The commercials will hopefully be airing on television in the near future, but we wanted to give our blog readers a sneak peak! They’re a great introduction to our work here at BioLogos, and we encourage you to share them through email, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Tumblr, Pinterest, or any other website you can think of!

“Mightily Hands On”, featuring Jeff Schloss and Alister McGrath (0:30)

“Beethoven Symphony”, featuring NT Wright (2:30)

More Than One Christian View

Many parents and pastors are wondering what to tell their children about creation and evolution. While Sunday school classes often cover Genesis 1 around kindergarten (with kids coloring pictures of what God created on each day), most curricula do not address science again before kids leave for college. Yet issues of creation and evolution can be addressed in age-appropriate ways throughout Sunday school. Elementary school children already learn about idol worship from other Old Testament stories, so teachers have an opportunity to contrast Genesis 1 with the idol-rich creation stories of other cultures. Middle school students can be given basic tools for considering creation and evolution such as the contrast between the “how” questions answered by their science lessons in school and the “who” and “why” questions answered in Scripture. Middle and high school students can find role models by reading the testimonies of scientist Christians.

Youth need to be encouraged to discuss their questions and doubts, while affirming core beliefs. When asked why they left the faith, scientists often mention that the church was not open to their questions and told them to “just believe.” Churches can demonstrate openness to questions by teaching youth about multiple Christian views on an issue. Students need to hear that some Christians accept the science of evolution and others do not, and have a conversation about the reasons why. Too many young people have struggled when they felt they had to choose between clear scientific evidence and the beliefs they grew up with. Even when parents and leaders are unsure about evolution, they can help students by saying, “While I have concerns about evolution, I’ve heard that some Christians accept the science of evolution while still believing in the God of the Bible.”

Difficult issues like origins cannot be addressed in a single event. People need time to ponder the issues, and spaces to talk it through. One church did a six-week sermon series, with parallel curricula for all ages in Sunday school, so that families could work through it together. Another church did a sermon series and discussion group for adults for four weeks, to prepare parents before a four-week series for the youth group. Other churches encourage small groups to read a book on science and faith and discuss a chapter a week. (Since all authors have their favorite view, I recommend discussing at least two books from different authors to learn about multiple Christian positions.)

More Than Evolution

In our science-saturated culture, evolution is not the only science topic the church should be considering, and not even the most important. With church members encountering the latest medical advances as patients and family members, a discussion on bioethics would be very relevant. Since young people are usually the first to use hot new gadgets, they should be considering the appropriate Christian use of technology . As the issue of climate change becomes more pressing every year, churches need to talk about it, and not avoid it because it is so political. The Evangelical Environmental Network offers many resources for churches, emphasizing ways that creation care benefits the poor and the unborn. One group of churches, with the help of Calvin College, joined together to clean up the local creek that drains the watershed in which the parishioners live, work, and worship. Many of the congregants were not even aware of the size of the watershed or the pollution level in their own creek. This was a hands-on opportunity for all ages, directly caring for their own corner of God’s green Earth.

More Than Controversy

With so many issues to discuss, Christians can easily get the feeling that science is always attacking the faith. It is essential to balance such conversations with positive responses to God’s creation. After all, the primary response to the natural world in the Bible is to praise the God who made it. The first time I led an adult Sunday school class on creation and evolution, I was amazed how much the participants appreciated simply ending each session with a Psalm reading or creation hymn. Thoughtful frowns turned into relaxed smiles as the group remembered our unity in Christ and the centrality of God as the Creator.

Creation themes can be incorporated throughout worship. One church asked the congregation to submit their favorite creation photos at the end of the summer (from backyard flowers to National Parks), then wove the images into a worship service with creation songs and readings from the Psalms. In addition to flowers and mountains, modern science has revealed incredible glories that can inspire our praise and reflection. Several contemporary Christian musicians have begun to artfully incorporate the wonders of the natural world into their music; Chris Rice sings of “cratered moon and Saturn’s rings,” and Third Day praises the “God of wonders beyond our galaxy.” In one church, an elder brought in modern science when leading the congregation in prayer with these words: “Creator God, out of nothing you created all that is. You hurled the galaxies through time and space. . . . The universe is your hourglass, the continental drift your minute hand, the Grand Canyon your second hand. You are infinite.”

Preachers can incorporate science in the same way they make references to movies, current events, or best-selling books in sermons. To notice these connections, take some time to encounter science: read the science section of the New York Times, visit a local science museum, or ask scientists in the congregation about their work. A visit to a planetarium might give a new appreciation for the vastness of the universe, which could illuminate a sermon on the vastness of God’s forgiveness in Psalm 103:11–12. Pastor John Van Sloten learned about the neural networks in the brain and incorporated it into a sermon on the vine and the branches of John 15.

