What and faith in dialogue?
Back when the new round of Toxic Sock-revelations set the felid among the passerines, I was having a quiet good time looking at the strange goings on at BioLogos, home of “science and faith in dialogue.” Now that the passerines are getting bored with Toxic Sock, let’s go back there. Let’s consider Albert Mohler’s sermon. It’s about Why Does the Universe Look So Old?
He says it’s an important question.
I want to invite you to turn with me to Genesis chapter one. We dare not seek to answer this question without first looking to the Word of God. [Reads Genesis 1, 2:1-3].
Right. This is BioLogos. This is science and faith in dialogue. Remember? That’s what it says. So…what science? Where’s the science part? If we dare not seek to answer this question without first looking to the word of god, how can BioLogos claim to have anything to do with science at all?
I don’t know, and I don’t think it can. BioLogos seems to be going through some kind of crisis. I plan to keep watching.
Update: Darrel Falk, president of BioLogos tells us (see comment 28):
Let me be clear about the reason we at BioLogos posted Dr. Mohler’s talk. We disagree with it! We totally disagree with it. We have three posts showing how strongly we disagree with it and how harmful it is. We transcribed his speech even though he criticized us vehemently, because we wanted our readers to be able to read what he said, so they wouldn’t have to go back and watch the whole speech. Given our three posts and the extremely negative statements he made about us in the post, it never occurred to us that anyone would think we agreed with what his speech.
Not so much agreed with, as considered part of the dialogue, was what I thought; at any rate the clarification is welcome.
I feel that the crisis is not at BioLogos – it is inside the evangelical church. We are assuming that BioLogos is only in this for kumbyyah. I think we underestimate the seriousness and fierceness that the members of BioLogos believe that they have a duty to educate their fellow church members.
There is no crisis at BioLogos, not being attacked would mean they aren’t doing anything. They have a clear mission: to save their church from becoming a “cult” of ignorance, backwardness and denial.
Would they like to do this without the bloodshed of men like Albert Mohler? Yes, but then Martin Luther King didn’t want to see his followers beaten on the bridge at Selma, but knowing that he might get killed didn’t stop the march.
BioLogos has something to do with Science because it was established by accomplished scientists, who use their knowledge to informs their religious beliefs. Francis Collins is one of America’s great scientists. Because of his accomplishments, he administers one of the greatest engines of human welfare ever created, the NIH, and he is a public servant of one of the greatest civilizations ever created. One of the core principals of this civilization is that no one shall be barred from office in because of their religious commitments. What Francis Collins does in his church, as in his bedroom, with other like minded associates is his personal private business.
These scientists, have formed an organization, which is committed to helping their fellow religionists revise their understanding of religion, according to science. They are a reform movement – like Luther, they seek to interpret their bible as their conscience directs.
This means in practice, destroying the legitimacy of “biblical inerrancy”, much in the same way that Luther destroyed the practice of salvation though the sale of indulgences. Biblical inerrancy is a specific kind of theology, which is formally held by 30% of the christian churchs in North America.
Albert Mohler realizes this, and he wants to explain what is at stake. Like the reformation, the Crisis begins at the door of the monastery. Albert Mohler guards that door. Darrel Falk, and Collins have nailed a thesis to that door.
In the sense that Collin’s thesis is a little less insane than Mohlers. I endorse BioLogos’ effort to convince America that Albert Mohler is wrong.
BioLogos is Martin Luther … Albert Mohler is Johann Tetzel.
This “age of the earth sermon” is Tetzels “Vorlegung”
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jessica Anderson. Jessica Anderson said: RT @OpheliaBenson: What and faith in dialogue? http://dlvr.it/2XNk2 […]
Collins coined the term BioLogos to define the conclusions he reached about how life, or bios, came about through God’s word, or logos. DNA, therefore, may be considered God’s language.
I think we as non believers interpret this wrong, if we take this statement of Collins as demanding anything from us. He isn’t trying here to “redefine” DNA, he is trying to redefine what “god’s language” is. For us that like him telling us what the smell of an odorless gas is.
Luther wasn’t trying to redefine German, he was trying to translate the Latin bible into a language spoken by Germans. Since people do speak the “language of DNA” (ie we express what DNA says) … it is necessary (in Collin’s view) that the bible be translated (and made comprehensible to) this language. Of course this means reading it as “metaphor”, and of course admitting some parts of it are wrong.
Albert Mohler is terrified of what will happen to HIS church when that translation happens … he’s afraid of what Dawkins will do to society, but he’s terrified of what Collins will do to HIS church.
Peace be upon you Francis Collins …
Do my comments make me an “accommodationist”?
Mohler’s sermon takes a long, sinuous route to “Goddidit.”
My initial impression of Biologos was that they were relatively harmless theistic evolutionists, happy to be rationalists in the main with just a little fuzzy godbothering thrown in. I’ve only recently started actually reading the material there, and wow, was I wrong. A defense of the Omphalos theory of the age of the earth? A rationalization of Adam and Eve as literal people? A whole series of articles defending miracles? These folks ain’t like the kindly but harmless Anglican minister who just wants to help people feel better, and doesn’t really worry much about faith — these are genuinely hard-core faith-heads. And it’s all down to Francis Collins! If I had known how anti-scientific Biologos actually was, I would have more strongly questioned his appropriateness for NIH head.
The one consolation, I suppose, is that they seem to be in a cage-match with the Discovery Institute. It’s the reverse of the Aliens vs. Predator tag line: whoever loses, we win.
