Steve Osmond: Professor Elaine Howard Ecklund, thank you so much for agreeing to join me for a discussion about faith and science, and especially the social sciences, which is your field of research.
Elaine Howard Ecklund: Thanks so much for having me. I just love doing this kind of thing. It’s really a privilege to be with you.
Steve Osmond: So, I’m here in Perth [Scotland] on a surprisingly sunny day! Where are you based currently?
Elaine Howard Ecklund: Houston, Texas! (Laughing). I don’t know why I laugh when I say that, but I think people abroad have a kind of stereotype of the States and right away they always think of Texas. So, when I’m talking to someone who’s not from the US, I just laugh when I say Texas. But I really love living in Texas and I love working at Rice University, which is in Houston, Texas. We’re quite close to the U.S.-Mexico border – and it’s a privilege to work here.
Steve Osmond: I have a few questions for you today about science and faith. It’s a big topic, and obviously there’s so much that could be said. One aspect that I want to chat about is the idea that there is a conflict between the two – the idea that they are mutually exclusive. My background is in the sciences and when I was doing my post-grad studies, I had some friends who would ask me how I could be a Christian and a scientist? They thought these were in conflict. Over the years that has remained in the back of my mind as I’ve tried to make sense of things and communicate with others about this. And, as I understand it, you have done that from the sociological side of things.
Will you explain what it is that you do at Rice University, and what do you love about your line of research?
Elaine Howard Ecklund: Thanks for that question. That’s right, I am a sociologist, and we use empirical methods. We do scientific studies to try to understand the social world. Interestingly, I’m married to a physicist. My husband is a particle physicist, and he studies the natural world – the particles he studies don’t back talk to him. But I study the social world, and so I have the privilege of actually talking to people.
And as a social scientist, I’m able to move beyond anecdotes, not that people’s personal stories aren’t important, but what we are most interested in as social scientists is trying to figure out what groups of people think and how typical an individual story is of the group as a whole. A huge impact of our work, I think, is cutting down on stereotypes that people have of each other. So you think about scientists and for the past about 20 years – I can’t believe this is true, that I’m this old – but for about the past 20 years, I’ve been studying what scientists think about religion, as well as the scientific workplace and what scientists are actually doing with religion in the workplace – looking at the question: does religion actually enter science? And I’ve also studied what religious people, (people of faith), think about science. And I’ve been particularly interested, as a Christian myself, in trying to figure out the kinds of stereotypes that Christians have of scientists.
I could go on. I’m a professor, so you have to stop me if I start making speeches!
Steve Osmond: Haha! I’m sure you’ve had many great conversations over the years.
For many years a lot of my work was on fish – and they also don’t talk back. So, you’re guessing a lot of the time as to what’s going on, but at least your study group can tell you what they’re thinking.
You also mentioned that you’re a Christian. Before we dig into you research and professional work, tell me a bit more about that if you don’t mind. How did you become a Christian? And what does that faith look like day to day?
Also, how did you first become interested in the relationship between science and faith?
Elaine Howard Ecklund: Sure. I grew up in a Christian home, but it was not a deeply intellectual home. And I don’t want to in any way put down my upbringing or the folks who raised me – who were amazing people but it was not a home where I was raised with an intellectual faith. However I was one of those kinds of kids who you might imagine becoming a professor, I preferred to read books and play the piano. I just read all the time. So, I suppose I was a candidate to get higher education and become a professor. And, you know, given the kind of studies I do now, I think I was also a candidate for someone who would leave their faith when she went to university and things got a little bit challenging.
I went to an elite school – Cornell University – which is an Ivy League university in the United States, and I found that I fell in with a group of quite intellectual Christians. Looking back at it, I feel like God really had his hand on me and really placed me with the right group of people. I became part of a group of Christians who really showed me that it was possible to ask the hardest questions of the faith, that it was possible to go into any kind of discipline and remain a Christian – even sociology, which I ended up then getting a PhD in. We often think of the social sciences as perhaps even a little bit anti-Christian in some corners, but I have not found that to be the case. I’ve also met and become very deep friends with Christians in the social sciences and even specifically in my field of sociology. And so, I feel that God provided me that kind of community.
