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Star Struck is a Finalist
Star Struck has been honored to be one of 6 finalists in the Religion News Association's 2017 Awards for Religion Reporting Excellence. The winner will be announced in the beginning of September. You can check it out at their website:
Overview
We are living in a time of unprecedented astronomical exploration and discovery—but how many of us appreciate or even notice our Creator's mind-boggling display of cosmic handiwork? In Star Struck, award-winning professor, author, and astronomy “rock star” David Bradstreet will help you experience new ways to enjoy and praise God’s power and eternal nature.
Available for Ordering now!
Release date: September 6, 2016 for $19.99 USD
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About the Book
About the Book
The heavens are beckoning us, telling us that this wonderful, mind-boggling cosmic display is indeed the work of the creator. And now, using rovers and satellites, we're venturing further out into the vastness of space than ever before.
In Star Struck, Christian astronomer David Bradstreet and writer Steve Rabey take readers on a guided tour of the biggest story ever, offering both intriguing science lessons and powerful spiritual insights:
- As we discover more about cosmos, we understand more about the character of our Creator;
- The more we see the vastness and complexity of the universe, the more we experience awe, wonder, praise, gratitude and humility;
- Hundreds of Christian astronomers blaze the way into deep exploration of the universe today, discovering and proving God’s work in the heavens.
Combining a respect and admiration for mainstream astronomy with a zeal for uncovering new details about God’s celestial handiwork at its core, this book about stars, planets, asteroids, nebula, comets, dark matter, and the other fingerprints of God will tell you that all of the worlds around you are God’s and this world is his home for you.
Let's Talk with Mark Elfstrand interview with Dr. David Bradstreet!
The Georgene Rice Show interview with Dr. David Bradstreet! Interview starts at 43:28 and ends at 1:03:56.
Moody Radio Grand Rapids interview by Perry LaHaie with Dr. David Bradstreet!
Listen below as Janet Mefferd interviews Dr. David Bradstreet about Star Struck. The interview with Dr. Bradstreet starts at 25 minutes and 19 seconds.
Interview with Dr. David Bradstreet on Sunday Night Live!
Interview with Dr. David Bradstreet by Stacey Stone on Family Life Radio!
Live from Seattle Interview with Dr. David Bradstreet! The interview starts at 17 minutes and 40 seconds and wraps up at 35 minutes and 45 seconds.
About the Authors
About the Authors
- Above image: By User:Alain r - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5
David H. Bradstreet, Ph.d.
David H. Bradstreet is an award-winning professor, author and astronomy "rock star" who has been teaching students of all ages about the heavens since 1976 at Eastern University, where he serves as Professor and Chair of the Astronomy and Physics Department and Director of the David H. Bradstreet Observatory and Julia Fowler Planetarium.
Dave earned a M.S. and Ph. D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics from the University of Pennsylvania and has worked with NASA, the National Science Foundation and the International Astronomical Union. He co-authored the Binary Maker 3.0 software program that helps astronomical researchers worldwide calculate the characteristics of binary stars. In 2014 the International Astronomical Union named the asteroid 5826 Bradstreet in honor of Dave’s work in binary stars and for his innovative digital planetarium curriculum. Dave has been happily married to his best friend, Colleen, for 40 years.
Steve Rabey
Co-Writer Steve Rabey is an award-winning author of 30+ books and 2,000+ articles for 100+ major media outlets including The New York Times and Christianity Today. His books on faith and culture for ABA and CBA publishers include study Bibles; the bestselling Rachel's Tears about Columbine shooting victim Rachel Scott (350,000+ copies sold) and The Lessons of St. Francis (50,000+ copies sold). Steve's articles have been published by major outlets including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and Religion News Service. He has covered religion for the Colorado Springs Gazette for two decades (church mergers, Billy Graham's legacy, "nones"). Recent stories about Christians and legalized marijuana for OnFaith generated 7,000+ Facebook shares. Steve has an M.A. in church history from Denver Seminary. He has taught at Denver and Fuller seminaries and the U.S. Air Force Academy. He and his author/speaker wife Lois are celebrating 25 years together.
Endorsements
Endorsements
This lively book is not only a "coming of age" biography in astronomy, but a sweeping account where the heavens and Heaven go hand in hand. Astronomer David Bradstreet and writer Steve Rabey describe the emergence of a vast evolving cosmos. Even if you don't completely accept the authors’ theological worldview, you will encounter many intriguing insights that you won’t find expressed so clearly elsewhere.
Owen Gingerich, Ph.D.
Owen Gingerich is professor emeritus of astronomy and of the history of science at Harvard University and a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. An acclaimed researcher and teacher, he has written or edited more than 20 books including God’s Universe and God’s Planet. He has also published over 750 professional articles and reviews. He is a widely recognized authority on both Johannes Kepler and Nicolaus Copernicus. An asteroid of unusual eccentricity has been named Gingerich in his honor.
Too many people see science and faith in conflict. Leading astronomer David Bradstreet explodes that myth in Star Struck, an outstanding, highly readable book that shows how science has enriched his faith, and how Christian faith has enriched science.