Preachers are understandably concerned about avoiding scientific errors when preaching, but this should not prevent engagement with science. Some pastors do their own research to get the details right because they enjoy digging into a science topic. Other pastors bring in a scientist (live or by video) so that they do not have to explain the technical material themselves. Others play to their strengths by choosing topics with fewer technical details, such as the Christian motivation for doing science or exposition of Bible passages relevant for scientific questions. Many of the questions Christians have are really about biblical interpretation and Christian theology, areas where the pastor is an expert. Minor technical errors made in good faith are forgivable, but a sermon that argues that mainstream science is wrong on some point can be devastating for the faith life of teenagers who are learning the correct science in school.

Beyond Sunday morning worship and preaching, science can show up in many areas of church life. During a youth camping trip or church picnic, include a nature walk concluded with praise. After a winter evening worship service, invite a local amateur astronomer to set up a telescope in the parking lot to show people the moon and planets. Convert a vacant lot near church into a community garden, so kids can experience firsthand how God provides food from the Earth.

More Than Programs

In all these activities, remember that views on science are “caught” more than “taught.” Congregants will naturally pick up on the attitude of the pastor or ministry leader, whether skeptical of science or celebrating science as the study of God’s creation. Visitors will pick up on this too, so these attitudes are part of being a church that welcomes and ministers to scientist Christians . Recently I was invited to speak at a church on the expansion of the universe and the possibility of a multiverse. Several enthusiastic young people in attendance had clearly caught the love of science from the church leaders who planned the event. One girl came up afterward with her dad, both of them marveling at God’s creation. They were amazed not just with the particular things I had discussed, but with the way in which God has embedded wonders at every level of understanding. Everyone can marvel at the starry skies, school kids can learn about the planets and asteroids, and scientists with PhDs can study dark matter and string theory. No matter how deep we look, we keep discovering more and more ways that creation declares the glory of God.

For Further Reading

For more resources on a full range of science topics, visit the The Ministry Theorem collection at http://ministrytheorem.calvinseminary.edu/. You will find sample sermons, curricula for children and adults, worship resources, essays by a dozen scientist Christians, and much more.

"Homeschooling has broadened so much, and now includes many Christian groups who have never adopted Young Earth Creationism," said homeschool pioneer Susan Wise Bauer, a history professor at Virginia's College of William and Mary. "Also, there are a lot of younger evangelicals who have come to a different way of understanding Genesis, while still holding [on to their] evangelical roots."

Textbook providers are beginning to respond to the increasing demand for integrated science materials, and organizations like Test of Faith and the American Scientific Affiliation have responded to the needs of homeschooling parents by helping to create new resources and evaluate existing ones. The BioLogos Evolution and Christian Faith grant program is supporting projects to develop homeschooling resources, at Bryan College and at Wheaton College.

Read the full story at Christianity Today. 

Writer David R. Wheeler writes that, “For homeschooling parents who want to teach their children that the earth is only a few thousand years old, the theory of evolution is a lie, and dinosaurs coexisted with humans, there is no shortage of materials. … This staunch rejection of modern science tends to characterize today's leading homeschool textbooks.”

But homeschooling evangelicals who embrace modern science are becoming more vocal about it, writes Wheeler, regardless of the “inevitable criticism” that comes with making that choice.

So where can these parents go to find textbooks that are both scientifically sound, yet still allow for God as the author of creation?

 Wheeler notes that one publisher in Grand Rapids is attempting to fill the gap, and also cites BioLogos’ Evolution and Christian Faith grants program as a promising source of materials that can help reframe the conversation for Christian parents.

Read the full article here!

Read his moving speech here.

Grantees will benefit from in-person interaction through a series of summer workshops in 2013, 2014, and 2015. These meetings will not only foster a broader knowledge base, but will build a sustained network of scholars and church leaders, both young and seasoned, who are serious about addressing the concerns of the church about evolution. Also in 2015, in connection with the third summer workshop, BioLogos will host a large conference open to scientists, scholars, and church leaders from around the world.

ECF History

In January 2012, BioLogos was awarded a multi-million dollar grant from the John Templeton Foundation to fund the work of scholars and church leaders on evolution and Christian faith. In spring 2012 we worked hard to get the word out. You may have seen announcements on the BioLogos website, in our newsletters, on the Books & Culture, Leadership Journal, or First Things websites, on your professional society’s listserv, or perhaps on your friend’s blog.

The response was overwhelming: we received 225 letters of intent for a total request of $21 million—about seven times the amount we had to offer. We needed to invite the most promising applicants to submit a full proposal, but recognizing the projects with highest potential would require broad expertise. From the beginning, we envisioned that a panel of scientists, pastors, and scholars would oversee the application and review process as well as play key advisory roles throughout the project. A team of eight highly qualified individuals came on board in the early months of the project. They reviewed each proposal and together recommended that BioLogos invite 86 applicants to submit full applications.

