Dale K Stalnaker wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Discussion about whether "Intelligent Design" should be taught in public
> school classes has been appearing in the Columbus Dispatch (OH) on an
> almost daily basis. The following letter was written by a Presbyterian
> minister, entitled
> "Matters of faith don't belong in public-school science classes"
> http://www.dispatch.com/news/religion/faith-story.php?story=dispatch/news/features02/mar02/1157126.html
Thanks for posting this. You may also be interested in a letter of mine on the same topic which
was in the Akron Beacon Journal on 6 March.
Shalom,
George
A number of people have pointed out that “Intelligent Design,” which some want to introduce into Ohio
schools, is poor science. From a Christian standpoint it is also poor theology.
The Beacon Journal’s 18 February story brought this out when it accurately described Intelligent Design as
the idea “that a nameless supernatural being spawned life.” Christianity is not interested in such beings
but in a God who, it claims, has revealed himself in the history of Israel and especially in the Israelite
Jesus of Nazareth.
If God is known in the god-forsakenness of the cross then it isn’t surprising that God is hidden in
natural processes such as biological evolution. By honest scientific study of these processes, viewed in
the light of revelation, God’s activity in the world can be better understood. There are things that
science, including evolutionary theory, hasn’t yet explained, but that calls for better science rather than
invocation of an anonymous “God of the gaps.” As the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, we find the
real God not in the things we don’t know but in the things we know.
Neither Christianity, atheism, nor anonymous supernatural beings should be promoted in the public
schools. Churches, on the other hand, should help their members to understand how God can be at work
through evolution.
George L. Murphy
Tallmadge OH
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