This is a guest post by Philip Wala and is the seventh installment in the series "Evangelicals, Evolution, and the Church". Phil attended Assemblies of God churches for nearly 54 years, serving as elder, deacon, and Sunday School teacher for teens and adults. He earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering as a National Science Foundation Fellow at Stanford University, holds 17 U.S. patents, and presently works as a research engineer for ADC Telecommunications. He and his wife (a licensed Christian therapist, and former Assemblies of God licensed minister) recently moved to the suburban Minneapolis area, where they now attend a “Spirit-filled” Lutheran church. He is the author of the blog Faith for Thinkers.
The Danger of Unchallenged BeliefsAs a third-generation evangelical, I treasure the faith heritage passed on to me, and the profound influence many wonderful pastors, teachers, and fellow believers have had on my spiritual growth. I am also intimately aware of the frustration of being a scientist in a subculture that treats serious scientific inquiry with suspicion.
This suspicion of science is only one aspect of an evangelical mindset that seems threatened by divergent opinion and comforted by conformity. There is a supposedly “evangelical Christian position” on political affiliation, gun control, taxes, global warming and, of course, evolution. And many evangelicals are incredulous that any sincere believer would ever think, act, or vote any other way.
Pressure to conform can be especially strong for evangelicals that recognize the Holy Spirit as an ever-present guide and illuminator of truth. After all, if everyone can hear from God, disagreement must imply that somebody isn’t listening properly. Those with strong opinions will naturally assume the other party is mistaken, and seek confirmation of their already arrived-upon conclusions by saturating themselves with like-minded teaching. And for those whose personal convictions aren’t as strong, an assumption that everyone else must have heard from God relieves them of the responsibility to independently think through these issues on their own.
The danger in this mindset is the ease with which a debatable opinion or interpretation of scripture can be elevated to the status of unquestioned doctrine, an error Jesus warned against (
Matt 15:9). To avoid this trap, the evangelical church needs to foster an atmosphere of dialogue in which new information is welcomed, questions are allowed, and critical thinking is embraced. Such an atmosphere allows the opportunity for believers to continually subject their own beliefs to reexamination and challenge, so that legitimate doctrines can be strengthened, ambiguous ones debated, and erroneous ones corrected.
Teaching Evangelicals to Think CriticallyThe techniques of acquiring new information, testing hypotheses, challenging the results, and subjecting conclusions to peer review, are used by scientists to correct and advance our knowledge of the physical world. Similar techniques can be used to foster spiritual growth in the local church.
As a scientist who has had frequent opportunities to teach in a church setting, I enjoy finding opportunities to challenge my students to rethink positions they assumed were unquestionable. Of course, this teaching style must be approached with an abundance of patience and wisdom, especially when the subject is the science and theology of creation. Challenging dearly held beliefs must take place in measured steps, in keeping with the level of established trust.
Step 1: InformFor those unaccustomed to hearing divergent viewpoints discussed in church, the first step is to simply provide objective information about those viewpoints. On the topic of origins, I find it helpful to use a
two-dimensional model of creation viewpoints that decouples the assumed link between faith and young-earth creationism, and identifies respected evangelicals who hold widely divergent opinions on science. By presenting such information in a non-confrontational manner, the student is given permission to admit the potential ambiguity of issues they previously assumed were unquestionable.
It is also beneficial to bring up examples of recent scientific discoveries that they usually would not hear discussed in church. Many evangelicals blindly base their opposition to evolution on arguments from the 1960s that are no longer valid. By openly discussing recent observations of the Hubble telescope, or the sequencing of the human genome, the scientist/bible teacher can demonstrate that subjecting ones beliefs to the light of new information doesn’t have to be threatening, but can, in fact, be a very Godly pursuit.
Step 2: ChallengeThe next step in the process involves a more direct challenge: leading students into states of “cognitive dissonance”, in which they are forced to deal with logical inconsistencies in their belief system. Comparing the cooperative lifestyle of the early church (Acts 4:32-35) to communism, or asking if God’s gift to humanity of free will makes him “pro-choice”, always leads to double-takes and dropped jaws. The goal here is not to change beliefs, but to help people realize that there may be subtle ambiguities in positions they assumed were black and white.
When the subject is faith and science, an appeal to historical precedent can be used to great advantage. Without any direct reference to the issue at hand, but using many of the common arguments used in the creation/evolution debate, I lay out my case, appealing to the inerrancy of scripture, the teachings of the church, and the scientific theories (that are, after all, just theories) that clearly contradict scripture. As expected, most evangelicals take a resolute stand on the side of the church. I then calmly add something I had “forgotten” to mention: that the year is 1615, and they have all just taken a stand against the heliocentric theories of Copernicus and Galileo.
Step 3: ConfrontThe third step, direct confrontation, must be handled with utmost sensitivity, and generally in a one-on-one setting with someone with whom you have developed a relationship of mutual trust. I was fortunate to have such a relationship with my pastor, so that when the church decided (in spite of my strong objections) to use the “Truth Project” videos, we were able to discuss my areas of disagreement in an atmosphere of respectful and mutually beneficial dialogue.
Once again, the motive of confrontation should not be to prove who is right. I have resorted to confrontation primarily to address specific behavior, statements, or teachings that, in my estimation, push away, or shut down healthy dialogue with, people holding diverse opinions on debatable issues. Because of their potentially wide distribution, it is especially important to confront politically biased or scientifically inaccurate comments in church sponsored newsletters or e-mails. Online blogs are another venue in which the scientist/bible teacher can offer respectful comments to help steer the conversation from pontification to dialogue (see
this link for an example).
ConclusionAfter 27 years in the same congregation, my wife and I recently moved to a new community where we have found a wonderfully dynamic “Spirit-filled” Lutheran church that is true to the doctrines and worship style I cherish, but at the same time refreshingly more tolerant of ambiguity and dialogue on the non-essentials.
The church I left behind is, I hope, better for having had a scientist/bible teacher in its congregation. I am blessed by the ongoing dialogue I have with the pastor; I am saddened by another church leader who broke off contact with me and encouraged others to do the same, so as to be protected from my supposedly heretical views; and I am touched by memories of a missions trip to Ukraine in which an eager young bible school student told me, in all seriousness, “I am so glad to learn that scientists aren’t evil!”
But for the most part, I am encouraged by the one reaction I heard over and over again in reaction to my teaching: “Thanks. You’ve made me think.”
To which I reply, “Mission accomplished.”