Following Ophelia’s link (sorry the linker switch at N&C doesn’t work for me; http://kazez.blogspot.com/2010/07/truth-about-tom-johnson.html ) – over at the ‘What and Faith in dialogue’ thread on this site, we seekers of Enlightenment (along with 63 commenters) have been pleased to read:
‘So we have a guy, now known as William, who wants to do battle with the new atheists, and defend Chris Mooney, and evidently he feels small and powerless. So he goes Oz on everyone, and pretends to be someone else–not one great and powerful wizard, but rather he looks for power in numbers. He sends multiple personae (Milton C., bilbo, etc) to The Intersection where they defend Mooney and castigate his critics. Later on, he starts a blog, You’re Not Helping, where he pretends to be a “we” and creates sock puppets to comment on and support everything he says. All strange, but all true.
‘When all this comes to light and William confesses, he starts listing all his sock puppets, and includes one “Tom Johnson”, who caused quite a stir at the Intersection back in October 2009 by telling a story about how he’d witnessed religion-bashing at a conservation meeting. Just a sock puppet, William now says. That comes as a shock to Chris Mooney, because Chris had checked him out, identified him as real student X, and used his story as supporting evidence in a post of his own.’
Hope that didn’t cause any wandering of minds here. Then we go to the next Ophelian link at ‘What in faith and dialogue’ designed to bring all those whose minds wandered in high school Scripture classes up to speed on modern theological science and scientific theology, with a link to a most profound contribution from Albert Mohler, with the challenging title of ‘Why does the Universe look so old?’
(‘Perhaps because it is so old?’Shuddup, Poirot!)
Then without too much clicking we can get to The Intersocktion, where we read direct from Mooney himself:
‘Okay, so here is the second post.
‘Preface: It seems a lot of people are confused (and rightly so) about whether “Tom Johnson” is or isn’t who I thought he was after checking his identity. This may be in part because my alarmed and shocked post on Wednesday was less than perfectly clear.
‘However, at the same time, there has been much leaping to conclusions about what happened here, and much assuming of the worst.
‘Well, much–although not all–will be revealed….’ (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/07/09/sock-puppets-and-tom-johnson-part-ii/ )
Still with me?
Sherlock Holmes might have said ‘I detect the hand of that fiend Moriarty in all this.’ But not me. It is more like the hand of God; the same God who made the Universe look so old when it really either is or isn’t as old as it looks. That same God gave his bothering followers a hell of a time by keeping in the shadows, only appearing (once) to Abraham in the guise of a burning bush, and taking Moses up a mountain for the big Commandments lesson, while leaving the rest of Israel guessing and out of sight in the valley below.
God could have saved Mohler and the rest of us a whole lot of trouble by just appearing in public and talking plainly for once. But no, he had to play this coy game of secrecy about his Creation, leaving us to work it out for ourselves. The Bible could have been filled up with stuff like the structure of DNA, plans for steam engines, the equations of quantum mechanics, and photographs taken on other worlds. Instead, it was who begat who begat who… etc.
Mooney likewise could have saved all those commenters a lot of wasted time by just revealing the identity/s of the aforesaid William, Milton C, bilbo and whoever etc. But no. He has to get all coy, just like God, so sending all those beaters round the bush.
My hunch is that he does it for the power feeling it gives. I think that was why God pulled his own stunt along those lines.
Any questions?
I think the question is backward. Instead of “What and Faith in Dialogue” it should read “Science and What in Dialogue.” This is as one might have expected. Francis Collins and other religiously inclined scientists have this naive idea that faith is simple, easily identified and something whose terms can be stated in a fairly straightforward way. This, then, is something with which science is compatible.
But religious faith is not like that, and they should know it. Religion is a hotbed of disagreement and dissent whose parameters cannot be easily delimited. That’s because it’s religion and not science. It has no clear methodology, no basis in evidence, not even a core of agreement. This is often concealed by statements of faith required by different Christian denominations or colleges, which apparently hold some beliefs in common, beginning with the inerrancy of the Bible and proceeding through things like resurrection and atonement. But when push comes to shove it is almost impossible to define what is meant by these terms, and absolutely impossible to say how these limits can be justified.
Biologos is founded on the assumption that there are two distinct ways of knowing, science and religion. But this is a myth. We know that, because we know that religion cannot make good its claim to knowledge. But we might know it too by the sheer abundance of ways of interpreting religious beliefs. Karen Armstrong might be able conveniently, when challenged, to slip away into realms of diaphanous nonsense; but the degree of endless disagreement amongst the religious over what is to be understood by inerrancy, atonement, resurrection, the existence of god, and so on — to go no further than one religion — means that there simply cannot be a compelling argument for compatibility between science and religion.
Francis Collins should have known this, and he should have been able to see that Biologos is just a pious dream, but that is simply what people of faith simply do not seem able to discern: namely, that faith is always a solipsistic thing. Faith is always something of which the individual is comfortably certain, and so long as people around the faithful individual talk in nebulous ways, they can even believe that they all share the same faith. But ‘same faith’ is something for which there is no evidence at all. Indeed, religion is known best by its disagreements. Dogma is not something that religious people agree about; it defines fields of intense fire whereon, as Matthew Arnold knew, ignorant armies clash by night.
Well put, Eric. Your comment above is confirmed by the comment stream in response to Albert Mohler’s ‘sermon’ over at BioLogos: ‘How Should BioLogos Respond to Dr. Albert Mohler’s Critique of The BioLogos Initiative?’ ( http://biologos.org/blog/how-should-biologos-respond-to-dr-albert-mohler/ ). That piece in turn contains links to the original sermon. Much ado about angels dancing on pinheads.
