Re: ASA positions on science/faith issues

----- Original Message -----
From: <haas.john@comcast.net>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 10:28 AM
Subject: ASA positions on science/faith issues

> ASA positions on science/faith issues
>
> To the list:
>
> Unfortunately, Randy Isaac's important questions about ASA policy got
> buried
> within the thread <CT article: Darwinists, not Christians, stonewalling
> the facts>.
> In a new era of ASA leadership and a period of much public interest in
> faith/science issues it seems timely to reassess ASA reluctance to take a
> 'stand' or otherwise contribute to the discussion. What think ye?

I appreciate the rationales that have been presented for ASA's leaving
evolution an open question as far as its official stance is concerned. I
know that taking an official stance accepting evolution would lose a lot of
ASA members & Evangelical support generally. At that same time I'm
convinced that the various forms of anti-evolutionism and ID are in
different degrees both wrong and dangerous for both church and society. &
I'm hard pressed to think of an organization _that has credibility among
Evangelicals_ & can argue effectively against these errors.
Religion-science organizations like CTNS, the Zygon Center, or the
Ecumenical Roundtable on Science & Technology are likely to be dismissed as
dangerously liberal but exactly the people we need to reach, & much less are
scientific or educational organizations like AAAS or NCSE likely to have an
impact on that group. So we have the Catch-22 situation that as far as
Evangelicals are concerned, ASA is the only credible group that can argue
for an adequate view of evolution, but if it argues for such a view it will
lose its credibility.

Frankly, the easiest thing for me personally would be to forget about YEC,
IDers &c and work on theology-science issues in the context of mainline
Protestant & RC Christianity. There are certainly problems with those
flavors of Christianity & in some ways I consider mainline churches -
including the ELCA & ECUSA with which I'm associated - too "liberal." But
at least they don't take people like Ham & Hovind seriously. However, I
live in the real world in which these people have all too much influence, &
don't think it's responsible just to limit myself to academic theology &/or
science & let them exercise their baneful influence.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

 
Received on Wed Mar 30 17:22:32 2005