An excellent interview with Francis Collins about Science and Faith

Here's the link to the full video of Francis Collins talking about the Human Genome Project, but in this link, he also speaks about the relationship of faith and science. Well worth checking out.

Teaching Kids About Science in Church

There's a good post today at the Internet Monk about how best to teach preteen kids in church about faith/science issues. Unfortunately (or maybe not!) the gentleman in question has only a half hour to introduce the subject to his class this coming week.

Here's the conundrum Ben is in:

Dear Chaplain Mike,

On Friday, I’ve got 30 minutes to talk to a group of 11-13 year-olds about ‘creation and evolution’.

They haven’t studied anything about either at school, and in the context of the church they go to, there isn’t a great deal of pressure for me to push things either way.

I’m a bit stumped about where to even start: creation/evolution, religion/science, Genesis/Gilgamesh?!

I may just be able to ask them questions and improvise from there, but I’d quite like a backup plan…

I’d be interested to know what advice Internet Monk readers might have.

Regards,
Ben S

Here's what I recommended in the thread below:

Ditto on what Paul says above. I would also use a simple illustration of how a word or a phrase can have different meanings depending the context within which it is used as a way of showing that some of the biblical terms in early Genesis don’t necessarily have to be seen as meaning “one” thing. Though this is short notice, I would highly recommend the book by Sigmund Brouwer called “Who Made the Moon?” It’s subtitled “A Father Explores How Faith and Science Agree” and it is fantastic for parents of younger and even preteen kids inquiring about faith/science issues. It’s also accurate without being overly technical, since it is meant to be accessible to both a non-scientist parent and the child.

Also a very important point when teaching and dialoguing with the kids. Listen to them! Respect their questions. And please don’t answer if you don’t know. They have a finely tuned BS detector that, I promise, will go off if you try to answer without knowing what you’re talking about. If they stump ya, admit it and tell them, if it’s at all possible, that you’ll look into their question more and get back to them on it. They’ll respect that honesty more than any false bravado. It might also be a good thing to point out a handful of devout Christians who have also been world renowned scientists, whether in biology, astronomy, chemistry, genetics, etc., so that they know that real people can and do live in both worlds without having to give up either. I pray it goes well for him!

What would you do in this situation? With such a short time to introduce something so big to a crowd as scary as 11-13 year olds who have no background about science, what would you want their "first impression" of science to be as it relates to the Christian faith? Again, check out the Internet Monk thread as more people respond. It should be fun and interesting.

The God of the Gaps is not God

I may like to shop at The Gap, but I sure don't want to worship a God of the Gaps. And this essay gives a helpful explanation why.

Do You Believe The Bible To Be 100% Factual/Truth?

I wrote this just a bit earlier in response to a friend's Facebook question:

Do You Believe The Bible To Be 100% Factual/Truth?

I used to be very strongly in the "inerrantist" camp regarding the absolute accuracy of scripture. That isn't to say I read the text in a wooden literalistic way. Even back then I understood that scripture was made up of many different genres of writing. In fact I even decided against going to a seminary several years ago because they didn't hold to inerrancy, and eventually came out to Gordon Conwell partly just for that reason, since they do officially hold to inerrancy. But ironically enough since I've been out here, I've moved steadily aways from the notion of inerrancy for several reasons.

First off, it's one of those doctrines that dies the death of a thousand qualifications. The reason there are so many qualifications is precisely because without them inerrancy would be obviously wrong.

And secondly, whenever there are textual variants among the manuscripts, which there are many, both OT and NT, it's argued that the doctrine of inerrancy is concerning the "autographs" and not any of the manuscripts we now have. But of course there are no autographs around to test this out by. It's therefore unfalsifiable.

And lastly, my interest in science and biology, cosmology, genetics, etc., has forced me to come to terms with trying to reconcile my faith with the modern scientific consensus concerning origins. Now I've never been a "young earth" type to begin with, and grew up on Carl Sagan's Cosmos, so I've never really struggled with accepting modern science. But for a long time I didn't really take the time to see how these two "books" (scripture and nature) of God's revelation related to each other.

