Constance K. Walker

My life has several major threads which weave together in ways I would never have anticipated, and all play a role in the books I have published. My Christian faith is the central core of my life, influencing everything I do; science has been my professional vocation for half a century; and the French language has often been a useful help with the other two. These threads entered my life in reverse order to their relative importance.

I remember studying French in high school in New York City and wondering when I would ever use it. Hah! Fast forward ten or twelve years, and I was doing physics research at a laboratory of the French Atomic Energy Commission in the Paris suburbs. That is where I gained a working knowledge of the language through watching French television, reading French newspapers, and using French in everyday interactions.

It was also in high school that I developed an interest in science, especially chemistry and physics. I liked the definiteness of science, and I was fascinated by the way we could often explain things from ordinary life by what was going on at the molecular or atomic level. I majored in chemistry at The University of Rochester and went on to earn a PhD in nuclear chemistry there.

Christianity – or rather Christ – entered my life after I returned to the United States from France to teach at the University of Tennessee and do consulting work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I had been raised as a humanist and thought it was amusing that I should be living in the “Bible Belt.” Hah, again! Less than a year later at a physics conference, I met William D. Walker, who was both a highly respected scientist and a committed Christian. That combination and the witness of Bill’s life got me to start reading the Bible with an open mind. A few days later, as I was reading John’s Gospel, I became aware of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. I felt his unconditional love for me and his forgiveness for all the wrong things I had done. I returned his love and committed my life to him. That was in 1975, and I have never looked back. A short while later, Bill and I were married, and I joined him in North Carolina.

These three threads appear in two different kinds of books I have published.

Faith and Science: As scientists and Christians working at Duke University and actively involved in an evangelical church, Bill and I were often asked by student or church groups to explain how we relate these two crucial pieces of our lives. For us there is a beautiful harmony between the revealed truths of the Bible and the discovered truths of science. Eventually we saw the need for a short, general booklet to help students and others who were trying to resolve apparent conflicts between the two; something inexpensive that pastors or campus ministers or others could keep on hand to give away when needed. In 2004, we wrote the first edition of “The Heart and Hand of God.” The third edition is now available on Amazon… along with a French edition, “Le Cœur et la Main de Dieu.”

Faith and French: The other books listed here relate to Adolphe Monod (1802–1856), arguably the best known and best loved evangelical preacher of his era in France and perhaps all of Europe. Many years ago, friends gave us a booklet in English attributed to Adolphe Monod, and I tried to locate the original version in French. When that failed, I looked for others of his works and found a series of short meditations given to friends and family as he was dying of cancer. The depth and beauty of the meditations were captivating, and with no English translation then in print, I decided to translate and edit the work myself. Only later did I learn that it is a classic work among French evangelicals. The resulting translation, “Living in the Hope of Glory,” was first published in 2002 and republished in 2020. In the interim, I have also translated and edited a number of volumes of Monod’s sermons and have written a short biography of him. The goal in all of my translations has been to preserve Monod’s gracious romantic style while making the text flow naturally to a modern reader.

What’s next? I really don’t know. In 2010 the Lord took Bill home, and in 2017 I moved from North Carolina to South Florida to help some friends, former long-term missionaries in Mexico, start a new evangelical church. It has been a delightful adventure. For now that is a major focus of my life, but there may be other Monod works to come.