Theological ‘disciplines’ are not counterparts of the scientific ones.
Mohler gives the game away when he says any literary interpretation of Genesis has to be rejected out of hand as in direct contradiction to our understanding of the Bible as the inherent and infallible word of God. That option, for any credible and faithful evangelical Christian, must be taken off the table.
And that, in a nutshell is why theology is incompatible with knowing. As a starting point for inquiry, theology is a complete answer that is assumed to be true without any evidence to support it, making it only compatible with any and all other unjustified assertions. That’s as far as it can take us: exactly nowhere.
If one believed that god poofed the world into existence through his logos, and if one simultaneously believed that god was the author of the bible and humans merely the scriveners who reduced it to paper and ink, and if one discovered, umm, discrepancies between these two works of god, and if one therefore concluded that in at least one instance god was fooling his creatures (perhaps in punishment for their original sin) — if one believed all that, why would one choose to believe that gods foolery was in the age of the created earth rather than in the inerrancy of the scrivened bible?
Truly, we are god’s sitcom!
scott, but if BioLogos’s mission is ‘to save their church from becoming a “cult” of ignorance, backwardness and denial’ then why are they hosting things like Mohler’s sermon?
@scott
I understand you to be supporting the part of the BioLogos mission that is:
committed to helping the church – and students, in particular – develop worldviews that embrace both of these complex belief structures, and that allow science and faith to co-exist peacefully.
at least the ‘helping the church’ part, right?
My concern is that by having a highly respected scientist like Collins associated with a debate about which of various interpretations of the bible is correct creates a false equivalence between science and religion. Also, from a very practical matter, as Jerry Coyne says at his blog today:
Well, I read it this way: they host the sermon and then want to address it / refute it / whatever, i.e. instead of pointing to the sermon on some other website, they host it themselves, but I did not understand it as a endorsement, especially since the response to that sermon begins:
The BioLogos Foundation exists in order that the Church, especially the Evangelical Church, can come to peace with the scientific data which shows unequivocally that the universe is very old and that all of life, including humankind, has been created through a gradual process that has been taking place over the past few billion years. BioLogos exists to show that this fact (and it is a fact), need not, indeed must not, affect our relationship with God, which comes about through Jesus Christ, and is experienced by the power of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence.
Nothing like presuming the necessity of one’s position.
I know this is off topic, but you might want to revisit the whole William affair one last time.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/07/12/setting-the-record-straight-on-ophelia-benson/
Ms. Benson, the facts surrounding Mohlers speech are:
BioLogos held a conference in 09, and invited Bruce Waltke, to speak about how Genesis should be read as compatible with evolution, Waltke used the term “cult”. They filmed and posted the video (on their site) in March 2010.
In March, and early April, a huge controversy erupted IN the evangelical church (not on the blogosphere) because of Waltke’s video, and Biologos was asked to take down the video, Waltke however is fired from his teaching job at the RTS in Orlando for violating their confession (specifically, you can not say evolution is true, and work there). This fact is an example of BioLogos, fomenting formal division in the church.
In mid June 2010, Albert Mohler gives his “age of the earth speech” in Orlando at a Ligoneer Ministry conference (not a BioLogos conference). The speech condems BioLogos (and their entire project, it names names, and puts Dawkins et al. AND BioLogos as clear enemies of the Christian church). Mohler distinguishes between “external” and “internal” threats. BioLogos, he says is “internal”.
On July 5th, Darrel Falk, posts a rebuttal to Mohler, he also, posts a transcription of his speech (which I am under the impression BioLogos prepared). I think it is incorrect to say that “BioLogos hosted” Mohler’s speech, BioLogos is only hosting the speech in the same sense that you are “hosting” Tom Johnson’s speech, because they disagree with it, and view it as evidence of their thesis, that anyone who doesn’t accept evolution is (insert sonorous sounding insult here).
BioLogos’ Falk, Giberson, and Enns, have all directly engaged Mohler, Giberson even goes out of his way to take Mohler to task for lying about Darwin, and Giberson.
Isn’t it true that Albert Mohler is a cancer on the American Mind, and not a small cancer, but an HUGE cancer. He is the leader of one of the largest seminaries in America, and the leading intellectual in evangelical Christianity? One of the most pointed, relevant and accurate critiques of Mohler is emanating from BioLogos … just as one of the most relevant and accurate critiques in the secular world is emanating from the NA.
Call Mohler and idiot, but he’s not dumb.
but Dean, Collins is a highly respected scientist.
He’s respected by science. If you are concerned about him, you are concerned because he is religious. But all that says is that you don’t think he can be a good scientist and be religious. But he is a good scientist or he wouldn’t be highly respected. You seem to want to penalize him purely because he is religious.
He is not however, a highly respected member of the church, just ask Albert Mohler. He is leading a reform movement in the church.
Dean, I didn’t really speak to your comment, sorry. You said, Collins creates a false equivalence.
I think that Collin’s form of “accommodation” is not creating equivalence, it is a two state solution, but it specifically binds the one state (religion) to include all of the facts that the other state (science) says is true.
Collins however wishes to reserve a right to apply “meaning” to the facts of science. Live evolved because “god wanted it to”.