So I don't think it's necessary to read scripture like it's a modern science textbook. That's a modernist and frankly fundamentalist way of looking at the text that does it a great injustice. Even within scripture we see different authors reinterpreting previously inspired texts in surprisingly "spiritual" and "metaphorical" ways. And in the early church some of the treatments were really out there at times, and it was considered OK because scripture was seen to be alive, fluid and flexible, precisely because is was "God-breathed."

Anyway thanks man for posting the question. It helps me to process my own thinking right now on where I'm at and where I'm "evolving" in my Christian understanding.

Whither Christian essentials?

What should Christians who accept evolutionary biology declare to be "essential" to an orthodox Christian faith? For me there are several essentials that if they were given up would evacuate the Christian faith of any meaning and substance. First off, that there is one eternal Creator God which created all that is, whether physical or spiritual. I would add that this creation was from nothing, otherwise known as ex nihilo. Yet I understand that other Christians differ on whether this belongs to the essential category. I put it there because of the nature of God being eternal and before all things, thus anything other-than-God must be created, and ultimately that means it came from nothing into being. Unless we hold to a kind of pantheism or panentheism which has the created world being part of God. My understanding of the biblical text is traditionally theistic whch sees a sharp divide between the creator and the creation.

Another essential to the faith for me is the centrality of Christ in salvation. Whether you hold to a strictly exclusive understanding of salvation (no one can be saved apart from a conscious faith in Christ as savior) or a more inclusive understanding (Christ is still the only way to the Father, but there are hidden Christians, or a second chance to choose Christ after death) is not my main concern. The biblical witness is clear that reconciliation with God is conditioned upon Christ's work on the cross and especially in his resurrection.

Which is a nice segue to another essential that if rejected leaves Christianity being nothing more than another moralistic philosophy that's essentially indistinguishable from other belief systems. Miracles. In particular the miracle of Jesus' virgin birth, his miracles throughout his ministry, and ultimately his resurrection from the dead. Paul, not to mention the other apostles, makes it clear that their faith was predicated on Christ rising from the dead and therefore defeating death itself. If this didn't happen then Christianity is just another ultimately meaningless philosophy, no better, no worse. Actually it would be worse, because it claims to be more and if that's not true, then it would be guilty of knowingly lying about one of the most essential questions in life: What happens after death?

And since I opened this with a reference to those who, like me, accept evolutionary biology as true, is belief in an historical Adam and Eve necessary to an orthodox faith? I happen to believe that they were historical people. But I don't believe they were the only humans around at that time. Thus I have no problem with the necessity of a thousand or more early humans to provide the genetic diversity that we see in the human genome. I see them as representative figures standing as federal heads over all of humanity, just in the same way that Christ is the federal head over all those who are under him. So I would say that Adam was historically real, first of all because the rest of the biblical writers assumed that to be so, especially Paul, but also because there is no reason to reject his historicity for scientific reasons if he's seen as a federal head as mentioned above. It's when he's seen as the sole progenitor of all humans that we run into serious scientific problems. Ironically that same literalistic reading of early Genesis also sees the same genetic bottleneck with Noah as Adam. because if the flood was worldwide (btw, I don't believe the flood was worldwide) and only Noah's family survived, then we're once again stuck with the same genetic problem as we saw with Adam. So Adam makes the cut in my scheme, though I'm not sure how essential he is to an orthodox faith. But at least in my reading, he's really important in light of what the rest of scripture says.

There are of course many other doctrinal issues, some more important than others, involved in the Christian faith, not to mention the myriad practical aspects to being a true Christian such as charity, mercy, purity of heart, etc. Christianity, while it is a cognitive faith, is so much more than that. And it isn't a true Christianity that is only cognitive without the moral life being lived out.

So is this enough? Are there other essentials that need to be included? Is it too much? What might you drop in my list as an unnecessary burden?