Clergy and scientists join forces to protect the world’s oceans.

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"Fans of Jesus and Darwin have been glaring at each other from across a wide chasm, and yet, they tested the waters, found it shallow enough to wade through, and are now building a bridge.”

Carl Safina, president of the environmental group Blue Ocean Institute, delivered this hopeful message during his keynote address to a conference at the Monterey Bay Aquarium this week. The gathering marked the launch of a new program called the Living Ocean Initiative, which was touted as a breakthrough event—the first-ever coming-together of religious leaders and environmental scientists to focus on the dangers confronting the world’s oceans.

The event was built around the idea that the critical plight of the oceans—the decimated fisheries, the vast dead zones—presents a challenge to anyone concerned with the well-being of humanity. Never before, participants were told, have men and women of science and members of the clergy put aside their differences to focus on this issue.

The conference was in fact a rare occasion—scientists and religious thinkers do not generally confer about any subject whatsoever. We live in a time when science and religion are two nations at war. Consequently, environmentalists and believers rarely talk about the passions that drive them, much less work together. The Living Ocean Initiative conference was unique simply for bringing leaders from these two warring camps into conversation with each other.

It would seem like a natural alliance. Committed scientists and religious clergy have some important things in common—while many of us are satisfied to fill our lives with work, friends and family, these people find time to concern themselves with the big issues. While they might disagree about the ultimate nature of the world, they care about that question more than most of us do. And they generally also care about making the world a better place.

But the whole world has come between science and religion. Political fights—about evolution, abortion, stem-cell research, global warming, etc.—have driven many scientists and clergy into opposing camps. The meeting at the Aquarium this week marked an effort to find common ground around an issue both might agree on—the protection of something both cherish.