Fw: [asa] E.O. Wilson "Baptist No More"

This is not far from an overstatement. There are many YEC leaders that say compromising on this point undermines the character of God, and therefore the gospel. This theological ultimatum complete with its built in self protection mechanism like no death before the fall is unpacked in Dr. Mark Whorton's Peril in Paradise that contains some of these type quotes.
 
Mark himself was the victim of a YEC witchhunt in his own Baptist Church in Hunstville AL by a leader who publicy condemned him as a heretic and tried to get him kicked out of the church. I am sure Baptist churches in NY are more tolerant than AL and GA but this is more the rule than the exception down here.
 
 John
 
http://www.amazon.com/Peril-Paradise-Theology-Science-Earth/dp/1932805230/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196192166&sr=8-1
 

 
----- Original Message ----
From: David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
To: "D. F. Siemens, Jr." <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
Cc: john_walley@yahoo.com; asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 2:24:22 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] E.O. Wilson "Baptist No More"

I went to a very conservative "independent" baptist-type church for many years where the leaders were YEC. Never was it suggested that there was a choice between YEC and "damnation." Even AIG doesn't say this. Maybe that is the case in some churches, but let's not overstate it.

On Nov 27, 2007 2:04 PM, D. F. Siemens, Jr. <dfsiemensjr@juno.com> wrote:

Given the choice, usually made clear in many Baptist churches, between YEC and damnation, and the clear evidence that YEC is false, indeed nonsensical, it is easy to draw the conclusion that the salvation message is also balderdash.
Dave (ASA)
 
On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:25:27 -0500 "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com> writes:
I suppose the point here is that the Church was at fault for not giving Wilson other options. Perhaps there is a fair point there given the particulars of Wilson's upbringing. But what if Wilson's response had been to continually ask God to help him better understand the truth. Would Wilson then have found organizations like the ASA that existed at the time? Would he have found friends and mentors to help him work through the questions everyone faces when they grow out of a childish fundamentalism into a more mature faith? Would he have felt freer to question some aspects of "evolution" as a metanarrative while at the same time broadening his understanding of theology and scripture? In short, do we really have to buy hook, line and sinker the story: "Church: bad; Wilson: innocent?"

On Nov 26, 2007 11:01 PM, John Walley <john_walley@yahoo.com> wrote:

Here is a relevant and chilling quote from E.O. Wilson from "Consilience".
 
http://www.cnn.com/books/beginnings/9805/consilience/index.html
 
On a far more modest scale, I found it a wonderful feeling not just to taste the unification metaphysics but also to be released from the confinement of fundamentalist religion. I had been raised a Southern Baptist, laid backward under the water on the sturdy arm of a pastor, been born again. I knew the healing power of redemption. Faith, hope, and charity were in my bones, and with millions of others I knew that my savior Jesus Christ would grant me eternal life. More pious than the average teenager, I read the Bible cover to cover, twice. But now at college, steroid-driven into moods of adolescent rebellion, I chose to doubt. I found it hard to accept that our deepest beliefs were set in stone by agricultural societies of the eastern Mediterranean more than two thousand years ago. I suffered cognitive dissonance between the cheerfully reported genocidal wars of these people and Christian civilization in 1940s Alabama. It seemed to me that the Book of
 Revelation might be black magic hallucinated by an ancient primitive. And I thought, surely a loving personal God, if He is paying attention, will not abandon those who reject the literal interpretation of the biblical cosmology. It is only fair to award points for intellectual courage. Better damned with Plato and Bacon, Shelley said, than go to heaven with Paley and Malthus. But most of all, Baptist theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy to the thoughts of God? Might the pastors of my childhood, good and loving men though they were, be mistaken? It was all too much, and freedom was ever so sweet. I drifted away from the church, not definitively agnostic or atheistic, just Baptist no more.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Tue Nov 27 14:42:29 2007