Hot Apple Cider

Denyse O'Leary wrote an article called "Faith, Hope and Love: Give them a Chance to Improve Your Health," which appears on page 66 of Hot Apple Cider. This article distills a key message of book, The Spiritual Brain (Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary, Harper One, 2007), that spirituality is good for your physical and mental health.

Denyse says that this fact has received much more attention in science literature recently than it did decades ago, but that fact has not usually been conveyed to the public. In fact, a recent spate of “new atheist” books would have you believe the opposite.

Denyse O’Leary is a columnist, author, and blogger. Her specialty is science and faith, and she covers the intelligent design controversy as a key beat. Her books include Faith@Science: Why Science Needs Faith in the Twentieth Century (J. Gordon Shillingforth), By Design Or By Chance: The Growing Controversy on the Origins of Life in the Universe (Castle Quay Books Canada/Augsburg Fortress), and The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul (with Dr. Mario Beauregard, HarperCollins One.)  

Denyse has been a textbook editor, and she also teaches business skills to writers and editors.

She is also active in a minor way in the “free speech” movement – bloggers and journalists who attempt to address abuses of power by human rights commissions.

Denise lives in Toronto.

Hot Apple Cider came together in a rather unusual way. What made you want to have your work in it?

Many assume that “Christian writing” means sermons, hellfire tracts, and fundraising letters. All these genres are needed in some dosage, but the current stereotype hardly conveys the depth and variety of our culture. One outcome is prejudice against Christians which is sometimes reflected in law and public policy. I hoped Hot Apple Cider might counter that attitude by showing the depth and variety of Canadian Christian writing.

This book is 100% Canadian. Canadian authors, publisher, printer—everything. Is that important to you?

If we don’t give ourselves jobs, who will?

In her foreword for Hot Apple Cider, Janette Oke mentions that writers are often asked, “Why do you write?” How do you respond to that question?

I wanted to be a writer from the age of eight. When my family lived in the Yukon, I used to get books from a book club for children, one a month. I thought – what a great thing it would be to write one of these. I was partial to The Real Book about Pirates, all the more so because a real pirate would freeze to death in the Yukon River. I also loved The Real Book About Gold, but gold was a part of our history and life.

You have a unique story because you actually turned to the world of publishing after your marriage ended. How did you use your writing abilities to support yourself and your daughters?

I took pretty much whatever job was going, and that included managing an office for a small research institute; writing for or editing Christian magazines and newspapers; proofreading, editing, and writing at textbook publishing companies and advertising agencies; indexing books; packaging books; and teaching writing or editing. I ended up as a freelance project manager, but eventually left to write books. I had learned quite a bit about how to put books together by then – remember, that was a lifelong goal for me – so by the time I was 50, I thought I would try my hand at it. It took me 42 years to get there, but …

While you were involved in editing and writing for a mainstream publisher, you had a strong interest in science. How did you get your job as a science columnist for ChristianWeek—a position which lasted ten years, and for which you won several awards.

My science column started with Dolly the sheep (first ewe, then you?). Cloning sheep (1996) and similar issues such as transgenic crops (Frankenfoods, to some), made the editor of ChristianWeek agree that the paper needed a science column. I wrote my column for ten years. Other Canadian Christian venues accepted my articles as well.

Awards? Sure. Here:

Canadian Church Press Award of Merit —  Honourable Mention – for columns in ChristianWeek  (April 1999)

Canadian Christian Writing Awards — First place in third-person category for “Big-Picture Science & Faith Find Common Ground” (Faith Today, June 2000)

Canadian Christian Writing Awards (June 2002) — First place, non-fiction category for Faith@Science (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford, 2001)

The Word Guild Canadian Christian Writing Awards —  First place for “When Medical Studies Suggest Prayer Works” (ChristianWeek column, June 2003)

The Word Guild Canadian Christian Writing Awards —  First place for Faith and Science column in ChristianWeek overall (June 2004)

The Word Guild Canadian Christian Writing Awards —  First place for By Design or by Chance? The Growing Controversy on the Origins of Life in the Universe (June 2005)

The Word Guild Canadian Christian Writing Awards, First Place Tie (Culture category), By Design or by Chance? The Growing Controversy on the Origins of Life in the Universe (June 2005)

The Word Guild Canadian Christian Writing Awards “Can you choose to help? Or are you simply spreading your genes?” for Maranatha News (June 2007)

I've also been shortlisted for many other awards.

