[asa] science-theology ministries

There has been discussion here of "TE minstries". The focus of such a ministry would, for a start, be too narrow. One of the reasons that evolution hasn't made more of a positive impact on Christians is that it's been presented in isolation from other important science-theology issues. In particular, some clear iea of how God's action in the world is to be understood together with scientific knowledge of natural processes is essential to any decent theological view of evolution. Just saying something like "evolution is God's way of creating" isn't very helpful if it's not connected with an understanding of God's more general way of preserving creatures & cooperating with with them. If we can begin by making it clear that there is no contradiction between the belief that God is the creator of each person _and_ realizing that science is able to explain detail the processes of conception & embryology then it will be easier to understand how God could work through the evolu!
 tionary process. Of course that's just a start & by no means does that analogy prove the case. Other issues have to be dealt with - cosmology, genetics &c - & sometimes they, rather that evolution, will be the center of attention.

Of course questions will be raised about the Genesis creation accounts, & again it's a mistake to deal with those in isolation. A broader discussion of the origins of the Bible & the variety of genres of biblical texts will help people to deal adequately with Gen.1-2.

The point is that what's needed is not "TE ministries" but "science-theology ministries" - &, it should go without saying, good
ones. (AIG could claim to be such a ministry, presenting bad science and bad theology.) It's worth noting in this regard that RTB is not simply "an OEC ministry". Ross et all discuss a lot of issues (miracles, predestination, free will &c) that aren't directly related to their OEC views.

Some of us on this list are already engaged in such ministries, & of course more broadly the ASA as an organization could be described in that way. The question for ASA as an outreach &/or apologetics ministry is whether or not the diversity of views among its membership hinder its effectiveness in speaking about controversial topics public square.

Shalom,
George

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Received on Sun Feb 8 11:39:01 2009