A Quick Comment on Comments

Because of the nature of the internet, blog conversations can sometimes be truly exasperating, banal, nasty, or worse. I am thankful that this type of interaction has been almost completely absent from this blog. A big thanks to all my readers, commenters, and guest contributors.

However, it seems to me that I should publish some type of guideline to refer to when a comment is inappropriate. I have now published the The Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution Commenting Guidelines and put this on the blog home page sidebar. This is draft number 1 and is subject to change – particularly if I get a good suggestion from a reader. Your feedback is welcome.

Secondly, a while ago I created a “comments feed” so that I could receive comments on the blog in my RSS reader. I never publicly announced this, but I guess some people found it. And that made me think, hmm, maybe some others would like to receive these comments in an RSS feed as well rather than constantly looking at my site to see if a new comment has arrived. So here is the RSS comment feed (also available on the sidebar under the subscribe heading).

Science and Worship ... and a New Series on Evangelicals, Evolution, and the Church

Last Friday I had the opportunity to attend Jennifer Wiseman’s lecture and presentation “Universe of Wonder, Universe of Mystery” at McMaster University. Wiseman is Chief of the Laboratory for Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center – meaning she get’s to play with the Hubble whenever she wants. (Disclaimer: I believe she describes her job somewhat differently). This was a thoroughly enjoyable experience to not only see how “the incredible tools of modern astronomy are revealing a universe of staggering beauty and baffling mysteries”, but also to hear anecdotes from someone “on the inside” studying this staggering beauty and helping to answer some of these baffling mysteries.

Science should be an Instrument of Worship

Biologos recently published Wiseman’s paper “Science as an Instrument of Worship” which asks the question “Can recent scientific discovery inform and inspire worship and service”? The obvious answer is “of course”; Christians have always been inspired to worship God because of his creation. However, as Wiseman notes, Evangelicalism’s ambivalence toward science has in some sense muted our praise rather than, as advances in science should, enhance it. This is due to a combination of factors, including a) our general ignorance of science (the standard Evangelical is relatively uninformed in this discipline) b) the controversy over science within evangelicalism (many voices are trying to “inform the uninformed” but these voices do not agree on the correct information), and c) the uncertainty of church leaders on how to approach the topic, a timidity to address scientific issues when “there is no clear way to bring closure to the discussion”. On the last, Wiseman notes that:

There is simply no easy theological answer for why genetic codes get fouled up, why the plate tectonics that continually shape our continents also drive earthquakes and destruction, which technologies are ethical, and whether God may sustain and redeem life in other star systems. The fact that the “natural processes” that God has created can sometimes enable and sometimes destroy life is difficult to explain when you are facing someone suffering directly from disease or natural disaster. The idea that human life has only been around for a small fraction of the history of life on earth or an even tinier fraction of the history of the universe is hard to address, given that our Scriptures focus on God’s relationship to humans.

But these uncertainties and difficult questions should not make us timid; God never promised to answer all our questions, only that he is in control and that all things will be right in the end. And the controversy over the “how” of creation (even though to many of us, this “controversy” is manufactured) should not stop us from joining in unison in praise for the Creator. As to the lack of scientific knowledge, and an unhealthy view towards science? Well, many of us are trying to address this.

Dealing with Science in the Church

This unhealthy view of science within the evangelical church is a very personal problem for many evangelical Evolutionary Creationists (ECs). How do we let our Christian family see that creation is even more amazing than they currently imagine? How do we deal with hostility towards certain aspects of creation within the local church? Within our denominations? How can we ensure that science, all of science, is an instrument of worship rather than a distraction from worship, or worse, an instrument of disunity?

Starting next week, a new series called “Evangelicals, Evolution, and the Church” will be published on this blog. The series will include guest contributions from 8 other Evangelicals who have grappled with (and in most cases are still grappling with) some of these questions. But each of these participants will also provide answers to some of these questions, answers that I think will be helpful to other ECs grappling with these questions. These ECs come from a wide variety of denominational backgrounds and include scientists, pastors, church leaders, and ordinary “evangelicals in the pew”. But all of them share a passion for promoting a positive relationship between science and the Christian faith. In the end, we want our church family to appreciate God’s creation for what it is, and not for what we think it should be.

