Re: [asa] Richard Dawkins, atheism, and religious liberty

Ted, I agree with your analysis here, but there's a perhaps different point
about the Church-State tension I'd like to toss out there, which relates to
a theological sensibility.

 I have shied away from ID of late for the theological reason that it denies
the "designer" *must be* the Christian God. I've come to think that this is
a fundamental betrayal of the Christian doctrine of creation. The reason ID
does this, IMHO, is to avoid the Constitutional problems of which you
speak.

But why should we expect or even want such a strategy to succeed? I think
it's because we've forgotten that the world will alway oppose true Christian
faith. We've come to believe the myth of "Christendom" and its handmaiden
-- the myth that people are basically reasonable and receptive to the claims
of faith if such claims are based on evidence accessible to all.

Christendom, however, is over. The Church needs to forget about trying to
control the culture through the culture's own means, and should instead
unabashedly proclaim its witness, including the witness to a full-throated
doctrine of creation. If this were the Church's stance, the "wedge" of a
nondescript "designer" evident to public reason would vanish.

(For some more along these lines, see "Rethinking Christ and Culture"
by Craig Carter: http://tinyurl.com/2s9gky)

On 4/26/07, Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu> wrote:
> Not long ago we had a discussion about Dawkins' anti-religious bigotry,
and
> in this connection I strongly recommend the following article, from this
> week's "Commonwealth" magazine:
>
> http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/print_format.php?id_article=1914
>
> This is the type of thing that makes me wonder how Pim can possibly defend
> Dawkins--how can anyone see Dawkins as not a hater of religious
people? He
> simply wants to take away fundamental religious liberties.
>
> This type of hatred in the name of science is one of the foremost reasons
> why ID is so appealing to many Christians, why an apparent "slam dunk"
> against Dawkins and company is such an attractive option. And, frankly,
if
> it actually were a slam dunk I would likely sign up myself. I don't
believe
> that it is--I think one can always say, and sometimes with very good
> reasons, that we simply don't know enough about a given piece of science
at
> this point to say that a given phenomenon can't be explained without an
> appeal to design. And that, IMO, takes the slam out of the dunk. It
leaves
> room for faith--on all sides, including honest doubt about science as well
> as honest doubt about those doubts. Some will use this doubt to proclaim
> God (er, the intelligent designer); others will proclaim the complete
> absence of design, despite the absence of complete knowledge; and others
> will simply say that the case isn't closed.
>
> I have for a long time felt that the key issue in the evolution/education
> package is the First Amendment, and whether or not religious neutrality
> requires secularism per se. I think we see here, with what is happening
in
> Europe, just why this is so important here in the US. The First Amendment
> is an American thing, and the first part of the First Amendment *ought* to
> mean that religious liberty, including the liberty to *practice* faith as
> well as to believe privately, is paramount. Even here, that is a
debatable
> proposition, given what the courts have said in certain cases (for
concrete
> examples, see Steven Carter's book, "The Culture of Disbelief"). I fear
and
> pray for our Christian brothers and sisters in Europe. Understandable
fears
> about Islamic theocracy (in many places, there are more Muslims than there
> are active Christians), coupled with sheer anti-religious bigotry, can
> surely lead to the eradication of Christianity as a way of life.
>
> This is serious stuff. The encouraging part (if there is one), is that
> outside of the "West" Christianity is exploding, in places like
China--where
> I will be teaching a course on "Religion and the Rise of Modern Science"
at
> a university owned by a government that is still officially Communist,
> whatever that may now mean. I'm delighted to do that for many reasons,
but
> esp by the very image of it.
>
> Coming back now to ID and what they called "stuff shots" back when Wilt
> Chamberlain was still young, one value of the more subtle approach
(backdoor
> layups?) taken by some TEs (such as those within the ASA, generally
> speaking) is that it makes sense to good number of working scientists
(this
> is not to be seen, please, as a claim that ID does not also make sense to
> some working scientists) who are or can be (thinking of younger ones)
> influential voices on their campuses and in the larger culture. I think
> sometimes the importance of this is missed, amidst the often heated
> controversies about the role of religion in the academy and in the
> construction of knowledge. Whatever people may want to say about Owen
> Gingerich, Ian Hutchinson, or Francis Collins, they can't say that they
are
> stupid, ignorant, or immoral--at least most reasonable people aren't going
> to believe that, no matter how loudly Dawkins says it. It just won't fly.
> Now, those guys think evolution is basically true, but they don't think
that
> is the whole story--and here they have agreement from a wide range of
voices
> who are not in the same religious camp. They can't "prove" that there is
> more to the story, any more than Dawkins and company can "prove" that
there
> isn't. But they can bear witness to the truth, which in their cases
> includes a transcendent creator who has become incarnate within the world,
> suffering to death for our sake. This isn't trivial, and it isn't mushy
> accommodationism. If it's oxymoronic, as some might suggest, it's no more
> oxymoronic than the whole idea of a crucified Messiah--which is to say, it
> is foolishness to the Greeks, and also to quite a few geeks.
>
> To the extent that this analysis is correct, IDs and TEs within the ASA
and
> otherwise have different visions of science as a Christian vocation. We
> ought to be fine with that, frankly. I've said this before, but it
doesn't
> seem to be getting across clearly. There is no single vision, no single
> biblically appropriate vision, of how to do science as a Christian
vocation.
> What matters is how well it is done and how strongly one is committed to
> it. Public witness in both cases may take somewhat different forms, but I
> suspect they both have a lot in common in terms of the ordinary,
day-to-day
> living out of the gospel and its claims. If you think you can make those
> dunks, and you want to run your offense around the low post, do it as
> effectively as you can; but if you think that dunks are too easily blocked
> and backdoor layups are more effective, that's what you need to run your
> offense around. Both clubs are trying to win over the long haul. They
may
> not be the same team, but they need to see that they play in the same
> league.
>
> Ted
>
>
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sun Apr 29 16:27:52 2007