The deadline for submissions was October 1, 2012. As in the previous round, the ECF panel evaluated each proposal. In addition, we asked 55 other experts to participate, so that each proposal received 3-4 scores. Criteria for the decision included significance of topic, project design, creativity and innovation, long-term impact potential, feasibility, and budget.

The panel then met together November 29-30, 2012, to make the final funding decisions. In the end, they recommended that BioLogos give 37 awards, ranging from $23,000 to $300,000. BioLogos staff notified applicants of their awards on December 14, 2013.

The Grantees

As part of our objective to create a network of scholars and leaders, we awarded grants to organizations across the U.S. and the world. Thirty of the 37 grantees are domestic; seven are international, hailing from Canada, France, Great Britain, Netherlands, and Spain.

Two-thirds of the accepted projects will be led by teams—some with three or more Project Leaders. We expect that the teamwork and time spent together at our summer workshops will be the start of a long-lasting network of people dedicated to helping the church think carefully about origins.

Applicants chose to apply under one of three program tracks: interdisciplinary scholarship (Track 1), intra-disciplinary scholarship (Track 2), and translational projects (Track 3). Track 1 projects focus on both the collaboration between individuals in different disciplines and the development of projects at the interface of different content areas. Track 2 projects focus on work done within a specific discipline. Track 3 focuses on projects that encourage Christians, especially those within more conservative traditions, to engage in meaningful and productive dialogue to reduce tensions between mainstream science and the Christian faith. The numbers of grantees in Tracks 1, 2, and 3 are 6, 8, and 23, respectively.

Many of the scholarly projects tackle questions about Adam and Eve, the Fall, human identity, and Original Sin—some of the most critical interpretive issues for evangelical theology.  Some examples: 

• Theologian Oliver Crisp of Fuller Seminary will take an analytic theology approach to ask to what extent a theological account of the origin of human sin depends upon the evolution of modern humans from one and only one ancestral pair—especially if that pair does not appear to correspond to what we would think of as modern human beings. 

• Pastor Michael Gulker and philosopher James Smith, leading a large team from The Colossian Forum, ask a related question: if humanity emerged from non-human primates—as genetic, biological, and archaeological evidence seems to suggest—then what are the implications for Christian theology’s traditional account of origins, including both the origin of humanity and the origin of sin? 

• Biologist Dennis Venema of Trinity Western University and New Testament scholar Scot McKnight of Northern Seminary will write a book on the evidence for evolution and population genetics, with informed theological reflection on how these issues interact with orthodox Christianity.

• Biologist David Wilcox of Eastern University will develop an updated model of human identity which reflects the complex recent scientific advances in genetics and paleoanthropology and yet is sensitive to theological concerns.  

These are just a few of the scholarly awards; check out the Grantees page for full descriptions of all Track 1 and Track 2 projects.

All projects have translational potential, but Track 3 projects are designed to meet the needs of a particular constituency within the evangelical church. These projects run the gamut from ethics to education to media production to ministry resources.  Some examples include:

• Theologian Lee Camp of Lipscomb University will produce “The Questions in Monkey Town,” an episode of Tokens, a live variety show that features musical performances, comedic sketches, brief interpretive monologues, and dialog with authors and scholars. The episode will be performed and filmed on the site of the famous Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee.

• Chaplain Joshua Hayashi and Educator Diane Sweeney of the Punahou School in Hawaii will lead a team to produce multimedia curricula aimed at helping high school students connect with their biology curricula and, at the same time, deepen their Christian faith.

• Physics teacher and pastor Benoît Hébert of Science et Foi Chrétienne in France will lead an international, multi-denominational team of French speaking Evangelical scientists, pastors and church leaders to produce a large number of resources on evolutionary creation.

• Pastor Seung-Hwan Kim of Grace Truth Community Church, a Southern Baptist church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will produce teaching and preaching materials about evolution for church leaders.

• President Gregory Wolfe and Director of Resource Development for IMAGE will gather artists and writers of faith whose work explores the dialogue between evolutionary science and faith practice, convening a conversation between them and scientists, theologians, and church leaders in private and public conferences.

Again, this is just a taste of the diversity of Track 3 projects. Read more about each project on the Grantees page. You can look forward to an incredible variety of resources coming out of the ECF program, many of which will be featured right here on the BioLogos Forum.

I am a Christian who has always been drawn to the biological sciences. So much so that I majored in genetics in college and spent 18 years in the field of paternity/forensics and conservation genetics. In 2003, I was given the opportunity to teach Advanced Placement (AP) Biology at a local Christian high school, and in 2009, I left the field of genetics behind to pursue youth ministry at my church full time. From 2009-2012 I attended Bethel Theological Seminary, earning an M.A. in theology, while concurrently teaching AP Biology.