A New Series by Students - and other Announcements

Just a very brief note announcing a new series and some other upcoming posts on this blog.

“Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student Perspective” Series

Starting next weekend, we’ll be starting that long-promised “Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student Perspective” series. In this series five evangelical students will be sharing their personal perspectives on the science-faith dialogue. This is a series by students and for students. So if you know of any students for which this topic is (or should be) of some interest, please feel free to pass the message along. (Of course, this being an open forum, everyone can participate – even those like me whose student career is but a distant memory - yikes, those 20 years went fast!).

Psychological Type and Student Views of the “Origins Debate”

Last fall, Marlowe Embree published a series here called “The Social Psychology of the Origins Debate”. Marlowe is conducting research on how psychological type affects student attitudes to the origins debate. He has volunteered to summarize some of the preliminary results of that research on this blog. Given the timeliness of the topic to the series announced above, I’ve decided to post it either immediately following the series, or possibly in the middle as a sort-of series intermission (I like to keep my options open).

ESE status

I haven’t forgotten about the Evangelical Statement on Evolution (ESE) that we discussed here this summer – although, I must admit it has been buried pretty deep on my mental to-do list the last couple months (that day-job keeps getting in the way!). I did publish the series as an ebook for those who prefer that format, and I have started some offline discussions on how to proceed. Hopefully I’ll have something to report soon.

An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution: The Ebook

I have now published the 5th Ebook titled “An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution: A collection of articles promoting a positive relationship between Evangelical Christianity and evolutionary science” (click the link for free download). This is a collection of 23 of my posts and provides, I believe, a more-or-less cohesive account of my viewpoint as documented on the blog – “more-or-less” since, as astute readers will have noticed, some of my own ideas have evolved over the last couple of years. Note also that I use the adjective “cohesive”, and not “complete”, when describing my viewpoint; I too am still learning and there are several areas of this conversation that puzzle me as well.

Why this Ebook?
By gathering these particular articles together, I’m hoping that this Ebook can be helpful in several ways:

1. As a “conversation starter” for my fellow Evangelical Evolutionary Creationists who wish to discuss their viewpoints with other Evangelicals.

2. As a resource for Evangelicals wondering how they can integrate the findings of modern science with their faith

3. For those convinced that evolution is antithetical to faith, the Ebook will provide details on why I believe this conclusion is completely mistaken. I have two primary audiences in mind:

• Evangelicals struggling with (or considering abandoning) their faith because of the perceived conflict between that faith and the findings of modern science.
• Those considering making a commitment to the Christ, but who mistakenly believe they must ignore well supported scientific evidence to do so.
  

4. As a summary resource for readers who enjoyed the blog, but discovered it well after it was launched, and don’t have the time to wade through all of the old material.

Another Full Circle
As some of you may remember, for several years prior to the launch of my blog, I had been researching and writing an (ever longer) essay on evolution and its implications for my faith. However, the more I researched and wrote, the more I realized I was getting farther away from complete closure; one of those “one question answered, two questions raised” situations. When I discovered the blogosphere in the spring of 2007, I abandoned the essay and launched the blog to 1) provide a forum to share my thoughts and conclusions with other Evangelicals, and 2) to invite comments, criticism, and corrections from, as well as conversation with, other Evangelicals examining the science / faith interface.

Two years later I can say that my own spiritual and intellectual journey was significantly enhanced by the interactions with you my readers - I can’t thank you enough. And viola, to my own surprise, here is the resurrected essay – very, very, very different from the one I abandoned 2 years ago – but of course, that is what resurrections are.

Happy Easter.

Blog E-books: Evangelicals, Evolution,and Academics series now available as PDF

For the record my blogging break is not really over (although I am taking a week off work during the March break). While I haven’t determined if, when, or how I will return to blogging, I have decided to make the best content from this blog available via thematic PDF files that can be shared with others (I have had requests for this in the past). I am not sure if my approach qualifies for the term E-book, but until someone corrects me, that is the term I’ll use. And since the best content on the blog may very well be the articles contributed by various guest posters, these guest contributions will be published first. The first E-book “Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics” is now available as a PDF. This is simply a compilation of the 13 posts in the series of the same name published in the spring of 2008.

