Re: seeking book recommendations

I recommend "God and Evolution: Creation, Evolution and the Bible," by R. J.
Berry. Vancouver: Regent College, 2001, 172 pp. +.. Berry is a retired
professor of genetics and an evangelical Christian in the Church of England.
This is a reprint of the 1988 edition, so it is somewhat dated in the field
of genetics (ironically), but there is a new preface which addresses more
recent developments. The preface also contains some good material on
critiquing Intelligent Design (with kudos to Dennis Lamoureaux's "Darwinism
Defeated?": I heartily second the recommendation on that one). While I've
only skimmed Berry's book it seems quite accessible to an ordinary audience
and does a good job of addressing the biblical and theological issues. (He
mentions that all of the remaining copies of the first edition were bought
out by a Southern Baptist college in Mississipii, so you could mention that
to your pastor.)

Bob Schneider

----- Original Message -----
From: "Freeman, Louise Margaret" <lfreeman@mbc.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2005 12:31 PM
Subject: seeking book recommendations

>
> Background: My church (conservative, Southern Baptist) maintains a small
> bookstore. A number of weeks agao, someone in the congregation asked for
> some books of the evolution/creation controversy: in response, my pastor
> stocked Johnson's Darwin on Trial and Well's Icons on Evolution. Dembski's
> Design Inference was also there. As a theistic evolutionist, I found that
> selection rather unbalanced and brought my concerns to my pastor (who
> knows
> my TE position and respects it, evn though I'm not sure he agrees. After
> I
> showed him some reviews of Wells, he pulled that book (Wells' membership
> in
> the Unification Church had a lot to do with that decision). As good TE
> material, I recommended Miller's Finding Darwin's God, George Murphy's
> books, Francis Collins' Faith and the Human Genome essay and also the
> essays
>
> on Allen Harvey's webpage.
>
> I'm now seeking other recommendations of different types: first, any other
> theistic evolution books, sound in both theology and science,
> understandable
>
> to a layperson?
>
> Second, any books critical of evolution, written from a Christian
> worldview
> but without gross distortions of science and the scientific method? What I
> said to my pastor was, "You know my bias, I'm not going to be crazy about
> any anti-evolution book, but if you are looking for an anti-evolution
> book,
> you can do better than Wells!" I actually considered recommending Behe,
> though what I would like is something better than the Johnson/Dembski/Behe
> trio.
>
> The closer the author is to "conservative" and "evangelical" the better
> the
> recommendation is likely to be received. Someone connected to the
> Southern
> Baptist convention would be ideal!
>
>
>
Received on Mon Mar 28 15:14:22 2005