What does it mean to me to be a Christian now in my everyday work? The academy is a very hard kind of place. It is a place where people are really judged on how much research they produce, and how much grant money they bring in. And I think the primary way I see being a Christian having an impact on my professional life is that deep sense that I am valuable for who I am as someone made in the image of God rather than what I do. It’s a simple Biblical theological concept that any good church would teach, right? So in one sense, it’s not the headiest thing we have to offer in the Christian tradition, but it is so profound and has a deep impact on literally everything I do. It allows me the freedom to focus on others rather than myself and how I look. And I spent a lot of time trying to sponsor and support the careers of junior scholars as I’ve grown in my professional life.
I think that’s very, very important: to know that we’re totally valuable outside of our work and the performance of our work. Another way that I’m really impacted as a sociologist is this sense that I have some kind of responsibility to reach Christian communities with my work too. Because of my own background and my current faith commitments, I feel this kind of special responsibility to reach out to churches and Christian people who are struggling and to try to share my research with them in a way that I think could be helpful and potentially life changing.
So those two kinds of commitments I see really informing my work as a sociologist and as a Christian sociologist in particular.
Steve Osmond: You touched on something there about the perception that people have, especially toward studying in the sociological sciences – a sense that this is something dangerous even. I’m sure you’ve heard stories about how someone who has been raised in a Christian home may go off to university and enter the social sciences and end up turning their back on their faith. This usually happens if they haven’t been exposed to some basic philosophy, good theology, how to understand their faith properly (apologetics).
But I think the perspective that you’ve shared is very refreshing and quite encouraging. It really highlights the way that your faith shapes the way that you carry out your work in a holistic way – which is something it should do. The Christian faith isn’t just some kind of concept that we hold on to. If it’s true, it works its way out into every aspect of our life.
How does your faith influence your intellectual journey as a scholar? Have there been any moments in your career where your faith and your work in sociology have intersected or maybe either challenged or deepened your understanding of either of them?
Elaine Howard Ecklund: That’s a good question. I started out as a sociologist really being interested in inequality and how the differences in levels of power between people groups and the differences that those levels of power, and levels of resources, make in individual life chances.
I came to that interest in part through my Christian faith. I was part of a group in college where we did a lot of thinking about issues of poverty and our responsibility as students at an elite school for the rest of the world and for alleviating poverty. And, you know, we were naive, but we were at least talking about the issues. And that really informed my sociological work. So, I had the chance to study inequality systematically through rigorous social science methods and to try to figure out what causes inequality. And in particular, I was interested in racial inequalities and in immigrant inequalities – gosh, so relevant to our globe today – and the ways in which Christians sometimes reify those inequalities, even unintentionally.
I turned my sociological lens on the Christian community itself, and some in my Christian community didn’t like that. Sometimes this happens when we study the social groups, we’re part of, and it gets a bit hard. And obviously I wouldn’t want to put too much weight on myself and my own views – but there’s sometimes a chance for academics to be a bit prophetic too, because we’re not just a part of one church, but we’re studying how religious organizations compare to one another, which gives a larger lens, and maybe will point the way towards some necessary changes.
Steve Osmond: What do you think is at the core of the suspicion that some Christian people might have about your commitment to research?
Elaine Howard Ecklund: As I mentioned, I was really honoured to be part of a college group that was very intellectual and very committed to the study of inequality. As I’m sure your readers will be well aware, there are certainly corners of Christian communities which are really afraid of the intellect. And there’s so many reasons for that. Often intellectuals have been extremely dismissive, inappropriately so, of faith and of religious people. And so, you don’t want to pay attention to a group of people that you think is dismissive of you and doesn’t like you. I’ve certainly experienced that over the years in my academic journey; that sometimes my intellectual peers can be dismissive of the kinds of things I’ve studied or even me as a person. But there are also ways in which Christians, as I’ve said, have been incredibly dismissive of the intellectual life. Both of those things are happening.
And so, one of my missions is to bring these communities together. Obviously, there are many Christian intellectuals like yourself and others, and we just need more of those kinds of places where we can really build common ground that the academy and the intellect broadly have so much to add to Christian faith. Our faith is so deeply intellectual, that we don’t have anything to fear.
