In this <a href="https://biologos.org/podcast/language-of-god">Language of God podcast</a> mini series — Uniquely Unique — host Jim Stump is joined by our producer Colin Hoogerwerf to come to a better understanding of what it means to be human—to bear the image of God. Along the way, you’ll hear from a variety of experts from a wide range of disciplines, drawing on biology, history, anthropology, philosophy, theology and more to try to make sense of our human identity.

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Uniquely unique featured

intro

podcast episodes

jim-stump

Jim Stump is Vice President of Programs at BioLogos. He oversees the editorial team, participates in strategic planning, and hosts the podcast, <a href="https://biologos.org/podcast/language-of-god">Language of God</a>. Jim also writes and speaks on behalf of BioLogos. He has a PhD in philosophy and was formerly a professor and academic administrator. His books include, Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design; Science and Christianity: An Introduction to the Issues; How I Changed My Mind about Evolution; and The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity.

You can email Jim Stump at <a href="mailto:james.stump@biologos.org">james.stump@biologos.org</a> or follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/jimstump_">Twitter</a>.

Jim Stump

colin-hoogerwerf

Colin’s curiosity and awe for the natural world from an early age spurred his interest in the intersection of faith and science. Through his studies of ecology and environmental management, and later in his work promoting conservation as the Communications Director for the Land Conservancy of West Michigan, he continued to seek a theological understanding of God’s world and creation. As the Podcast Producer at BioLogos, he enjoys the opportunity to put his creative mind to work advancing the thoughtful message of harmony between faith and science through new audio and video projects.

Colin studied creative writing and environmental studies at Hope College and went on to receive his Masters of Environmental Management from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University concentrating in communications. He continues to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation with his wife and son while camping, sailing, hiking and exploring the wild places of this world.

Colin Hoogerwerf

Part One in a six-part mini-series exploring what it means to be human. 

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A podcast that shows the harmony between Christian faith and current scientific discoveries by sharing the stories of interesting people who have found a better way of understanding science and Christian faith.

Language of God

Uniquely Unique | What Does It Mean To Be Human?

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biology featured

Part Two in the Uniquely unique mini-series. When we look for what makes humans unique on this planet, looking at our biology is an obvious first step.

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Uniquely Unique | Biology

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Culture featured

Part Three in the Uniquely unique mini-series. We look to morality, language, and culture, and start to see that our species is quite an outlier.

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Uniquely Unique | Morality, Language, Culture

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Technology featured

Part Four in the Uniquely unique mini-series. We explore our use of technology starting with the simplest tools up to the recent advances in artificial intelligence to see what role it has had in our human identity

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Uniquely Unique | Technology

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sad history featured

Part Five in the Uniquely unique mini-series. In the long history of searching for what makes humans special we have repeatedly caused great harm to our neighbors, both human and non-human.

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Uniquely Unique | Our Sad History

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Image of God featured

Part Six in the Uniquely Unique mini-series. We take stock of one more distinguishing feature of humans—the image of God. 

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Uniquely Unique | Image of God

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Ryan Bebej

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HEADING

jim-stump-2

Vice President of Programs

Author

BioLogos Voices

Staff

Philosophy

History &amp; Philosophy

colin-hoogerwerf-2

Podcast Producer

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Ryan Bebej is a professor in the Department of Biology at Calvin University, where he was selected as professor of the year in 2017. He earned his Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology with a focus in paleontology from the University of Michigan. His research focuses on the evolution of aquatic mammals from terrestrial ancestors, including cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) and pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses). He is especially interested in the earliest stages of these large-scale evolutionary transitions and the anatomical modifications that facilitate changes in swimming mode. He has excavated skeletons of fossil whales at Wadi Al-Hitan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Egypt’s western desert, and he routinely spends time working in collections at world-renowned museums. Ryan is also deeply interested in the relationship between science and Christian faith. In addition to being a member of BioLogos Voices since 2016, he has been a Scholarship and Christianity in Oxford (SCIO) visiting scholar in science and religion and a participant in SCIO's Bridging the Two Cultures of Science and the Humanities II program. When he isn’t working, he loves spending time with his wife and two sons, playing German tabletop games, and rooting for the Michigan Wolverines and St. Louis Cardinals.

Life Sciences

rosalind-picard

Rosalind Picard is founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the MIT Media Lab and founding faculty chair of MIT's Mind+Hand+Heart Initiative. She has co-founded Affectiva, Inc. providing emotion AI technology, and Empatica, Inc. creating sensors and analytics to improve health.

Rosalind Picard

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Praveen Sethupathy

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Praveen is a Professor of Biomedical Sciences and Director of the Center for Vertebrate Genomics at Cornell University, where he directs a research lab focused on genome-scale and molecular approaches to understand human health and disease. He received his BA degree from Cornell University and his PhD in Genomics from the University of Pennsylvania. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Human Genome Research Institute under the mentorship of Dr. Francis Collins, he moved in 2011 to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics. The same year he was selected by Genome Technology as one of the nation’s top 25 rising young investigators in genomics. In 2017, he returned to Cornell University as an Associate Professor and was promoted to Full Professor in 2022. Praveen has authored over 125 peer-reviewed publications and has served as a reviewer for 50 different scientific journals. Recent honors include the prestigious American Diabetes Association Pathway To Stop Diabetes Research Accelerator and the Boehringer Ingelheim Research Mentor Award. Praveen has been an invited speaker for the Veritas Forum, has served on the advisory board for the AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion, and serves on the Board of Directors for BioLogos. He lives in Brooktondale, NY with his wife and three children.

