Among the many significant anniversaries this summer is the 400th of the day when Galileo first demonstrated his new telescope to officials in Venice. He was probably not the first to invent the telescope or work out the theories, but he was an enthusiastic developer and has gotten the credit. He is also famous for timed experiments in dropping objects of different mass from the leaning tower of Pisa and noting a uniform rate of acceleration.
But surely the best known episode in the life of this significant thinker was his heresy trial in 1633. The Catholic church, led by his former patron Pope Urban VIII, declared as heresy the theories of earth rotating around the sun in a “solar system” instead of the sun moving around the earth in an “geocentric system.” His books were banned, and he was sentenced to imprisonment, later commuted to house arrest. Though forced publicly to recant, popular legend has it that he muttered under his breath, “Still, it moves.”
Galileo’s story is a cautionary tale to all who teach and lead in the church. It is easy to criticize Cardinal Robert Bellarmine and Pope Urban as dinosaurs and fools. It is much harder to avoid their intellectual stiffness and slavery to tradition. Christian teachers today can fall into the same trap if they simply mouth safe clichés and don’t dig into the Scriptures as a life habit. 400 years after Galileo it is still important to listen to critiques of church doctrines humbly and thoughtfully and go back to the Word to listen and reflect.
In my own tribe there was a time when orthodox pastors would condemn life insurance, charging of interest on loans, and dancing. Scripture does not. Faithfulness to Scripture can be supple, too, and is more important than mere faithfulness to traditional thought and phrase.
What do you suppose future generations will criticize about the way we teach today?
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Straight talk. Real hope.
