The Zygon Center for Religion and Science is a non-profit organization housed at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago that is committed to the study of the interaction of religion and science. The center was founded in 1988 in continuing with the vision of Ralph Wendell Burhoe and it is supported by the Center for Advanced Study in Religion and Science (CASIRAS).
The first director of the center was Philip Hefner (1988-2003) who was succeeded by Antje Jackelén (2003-2007). Currently the center is headed by Director Lea Schweiz with Associate Director Gayle Woloschak.
The center hosts a yearly course entitled the "Epic of Creation", which brings scientists and religious scholars together to offer lectures on the origins of the universe. It also hosts a yearly seminar with changing topics entitled the "Advanced Seminar in Religion and Science."
The center has hosted many notable conferences, with speakers such as Wolfhart Pannenberg (2001), Arthur Peacocke, and Ursula Goodenough. Ian Barbour, one of the godfathers of religion and science study is a frequent guest also.
Although sharing a name and various scholars, the Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science is a separate entity from the center.
Famous quotes containing the words center, religion and/or science:
“Whenever there’s a big war coming on, you should rope off a big field. And on the big day, you should take all the kings and their cabinets and their generals, put ‘em in the center dressed in their underpants and let them fight it out with clubs. The best country wins.”
—Maxwell Anderson (1888–1959)
“I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Hard times accounted in large part for the fact that the exposition was a financial disappointment in its first year, but Sally Rand and her fan dancers accomplished what applied science had failed to do, and the exposition closed in 1934 with a net profit, which was donated to participating cultural institutions, excluding Sally Rand.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)