From DNA to Dean

n this fascinating book Arthur Peacocke shares with his readers a short autobiographical portrait of his life and his reflections on Christian faith and practice, based on addresses he has given. In a final section, he explores the implications for Christian belief of the scientific world view. He embraces the paradox of the Christian tradition as a simultaneous respect for what has been handed on to us and a critical revising, enriching and amplifying of it in the light of science under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Reverend Canon Arthur Peacocke, MBE, DD, DSC, sosc, for twenty-five years, pursued an academic scientific career in the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford in the field of physical biochemistry (especially concerned with DNA). After ordination in 1971 as a priest-scientist while a Fellow of St Peter's College, Oxford, he subsequently became Dean of Clare College, Cambridge, during which time he gave the Bampton Lectures in Oxford (published in 1979 as Creation and the World of Science).
He returned to Oxford in 1984 as Director of the Ian Ramsey Centre, Oxford, until 1988, (a post he resumed in 1995), and gave the Gifford Lectures at St Andrews in 1993, which are included in his Theology for a Scientific Age (2nd enlarged edition, for which he received an international Templeton prize). He started the Science and Religion Forum in 1972 and was the first Warden of the Society of Ordained Scientists from 1987 to 1992. He is an Honorary Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. Dr Peacocke is the author of, and a contributor to, many books and papers on theology and science.