I’m not totally clear about this issue of “meaning” Coyne seems to be saying that the facts of science mean that God did not want man to evolve, and that God does not want me to love “him” … while I think it is much better intellectually to accept Coyne’s view, I’m not clear on how science settles this. As long as Collins is comfortable with the unilateral authority of science … I’m happy. Every fact we establish as to be fit into their bible …
@Scott
Incorrect. He is penalized when he lets his religion affect his science (e.g. Morality could not evolve, his views on the soul, fine tuning of the universe arguments).
@Eric MacDonald: Thanks for your characteristically clear and cogent post #8. I borrowed its essence to try to point out to Mooney why he is mistaken. He let my comment through, but I now regret visiting his site.
Deepak, I see what you are saying, and I am wrong to use words that caricature his critics, but his critics seem to often use words that caricature him. I believe there are legitimate critiques of Collins.
Does Collins “equate” science and religion (as someone said above) – or does he (and BioLogos) attempt to offer (his version) of religion (his Church) a way to come to terms with Science?
It seems to me what Religion has offered science, is a willingness to interpret itself in ever more metaphorical and non specific ways … the heavens move ever more remote from human kind, miracles become fewer and more far between.
What I’m asking, is that if Collins wants to call “DNA the language of God” – are we wise to say, no it is not?
Now, arguing for evidence of evolved morality sounds like a much better and illuminating project …
The problem is that Collins seems to want to “define” religion … and we should not fail to notice how singularly devastating his attempts at this are becoming. One thing we should accept about Mohler is that he is an honest witness of his own world view. When he says, BioLogos is causing a crisis IN his church … we should take that at face value.
I don’t see how praising Collin’s incredible success at combating fundamentalism, hurts us, any more than it would hurt them to praise their stamp collection, or their ability to offer a critique on the meaning of Virgina Wolfe.
But where he makes claims that infringe on “our” ever expanding understanding of reality … yield nothing.
Why can’t we think of Francis Collins as our Double Rainbow Guy?
this is the auto tune version …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX0D4oZwCsA&feature=fvw
Ophelia, you probably know, but Mooney has done a hatchet job upon your good self. Comments disabled of course.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/07/12/setting-the-record-straight-on-ophelia-benson/
Hi Scott,
Thank you for responding…twice.
Your first post @#19 draws the wrong conclusion about my point. I see that you recognized that in your second response @#20. My point is more political. Collins, given his public ‘station’ so to speak, as a famous scientist and now as a government official, is lending big credibility to any argument in which he publicly engages. As a political matter the credibility goes to both sides. I would edit your argument to say that it is essentially a good thing for
Collinsfellow religionists to be undercutting the message that so many religious people receive from ‘the pulpit’ regarding science. I would like to believe that Collins can do some damage, but I am cynical, especially drawing on Coyne’s interpretation of recent data. Challenging religious beliefs is tough, and I am not really supportive of government official Collins’ effort because he has a very religious dog in the fight like you pointed out very well by analogy:The upshot of this could be that Collins’ opponents gain much more than they lose.
scott,
LOL, he is now my ‘most beautiful double f***ing rainbow’ man with a triple waterfall on top.
Let me be clear about the reason we at BioLogos posted Dr. Mohler’s talk. We disagree with it! We totally disagree with it. We have three posts showing how strongly we disagree with it and how harmful it is. We transcribed his speech even though he criticized us vehemently, because we wanted our readers to be able to read what he said, so they wouldn’t have to go back and watch the whole speech. Given our three posts and the extremely negative statements he made about us in the post, it never occurred to us that anyone would think we agreed with what his speech.
Thank you Scott for your supportive statements. I know you don’t agree with our religious position, but at least you have taken the time to understand us.
Darrel Falk,
President, The BioLogos Foundation
Mr. Falk,
I am glad you disagree with Mr. Mohler’s talk.
On another note:
How much do you think your readers identify BioLogos with Dr. Collins? I ask that out of concern for the political effects of your work as I stated in comment #26.
Thank you
scott
You can interpret ‘must not’ as you wish.
While it may be true that Collins bends some of his religion to fall in line with science , it is also true in the examples that he tries to bend some of science to suit his religion. And the bar is higher for him. He IS a scientist. He can’t hide behind excuses of not knowing better. Again I find most of BioLogos pointless. Coming from an Indian background superstition is as big a problem as religion is. As well as biologos will do nothing to convince a muslim no?
From a scientific view point? Yes it is wise. God is a hypothesis that is unproven – so much so for God’ intentions, language , eye color whatever. There is no benefit calling DNA the language of God. From a religious viewpoint – I dont care. The religious are fed nonsense and believe it , I suppose some harmless nonsense doesn’t matter . The problem is I don’t know if its harmless – Collins is implying the religious cannot accept science without phrasing everything in religious terms. I dont believe it , but I dont know one way or the other.
As devastating as having one more protestant sect?
Did I miss something here? I thought the number of people who don’t accept evolution is more or less the same Collins or no Collins.
Thanks, Dr Falk, that’s informative. I’ll update the post pointing out what you say.
Deepak:
Your last point, regarding trends in “accepting” the fact of evolution. Are you saying that there is no trend? Surely the trend is “toward” acceptance, right?
Coyne seems to be saying “faith itself” limits acceptance of evolution. Falk is really saying that it is a specific strand of theology that limits it. The problem with the data that Coyne cites is that it only surveys the USA – we need a cross cultural study to say more. They don’t have Albert Mohler and Fox news in Scandinavia, for instance, and evolution runs at 90% plus there. So our samples are polluted because it doesn’t control for the “USA effect” the unusually large influence of men like “Albert Mohler”.