Steve Osmond: Oh, absolutely. Many places in the Bible encourage us to use our minds. There is obviously the experiential aspect, but there is also the intellectual component. And I completely agree that in many instances, maybe we haven’t been on the front foot when it comes to the intellectual side of things. That is why we at Solas are doing these kinds of interviews to bring people like you on to help us better step into that space and understand things.
Focusing on science and religion then, what do you see as some shared values or common ground that exist between the sciences and faith despite this idea of conflict and opposition.
And are there any aspects of religious practice or even scientific inquiry that you think might complement each other?
Elaine Howard Ecklund: So, in the past 20 years or so, I have done about 11 different studies looking at scientists’ attitudes towards religion and religious people’s attitudes towards science, primarily in the U.S. and U.K., but I’ve looked at scientists in eight different nations. Some top-level findings from the whole body of that research are that scientists tend to be more religious than we might think.
There are often huge stereotypes among religious communities, but particularly Christian communities, about what scientists think about religion and people of faith.
So, someone like Richard Dawkins, for example, who wrote The God Delusion is incredibly popular even to this day, although I think that’s decreasing. But Christians in the US tend to think that he’s pretty typical of all scientists. They also think that someone like Francis Collins, who was the former head of the National Institutes of Health and is a fairly outspoken Christian, is pretty atypical. And I find from my research that neither Collins nor Dawkins are very typical of scientists. But I’ve found that many scientists, about 50%, are part of a religious tradition or incredibly open to spiritual inquiry outside of outside of science itself.
Steve Osmond: Yes. That’s hugely different to the general perception that gets communicated, especially in the popular media.
Elaine Howard Ecklund: So that’s especially the case in the U.S.A. In other national contexts like Taiwan and Hong Kong, for example, scientists are a bit more like the general population in those nations, they’re a bit more religiously varied and a bit more religious.
You also asked about shared values. One of my missions as a Christian scholar is to do the top academic work. I think we really owe it to ourselves and to the church writ large to use our gifts towards excellent work.
I always write an academic book and several articles whenever I do a project. But lately I’ve been trying to also do some pieces for a specifically Christian audience. One of those is a book called ‘Why Science and Faith Need Each Other, Eight Shared Values That Move Us Beyond Fear’. In that book, I talk about the ways in which the scientific and faith communities actually have very compatible values. We start usually by looking at these two communities from a lens of difference. We’re trying to find out what is conflictual about these two communities. But when I looked at these communities the other way, I found, for example, that both share this deep sense of awe in the natural world, and there’s a lot of Christian teaching that is about awe! Awe in front of God, awe in front of the natural world. And, of course, scientific discovery leads to those feelings of awe too.
Another shared value is having a sense of humility, and humility in particular when confronted with evidence, which is a core piece of the scientific method. Christians who have a robust Christian theology also find much evidence for humility within our Christian theology, a sense of humility before God, a deep knowledge that we are not God.
And so going through that book, I show these very core values. It’s meant to be read in a fellowship group or a book group. And it’s a simple, short book, but very much based on my research, but then intertwining that with the kinds of things that Christians and everyday scientists actually talk about.
Steve Osmond: Yes, there is so much common ground – which is definitely something to focus on rather than immediately trying to focus on differences of opinion.
If I’m not mistaken, you’ve written nine books up to this point. What are some of the other things you’ve looked at?
Elaine Howard Ecklund: Yeah, that’s right. Some of my more recent work is taking my scientific work and zooming out to look at workplaces broadly and compare those in different kinds of professions. I’ve spent a lot of time studying physicians and other medical workers who are related to science, but from a different perspective. I’ve also looked at the clergy themselves. I’ve looked at people in service occupations, people who are in the gig economy, who put together several different kinds of jobs often to make a living. And with my coauthors, Denise Daniels and Christopher Scheitle, have written a book called ‘Religion in a Changing Workplace’.
