Re: [asa] Discovery Institute against harmonizing?

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:58:26 -0500 "John Walley" <john_walley@yahoo.com>
writes:
> > As advocated within the ASA, TE/EC typically asserts that evolution
> has
> > little philosophical or theological significance and so is already
>
> > explicitly in disagreement with those who claim that we need to
> radically
>
> > modify our theological or philosophical views in light of
> evolution.
>
> David,
>
> I find the above curious and revealing about the church community
> you belong
> too. A friend of mine also from AL just recently spoke this week at
> our RTB
> Christmas party here and referred to presentation as his "TE Coming
> Out
> Party". I mentioned this earlier when I submitted the "7 Words You
> Can't Say
> in Church".
>
> My experience has been quite the opposite of your statement above. I
> for one
> have been saying all week that the church needs a radically new
> theology in
> order to process TE. Ever since the party I have been in email and
> in-person
> debates with members who are struggling with theological
> implications of TE.
> I have received numerous questions like the historical Adam,
> original sin,
> common descent, inerrancy, ad nauseam, simply because this concept
> is so
> foreign to them theologically. In fact, my observation is that it is
> the
> theological filter than prevents them from receiving the scientific
> evidence
> of TE when you present it to them.
>
> To most of the evangelical church in my world, evolution is the last
> line of
> defense and the point at which you start finding the limits of
> Christian
> charity. They will barely tolerate OEC and when you try to follow it
> up with
> TE, then you get responses to the effect of "See I told you he was
> on the
> slippery slope to evolution with that old earth stuff" and you end
> up
> losing what little credibility you barely had with them in the first
> place.
> Evolution is the litmus test for heresy and YEC is the gatekeeper to
> prevent
> it. TE is a theological bridge too far in my world.
>
> In fairness I will say we had several Bio and Chem professors there
> that
> were very complimentary and favorably impressed and one was quite
> vocal
> about it but that was the exception rather than the rule. A more
> typical
> example is one of the Professors from Luther Rice Seminary here
> which
> happens to be Bernie's alma mater, and although he is a brilliant
> philosopher and theologian and we have a cordial relationship, we
> are just
> on different planets on this. The presenter did an excellent job of
> delivery and everyone was open to it but it left them in an
> irreconcilable
> theological quandary.
>
> I think this illuminates the difference between TE in the more
> intellectual
> denominations as opposed to the rank and file evangelical church
> body, but I
> don't think your statement above applies across the board.
>
> Thanks
>
> John
>
John,
I think you are comparing a Southern Baptist group's theology with that
of a broader Christian constituency. My contact with SBs indicates that
they are generally part of the 42% of Americans who believe that man was
created recently. But the current authority among SBs (there is a group
that is dissociating itself) seems to have emphasized inerrancy, the
rallying cry of the evangelicals. Note that the earlier usage, as in the
ELCA (George Murphy, e.g.), holds officially to the Reformation view that
the scriptures are authoritative for faith and practice, but not
otherwise inerrant. Indeed, how can anyone uphold total inerrancy in the
face of the claim that hyrax and hare chew the cud (Leviticus 11:5f;
Deuteronomy 14:7)?
Dave

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Received on Fri Dec 14 22:56:46 2007