Board of Directors

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Dr Joseph L Graves

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Dr. Joseph L. Graves Jr. is a professor of biological sciences at the Department of Nanoengineering, which is part of the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering at North Carolina A&amp;T State University and University of North Carolina Greensboro. He received his B.A. in Biology from Oberlin College and his PhD from Wayne State University. His research includes the evolutionary theory of aging and the biological concepts of race. He has published two books, The Emperor’s New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium and The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race Exists in America and has appeared on several documentaries including the PBS documentary Decoding Watson and the Ken Burns documentary The Gene. Graves is a confirmed Episcopalian and has spent time on the Racial Justice and Reconciliation Commission of the Diocese of North Carolina.

Biology

Joseph L. Graves

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Jeff Schloss

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As Senior Scholar of BioLogos, Dr. Jeff Schloss provides writing, speaking, and scholarly research on topics that are central to the values and mission of BioLogos and represent BioLogos in dialogues with other Christian organizations. He holds a joint appointment at BioLogos and at Westmont College.

Schloss holds the T. B. Walker Chair of Natural and Behavioral Sciences at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and directs Westmont’s Center for Faith, Ethics, and the Life Sciences. Schloss, whose Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology is from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, often speaks to public, church-related, and secular academic audiences on the intersection of evolutionary science and theology. Among his many academic publications are <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199597081/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0199597081&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=thebiofou06-20">The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion</a> (Oxford University Press), which he edited with philosopher Michael Murray.

Schloss has also participated in a number of invitational collaborations on topics in evolutionary biology, emphasizing various aspects of what it means to be human, hosted by several universities, including Cambridge, Edinburgh, Emory, Harvard, Heidelberg, Oxford, and Stanford. He has held fellowships at Notre Dame’s Center for Philosophy of Religion, St. Anne’s College Oxford, and Princeton’s Center for Theological Inquiry, and serves on the editorial boards of several journals, including Religion, Brain, and Behavior; Science &amp; Christian Belief; and Theology and Science.

Senior Scholar

Jeffrey Schloss

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Cara Wall-Scheffler is Professor and Co-Chair of Biology at Seattle Pacific. Her research focuses on the evolution of human sexual dimorphism, particularly in the context of balancing the pressures of thermoregulation and long-distance locomotion. Her work shows very clearly that different selection pressures have acted on men and women, and that women in particular have a rare (among mammals) ability to work both efficiently and economically when carrying loads.

Cara Wall-Scheffler

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Georgia-Dunston

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Georgia M. Dunston, PhD, is Professor Emerita and former chair of the Department of Microbiology, Howard University College of Medicine; founding director of the National Human Genome Center (NHGC) at Howard University (HU), and former Director of Molecular Genetics in the NHGC. She was founder and director of the Human Immunogenetics Laboratory at HU and has published extensively on genetic variation in human major histocompatibility complex antigen system and other common markers of disease susceptibility in African Americans. She served on the National Advisory Council for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; the Genetic Basis of Disease Review Committee for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences Review Committee on Human Genome Diversity Project. Her research on human genome variation in disease susceptibility and health disparities has been the vanguard of efforts at Howard University to build national and international research collaborations focusing on the genetics of diseases common in African Americans and other African Diaspora populations.

Georgia M. Dunston

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David Lahti

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David C. Lahti is an Associate Professor of Biology at Queens College, City University of New York, where he runs a Behavior &amp; Evolution laboratory focusing mainly on learned behavior in birds and humans. Prof. Lahti received a BS in biology and history from Gordon College. He received a PhD in moral philosophy and the philosophy of biology at the Whitefield Institute, Oxford, for a study of the contributions science can and cannot make to an understanding of the foundations of morality. He then received a PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan for a study of rapid evolution in an introduced bird. He has been a Darwin Fellow at the University of Massachusetts and a Kirschstein NRSA Research Fellow with the National Institutes of Health, where he studied the development and evolution of bird song. His current research projects include rapid trait evolution following species introduction, cultural evolution in humans and animals, and the evolution of our capacity for morality and religion.

BioLogos Advisory Council

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Alister E. McGrath is Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. In addition to his work at Oxford, McGrath is Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, President of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, and serves as associate priest in a group of Church of England village parishes in the Cotswolds. His personal website can be accessed <a href="http://alistermcgrath.weebly.com/">here</a>.