So, it seems to me that Giberson has a better answer to the question, “How do you remove Albert Mohler?”, namely, attack the source of his authority. What is the source of that authority? It is not his “scientific credentials” … it is his “theological credentials”.
That is why getting Waltke fired was such a huge event for them. That is why Mohler is cracking down on the monks.
Destroying the theological credibility of Albert Mohler, is something that Dawkins et. al. can’t do with his “God is a bad hypothesis” stuff, any more than Al Qaeda can with their إن شاء الله crap.
BioLogos is attacking Mohler’s “authority” in a way that Mohler can’t write off as more “godless secularism”, because BioLogos is saying “the bible MEANS this” (this is no different than how Luther attacked indulgences can we agree that the Reformation was a good thing for humanity?
Lets do a thought experiment and ask ourselves, what would the USA look like if the head of one of the largest Seminary schools in the USA was Karl Gustav Hilding Hammar, and not Albert Mohler.
Now lets ask ourselves, is it really is intelligent of us to assert (as we seem to want to do round here) that it is simply “religion” that keeps vast swaths of America stupid, or is it better to agree with Falk, that, the content of the “faith” that is imposed on those swaths of America is the real problem?
I don’t have an answer, but if I wanted to know how to get an elephant to carry logs, I would have to admit that the advice of a Mahout like Darrel Falk, would really be foolish to dismiss.
PZ and Coyne, seem to say, “son, you get an Elephant to carry logs, by shooting the Elephant, and getting a bulldozer”.
Is the only good Clergy an extinct Clergy?
@Scott
I dont know.But then the number of non believers has been rising so that may have something to do with it. I dont think the time duration has been enough for BioLogos to have any effect one way or the other.
No. There is a specific strand of theology that accepts it, and it is nowhere near mainstream and it nowhere near what most people think of when they think of God. Most people do reject evolution because of their faith. What other reason is there? And while BioLogos can make the proposition that people interpret their faith incorrectly there is no objective or universal way to determine which is the correct interpretation. We might say that the Biologos form is more benign – but then why doesnt BioLogos try to get people to become thervana buddhists?
I’d rather that people approached this problem as the if religion contradicts science than religion must change. I dont see how you lose anything as a Christian by admitting the book of genesis is bunk, original sin is bunk – Most christians dont really care about original sin – why prop up a silly story as a metaphor allegory or whatever? Why have an alternate interpretation instead of the simpler “Genesis is wrong.” ? It seems the BioLogos method is dishonest(intentional or unintentional), even if their ends may be good(something Im not yet convinced of).
I know that the Catholic church when it comes to mixed marriages says that the danger(of Conversion) of a Catholic marrying a protestant is more than that of marrying a non christian- because the Protestant is more seductive . Im sure Mohler can come up with a better reason.
scott
Noone makes that statement. religion is one of the ways.
One of the problems is the acceptance of authority over evidence (whether that authority is the pope, mohler, glenn beck or ann coulter is not really relevant). BioLogos is trying to position itself as an authority that can tell you what is the correct way to interpret your religion. I dont agree with that.
I think clergy should be transitioned to more productive employment. All one needs to do is consider what religion Dr Falk would be practicing if he had been born in Saudi Arabia or New Delhi – it would not be Christianity. No factual basis for any of the core beliefs of Christianity exists – virgin birth, son of god, resurrection, etc. Just read the Nicene Creed and tell me which parts have any evidence to back them.
Dr Falk is willing to throw out Genesis as metaphorical because science contradicts it – well science also contradicts the miracles of the New Testament – try bringing someone back to life after three days. It is a slippery slope that is being trod here – if you are a biblical literalist, then Dr Falk’s view can’t satisfy you. Once you accept the errancy of the Bible , there is no turning back. It happened to me and to many others I know. If you grow up with liberal Christianity it may be less of a problem, but for evangelicals and fundamentalists it is hard to reconcile.
I think you need to ask yourself why is Christianity worth saving.
@Scott
I wanted to address this separately. I schooled in a Jesuit school and I have only good things to say about the priests who taught me. We non catholics had a class called Moral Science during the time the Catholics had Religious class. The best moral science class I attended was taught by a Jesuit father and it was purely secular. No mention of God or Jesus or Christianity just examples from life and a honest discussion of views.
I mention this because you use the term “good clergy”. Some of the clergy are good people. But that’s not the same as saying they are “good clergy”. What is good clergy ? The father above may not be a good clergyman because he made no attempt to save us (by preaching his faith to effect a conversion), but I have no doubt that he was a good man.
What purpose does a clergyman serve that is not fulfilled by other means?
Well, Deepak, I gave an example above of a “good cleric”, Karl Gustav Hammar, and I asked you to imagine what the American South would look like if men like him set policy for the SBC.
Don’t wake me from that dream.
It sounds like you gave an example of a good clergyman, too, but his goodness you only defined by what he didn’t do, not what he did? It sounds like he did positive things too, not just refrained from doing bad things.
Sure we could imagine things that clergy do “fulfilled” by other means, just like we could imagine the Bishop of Uppsalla taking Mohlers job … but we don’t live in a world where that is going to happen … no do we?
So, we are left with reform.
I could easily make a long list of good clergy. Off the top I’d mention Richard Holloway.
All of them would hold Albert Mohlers theology and politics in contempt, and not have the slightest hesitation about it.
