Science in Christian Perspective

An Open Letter to Inter-Varsity Press 
About Brave New People
Richard H. Bube Chairman and Professor 
Department of Materials Science and Engineering 
Stanford University, Stanford, CA

From: JASA 36 (December 1984): 256.

Few recent events in the life of the Christian community in the United States have struck me as more ominous than the decision of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship to suspend sales of Brave New People by D. Gareth Jones. By buckling under to political pressure, inter-Varsity has jeopardized its own integrity for all the Christian students and faculty who look to it for guidance and support in troubled times.

One cannot imagine a person more fully qualified to reflect and comment on the issues surrounding the interaction of biology, human life, and biblical Christian faith that Dr. D. Gareth Jones. A distinguished author, a leading academician, an acknowledged scientist, and a committed and sensitive evangelical Christian beyond the slightest doubt, he and his work have now been rejected because they represent a minority opinion.

For 22 years I have served as Faculty Sponsor for the InterVarsity group on the Stanford University campus, as well as a supporter for the work at large. I have looked to Inter-Varsity to maintain its record of freely making known divergent viewpoints in the evangelical community. I tremble when I reflect on the consequences of this abandonment of that responsibility. Have we lost freedom of expression and the sharing of controversial opinions? Has it become necessary for fellowship in Christ to be conformed to a particular political ideology? God forbid that this tragic mistake should be left uncorrected and the damage already done be left unhealed.

What grim and dark days lie before us if Christians are willing to publish and uphold for mature reflection only the homogeneous consensus of the politically active! It is truly a time for prayer and repentance.