I am a professor of biology and Dean at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, a Christian university. I have the pleasure and challenge of teaching evolution to college undergraduates. Many of my students are coming into my course having been told the same thing I heard in the 1980’s: that one must choose between evolution and faith. I have come to really enjoy helping these students understand that their faith and the biology do not need to conflict. I embrace the fact that it is my vocation to help shepherd Christian students as they learn about evolution.
I have two wonderful sons and two fabulous daughter-in-laws. I travel quite a bit and really enjoy meeting new people and visiting new places.
I received my biology degree and my PhD from University of California, San Diego. When I entered college, I was a Christian, but in one of my first biology courses, my biology professor told the class that a person cannot believe in God and accept evolution. The basic argument was that evolution proved that there was no God. I found this puzzling and I met with a couple of different pastors who told me the same story -- that one must choose: either faith or evolution.
The more I learned in biology courses, the more evidence pointed toward the reality of evolution, and since both sides were telling me that they were mutually exclusive, I made the conscious decision to give up my faith and any belief in a God and I became atheist. It wasn’t until a couple years after college, when I was teaching English in Japan, that I came back to Christ, and then I spent the next decade working through the philosophical and theological issues until I could reconcile my Christian faith with my acceptance of evolution. Now I consider it a privilege to speak at universities and churches about the compatibility of evolution and faith.