The Rev. Dr. Paul Wallace

Denomination: Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF)
Organization: Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA

Paul Wallace teaches physics and astronomy at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Ga. He also teaches occasionally at Emory University's Candler School of Theology and at Columbia Theological Seminary.

A science nerd since childhood, Paul received his PhD in experimental nuclear physics from Duke University and worked for a number of years in gamma-ray astronomy. He was a professor of physics and astronomy at Berry College in Rome, Ga until 2008. In that year he resigned from Berry to start the Master of Divinity program at Candler and graduated with a concentration in historical theology in May 2011. In November 2014 he was ordained by First Baptist Church of Decatur, a congregation of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

His first book, Stars Beneath Us: Finding God in the Evolving Cosmos, will be released by Fortress Press on February 1, 2016.

Though a Christian, Paul has a deep affection for Buddhism and has twice served on the faculty of the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative in Dharamshala, India. In an earlier life he spent three fun-filled summers in Greenbelt, Md. as a Faculty Fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Paul contributes to Religion Dispatches and blogs at the Huffington Post and at psnt.net. He lives in Decatur with his wife Elizabeth and their three children.

Day1 Weekly Programs by The Rev. Dr. Paul Wallace

View All Day1 Weekly Programs...

Paul Wallace: When God Shows Up

Tuesday November 01, 2016
The Rev. Dr. Paul Wallace describes Job on the ash heap having lost everything, crying out for justice, for God to make all things right, for God to please explain how and why this happened. But mostly he cries for God to just show up. Because God hasn’t shown up--yet.

Articles by The Rev. Dr. Paul Wallace

View All Day1 Articles...

Paul Wallace: How to Talk to Creationists

Tuesday April 26, 2016
I received a note from a youth pastor last week. He is fascinated by science but works in a Midwestern church that leans heavily toward Young Earth Creationism. He asked me: 'When you’ve had conversations with staunch creationists, how do you present the science-Christianity relationship in a way that doesn’t immediately turn them off?'

Paul Wallace: Can You Forget How to Believe in God?

Saturday March 05, 2016
Like all other concepts, God-concepts are associated with particular sets of neural pathways in our skulls. Large parts of these concepts and pathways are certainly products of our early experiences and educations and are hardwired as surely as bike-riding knowledge.

Paul Wallace: The Internet is killing religion (and science too)

Thursday January 28, 2016
The Internet is killing religion not because it exposes people to new ideas, and not because it tends to draw out everyone’s inner troll, and not because parts of it are rabbit holes of pornography and hate. It is killing religion in the same way it is killing science.

Paul Wallace: The weight of God: William Lawrence Self in memoriam

Wednesday January 20, 2016
Aside from my father, no man has had a more lasting impact on my spiritual life than Bill Self, who baptized me, who was to me in my youth the very image of God.

Paul Wallace: The Deepest Truth About Love: A Response to Alain de Botton

Friday November 06, 2015
A number of years ago I would have read de Botton's words and watched Jacobs's and Lee's animation and thought they were profound. But the existential turn -- let us find the courage to pretend! -- sounds silly to me today.