David Wilkinson, Ph.D.
David Wilkinson, an astrophysicist, theologian, and former Methodist pastor and chaplain, is Professor and Principal of St. John's College, and a professor in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University, England. He is the author of many papers and books, including Science, Religion, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and God, Time, & Stephen Hawking.
Galaxy Cluster
Star Struck combines an engaging and informed romp through the cosmos with a deep conviction that the heavens declare the glory of God. Bradstreet and Rabey make the case that we live on a privileged planet in a remarkably designed universe. Star Struck will ease the concerns of readers worried that science and religion are in perpetual conflict.
Karl Giberson, Ph.D.
Physicist and Theologian
Scholar-in-Residence in Science & Religion
Stonehill College,
Easton, Massachusetts
Star Struck is an engaging and personal tour of the universe from a respected astronomer who also loves the Bible. At each stop on the tour, you'll hear this master teacher explain the latest scientific discoveries as well as contemplate them from the perspective of his Christian faith. Like many Christians astronomers, Bradstreet is ‘totally out-of-this-world curious to learn all we can about the delightful details of Creation.’ Come along for the ride!
Deborah Haarsma, Ph.D.
Astronomer and President of BioLogo
To borrow from the words of Psalm 19, this book declares the glory of God, and invites us to see in the heavens His handiwork. Bradstreet and Rabey have done something in Star Struck both difficult and beautiful: through a telescopic focus on topics like ‘our Goldilocks planet’, Martians, black holes, the Cosmic Creator, and the ‘God behind the biggest bang’, they invite us to look up and behold the majesty of God. Imagine a mash-up of Stephen Hawking and something like a ‘Gospel according to Astronomy’. This is a great resource for anyone who wants to help young people see that science and faith can share the same space!
Duffy Robbins, Ph.D.
Professor of Youth Ministry
Eastern University,
St. Davids, Pennsylvania
I've been David Bradstreet's pastor for less than a year, but his book Star Struck has opened my eyes to a bigger universe and an even grander God.
J.I. Packer said good theology should always lead to doxology. This book demonstrates that good astronomy and cosmology should also lead to praise of God.
I've always looked forward to the "new earth." This enjoyable book makes me look forward to the "new heavens" more than ever. For this I'm deeply thankful!
Kevin Flannery, D. Min.
Senior Pastor
Church of the Saviour
Wayne, Pennsylvania
Hubble, Barred Galaxy
Star Struck is a primer on current best science on the universe. Our cosmic tour guide is Dr. David H. Bradstreet, a thoughtful scientist, a committed Christian, and an effective professor at a leading Christian university for the past 40 years.
Each short chapter explores one aspect of "the biggest story ever." Readers will grasp the latest scientific data, understand important astronomical and cosmological concepts, and meet many interesting people who have explained our expanding universe, stars, sun, moon and planets, and the "just right" conditions that sustain life on our planet. Difficult scientific concepts are communicated in ways that are understandable.
Of course, I am biased. Bradstreet serves the university I lead. He is Professor and Chair of the Astronomy and Physics Department and Director of the David H. Bradstreet Observatory and Julia Fowler Planetarium at Eastern University near Philadelphia.
Even if he were not at Eastern I would praise the way he addresses some of the most important questions and issues about the origins and characteristics of the universe. Throughout the book, he skillfully demonstrates how a rigorous scientist is also a committed evangelical Christian.
I recommend Star Struck for any Christian who seeks to know more about the universe. In particular, I commend the book for home-schooled students, Christian high school students, and Christian college students seeking to inform their faith through science.
This book is a gift from one member of Christ's church to the other members of Christ's Body. Readers will benefit from Bradstreet's decades of wrestling with the big issues in astronomy, cosmology and theology.
Star Struck illumines our thinking, helps us grasp our Creator's comets, stars and meteors, and shows us how we may better love God, the scientific enterprise, and the detailed wonders of the heavens and Earth that this enterprise reveals.
Robert G. Duffett, Ph.D.
Former President
Eastern University
St. Davids, Pennsylvania
Excerpts
Excerpts
Scroll down for the two prefaces/forwards from Tony Campolo and Edward Guinan or click on the button bellow to read the first 30 pages of the book (including both prefaces/forewords) online.
+ Theological Foreword by Tony Campolo, Ph. D.
In some religious circles there has been a fear of science. That fear is based on the belief that science will lead people away from God and the truths of the Bible. The famous early- twentieth- century debate over the theory of evolution that had William Jennings Bryan, one of America’s foremost political figures, facing off against Clarence Darrow, America’s foremost lawyer, convinced most fundamentalist Christians that there was an inevitable conflict between science and true religion and that sides had to be taken.
This book challenges that assumption as it traces the intellectual development of professional astronomer David Bradstreet. Bradstreet’s lifelong fascination with science, especially astronomy, places him among the many Christians who have studied the heavens, which Scripture tells us “declare the glory of God.” He encourages his students at Eastern University, where he has taught for decades, to consider adopting science as a vocation, assuring them that the more they learn about the cosmos, the more they will sense the greatness of the God they worship.