Alister McGrath

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helen dec ruz

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Helen De Cruz holds the Danforth Chair in the Humanities at Saint Louis University. She has a PhD in philosophy from University of Groningen and a PhD in archeology and art studies from the Free University Brussels. Her work is concerned with the question why and how humans form beliefs in domains that are quite remote from everyday life, such as in mathematics, theology and science. She is also a player of the Renaissance lute

Archaeology

Helen De Cruz

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Torrance

andrew-torrance

Andrew Torrance is Senior Lecturer in Theology at the University of St. Andrews and co-founder of the Logos Institute for Analytic and Exegetical Theology. He has published numerous essays on the relationship of theology to the sciences and, among his four books, he is co-editor (with Thomas McCall) of Knowing Creation: Perspectives from Theology, Philosophy, and Science and Christ and the Created Order: Perspectives from Theology, Philosophy, and Science.  He is currently a member of an interdisciplinary team of scholars, funded by the Templeton Religion Trust, for which he is writing a book on Accountability to God. Together with Eric Priest and Judith Wolfe, he also runs the prestigious James Gregory Lectures on Science, Religion, and Human Flourishing.

Theology

Andrew Torrance

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Rachel Branco

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Rachel Branco is an Assistant Teaching Professor at University of Notre Dame in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. She studied synaptic mechanisms of addiction during a Fulbright Scholarship in the Netherlands, then went on to earn a PhD in Neuroscience from Emory University, where she studied how presynaptic monoamine signaling influences risk of psychiatric disease. Now, she is an advisor and instructor for the Neuroscience and Behavior program at Notre Dame, where she teaches courses on the biochemistry of the nervous system. Rachel is a passionate educator who believes that an understanding of neuroscience helps teach empathy, understanding, and hope.

Biochemistry

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amy crouch

Amy Crouch is a student at Cornell University studying linguistics, English, and anything else she can fit into her schedule.

Amy Crouch

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Steven-Bouma-Prediger

steven-bouma-prediger

Steven Bouma-Prediger (PhD, University of Chicago) is Leonard and Marjorie Maas Professor of Reformed Theology at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He also oversees the Environmental Studies minor and chairs the Campus Sustainability Advisory Committee. In addition, Bouma-Prediger is adjunct professor of theology and ethics at Western Theological Seminary. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books, including For the Beauty of the Earth, is a former board member of the Au Sable Institute, and regularly writes and speaks on environmental issues.

Steven Bouma-Prediger

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Luke Bretherton

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Luke Bretherton is Robert E. Cushman Distinguished Professor of Moral and Political Theology and senior fellow of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. Before joining the Duke faculty in 2012, he was reader in Theology &amp; Politics and convener of the Faith &amp; Public Policy Forum at King’s College London. His latest book is Christ and the Common Life: Political Theology and the Case for Democracy (Eerdmans, 2019).

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Sarah Brosnan

sarah-brosnan

Dr. Sarah Brosnan is a Distinguished University Professor in the departments of psychology and philosophy and the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State University, Co-Director of the Language Research Center, and Director of the 2CI in Primate Social Cognition, Evolution and Behavior Fellows program. She directs the Comparative Economics and Behavioral Sciences Laboratory (CEBUS Lab) and conducts behavioral and cognitive research with nonhuman primates at both the Language Research Center of Georgia State University and the Michale E. Keeling Center for Comparative Medicine and Research of the UT/MD Anderson Cancer Center. She also collaborates with colleagues at Zoo Atlanta, The Wolf Science Center in Ernstbrunn, Austria, the Economic Science Institute, <a href="https://www.fit.edu/faculty-profiles/3/darby-proctor/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Florida Tech</a>, and numerous other universities around the world.

Psychology

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mike-mchargue

Mike McHargue is a science expert and film &amp; TV consultant for clients including Marvel Studios. His recent notable projects include WandaVision, Loki, and Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. He is also a best-selling author and podcaster loved by millions and a co-founder of Quantum Spin Studios.

Mike McHargue

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Kantzer-Komline-Han-Luen

han-luen-kantzer-komline

Han-luen Kantzer Komline is the Associate Professor of Church History and Theology at Western Theological Seminary. Her research focuses on early Christian theology, especially the thought of Augustine. Her first book is Augustine on the Will: A Theological Account. Dr. Kantzer Komline serves on the steering committee of the Development of Early Christian Theology section of the Society for Biblical Literature, on the board of the Foundation for Theological Education in Southeast Asia, and as an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Reformed Church in America.

Han-Luen Kantzer Komline

HOSTS AND FEATURED GUESTS

<h1>Uniquely Unique: A Language of God Podcast Series</h1>
<h4>A six-part mini series exploring what it means to be human</h4>

The quest of this Language of God podcast miniseries? To try to come to a better understanding of what it means to be human, to bear the image of God.

Uniquely Unique: A Language of God Podcast Series

A six-part mini series exploring what it means to be human

UNIQUELY UNIQUE: EPISODES

Uniquely Unique | What Does It Mean To Be Human?

Uniquely Unique | Biology

Uniquely Unique | Morality, Language, Culture

Uniquely Unique | Technology

Uniquely Unique | Our Sad History

Uniquely Unique | Image of God

HOSTS & FEATURED GUESTS

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