From: Terry M. Gray (grayt@lamar.colostate.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 09 2002 - 01:09:02 EDT
Name: Terry M. Gray
Age: 44 (b. 7/31/58)
Vocation: Computer Support Scientist in the Chemistry Department at
Colorado State University (since June 1997)
Educational Background:
B.S. 1980 Purdue University in Molecular Biology
Ph.D. 1985 University of Oregon in Molecular Biology (Dissertation:
Crystallographic Studies of Temperature Sensitive Mutants of the
Lysozyme from Bacteriophage T4)
Vocational Background:
1986-1997 Assistant/Associate Professor of Chemistry and
Biochemistry at Calvin College
1993-1994 Visiting Research Scientist in the Department of Medical
Biochemistry at the Texas A&M Medical School
Church Background:
Grew up in the mainline Presbyterian Church in rural Indiana
1986-1997 Orthodox Presbyterian Church (Eugene, Oregon and Grand
Rapids, Michigan)
1997-2001 Presbyterian Church in America (Fort Collins, Colorado)
2001-present Evangelical Presbyterian Church (Fort Collins, Colorado)
Theologically, I'm in the conservative Reformed camp represented by
Charles Hodge, B.B. Warfield, J.G. Machen and in the contemporary
scene by Westminster Theological Seminary. I'd probably put myself at
the "liberal" end of the OPC and PCA.
I grew up in a Christian home and became a Christian at a young age.
(I can't ever remember not trusting Christ for my salvation.) The
Lord spared me from a rebellious youth -- I was active in my church
youth group while in Jr/Sr High and in InterVarsity while at Purdue.
While in high school I got involved Sunday evening and midweek
services in an "independent, fundamentalist, dispensational,
pre-millenial, Baptist" church, then in a Four Square Gospel
charismatic church. I explored Seventh Day Adventism a bit while in
college. I "settled" on conservative Reformed and Presbyterian
convictions while in graduate school.
Faith/Science story:
When I was in 7th grade I wrote a brief one page "brochure" on
reconciling Genesis on the creation of Adam and evolution. It's not
far from what I believe now! So my interest in this stuff goes way
back. I majored in science rather than "going into the ministry" in
part to prove that you can take Christianity seriously and not become
a pastor. I think I ran into the ASA via some brochures ("We Believe
in Creation" and "The Second Law of Thermodynamics") while an
undergraduate at Purdue. I had no problem reconciling evolution and
Christian while an undergraduate Biology major at Purdue and I didn't
feel that my faith was threatened at all by the "secular" education
at Purdue. I seriously considered young-earth creationism while a
junior at Purdue under the influence of the Reformed Presbyterian
pastor of the church I attended. Perhaps I was a YEC for a few
months. I gave it up after my undergraduate research exposed me in
depth to the molecular data for evolution and convinced me that the
arguments for evolution were persuasive. In graduate school while
attending the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, I was exposed to the
writings of Davis Young (of Calvin College) and decided that I was
interested in teaching at Calvin. That door opened in 1986 and I
joined the faculty at Calvin and started thinking "professionally"
about some of these issues.
My involvement in the evolution/creation debate began in earnest in
1992 when I wrote a review of Phil Johnson's *Darwin on Trial*
<http://www.asa3.org/gray/evolution_trial/dotreview.html> for The
Banner (the denominational magazine of the Christian Reformed
Church). That review resulted in two major additional directions.
Contact with Phil Johnson led me to the evolution listserv and
dialogue with Mike Behe which resulted in an invitation to "debate"
Mike at the 1994 ASA annual meeting at Bethel College
<http://www.asa3.org/evolution/irred_compl.html>. Those were the days
when the WWW were just taking off and I was busy learning about the
web. At that meeting Jack Haas pulled together a group of us to
discuss how the ASA could take advantage of this new technology. I
came back from the meeting and threw together a handful of web pages
for the ASA and put them on Calvin's server. The ASA web site and I
have been together ever since. This ASA listserv started soon after.
The other direction was the heresy trial that I went through in the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church from 1994-1996. This experience forced
me to articulate and defend my ideas in a very public and mostly
antagonistic context. You can read all about it at
<http://www.asa3.org/gray/evolution_trial/index.html>.
It is still my conviction that you can be in the fairly conservative
Reformed/Presbyterian camp and not be a young-earth creationist. In
general I find little problem reconciling old earth/universe
cosmology and evolutionary biology with a mostly conservative
Christian faith. I hold to the "framework view" on Genesis 1
<http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1996/PSCF3-96Kline.html > and
<http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/WTJ/WTJ58Kline.html >. I still
struggle with what to do about Adam since as a good conservative
Presbyterian I think of him as not only the covenantal representative
of the human race but the biological ancestor of all humans. I hope
everyone won't think of this as a cop out, but I'm content to let
science speak its piece and the Bible its piece and if I can't figure
out how to put all the pieces together, well, that may be a sign of
my/our limitations. But there's no value in distorting either message
in the interest of an uneasy peace. Davis Young's closing chapter in
*Christianity and the Age of the Earth* helped me to see that there
IS integrity in that view.
-- _________________ Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist Chemistry Department, Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado 80523 grayt@lamar.colostate.edu http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/ phone: 970-491-7003 fax: 970-491-1801
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