In the middle of the twentieth century, seminary students were struggling with the assault on evangelical Christianity by Rudolf Bultmann, a German existentialist theologian who argued against the way evangelicals viewed the nature and structure of the universe. He claimed that the commonly accepted beliefs about heaven, hell, and God were all for-mulated against the backdrop of an ancient description of a three- storied universe that was no longer tenable.
Bultmann pointed out that in ancient biblical times, it was generally believed that there was a dome over a flat Earth on which were fixed the stars. Heaven was believed to be above that dome and hell was believed to be below the flat Earth. Angels, given this cosmology, ascended and descended from heaven, which was “up there,” and hell, where God sent those deserving of eternal punishment, was “down there,” under the flat Earth on which humans and other living creatures spent their mortal lives.
Bultmann asserted that modern scientific cosmology, largely derived from Isaac Newton, had dispelled that three- storied concept of the universe and, with its demise, the New Testament theology implicit in it. From Newton came the belief that the universe is an infinite expansion of empty space and there no longer is a “heaven up there” or a “hell down there.” Since Bultmann’s writings in the early years of the twentieth century, however, our understanding of the universe has gone beyond this Bultmannian assertion.
It was my pleasure to introduce David Bradstreet to his coauthor, Steve Rabey. Together they have given us an easy- to- understand overview of the most up- to- date discoveries of modern cosmologists. Along the way, Bradstreet and Rabey help us to recognize that while these new discoveries do not prove the existence of God, they do leave plenty of room for those of us who believe in the biblical message. The authors show us how to understand what contemporary astronomers and cosmologists have to say about how the universe began and what is happening to it now.
Star Struck demonstrates a centuries- old harmony between science and religious faith. In tracing the work of major Christian astronomers— including Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Georges Lemaitre, and NASA scientists and astronauts— Bradstreet and Rabey show how world- changing discoveries don’t threaten what we find in Scripture but rather do much to enhance our sense of wonder and awe about the universe. The authors encourage us to marvel at the awesome work of the creator God, who is ultimately revealed in Jesus Christ.
The time has come to put an end to the supposed war between religious faith and empirical science. This book could do much to bring harmony and peace between them, and it could, in the words of Scripture, go a long way to help those who appreciate science to find “a reason for the faith that lies within us.”
TONY CAMPOLO, PhD, Eastern University
+ Astronomical Foreword by Edward Guinan, Ph. D.
As a professor of astronomy and astrophysics for decades, I never know what my former students will be up to next. In the case David Bradstreet, he's been busy collaborating on a Tour de force journey through the most interesting people and most important discoveries in the development of Astronomy.
Nearly every aspect of astronomy is covered, including the nature of stars, life on Earth, planets (in our solar system and beyond), comets and asteroids, black holes, galaxies, cosmology, dark matter, the Big Bang, and the future of Earth and the universe. The authors also explore the possibility of alien life in the solar system and beyond-- a topic I, too, have studied.
The scope of the book is as broad as the heavens. From the earliest Babylonian and Greek astronomers to today's billion dollar space race, the authors show how men and women of deep faith in God have explored the farthest reaches of our Universe, unraveling some of the its biggest mysteries.
I can imagine some of you saying, "But I've never studied astronomy." No worries. Everything is clearly explained and illustrated. Star Struck isn't a stuffy read. It's a very engaging and well-written book that requires little or no scientific background. You'll be helped along by enticing chapter titles and sub-titles, relevant biblical references, humor, and plentiful pop culture references to sci-fi books, TV shows, and movies. The 100+ photos and illustrations help reveal what words alone can't describe.
Even better, the book takes us along on the personal journey of a contemporary astronomer. Dave was first "star struck" as a child, viewing the myriads of stars and planets during all seasons, scanning the skies from his Massachusetts home through bug-filled summer nights and long, bone-chilling winter evenings in. His fascination with the stars, the Moon and planets propelled him to become a professional astronomer. Today he's a Professor at Eastern University, where he has taught Astronomy and Physics for 40 years. He's published over one hundred scholarly papers and articles and has established a planetarium and astronomical observatory at his school. David is also well-known internationally because of his computer program “Binary Maker” that is used by many astronomers to analyze eclipsing binary star systems.
Like the psalmist David, and like most of us who encounter the majesty of the heavens, Dave was deeply impressed by “awesomeness” and wonder of the starry night sky. As we see in this book, he still retains much of that childlike awe and wonder.
This book was written “in the hopes that you can experience some of the delight and fascination I first knew as a star struck child examining this magnificent universe that God has created.” Mission accomplished! Strap yourself in for a great read.
Edward F. Guinan is a professor in Villanova University's Department of Astrophysics & Planetary Science who has been involved in astronomy research and education programs all over the world. His research interests are binary star systems, pulsating stars, black holes, and the suitability of stars and hosted planets for life. He and his colleagues were first to find evidence of the rings of Neptune nearly a decade before confirmed by Voyager. He has published several hundred papers and uses Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory and Kepler for his research. He received his doctoral degree in astronomy from the University of Pennsylvania.
Articles about Star Struck
Articles about Star Struck
Above Photo: By - Antonio Litterio