We seem to imagine that the church can not reform itself to be a positive force in the world, when the world is full of Churches that HAVE reformed themselves and done positive things for the world.
What exactly is Cambridge University, if it is not a “reformed Christian madrassah”? Keep in mind that we must credit Darwin AND Watson and Crick to that particular institution. Could these things have happened another way? Sure, but they didn’t.
Deepak: You said @ #34: “I’d rather that people approached this problem as the if religion contradicts science than religion must change. I dont see how you lose anything as a Christian by admitting the book of genesis is bunk, original sin is bunk – Most christians dont really care about original sin – why prop up a silly story as a metaphor allegory or whatever? Why have an alternate interpretation instead of the simpler “Genesis is wrong.” ? It seems the BioLogos method is dishonest(intentional or unintentional), even if their ends may be good(something Im not yet convinced of).”
All the Christians I know believe in Original Sin. I even met a lay preacher the other week in the bush who told me that the weed problems we have in Australian agriculture are all because of The Fall. (I didn’t try to convince him otherwise. Been there; done that.)
To our long distant ancestors, understanding why droughts, floods, diseases and other disasters periodically occur was a major, if not their main, intellectual project. Because if you can understand why, you can look for measures to take to prevent them in the future, both immediate and more distant. So evolved eventually the big idea of monotheism, which wiped the other Middle Eastern religions off the stage pretty quickly. So we have (a) Garden of Eden (no death, not disease, lions lying down with lambs etc) proceeding to (b) The Fall and all the wars and desolation following as a consequence, proceeding to (c) Christ’s redemptive death on the Cross, proceeding to (d) Christ’s miraculous Resurrection, and his assumption into Heaven, proceeding to (e) Christ’s eventual return, the Kingdom and the Last Judgment.
The Fall only has meaning against the background of the preceding Eden; without the Original Sin, the rest of Christianity collapses in a heap, and all that is left is a story of dubious historicity. No need for Redemption, and therefore Christ and the writers of the New Testament were way off the beam.
Some people may agree with your statement “original sin is bunk ” AND simultaneously maintain that they are Christians not just in the apostolic sense, but also in the Bound for Glory sense. However, if you ask me one cannot maintain that position as a church member without at the same time and at whatever speed, heading for the exit.
I may be wrong in this, but as an ex-Christian I find it extraordinary that serious Christians can dismiss the claims of certain archaeologists to have found in Jerusalem the Lost Tomb of Jesus on the grounds that it makes no difference if Jesus’ mortal remains are in there or not. To my mind, that find alone would blow Christianity out of the water. The frenetic Christian efforts to debunk the film about it all (see the URL below) only back me up. As no less an authority than St Paul said: “And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain” (1 Cor. 15:14).
I think the above also helps explain the fervour of the Intelligent Design movement. The literal truth of Genesis is held by a hell of a lot of people as the most reassuring idea in their heads. I also see the BioLogos project as a defensive action: what is at stake for them is the credibility of the idea of the eternal survival of human consciousness (read soul if you like) after the body’s last breath is gone.
It’s the biggest game in town for them.
http://www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8#hl=en&source=hp&q=lost+tomb+of+jesus+debunked&aq=1&aqi=g7g-m1&aql=&oq=lost+tomb+of+jesus&gs_rfai=&rlz=1R2GPMD_enAU333&fp=ba07f64399603dcd
Well, Scott, I could probably come up with a list of ‘good clergy’ too, and even speak at some length about the ability of Christianity to reform itself. Richard Holloway would be one that I would mention, but I would also have to point out that Holloway has, in a very real sense, left Christianity behind. He finds Christian mythology a helpful way of understanding something of the depths of what it means to be human, in a way very similar to Freud’s use of Greek myth. But it would be hard to claim that he is, in any straightforward sense, still a Christian. At least many of his fellow Anglicans would question his credentials.
And to speak of Cambridge University as a ‘reformed Christian madrassah’ is about as farfetched as it is possible to get. Certainly, being of medieval foundation, and later requiring assent to the 39 Articles of Religion in order either to teach or learn at the university, it had deep roots within the Christian tradition, and to some extent still does. But to speak of it <i>in any sense</i> as a madrassa, reformed or not, is about as silly as uninformed accusations get, and is certainly a deep misunderstanding of how British Christianity has functioned.
It is surely significant that ‘reformed’ or ‘liberal’ Christianity, as this has expressed itself in ‘mainline’ denominations, like the Episcopal/Anglican Church, the Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist and other such ecclesial bodies, is in fairly sharp decline. In Canada, at least, many of these churches are now almost fringe movements, with alarming numbers (for them) of redundant church buildings, compared to the growing influence of pentecostal and other fundamentalist expressions of Christianity. Even within mainline denominations there are growing evangelical/fundamentalist movements which are beginning to marginalise the once hopeful liberalism which understood the Bible as myth, and religious belief as, in some sense, a way of being most fully human (which is largely the point of view of people like Holloway and Spong).
Curiously, whilst Biologos wants to dismiss the kind of fundamentalism represented by Albert Mohler, so far as I can see it still wants to retain standard Christian doctrine, of creation, fall, virgin birth, resurrection and redemption, all of which must, in some respect, be founded upon a fairly straightforward, literal reading of the Bible. As Michael Fugate points out, there is a very simple progression from questioning the literalness of Genesis to questioning the literalness of stories of sacrifice and redemption too. It seems to me doubtful that its agreement or disagreement with the findings of science can provide a theological basis for making distinctions between one kind of story and another. Reform, I’m afraid, has been tried and found wanting, and with Islam pounding at the door with its certainties, Christianity is not going to go down that path again, at least not in the foreseeable future.
