance as they were with the advancement itself.
The eyes that peered into the dark night sky should be as concerned with what
they were looking for as they were with how and why they were looking because
as the universe gave up its secrets there was always the cost of the knowledge
obtained.
The chapel and the larger Kresge Auditorium, “The
Meetinghouse of MIT”, were the appropriate places for such questions to be
asked..
Since then below the radar (figuratively speaking) physicists
honed their skills and listened. On
September 14th, 2015 they heard something. They heard what Einstein
said they might, but a hundred years ago he thought the prospects were dim. He
was wrong.
On February 11th 2016 they made the announcement in Cambridge. Our study
of the universe suddenly had a new set of sensors. We might see, but now we could
hear the destructive harmonies of black holes collapsing into one another and
sending their death knell across the universe like ripples in a giant pond.
It had taken nearly a century; the elders who had
argued for the funding for such a study and who believed in what they were
doing while others waivered, clapped their hands. Somewhere Einstein smiled. Others
stepped forward confident that the discoveries were only beginning. In the same
way we could say we didn’t know what we didn’t know, we could also say we did
not know what we might learn.
What of the dialogue between science and religion that
had been implied? I listened carefully but the conversation was muted by the
joy of discovery. There is nothing like
being vindicated on a great stage. Those who thought big and carefully about
LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) had paid dearly for
their audacity. Thousands of folk had contributed to the LIGO effort and all
felt part of a very special club. And that brings up the second thing I noted.
Modern science is an international effort. The temple of science hosts a
diverse congregation.
But what of the faithful? They seem unshaken. Those who
reduce religion to factoids that can be ordered or reordered to match the
advances of science seem to have little to say. Or maybe they have gotten tired
trying to prove what cannot be proven. Those
whose confidence is grounded not in facts but in experience and a sense of
mystery seem to have learned a bit from our friends in Physics.
They waited patiently for the music to begin ignoring
those who had other ways to spend the money they needed. So too wait those who think the music of the
universe is divine. They hear with interest the notions that there are new
discoveries to be made and wait for them. The notion that the universe is no
accident remains a viable conjecture and those who think that way know as well
that values such as justice, mercy, accountability and forgiveness are
sometimes as hard to measure as gravitational waves.
I take comfort in remembering the words of Lewis
Thomas, “We have a wilderness of mystery
to make our way through in the centuries ahead and we will need science for this,
but not science alone. Science will in its own time, produce the data and some
of the meaning in the data…For getting a full grasp, we shall need.. all sorts
of brains outside the fields of science, most of all the brains of poets, but
also those of artists, musicians, philosophers, historians, writers in
general.” (quoted in Leonard Allen, The
Cruciform Church, p. 89.)
Isabel Wilkerson in a recent opinion piece in the New
York Times (2/14/16) noted that it was just over a hundred years ago that the
family of Emmett Till began their move to Chicago and she went on to link Till with Tamir Rice
and declare them both sons of the great migration of black Americans to the
northern cities in search of freedom. Real freedom has proved as elusive as the
celebrated gravitational waves.
Our religious communities, concerned as they are with
the values that expand the meaning of what it is to be human and what it means
to reflect the values we declare of ultimate worth, need to take a deep breath
and step up. The work does not stop when critics declare it worthless; it does
not stop when critics say it costs too much; it does not stop when we listen
and hear only the words of hatred and violence. We all pay a price when we
commit to a great cause and the results do not come quickly or on our
timetable. The waters of justice do roll and we must be there to listen if we
are to hear.
It was an exciting week at MIT.
Robert M Randolph
Chaplain to the Institute
Cambridge, MA
