My wife was a chum of Jonathan Well's when both were in graduate school at
Yale in the early eighties. They use to take coffee breaks together. He
was a Moonie then, and took her to one of their religious services. He left
Yale to go to the West Coast to get another doctorate, in biology. She
found him deeply committed to the Unification Church and apparently he
remains so.
Bob Schneider
----- Original Message -----
From: "george murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>
To: "Glenn Morton" <glenn.morton@btinternet.com>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Sunday, July 14, 2002 7:27 PM
Subject: Re: Moon proclaims he is messiah! Impact on ID?
> Glenn Morton wrote:
>
> > In a move which surely must cause a bit of embarrassment for the ID
group,
> > Phil Johnson and other ID members, Rev. Sun Myung Moon has proclaimed
"that
> > Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha - even God - have told him he is now 'the
Savior,
> > Messiah and King of Kings of all of humanity!'"
> > http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/3641062.htm
> >
> > This may have some impact on the ID movement but to explain why
requires
> > some background.
> >
> > Keith Miller, in Dec. 1999 published a note with Jonathan Well's web
papers
> > proclaiming that he was a Moonie. Keith attached a note from Phillip
Johnson
> > at the bottom. Johnson acknowledges that he knew Wells is a Moonie but
> > frankly expresses a big yawn for that knowledge. I posted a response to
> > Keith's note outlining what I viewed as the ID movement's lack of
concern
> > for Scriptural Christianity.
> > http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/199912/0024.html.
> >
> > I also had been having an e-mail conversations with Paul Nelson just
> > before Keith's note. Paul had already confirmed to me that Wells was a
> > Moonie and a fine fellow. He said that they merely disagreed about
theology.
> > I should hope so! But at what point do our attempts to create an
apologetic
> > become worthless for our faith?
> >
> > I think the question for the evangelical supporters of the ID movement
and
> > the Discovery Institute is: Should we support someone with views like
this?
> > Will Nelson and colleagues like Steve Meyer, in light of Moon's
> > proclamation that he is the 'King of King for all humanity!" continue
to
> > encourage evangelical publishers to publish Well's stuff? Wells who now
must
> > believe that Sun Myung Moon is the Messiah seems to hold values quite
at
> > odds with conventional Christianity. It seems to me that ID has become
so
> > theologically neutral as to be of no value to Christianity.
>
> Two notes on this.
> 1) In an odd way the Mooniness of a major ID representative may
> actually be
> beneficial for the movement. It appears to give some credibility to the
claim
> that they like to make in the public arena (when trying to influence
school
> curricula &c) that they're arguing for a scientific view & that religious
> commitments & consequences are secondary.
> 2) Some years ago in my book packrat mode I picked up a copy of _The
> Evangelical-Unification Dialogue_ which was held, I think, in the early
70s.
> (It's in my office at church at the moment & not before me.) It's a
transcript
> of discussions between a few Evangelical theologians & some from the
> Unification
> Church. I'd never looked at it closely but a year ago sat down to look it
over
> a bit more carefully &, lo & behold, found that Jonathan Wells was
> one of the UC
> reps.
> 3) Finally, any value that ID might ever have had for Christianity
is
> outweighed by its theological defects.
>
> Shalom,
>
> George
>
> George L. Murphy
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
> "The Science-Theology Interface"
>
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