Your first book, Faith@Science, came about directly as a result of your column. Can you tell us how that happened?

I sometimes index books for a Winnipeg publisher, J. Gordon Shillingford, who specializes in Canadian history, with a focus on Western Canada. One day some time in 2000, in conversation, he asked me if I ever wrote anything of my own.  I said yes, and offered to send him some of it. I did, and one night a few weeks later he phoned me and said, "Put it all together, I want to publish it as a book." At first I didn’t really credit that. But when the contract and the advance arrived, I realized it was true, and set to work.

What prompted you to write your second book, By Design or By Chance?, and how do you feel about that book?

By 2001, I had noticed a curious fact about the media coverage of the intelligent design controversy. The idea that there is design in nature, as well as law and chance, was proclaimed to be dead every three months, then every two months, then every month, then every week, then every day.

That is an inverted news funnel. If design were really dying as a concept, it would go the opposite way – from every day to every three months, and then to a historical footnote.

Obviously, intelligent design was a developing story. I wrote a booklet for Wycliffe College called “Beyond Creation and Evolution” as a test run, to explain why there is an intelligent design controversy. The test ran, so then I found a book publisher (Augsburg Fortress Canada), and wrote By Design or by Chance? (2004). Lucky for me, the US division picked it up, and it has also been translated into Chinese.

How I feel about it? I feel like a pioneer. Most journalists were, and still are, merely regurgitating the talking points of the anti-design folk, entrenched at tax-funded institutions. Someone must try to explain what is going on, why an undesigned universe is scientifically implausible, in terms most people can understand. 

By the way, no one could ask for a better publisher than Larry Willard, who is now also co-owner of Faith Family Books and Gifts in Toronto.

Your article in Hot Apple Cider was adapted from a section of your third book, The Spiritual Brain, which was co-written by Dr. Mario Beauregard. Can you tell us how this unusual book came about, and your feelings about the book’s place on the Christian bookshelf.

The Quebec section of the science writers’ association was hosting the Fourth World Science Journalists Conference in Montreal, and I was allowed to put up a poster session on By Design or by Chance? (Essentially, one of those three-part presentation boards, common at science fairs.) At the conference, I was approached by another science journalist who wanted to know if I was interested in co-writing a book with a neuroscientist who argued for the reality of the mind. I was, and Harper One bought the rights from both of us for US $100 000.

The Spiritual Brain is not a work of  evangelism. The time is past for that. But let me explain: I am just now leafing through a number of studies claiming that religion is either a means of ensuring that our genes get transmitted or a glitch created by mutant genes. Or whatever. That is all completely ridiculous but increasingly credited and taught as truth at universities and paraded in the popular press. Actually, any notion, however bizarre, is credited – except that God exists, and if so, that He might tell us a bit about Himself through revelation.

Mario and I realized that we must begin much further back, by systematically dismantling the nonsense fronted by atheist materialism – e.g., there is no mind or free will, you are a product of your selfish genes seeking to replicate themselves, there is virtually no difference between humans and apes, altruism is really disguised selfishness, there is a “God” gene …  That stuff is fronted everywhere today, and it does real harm.

In a culture where people really believe it, evangelism becomes irrelevant. Converts may learn to holler and stomp for Jesus on Sunday, but then they go back, during the work week, to see themselves as apes in trousers.

You aren't yourself a scientist. So why did you want to focus on science issues, which must involve months, if not years, of research?

My feeling has always been that Christians need to understand science issues much more than they do. I know, many people are at a loss. They don't feel they understand enough about the issues to make informed decisions. But my feeling is that if we don't make an effort to understand these issues, we are in danger of becoming bad citizens who don't protect the civil liberties many thousands of Canadians have died for. Civil liberties we will squander and not leave to our children and grandchildren.