The E-book can be copied freely (within the limitations stated on the title page); in fact, I’m hoping that this will happen and that it will be helpful to Evangelicals in academia (or those just entering post-secondary education) who are surprised that the acceptance of biological evolution is even an option given their faith commitment. No, the series won’t provide a lot of the answers to the very difficult faith-science questions. However, it will provide pointers to other material that can provide those answers. And maybe most importantly, it will show that there are many Evangelicals who have reconciled their faith with biological evolution, and that academics can be an exciting, fulfilling, and faith-building enterprise.

An Invitation to Contribute

If you are an Evangelical Christian, and accept the scientific consensus for biological evolution, then you too can contribute a post to this blog. I’m looking for a wide range of contributors, including academics (scientists, theologians, and biblical scholars), church and parachurch leaders (pastors, elders, mission leaders, and youth directors), as well as contributions from “ordinary Evangelicals” in the pew. It doesn’t matter if you describe yourself as an Evolutionary Creationist (EC), a Theistic Evolutionist (TE), or something else; the key point is that you believe your faith in the incarnate and risen Christ is compatible with your acceptance of the scientific evidence for biological evolution.

A) Criteria for Authors
1. You are an Evangelical Christian. The definition provided in my What is an Evangelical post is pretty broad so I think it should include just about everyone within the Evangelical tent. If you have some specific concerns about the definition that might exclude you, but you would also like to participate, please send me an email and we can discuss your concerns.
2. Based on the definitions provided by Allan Harvey (see my What does Evolution Mean post for details) you accept the evidence for evolution, at least definitions E2 (common descent), E3 (evolutionary mechanisms like genetic variation and natural selection) and preferably E4 (the ability for these mechanisms to account physically for common descent).
3. You should be willing to interact with readers via comments for a short period of time following your post (at least several days, preferably a week).
4. You will make a concerted effort to remain irenic in both your post and your comments.

B) Criteria for Posts
1. Posts should be on some aspect of the evolutionary science / Christian faith dialogue.
2. Posts should be a maximum of 1000 words in length. There is no minimum; shorter is often better.

C) Procedure for Posting
Send me an email with the subject “Proposal to post on the Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution Blog”. Your email should be very brief and include the following:

• A short one-paragraph description of yourself including a statement that you meet the “Criteria for Authors” above. (If you have published elsewhere, you may want to point to that as well if it is relevant to the science-faith discussion).
• A short one-paragraph summary of the post you plan to write

I promise to reply to all submissions. (If you haven’t received a reply within a week, something is wrong – maybe it got caught in my spam filter). I cannot promise to publish all submissions.

D) Guest-Post Series
A great way to contribute to this blog is by contributing to one of the Guest-Post Series. In these, a variety of contributors will write about a specific aspect of the evolutionary science / faith dialogue. I have confirmed contributors for two series: The “Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics” series scheduled between mid-May and mid-June 2008, and the “Myths about Evolutionary Creationists” series in August 2008. However, I am currently looking for additional contributors for the following series:

1. Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student’s Perspective: It is often during the student years that the evolution /faith conflict first comes to a head. I’m looking for a wide variety of Evangelical students to recount their experiences and/or provide their perspectives.

2. Evangelicals, Evolution, and the Church: Given the backlash regarding evolution encountered in both local and denominational church structures, it might be very difficult to recruit contributors for this series, particularly those in official leadership positions. I would appreciate if readers could forward this invitation to church leaders who might be able to contribute here.

If you have any additional ideas for series or topics, or how I could make this process work better, please leave a comment on this post where others can see your input. If your comment involves a proposal that includes your own personal involvement (eg. a new series in which you could be one of the contributors), please send that to me in an email.

Significant Milestones and Extending the Dialogue

This past week I celebrated two significant milestones. The first was the 13th birthday of my daughter. This was marked with, among other celebratory events, around a hundred phone calls to our home. (If you have a 13-year old daughter you understand. Trust me). The occasion also made me reflect on my own progress along life’s path. Now that both of our children are into their teens, the illusion that my wife and I are “Young Parents” is rapidly fading. Time is passing and change is happening.