What is of more concern than all this, however, is the fact that the Biologos endeavour to defend religious belief takes place in an entirely new religious context, in which religions which were once of peripheral concern to Christianity are now making claims to truth and respect right at the heart of political and national traditions once regarded as intrinsically Christian. Whereas at one time the question of the relationship between religion and science was almost entirely about whether Christian belief and scientific discovery were consistent or compatible, the question is now much broader, and includes religious beliefs which are actually contradictory to Christian beliefs. Even if Biologos were successful in providing space for both Christian belief and evolutionary biology, the questions of the relation between Islam and biology or Hinduism and biology, or Buddhism and biology are still unanswered. But this means, quite simply, that the question of the compatibility of Christianity and evolution remains unanswered too, even after all of Biologos’ work is done (at least to its satisfaction).
@Scott
You are asking me to imagine a world with good people running religion, I can quote you John Lennons song and ask you to imagine a world with no religion , no? No one denies that religion has good people.
No . I always remember the ethics I was taught by him. I merely wished to point out that the priest did so without recourse to *any* religion. And per his religion that would be BAD. Hence while I may consider such a person a good clergyman – He wouldn’t be, by the standards of his own religion.
Perhaps. but Id rather not fight this battle multiple times. reform Christianity and its multiple sects. then Islam. Then Hinduism with all its variants. Then scientology. Why? Perhaps we differ because you see some value in religion(that is not obtainable by other means) and I don’t.
We know that several organizations, such as NAS, AAAS and NCSE here in the states, have reached out to liberal Christians in hopes of increasing acceptance of evolution. The Clergy Letter Project is one prominent aspect of this campaign, but I have no idea if it is helping or even if any attempt has been made to assess its effect. This would seem to be an ideal project for a Master’s thesis. Anyone know?
Much of what I hear is that of course it has to work because if you are nice and respectful, then people will listen to your arguments. They may listen, but it is unlikely that they will change. They need to discover for themselves that their previous view was wrong and how it was wrong – in other words you must confront your beliefs head on to get change. It comes down to the old cliché “no pain, no gain”.
Just read Karl Giberson’s rather astonishing HuffPo piece. This statement seemed to me to be written in neon lights:
So this has been the problem all along. Scientists, like Giberson, are simply mistaken about the nature of science. Einstein didn’t trump Newton, in the way that Galileo trumped the Bible or revelation. As I understand it — and I am not a scientist — Einstein trumped Newton in the way that Watson and Crick trumped Darwin. Each is an extension of and a refinement of the science that preceded it, based on new discoveries, and consequently new models that were necessary in order to understand the greater complexity that scientific discovery had provided, based on the starting point that Newton provided. A sign that this is so is the oft repeated remark — which I also have to take on trust, since I am neither a physicist nor an engineer — that Newtonian mechanics works fairly well for most engineering purposes.
In any case, to make the relationship of later to earlier scientific theories an analog of the relationship of religious belief to science seems to be so extreme as to make Giberson look just a little ridiculous. Does he really understand how science works, or does he just do science? And if he does not understand the logic of scientific discovery, perhaps this explains why he can be so careless regarding the compatibility of science and religion. What, in any event, does he mean by ‘revealed truth about the world’? Could he please give us an example.
Damn hit submit by mistake.
I don’t deny that. However the Church is usually an impediment to reform , and takes years before it falls in line with the rest of the world. In this day and age , is equality for women really a debatable matter? But just look at the Church of England and the problem it faces while attempting to reform by having women bishops? Look at the Roman Catholic response – Not we can learn from our fellow Christians about women’s equality , but Oh desert the church and come to us , because we still discriminate against women(and gays)!. But you can count on the fact that sooner or later the Catholic church will have to change , and I can also predict that at that time people will say look the church has reformed itself!
Plus the Church (with few exceptions) demands some authority for itself. That authority is unearned and undeserved so i will not support it in any form.
Ah come on. Almost everyone was religious at that time. Its like me saying that all the older inventors were mostly men , so we should give some special privileges to men over women. Darwin worked inspite of religion , not because of it.
@Ian MCDougall
Yes I know there are some nuts. I also know that the positions of Christians as stated is different from as practiced. I can take an example from Catholicism – If you ask Catholics point blank whether they ask Mother Mary to take some action via prayer , they will say no , they ask Mary to intercede on their behalf. If you observe them without comment you will see that some of their prayers(not the official ones) actually do more then just ask for intercession. What I am trying to say in a roundabout way is that what Christians practice usually indicates that they dont really believe a lot of what they state they believe. Similarly no christian I know(Im not including clergy who must hold the official line) looks at a baby and says Sinner who must be cleansed by baptism. If pushed they will admit that no , they dont think the baby has any sin. I know that the statement “All Christians believe in original sin” is true in a sense , but also not true. An oxymoron if you wish.
Nah. I could give you anecdotal examples. A lot of Christians are ok with saying Old testament crap. Its only the non believers who follow through with the implications of that statement. The religious are quite content not thinking about it.
I guess it also depends by what you mean by Christianity. Most Christians I have been exposed to , only believe in the live life by Jesus’s principles (though they wont practice most of it) Some like John Shelby Spong are also willing to accept that no resurrection occurred and it doesnt bother them in the slightest. They dont really care about much of theology .