We found so many interesting things in that book about calling and about what workplace leaders can do to increase religious accommodation. That got us thinking that maybe this is another one of those situations where we have some kind of social responsibility to translate that work to Christians. And so, we’ve authored a different book with InterVarsity Press, which is coming out in August of 2025, called ‘Working for Better: A New Approach to Faith at Work’.
Steve Osmond: Yes, I was going to ask about that project! That’s exciting.
Elaine Howard Ecklund: That book is really intentional too. It’s short. It’s just a few pages per chapter with some discussion questions at the end. So, if I may make a shameless plug, that can be pre-ordered and will be great in a church discussion group setting.
Steve Osmomd: Haha, absolutely, plug away – it sounds like it will be a great conversation starter. After all these years and all these different projects that you’ve focused on, what have been some of the most surprising or maybe even unexpected findings related to how scientists view and integrate their faith, especially the Christian faith, into their work?
Elaine Howard Ecklund: The biggest finding for me is that scientists don’t have the kind of intellectual struggle with their faith and their scientific work that I thought they would have. I thought from everything that I’d been led to believe in my own church experiences, that scientists who are Christians would be struggling day in and day out to integrate, to figure out how to reconcile things like evolutionary theory with a more literal Biblical account of creation or something like that. But this is totally not where they are. So by the time they become professional scientists at a university, they have figured those things out, pretty much.
But where Christian faith seems to make an enormous difference for scientists who are Christians, are what I would call the ‘human aspects’ of science. They are really thinking deeply about how to care for their students, how to lead laboratories, how to do research that makes a difference to the social world. It’s not just social scientists like me, but natural scientists are thinking about things like where to take funding from. Who am I responsible to do outreach with? Those kinds of things. Those human aspects of science are very much driven by faith.
The other kind of thing is that scientists, especially across national contexts, both committed Christians (and those committed to other faiths), do perceive themselves as facing discrimination in science. I, in some ways, thinking stereotypically before I started these studies, thought that the scientific community was above that, if that makes sense. And I did find perceptions of discrimination, especially toward Muslim scientists and Christian scientists. Muslims in the UK and committed Christians in the US both face discrimination in the scientific community. Our group has written quite a bit about that as well. And then thirdly, religious communities, and again Christians and Muslims, really stand out as being unique. Religious communities feel like scientists do not like them. It’s not so much that there’s this knowledge deficit. A lot of the research has shown that religious people probably don’t know enough, and I think in certain corners, that’s probably true. But there is misinformation. Scientific misinformation. But more often, religious people have problems with science because they don’t trust scientists because they think scientists do not like them.
And, gosh, I feel like the scientific community can do a lot better, and Christians in science maybe have some very special responsibilities to reach out to folks that are in their community and really help them understand that there can be a very positive relationship between people of faith who are not scientists and the scientific community. And they, as I’ve called them in my work – the religious scientists – are a kind of boundary pioneer, because they have a foot in both worlds, and they can really pioneer positive relationships.
Steve Osmond: You did mention there this pressure that Christians in the scientific research world can face. What have you seen as some of the ways that they’ve been able to navigate those pressures in a healthy way?
Elaine Howard Ecklund: Oh, that’s a really good question. I see three kinds of things. They do talk about relying on their faith traditions to see the humanness of every person, even people who stereotypically might be against them. I think that’s especially important, that kind of human impact of one’s faith on the workplace broadly, but particularly in scientific work.
There is a sense where religious scientists, and these are people who attend often and who are very committed in communities, have what we call in our broader work, alternative communities. So, you may have a work community, which is not totally supportive of all of your personal identities, but through your church you can have an alternative community to your work community, which is also a great support. I think that’s very important for religious organizations to think about their capacities to support people in various kinds of jobs and to see those jobs as a mission.
I also find that a science is one place where calling is very much part of the currency of the realm – that people of faith often feel called to their work. That kind of calling allows one to withstand certain work difficulties. It also makes us less likely to address systemic workplace problems because we’re like, well, we’re called to our work, so we should just accept what happens here. I think, unfortunately, sometimes we do need to speak up and try to make changes. And we shouldn’t use our faith as an excuse not to do that, but rather as a reason to speak on behalf of others and try to make changes in workplaces.
