Phil Johnson on FOF

Lawrence Johnston (johnston@uidaho.edu)
Wed, 28 Apr 1999 10:38:54 -0700

Ryan - Yes, you remembered quite well the essence of what Phil
said. Further below is the offending paragraph, from the transcript
dated 1997.
Being a retired physicist, and only an amateur biologist, I
can read this less passionately and say that I can see a ring of
truth to it, and I can also understand that if it applied to my
generation of Biofaculty in a Christian college, I would hate to face
it when so baldly stated, without caveats for the Christian Bioprofs
who are trying to resist this tendency as best they can.
Perhaps one way you can do this is to encourage the
secular scholars, such as Jim Shapiro* and Hubert Yockey, who
have solid non-christian credentials, who publicize the need to
face the emerging tide of biological and paleontolocal data that
don't fit the reigning paradigm. You could reference their work in
your publications and in your private luncheon chats with
colleagues and bright students. (Hey, I'll bet many of you do this,
and more. I'd love to hear how you go about this.)

*thanks to Pattle Pun for bringing a great Shapiro quote
to our attention, last September 3rd.

The quote from PJ on the FOF program of 1997:
<The basic reason for this, as I see it, is that a generation has
grown up which has seen it as their mission to make peace
between Christianity and the secular academic organizations.
Indeed, even their own constituency--the parents and the trustees
and so--want them to educate their young people so they can go
on to Stanford and Berkeley and Harvard for graduate school, for
example. And they want their professors to have
good reputations in the secular academic organizations, you know,
of professors. So to get that you have to think like the secular
academic people, and so various ways have been found to say
that, "Well, Christianity even of an evangelical sort can be
reconciled with the way the secular thinking is done." And the
biggest area of this is theistic evolution. Because, you see, if you
are typed in the leading circles as challenging evolution, then you
become a fundamentalist, anti-intellectual, an enemy of science
and so. So, you can't have that respect and prestige.>

All of God's Best, Larry Johnston
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Lawrence H. Johnston 917 E. 8th st.
professor of physics, emeritus Moscow, Id 83843
University of Idaho (208) 882-2765
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