For e.g. so much kerfuffle about Adam and Eve as our ancestors. If you really read the bible , you would also think the same about Noah, no?
One of the disingenuous things about Giberson’s article is this idea that he is somehow in the sensible middle between fundamentalists who reject all science and scientists who reject all nonscience. What rubbish! Plenty of fundamentalists are practicing scientists even if they believe the earth is 6000 years old. Giberson is just willing to accept some science that fundamentalists don’t accept. Is he willing to accept the miracles of the New Testament on face value? Did Jesus turn water into wine? Did he produce food out of thin air? Did drive demons out of people into pigs? Was he dead for three days and return to life? Can he explain these events? How does his religion uncover the reality of anything beyond what science can discover? Scientists realize that many things are beyond what science can currently discover, but this doesn’t mean they will forever remain that way. What is it that religion has to offer us, if it is used only as a placeholder explanation for what science cannot currently explain? What is wrong with “I currently don’t know the answer”?
Deepak: For the adherents of any religion, believing is the way to belonging. In times and places where the latter has highest importance, the sort of cherry-picking you write of (and related metaphorical text interpretation) is least tolerated, and it is a matter of ‘believe the lot or get out’. The burning of heretics and witches soon follows.
The cherry-picking Christianity serves its adherents for a while, but if ‘anything goes’ then the lot soon follows, in a slide at whatever speed to oblivion. One can see the process all over the place today.
Thus IMHO the most philosophically sustainable form of Christianity is take-no-prisoners fundamentalism. Seven day creation 6,000 years ago; Eden; talking snake; burning bush? You bet.
Ah come on. Almost everyone was religious at that time. Its like me saying that all the older inventors were mostly men , so we should give some special privileges to men over women. Darwin worked inspite of religion , not because of it.
I did not say that Darwin, Watson and Crick, did their work (in association with Cambridge) because they were Christian, you’ve twisted my meaning (and words), and the whole “men” thing is just silly. Darwin’s findings did “conflict” with religion – but there was nothing IN his religion or that of his contemporaries that kept him from looking, or that he was so committed to, that he ignored what he saw in-spite of his upbringing.
Rather, it seems reasonable that something IN their religion, encouraged them to look. The intellectual environment that existed in the 19th Century at Cambridge in Victorian England, was conducive to the creation of knowledge.
I wish only to contrast this to the intellectual environment which Dembski’s and Mohler seek to create.
Which to be honest is a trivial point and I shouldn’t have to state it.
However, I think saying that “Cambrige” has nothing to do with Christianity, is as infuriating for a Christian to hear, as it is for Mohler to say that atheism causes Totalitarian regimes for us to hear (insert litany of 20th century despots here).
I guess what I’m trying to advocate is the idea that BioLogos, is relevant as a Christian Reform movement, and it is plainly pointed at the Evangelical Church, and that we should understand it and praise it, along this dimension. Giberson, for his part, should do better about not sounding like he is trying to reform science … but to the extend that he asks science not to “overstep” the limits of its “methodological naturalism” … this is fine with us. If he want to talk woo to people who talk woo … give us a hand signal that when he is saying something that has anything to do with “science”.
It would also not hurt us to come to terms with the facts on the ground, and “thank” the reformers more sincerely and more honestly than we do. Coyne could explicitly thank Giberson for communicating in language that really challenges monsters like Albert Mohlers, who we simply have no interest in “dialog” with.
To be fair I think Mohler made it clear that he ain’t in a dialog with BioLogos either.
It would not hurt us to distinguish between the various species of “Elephants”, as we enjoy our ever more enjoyable “explicit atheism”, we might even agree to set up some “Elephant Reserves” … if only for the maintenance and preservation of their nice buildings.
Who is going to keep, HH Richardson’s Trinity Chapel? Genetech? Who shall keep the Lucia Festival going at the Uppsala Cathedral? I suggest to you that entire societies have done just fine, at embracing atheism, and solemnizing their births and deaths in a manner that honors their past, without flagrant insanity of the type intended by Albert Mohler Jr.
I seem to keep hearing things like “Halloway” is not a Christian … who is the fundamentalist now? We got a periodic table against which we should define “Christians” … they select their cannon, and have a right to their own “meaning” without “us” telling them what they are and are not.
If “Christian” means only things that we agree with (and I agree with Holloway much more than I disagree with him). A bit of “charity” on our part, is not “accommodation” it is virtue.
@scott
Your words were we must *credit* Darwin to that particular institution. And Im saying no , I don’t agree. If Michael Behe writes up some outstanding research (perhaps not related to evolution) – Do I have to credit the discovery institute?
If you are trying to equate BioLogos to some Christian reform movement , you will also have to state their positions on some non scientific social issues (Gay marriage, Abortion, Children , Womens rights etc etc). Do you know their official position? Without this Im afraid I dont buy what your selling.
I sort of agree with you but I think it was Hitchens who said that if you dont believe that Jesus is the son of God and died for your sins, then you are not in any meaningful sense a Christian. Is that so fundamentalist?
As before I dont see the value in reforming Christianity as opposed to getting rid of it (and other religions). I dont see the value in otherwise competent people wasting their time figuring out more creative ways to rationalise their non scientific text with science. And I especially dont see the value in associating with people who dont have the intellectual courage to admit that some parts of their religion is just plain wrong.
Ian Mc Dougall
Then we should have seen that as the predominant form of Christianity today. Thats not my experience. All the religious are cherry pickers. Otherwise you’d have seen christians donating all their stuff to the poor.