One year of Blogging
This past week was also the 1-year marker for the launch of this blog. As I mentioned in my welcome post last year, I started this blog so that I could share my own thoughts on evolution and its implications for the Christian faith. I also wanted to receive feedback from other Evangelicals on these thoughts in the form of comments, criticisms, and corrections. This, I believed, would make my own spiritual and intellectual journey more satisfying. Well, thanks to many of you, I can say that the last year has been both a gratifying and growing experience. I want to thank all of you that have contributed in the form of comments, emails, and discussions, as well as posts on your own blogs and/or websites.

Evolution of the Dialogue
But now it is time for a change. Briefly, I will be extending the dialogue on my blog. Since a discussion primarily instigated by a single voice can hardly be described as dialogue, I will now be inviting other Evangelicals with similar convictions to post here.
As of today, the subtitle of this blog has changed from “Sharing one Evangelical’s perspective on evolution and its implications for the Christian Faith” to “Sharing an Evangelical perspective on evolution and its implications for the Christian Faith”. Note specifically that it is “An Evangelical perspective”, and not “The Evangelical perspective” or even “Various Evangelical Perspectives”. I am under no illusion that our Evolutionary Creationist (EC) view on origins is even a significant minority perspective within Evangelicalism. But I passionately believe it is a perspective that can legitimately claim the title Evangelical.

Guest-Post Series
One method for extending the dialogue on this blog will be through the introduction of regular guest-post series. I envision two types of series: 1) A number of consecutive posts on a specific topic and 2) An ongoing series of posts on a specific theme which is interwoven between other posts on this blog (eg. Similar to my Polkinghorne Quotes series). Each of these series will feature either: a) a specific guest contributor, or b) a variety of invited contributors. I have a few series in the works (mostly at the idea stage). The first of these series will be in the format of 1.b. It is entitled “Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics” and will feature seven guest contributors. It will start on May 18 and run for approximately four weeks.

Participating in the Evolution of this Blog
In the next few days I will post my thoughts on how I see this dialogue proceeding, and the criteria for posting here. This “Invitation to Post” article will be placed prominently at the top of the right column under the “Welcome” link. I will be defining my own vision on how this blog will evolve, but I will also be looking for input from my readers. Although there is detectable teleology behind this blog's evolution, its future state is not predestined.

Once again, thanks for your support over the last year.

The Incarnation within an Evolutionary Process

The incarnation is an audacious claim. That God would become a man was considered either blasphemous or ludicrous in the 1st century. Not much has changed in that regard although it probably leans more to ludicrous than blasphemous today.

At Christmas time Christians talk a lot about “God coming as a baby” and accepting the vulnerability of an infant. But as Martin Labar points out, Christ did not come as a baby, he came as an embryo. At one point, the Creator of the universe (or the multiverse if it exists) limited himself to a single cell. How can we possibly talk about a single cell even being self-aware let alone omniscient? How does the unlimited author of life limit himself to a single building block of life? Given that Christians still have difficulty articulating this mystery after 2000 years, I’m not even going to make an attempt here.

So if we can accept that God at one point became part of the process of embryo development, one that began with a single cell, why do we have so much difficulty in accepting that God could also become part of the process of evolutionary development, one that traces its ancestry through primates, reptiles, fish, and yes, even single celled organisms. Gordon has a humorous little post that addresses just his point. In Evolution and Incarnation he states:

It should be known, and so it is my duty to tell you, that there are scientists who believe every person alive today can be traced back to a single-celled organism. And that all of us are actually the result of nature acting on this cell over time. And this first cell is believed to have gone through an explosive multi-cellular stage before taking on fish-like characteristics. Some have said that as time passed, the fish-like characteristics gave way to reptile-like characteristics. And after more time had passed, the reptile-like characteristics gave way to mammal-like characteristics. And these same folks also believe that we once had tails, and that we had smaller brains, and that we were naked and lacked the ability to effectively communicate. And to make things worse, this purely naturalistic view of humanity seems to leave no room for God to work wonderful creation miracles, or for Him to personally fashion mankind by His own hands. This so called, “scientific” view - even though science itself can’t fully explain it - simply asserts that we were fashioned by the impersonal laws of nature acting on the biological material of lower species. In short, we are a product of nature.

