Re: [asa] Re: [asa] American Scientific Affiliation * Whatever happened to its mission?

One thing that strikes me about all this is how, unfortunately, it
seems to parallel other areas in evangelicaldom which thoughtful
Christians try to think about things and discuss them in a more
"academic" sense. I can imagine what might happen, for example, if
some leading evangelical "public policy" think tanks and advocacy
groups bumped up against the Christian Scholars group at the
Association of American Law Schools annual faculty conference. I
think it would not be a pretty sight. There just seems to be a
fundamental misunderstanding and/or dismissal of the more "scholarly"
mindset among many activists, pastors and lay leaders. There are some
deep roots here, I think – as Mark Noll aptly showed in "Scandal of
the Evangelical Mind" and as Marsden and others have discussed in
their histories of evangelicalism in America. The ASA seems by and
large to be more of an "academically"-oriented institution, where some
exploration and variety is tolerated, expected, and appreciated. That
seems to grate on the pragmatic, "culture war" sensibility of our
particular religious subculture. If nothing else, perhaps we can take
some comfort (or a fresh sense of "mission") in the fact that this
isn't isolated to faith-science issues (thought it's certainly "hot"
there), but it includes just about any discipline you can think of. I
believe the ASA and other organizations like it represent a limitation
on the "scandal" of which Noll spoke.

On 4/26/07, David Campbell <pleuronaia@gmail.com> wrote:
> A different aspect of where the ASA doesn't do what the Discovery
> Institute wants it to is that the ASA deals with a variety of issues.
> Claims from YEC and ID fans often convey the idea that the most
> important thing to do is combat philosophical materialism (or
> evolution). This can easily be a false gospel of the sort Paul
> objected to in Galatians. It fails to prioritize faith in Jesus
> Christ; it may condone questionable tactics that seem to achieve the
> goal of attacking the perceived enemy. In contrast, an effort to
> redeem all aspects of life includes dealing with issues such as
> sustainability, poverty, environmental concerns, etc. as well as
> thinking about origins and other issues.
>
> --
> Dr. David Campbell
> 425 Scientific Collections
> University of Alabama
> "I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
>
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Received on Thu Apr 26 21:26:54 2007