Re: [asa] Who's to blame for the lost ones?

I am sympathetic to both "sides" that have emerged in this thread so far.
As a Calvinist (at least on Thursdays), I agree with Jack -- it makes no
sense to me to say that anyone could be "blamed" for the fact that another
person seems to turn away from the faith. At the very least, I think that
theologically, psychologically, sociologically, etc., it's just not possible
to attribute unitary "blame" in this sense. Ultimately, at least two basic
things are true with respect to any person's relationship with God (and
hence their salvation): (1) God is sovereign; and (2) each person is
individually responsible before God. And I feel very, very uncomfortable
about the attitude of anger or distantiation that using a word like "blame"
can foster in the Church.

OTOH, I appreciate the question, Merv's Arminian perpsective, the project
Ted describes below, and Brian's point about not adding anything to the
gospel. Could we phrase it this way: "how can the Church better represent
the Gospel and engage the the culture in light of what God is revealing to
humanity through the natural sciences"?

On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 9:30 AM, Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu> wrote:

> The question on the header of this thread is indeed a crucial one--and it
> was also very important in the 1920s, when this issue really heated up for
> the first time. On this aspect, at least, nothing in the controversy has
> changed in 80 years. (On some other aspects, significant change has
> occurred, but I digress.)
>
> In the late winter of 1922, William Jennings Bryan and Harry Emerson
> Fosdick debated this very point in the pages of the New York Times. I'm
> writing a book about what came out of that, since there is so much that can
> be said. To see the original exchange, look for Bryan's editorial "God and
> Evolution" and Fosdick's reply, "Evolution and Mr Bryan." You might find
> multiple URLs for these, but here are links to both:
>
> Bryan: http://www.assumption.edu/ahc/scopes/BryanGodandEvolution.html
> See esp the final section (Religion Waning Among Children)
>
> Fosdick:
>
> http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D0CE7DC1E3EEE3ABC4A52DFB5668389639EDE
> See esp his comments on the "Danger of Materialistic Teaching"
>
> The longer version of Bryan's comments, which were based on his stump
> speech on The Menace of Darwinism (New York, 1922), is found at
> http://home.messiah.edu/~tdavis/texts.htm, where some other important
> texts on Christianity and science are also found. :-)
>
> Ted
>
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>

-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
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