RE: [asa] (evolutionist preachers) Discovery Institute against harmonizing?

Jack,

I agree that training people how to think and act is important and I applaud
you for the service of your life's work but to Bernie's point, he asked who
in the TE circles holds evangelistic crusades and otherwise actively
promotes evangelism and has evangelistic "fervor" and I think we all know
the answer to that one.

Instead of saying that evangelism is a casualty of TE I will modify my
statement to say that in TE evangelism morphs into a more cerebral pursuit
like your teaching. While this is still a very worthy contribution to the
cause, I agree with Bernie that it doesn't necessarily follow that
evangelistic "fervor" be left behind when ones becomes a TE, which is how it
certainly looks.

The reasons I can suggest for this are what started my intrusion into this
thread anyway, which is the new pro-evolution and to a certain extent
anti-design theology that is required to engage the evangelical church to
promote TE and as we have discussed you see where that gets you, thrown out.

You always have the option to go it alone like Michael Dowd, the "Thank God
for Evolution" guy and I also applaud his efforts for doing something, but
the problem I have with that approach is that that theology doesn't resemble
anything I recognize or would have any usefulness in my spiritual world.

I think what Bernie and I are referring too and looking for is TE evangelism
that works in the SBC, community churches, Bible churches etc. And there is
no good reason why we don't see it or pursue it there except for my
observation that it is theologically a bridge too far. But still we try.

Thanks

John

-----Original Message-----
From: Jack Haas [mailto:haas.john@comcast.net]
Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 7:08 AM
To: John Walley
Cc: 'Dehler, Bernie'; '_American Sci Affil'; 'Whorton, Mark S. (MSFC-EV42)'
Subject: Re: [asa] (evolutionist preachers) Discovery Institute against
harmonizing?

Dear John:

Now where have I heard this before! Oh yes, it's what I was told 60
years ago when I announced that
I was headed to college to study geology instead of the Philadelphia
School of the Bible to train for
missionary service like many of my peers.

Oh sure, I've have and continue to struggle. That's why we have a
brain. Happily I ran into cultural
mandate thinking and was able to train students for <40 years to think
and act.

Jack Haas

John Walley wrote:
> Bernie,
>
> It has been my experience that evangelism is the first casualty of TE. Not
> because TE's don't care about evangelism because I really do but because
> once you become a TE, you realize what thin ice you are on with so many
> people and you have to tread so carefully so that you don't cause them a
> faith crisis that it is almost not worth it. At least for existing
believers
> anyway. It is natural to want to share your newfound revelation of truth
to
> all your old friends but it is not as simple as that. After trying with a
> few people you quickly get the feeling that maybe they aren't ready for it
> and it is not productive to press them with it. Plus because the new
> theological implications are so revolutionary and left open-ended compared
> to the certainty of OEC, it is real disheartening to most to make the
> journey to TE and I have heard some say they almost lose their faith over
> it. At least that has been my experience anyway.
>
> On the other hand, I have found the opposite to be true when it comes to
> non-believers or nominal believers who are not committed to any ideology
> already. For instance at work there is a guy that I know is an
evolutionist
> and we talk around these issues and have for a long time but just recently
> after I went through my TE conversion, I suddenly had new boldness to talk
> to him about it and the other day we had a really good chat. He confided
to
> me that he was raised Catholic and that he still has some twinges of faith
> in him and I was able to share with him that his faith and evolution
didn't
> have to be at odds with each other and that really seemed to be a
> revolutionary thought to him. At least he hadn't spent any time thinking
> about how that might not be a revolutionary thought. But I would never
have
> been able to gain his confidence if I was still trying to defend and OEC
or
> ID position to him since I know now he would have never stood for that.
>
> Besides Collins whom I greatly admire due to his evangelistic zeal, I
agree
> that you don't seem to hear of too many other TE's out there in
evangelistic
> circles. TE seems to be a really well kept secret. I hope that Collins and
> now Behe will change that some since they are both prominent and popular
in
> the evangelical church.
>
> Thanks
>
> John
>
>
> ......

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Received on Sun Dec 16 07:37:07 2007