But Gordon is not referring to evolution; he is referring to the nine-month creation process we all experienced prior to our official birthday. The Psalmist describes this same process from a different perspective:

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

(Psalm 139: 13-16)

Merry Christmas.

End of Year Note:

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all my readers, particularly those that have provided feedback through comments and emails. It has been an enjoyable and stimulating experience, and I appreciate the dialogue.

I will be taking a few weeks break from blogging. A “Subscribe via email” link has been added to the right column on the blog. This will allow you to receive any new posts by email the day they are published. This also means that I can see your email address, (and so does feedburner.com which is now owned by Google) so if this concerns you, don’t subscribe. Personally, I prefer an RSS or newsreader - I now use Google Reader to follow blogs that interest me.

Updated Resources

I have posted a Table of Contents for this blog. This includes links to the most important posts - you can consider it the blog FAQ. Lately I’ve found that I’m often referring readers back to my past posts. (Hopefully you don’t find this too irritating). As a (very) part-time blogger, I just don’t have the time to rearticulate the same argument numerous times. Or maybe I’m just lazy. For new readers, the table of contents is probably the place to start.

My Internet Resources page has also been updated. Notable additions include:

• Allan Harvey’s Science and Nature essays
• The course resources page for a Cal State Fullerton Philosophy course on Evolution and Creation (Hey, its has to be good - they even mention my blog :-) )
• Berkeley’s very good Understanding Evolution site.

Finally, I’ve also updated my Selected Bibliography. This includes a list of resources that I found helpful in coming to my own conclusions on evolution and its implications for an evangelical expression of the Christian faith.

Top Posts

(Last Updated May 14, 2008)

A) The Definitions

1. Evolution: The Meaning of Evolution: A Framework for Christians
2. Evangelical: What is an Evangelical? Am I one? Why do I choose to wear the Label?
3. Dialogue: Not a definition, but the “Why”: Evangelicalism and Evolution: Why the Discussion Matters and the “How”: Dialogue, Debate, Silence, or Confrontation: How should we Approach the Topic of Evolution?

B) Scripture
Evangelicals take a very high view of scripture. The perception that evolution is incompatible with God’s revelation in scripture is at the heart of Evangelicalism’s antagonism towards the scientific theory. Here are four posts that outline why I believe the scientific theory for evolution & a high view of scripture are compatible.

1. Scripture or Science: Do we need to Choose?
2. Literal or Liberal: Our only Choices for Interpreting the Bible?
3. Gen 1-11: Background, Context, and Theology
4. An Incarnational Approach to Scripture

C) Theological and Moral Implications

The perceived implications of biological evolution seem daunting, both for Christian theology and for Christian morality. Although biological evolution does present some new challenges to theology, the extent of these challenges is clearly overblown.

1. Theological Implications of an Evolving Creation: 5 Common Faithstoppers
2. Made in the God's Image or Evolved from Apes?
3. Reconciling the Fall and Evolution
4. Does Evolution Lead to Moral Relativism?
5. Critiquing the claim that Darwinism = Racism

D) Personal Choices and Implications

Given the antagonism towards evolution within the Evangelical community, the personal choices regarding evolution can be difficult and the personal implications significant.

1. Factors Involved in the Shift Towards Evolutionary Creationism: My Story and Yours
2. When Acceptance of Evolution has Personal or Professional Repercussions
3. Would your Church allow you to Publically Support Evolution?
4. Reclaiming and Proclaiming Creation

What to expect from this Blog

The Blog welcome note outlines my objectives for the blog, but I should also provide an explanation on how I expect this conversation to work. First of all I don’t intend to post three times a day like many other blogs. I simply don’t have the time for this and, anyways, the topic is hardly conducive to light banter. For me at least, some of this stuff is really difficult to work through and I need time to formulate these articles. I’ll probably post a longish article once a week or so. In between, I may also provide some quick smaller posts on interesting items I’ve read or links to interesting stories and websites.