Steve Osmond: That’s really helpful, thank you. Over the last years of doing your research, how do you think the relationship between science and faith has evolved – maybe over the last two decades or so? And I suppose more importantly, where do you see it going in, say, the next 5, 10, 20 years?
Elaine Howard Ecklund: I’m thinking of two things as you ask that question.
So firstly, there are a lot more institutions and organizations that have cropped up over the past 20 years to address the science and faith interface. We have things like the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences’ Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion, which was led for many years by the astronomer Jennifer Weissman.
We have Science for the Church, which is one of my favourite organizations led by Greg Cootsona and Drew Rick-Miller. And there are many others.
So as a sociologist, someone who studies groups and structures, it’s encouraging to me to see these amazing structures out there doing excellent work and providing spaces for people to have intelligent and creative discussions and to do research on these topics. I think that’s wonderful.
Secondly, where are we going? So, I think we’re going to move out of a defensive posture. As Christians we have been in what I would call a deeply defensive posture. A sort of defensive apologetics posture, which I don’t think is bad necessarily. I think there are people who needed to understand those arguments for how one can have a consistent faith, a faith that’s consistent with science. But I think we now need to move into an era where we’re thinking about what Christian faith can give to science. And in particular, we have many applied scientific technologies. I think we’re going to move from discussing science and religion in the abstract, to move to discussing the moral implications of new scientific technologies. When we think about AI, when we think about the host of human reproductive genetic technologies, when we think about the technologies that will be needed to solve climate change, Christian communities have a lot to say here.
And I think we’re going to move into a more active posture, hopefully a deeply intellectually robust posture, where our philosophers and theologians and historians are really coming to the table alongside social scientists and natural scientists to comment on the moral implications of these technologies and how we might really use these technologies for the common good.
Steve Osmond: And I think that’s exciting because as Christians we have so much to offer the sciences, especially, as you say, with some of these really big questions that we’re faced with. One last question: you mentioned the calling that you see a lot of Christian scientists feel. What advice would you offer to young scientists who are seeking to navigate their faith within that academic world of the sciences?
Elaine Howard Ecklund: Proceed humbly and get the right community. We all need to approach the world, especially in these times, from a posture of learning. And even if you’re faced with someone who you think you radically disagree with, and there’s good reasons to agree with some kinds of things, and even to fight certain kinds of ideas. Even so, to have a posture of learning and humility and to understand that we’re all limited in our knowledge and we have something to learn from the other. I think that’s incredibly important right now, especially when thinking about the science and faith interface.
Also, as you approach thinking about a professional scientific career, I do think you need to have a supportive community of those who love and care for you just as you are – in all your intellectual foibles.
Steve Osmond: Elaine, thank you so much for sharing just some of your wisdom and some of the the fruit of your research over the last few years. I feel like we could keep going for ages – I have so many questions, but that’s all the time we have for today. I look forward to speaking to you again in the future.
Where can people go to keep up to date with your work and see the list of books you’ve written?
Elaine Howard Ecklund: Thanks so much, Steve. It’s been a real pleasure talking with you.
The best place to go is the website: https://www.elainehowardecklund.com/
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Elaine Howard Ecklund is the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences, Professor of Sociology, and director of the Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance at Rice University. As a sociologist of religion, science, and work, she is particularly interested in social change and how institutions change, especially when individuals leverage aspects of their religious, race, and gender identities to change institutions. Over the past several years Elaine’s research has explored how scientists in different nations understand religion, ethics, and gender; religion at work; and the overlap between racial and religious discrimination in workplaces. Most recently Elaine is co-directing a $2.9 million grant to create a new subfield of sociological research examining how identities and beliefs around race and gender are related to attitudes about science and religion.
Elaine is the author of nine books, over 150 research articles, and numerous op-eds. She has received grants and awards from multiple organizations including the National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, John Templeton Foundation, Templeton World Charity Foundation, and Templeton Religion Trust. Her latest books include Religion in a Changing Workplace (OUP, 2024) and Varieties of Atheism in Science (OUP, 2021) as well as Why Science and Faith Need Each Other (Brazos, 2020). (From Rice University Website)
