Since September last year, scientists and other scholars have been engaged in a study to determine why so many people believe in God, gods and religion in general.

The study, which will take three years, will bring together scholars from 14 universities and involve a range of disciplines, including psychology and economics.

That such a study would come along is hardly surprising in a world that often displays a hunger for God and things spiritual, yet at the same time so often rejects belief in God.

As The Economist, which carried the story in its March 19 edition states, “it is merely the latest manifestation of a growing tendency for science to poke its nose into the God business”.

The ambitious project, “Explaining Religion” will seek to find answers to such questions as, what are the mental mechanisms needed to represent an all-knowing God?

Does religion enhance a person’s reputation? Do particular religions foster a particular level of cooperation, and for what reasons?  Does such cooperation bring collective benefits – to the religious community as well as those outside it?

“Evolutionary biologists tend to be atheists,” notes The Economist. These questions and the discussion they prompt, depending on where one stands in the matter of belief, can be puzzling but even fascinating to watch. For the evolutionary biologists the question may be “is God a figment of imagination or not”? For the believer the question is “how are we created by God for God”.

“Religion cries out for a biological explanation,” states the newspaper. From the believer’s standpoint, however, it can also be argued that irreligious behaviour, or one that stands opposed to religion or God, cries out for a religious explanation.

What leads one young man to kill another? What does the young criminal make of God? How do our youth see God? Why has the gang come to have the kind of influence it has in our society today?

Is there a growing numbness to the killings around us? Questions of how and why are the kinds of questions that religion ask. So these are questions for the Church and all religious leaders.

Spirituality at the core of life

People, generally, have a sense that the Church has an important role to play in restoring the nation; that it ought to be able to do something about the crime that engulfs the country; that it ought to be doing more than it is doing, some evidence that spirituality touches every aspect of life and the core of life.

Most people will agree that no one institution can be blamed for the present state of the nation; that the family coming under the severe pressures of a secular worldview and an education system gone awry are as culpable as any other. 

Of urgent importance for the Church, though, is that it sees more clearly its role in making the present precarious situation right; that it understands for this time too it was created. The appeal of one Spiritual Baptist leader, last weekend, for his flock to take back the street corners is of that spirit.

The Road to Emmaus, the Gospel for this Third Sunday of Easter, makes clear that the Lord is intent on lifting up his people. In the Lucan story he draws close to those who had lived through the passion and were “downcast”.

Today he desires to bring people into community to renew his Church for mission, in much the same way as he creates an opportunity for the two disciples on the road.