By Caleb McGever | FāVS News Reporter
SPOKANE, Wash. – Dr. Francis Collins, the longest-serving director of the National Institute of Health, leader of the Human Genome Project and professed Christian, will pay a visit to the Fox Theater on Oct. 2, 2025, at 7 p.m. to talk about his recent book, “Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith and Trust.”
Before speaking to the public, however, he will pay a visit to Whitworth University, a private Christian school in north Spokane with about 2,500 students. There, Whitworth’s president Scott McQuilkin will host a Q & A session between Collins and Whitworth’s students, staff and faculty.
Collins’ visit to Whitworth is significant not only because of his reputation, but also because of how the values he embodies match the values the university hopes to teach, explained Trisha Coder, Whitworth’s associate director of Media Relations.
“He has walked a path marked by intellectual curiosity, humility and a pursuit of truth — qualities we aim to nurture in our students. His leadership reflects many of the same principles we strive to instill: a commitment to integrity, compassion and the thoughtful integration of faith and reason,” Coder said.
The Q & A with students is a part of Whitworth’s Presidential Leadership Forum, which has brought speakers like Liz Cheney, Bryan Stevenson, Admiral James Stavridis and Bob Woodward.
Bridging faith and science
“One of the things that I appreciate about Dr. Collins most is that he does a good job of showing enthusiasm about both faith and science,” said Grant Casady, a Whitworth biology professor.
Collins advocates for combining faith and science rather than putting them in opposition to each other, Casady said.
“And I think that’s a different narrative than we hear from a lot of other other scientists, other theologians and religious thinkers,” he said.
Many of Casady’s students don’t think too much about the ways that learning biology and having faith might integrate, he said. Instead, they might just think about their faith and their class content separately.
However, Casady also teaches students that see the two sides, religion and science, as opposing each other.
The idea that religion and science are opposed to each other tends to stem from the perception that religion is opposed to the way that science works, that “the use of the scientific method for discerning truth as a valid position,” Casady said.
In the opening chapter of his book, Collins addresses how the consequences of religious opposition to science played out during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are in serious trouble when some believe that their faith requires them to distrust science,” Collins wrote.
He writes that religious affiliation was one of the strongest predictors of resisting the COVID-19 vaccine, with white evangelical Christians as the most resistant group.
He lists several reasons that people turned away from the COVID-19 vaccine, including questions about the severity of the virus, the development of the vaccine and questions about side effects.
“People of faith were particularly hard hit with misinformation,” he writes, saying that leaders told people of faith that the vaccination might be the Biblical “mark of the beast” from Revelation 13.
University hopes to inspire dialogue
Casady hopes that at Collins’s talk on Oct. 2, his students get to hear Collins speak about the synergy between faith and science to encourage them to think clearly about God and creation.
Collins’ talk is meant to help Whitworth “lead the way” in guiding the community to “engage in critical and careful thinking, civil discourse and effective action,” Coder said. The university’s hope is that attendees walk away “enriched” by hearing from Collin’s convictions about science, the created world and the God behind the creation.
During his visit to Spokane, Whitworth will also award Collins an honorary doctorate. The honorary award will be the degree of the Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa.
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