Conversation necessarily goes both ways. So I am looking forward to your feedback, either through comments on the site, private emails, or face-to-face conversations. However, many of you, for various reasons, may not wish to actively engage in conversation and would rather simply listen; others may not even wish to go that far. I respect that. For those of you that know me personally, I am not going to force anything. On the topic of Science and Faith, I will not be initiating the conversation beyond what is posted in this blog. Of course, I’m always happy to converse should you initiate a discussion.

For those who do wish to participate, I’m interested to hear your thoughts. What topics would you like to see discussed? What are the most significant questions you have in regards to science and faith? Is the science / faith dialogue a big deal for you personally or something less important? I do have somewhat of a plan for topics that I will cover, but I’m open to suggestions for changing the order or focus.

Some topics that I’m planning to write about include:

• What is an Evangelical anyways? I’m almost embarrassed by the term because of, among other things, the connotations of right-wing politics and anti-intellectualism. I’ll provide an overview of the Evangelical movement (at least from my point of view. Hint: it’s not “just toned down fundamentalism”) and why I think it’s important to retain the name even if it is somewhat tarnished.
• Why I believe the topic of evolution is important for Evangelicals. Why we should neither “just ignore those American Fundies and get on with it”, nor “just ignore science and focus on more important things”.
• What are the various creationist positions?: Confused with all the different types of Creationists? I’ll discuss the spectrum of Christian views on how to reconcile scripture and science. Positions include flat-earth (This belief still exists!), geocentricism, YEC, various OEC theories (day-age, gap theory, progressive creationism), and different flavours of ID and TE.
• False Dichotomies: Continuing on the theme of Wednesday’s post that we don’t need to choose between creation or evolution.
• Why I’m very uncomfortable with the Intelligent Design movement: ID has enjoyed huge support among Evangelicals, and significant coverage in both the Christian and secular media since its inception 15 years ago. How can I possibly not support a movement that is trying to demonstrate the natural world infers an intelligent designer?
• The Scientific Evidence: Some brief overviews of the scientific evidence for an ancient creation, as well as evidence for evolution from the fossils, geographic distribution, and genetics with pointers to links on the web for further reading.
• Challenges to Evolution: An overview of some of the challenges to evolutionary theory. And here I don’t mean the bogus arguments put forward by anti-evolutionary organizations. There are still some very big unanswered questions that most serious evolutionary scientists will readily admit.
• Sin, Death, and Evil: A series of posts on the relationship between sin, death, and evil. Ultimately a discussion on theodicy. Ie. If God is all-powerful, all knowing, and perfectly good, why does evil exist? And “Adam and Eve ate the apple so Tsunami’s happen” just doesn’t cut it. This is actually the biggie for me.

I look forward to your input.

Welcome to the Dialogue

Dialogue rarely describes the relationship between evangelicals and evolutionary science. Perhaps debate, condemnation, or mocking, but rarely dialogue. And the lack of dialogue and propensity to condemn and mock goes both ways. Evangelicals condemn evolutionary science as atheistic; evolutionists mock evangelicals as being little better than medieval religious nutcases. Prominent evangelicals will debate evolution, but as in most debates, there is little real listening. It’s all about scoring points and winning the argument.

So it can be a bewildering experience for thoughtful evangelicals trying to determine the credibility of the theory of evolution. On the one hand, the scientific community, almost unanimously, considers it to be an undeniable fact. The evidence is deemed as compelling as other obvious scientific facts like gravity and heliocentricism. On the other hand, Young Earth Creationist (YEC) organizations (largely Evangelical in outlook) boldly claim that there is absolutely no evidence to support evolution, or that the evidence is either fabricated or grossly misinterpreted. Even more disconcerting is the fact that the shrillest voices on both sides of the debate agree that evolution has huge religious implications. “Evolution is true, and its clear implication is that there is no God”, says one atheistic evolutionist. “The acceptance of evolution means denying the Word of God” counters YEC.