My goal in writing about science issues for Christians has always been to make science more understandable for the ordinary person who doesn't have a science degree. I want to be constructive. But constructiveness sometimes means confrontation. Perhaps we hope Jesus will come back to save us before disaster strikes? We forget the parables of the stewards. He will ask what we did in the meantime.

Look at Climategate. On the eve of Canada being asked to sign big new climate legislation that may hurt us but do no good, a huge ethical scandal erupted over alleged attempts to fudge the climate findings at a key research facility in East Anglia. I could explain and comment on the ethical issues from a Christian perspective. But how many Canadian Christians know what Climategate is or why it matters to us?

In May, 2009, I attended the Canadian Science Writers’ Association meeting in Sudbury at Science North, and went on a tour of SNOLAB, an advanced physics facility down the Creighton mine. The atheist keynote speaker at the science writers’ conference in Sudbury was openly condescending about the faith in God and said he hoped it would wane. No one but me was concerned about his off-topic slurs. If he had behaved that way toward any other group, I'm sure there would have been indignation… But Christians don’t seem to think it matters! It matters because it comes out in public policy, that’s why it matters.

Later, when I protested politely, the keynoter sneered on the Internet that I should have been at a religious writers’ meeting instead. Yes, exactly. Hollering for Jesus somewhere far away. Not observing and reporting science news or the way hostility is fomented against Christians.

I believe that science issues have never been more critical. But I am really concerned that not enough Canadian Christians are interested in these issues.

Editor's Note: Ironically, in May 2009, while Denyse was attending the Canadian Science Writers’ Association meeting in Sudbury at Science North, and going on the tour of SNOLAB, an advanced physics facility down the Creighton, her science column was discontinued after 10 years. At this time, her column examining science issues as they relate to faith is no longer available in Canada. She now writes for American and Australian Christian publications, but not by choice.

Anyone, however, can read her blogs. (see below)

I know you get feedback from a lot of people because of the nature of your books, and usually feedback is great for the author—you know someone is actually reading your words! But you’ve also faced a lot of opposition from people who oppose the idea that God is involved in creation. Have you learned anything from your experiences that you could share with us?

Pray. Listen. Read. Think. Once, earlier this year, twenty thousand atheists came to one of my blogs. At first, I thought the site meter had gone on the fritz. But so many people left snarky or abusive e-mails in my personal mailbox that I realized that the meter was recording accurate figures.

That sort of thing takes a toll. I took a long walk and decided, if they care so much, I must be making a difference. I better keep at it.

I disabled the Comments boxes at my three blogs, in part because I just could not wake up in the morning to hostile mail. Deleting spam is enough trouble for me, as for most people.

Aside from your own piece, is there a particular piece or thought in Hot Apple Cider that stood out for you?

Ottawa journalist Deborah Gyapong’s account of how she found God in a drug dealer’s apartment. Outstanding.

A lot of people want to have writing abilities but don’t know where to begin. What advice do you have for someone who wants to write?

Sit down.  No, seriously, most people who have the ability to communicate can find a niche as a writer somewhere. But many never do, because they are working all day, then running out to volunteer work or social activities five nights a week, and running the charity bazaar on Saturday. All worthy activities, but fatal to a writing career.  Writing is a hard and lonely life, fraught with disappointments as well as rewards, but mainly you just have to keep at it.  

You do a lot of blogging these days. Can you tell us a little about your decision to become a serious blogger?

I think blogs are the new magazines. Old media are losing market share to blogs because they can get news out faster. Also, they are free or cheap and easy to learn to manage – apart from the problems described above.
Also, blogs are a great support for a book, because one can update a non-fiction book on the blog. I would think a fiction writer can use a blog to communicate with fans. Either use is a good marketing tool.

Denyse's blogs: Colliding Universes, The Mindful Hack, The Post-Darwinist
 

Are you also working on another book?

Always.

What is your prayer for the readers of Hot Apple Cider?

May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Hebrews 13:20-21 (New International Version)

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