Yellow flyers with the words “God’s not dead” were handed all over campus by Every Nation Campus (ENC) members to promote the awaited event where two renown speakers would be introducing the evidence of God’s existence. On Wednesday, Sept. 3, at 7 p.m. students, staff, and community members started filling the main stage theater seats expectedly.
Addison Tweedy and Dr. Igor P. Sobkowicz were the invited speakers for the night. Tweedy spoke in different universities around the world for 25 years “focusing on science and faith.” Sobkowicz, with a very impressive educational history, graduated with a Physics Ph.D from the Ecole Polytechnique Paris and later a M. Sc. from the University in Edinburgh of Science and Religion, where he specialized in the Darwinian theory of evolution.
“This is a dream come true,” said Olivia Oosthuizen, campus minister and one of the many organizers of the event. Oosthuizen had seen the same presentation in 2019 in the Philippines on a college campus in Manila. “It was a different team than who came to EMU, but similar content was presented,” she recalled.
The presentation went smoothly, with some jokes from the presenters getting the audience involved. The presenters introduced the question that would be guiding the rest of the presentation through a video of Stephen Colbert interviewing Laurence Krauss, a theoretical physicist and cosmologist. The discussion was based on whether the universe was built from nothing or if there was a God: “You should be skeptical [about the Universe from nothing theory],” Krauss said in the video, to which Colbert responded, “I am.” Laughter rose in the Main Stage Theater.
There were some mixed feelings about the presenters’ use of pronouns: “I feel like my beliefs as Christian were not represented. Three white men referring to God as ‘him’ is not the full depth of who God really is to me,” said Tyler Goss. He then added that “ENC did a good job at promoting the event.” Despite his own feelings, he believed that ENC efforts were not fruitless. Furthermore, many people attended because they were curious to know more about the connection between science and God, like senior Genesis Figueroa, who decided to attend because the event sounded interesting and as a Christian wanted to educate herself better to be able to respond to other people’s questions about Christianity. Overall the event was well organized and had a good turnout, almost filling all the main stage theaters. “Many students approached us after the seminar to ask us how to get connected to the ENC club and the community that ENC offers,” said Olivia with a warm smile. The event had laughs, learning, community building, and free books for all who attended. If interested in connecting with ENC, follow @valleyenc on Instagram or Facebook.