Since the choice is framed as either "Evolution or God", its no wonder that most Evangelicals shy away from talking or thinking about evolution. Theistic Evolutionism (TE) seems more like an oxymoron rather than a legitimate position on origins. This was my own perspective growing up in a conservative Evangelical culture. And although I became less dogmatic about my opposition to evolution as I entered adulthood, it was not something I thought much about. That is, until a few years ago when it became obvious that my 9-year old son was starting to have questions about science and faith, questions I myself had faced when I was younger but was maybe too afraid to discuss, or to investigate too deeply. Thus started a quest to investigate "the truth" of evolution and its implication for my faith. Sometimes courage to face our fears comes not because we are courageous, but because the alternative is deemed even worse.

Now, several years into this quest, one thing is eminently clear: I was immensely naïve to think that I could answer all my questions one way or another regarding the interaction of evolution and the Christian Faith – at least in this lifetime. Indeed, as soon as one question is answered, two more seem to pop out of the woodwork. As well, this type of investigation requires specialization in biology, geology, genetics, biochemistry, paleontology, anthropology, theology, history, history of science, philosophy, philosophy of science, and biblical studies to name but a few of the disciplines. Even brilliant academics with doctorates in 2 or 3 of the disciplines need to “trust the experts” in fields in which they are unfamiliar. I am, at the very best, a rank amateur in only of few of these disciplines; in most I am virtually illiterate. It’s clear that I will never be able to completely close the book on this quest.

However, I have come to some broad conclusions. The first is that biological evolution, including common descent of humans from pre-existing animals, is the framework that best matches current scientific evidence for describing how life developed on earth. Second, and more importantly, I believe that the idea of God creating through evolution is compatible with the Christian faith, an Evangelical expression of this faith, a faith that does not compromise the divine inspiration and authority of the scriptures, and is in fact theologically more satisfying than creation without evolution.

For many Evangelicals these are heady, if not heretical, conclusions. I disagree. Neither do I believe my Evangelical card should be confiscated because of them. (Although frankly, at times, I feel like voluntarily turning it in. That’s a different story). I am certainly not alone. There is a growing chorus of evangelicals who accept the science of evolution, and feel that this in no way compromises their biblical faith, nor is it the first step on the slippery slope to liberalism. Although YEC and Intelligent Design (ID) proponents tend to drown these voices out, it is likely that this discussion will become more prominent in the near future; and more heated. It’s still unclear whether mainstream evangelicalism will ever accept the possibility that TE proponents can even legitimately use the label Evangelical.

And that brings us to the reason for this blog – a dialogue. The current relationship between evolution and evangelicalism can best be characterized as warfare. I believe that ending this warfare will be good for science, and much more importantly, good for the gospel. Our Christian commission is to tell the good news of Christ’s resurrection, his present and coming kingdom, his new creation. The evangel in evangelicalism should remind us of this everyday. And I strongly believe that our misguided war on science in general and evolution in particular is hurting the gospel; it is preventing many from hearing and responding to the good news. And it is causing some who have heard and believed to now doubt whether it is good news at all. Dialogue is the first step towards a ceasefire.

As many of you know, I have been writing an essay on evolution and its implications for my faith. This is now on hold. I believe that this blog is a more appropriate communication vehicle than an essay. There are two reasons for this. 1) Since I am still in mid-journey, a blog allows me to share thoughts, ideas, and conclusions even if those ideas and conclusions are not fully formed. There is also no requirement to connect all the ideas into a coherent story. 2) A blog invites comments, criticism, corrections, and conversation. Not only will this enhance my own understanding, but also it will make the spiritual and intellectual journey much more satisfying.

I welcome you to join the conversation.

PS: Note on comments. You are free to provide comments and/or questions on the posts online (see comments link at bottom of each post), but be aware that right now this is open to the public (ie. anyone can read and comment on any posts). To limit this I think I'd need all readers of the blog to signup for a gmail account - I'd prefer not to do this. However, I realize that some of you may be involved in Christian organizations that would not appreciate one of its leaders or members being involved in this type of discussion. If this is the case, you can email your comments to me privately and I promise to respect your confidentiality. Alternatively, you can post giving only your first name or even a pseudonym.