One of the reasons I agreed to teach at this particular Christian school was because they allowed the teaching of mainstream evolution in an open way in their biology courses. Because my course was an AP course, the school also needed to comply with the textbook requirements, meaning I would be teaching from a secular biology book. This teaching environment presented some of the most powerfully engaging teaching moments I have experienced with teenagers, and it was from these initial teaching experiences that I began to feel God’s call for me to enter into full-time youth ministry.

Within a few weeks of my first year of teaching AP Biology in a Christian school, one thing became clear: The students were entering my class with a presupposition towards Young Earth Creationism (YEC) as taught by our Bible department. I had been informed that among the teaching staff, the Bible Department believed in a Young Earth cosmology while the Science Department in an Old Earth cosmology. This caused me some concern, being new to Christian education. I quickly came to the realization that there were actually different ways of looking at the world (i.e. worldviews) within the Christian worldview. I had only attended secular schools growing up, and so this dichotomy within one teaching institution disturbed me on a few levels.

First, I had the sense that it was not healthy to have conflicting views that appear to place the Bible and science in conflict with each other. Second, and more detrimental in my opinion, I wondered if these opposing views could cause students to eventually abandon their faith in God and the truths of the Bible if they were continually flipping between biblical and scientific truths, as though these truths opposed each other? According to an article published by the BarnaGroup, “One of the reasons young adults feel disconnected from church or from faith is the tension they feel between Christianity [i.e. Theology] and science…the research shows that many science-minded young Christians are struggling to find ways of staying faithful to their beliefs and to their professional calling in science-related industries.” (Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church, September 28, 2011). My new teaching position suddenly felt more like a ministry than when I had first agreed to this job.

Redeeming Conversations: Seeking The Truth

The first challenge for me at the beginning of each school year is to clarify the students’ understanding of evolution as it has been taught in their Bible and pre-requisite science courses. Invariably, they come back with the same answer: “Evolution is a lie,” to which I respond with, “Which aspects of evolution are you talking about?” After some debate and discussion, the students typically agree with microevolution, while rejecting the notion of macroevolution. These initial discussions typically end with the students’ astonishment that I treat evolution in a serious, non-mocking way, and yet am an adult with a strong Christian faith.

Ultimately, these conversations expose the fact that they had been taught to distrust science and trust the Word of God. I whole-heartedly agree that we must trust the Bible, but I also believe it is important for my students to understand that they can have faith in the Bible as God’s inspired Word, but must be careful with how they interpret the Bible and which interpretations they adhere to. One of my past students is currently working on his PhD in neuroscience at Ohio State and recently shared his experience from my class:

I wanted to let you know that in AP Biology you really challenged my view of creation and evolution. Being raised in a Christian family, school and church my entire life, I had always been taught the literal six-day account of Genesis (especially at [our school] where they didn't allow any discussion or thinking on the topic). I still remember in AP Bio when you said that you believed in evolution AND you were a Christian. It was completely unexpected! I ended up writing my college essay about the topic and it has since been a topic that I am greatly interested in. Specifically why culture (secular and Christian) has created the mindset of ‘Creation vs. Evolution’ rather than God could have created the world through evolution.

I share this quote to show the benefit of dealing openly and honestly with science and theology in the classroom. I believe this quote also reveals the underlying tension that is so real in the lives of so many Christians today, as pointed out in the Barna Group quote above. Having been taught a specific interpretation of the Genesis creation account (i.e. Literal Six-Day Creation), coupled with emphasizing the idea that biblical truth trumps scientific truth, a burden has been placed on teachers in Christian schools that goes beyond teaching the curriculum to pass a Bible or biology course alone.

I am firmly convinced that we must educate our young Christians, whether they attend Christian or public schools, to do theology, philosophy, and science well. As Christian parents, God calls us first and foremost to begin this education in our homes, but this should also be encouraged in the local church, through discipleship relationships, and/or in formal educational settings (e.g. Christian schools and Christian colleges). My hope is that as we continue to seek truth in theology and the sciences, we can learn to dialogue in redemptive, God-honoring ways. Maybe it is too much to hope for in the current cultural climate in America, but for my part, I will continue to attempt to encourage my students away from the creation/evolution debate, and towards a more accurate biblical hermeneutic, and less defensive stance towards the sciences.

Conversations about science and faith can be like that. People hold clearly discordant points of view, and it would be dishonest to ignore the conflict. Yet some voices emphasize the dissonance without any note of harmony to put it in context. Too often, science and faith becomes a hostile battle of worldviews, sounding angry, dissonant chords even among fellow Christians. But civil, gracious dialogue is possible. On the BioLogos Forum, we invite authors from a range of positions, including some that don't agree with all our beliefs, but we strive to set these dialogues in a context of respect and civility. When authors are fellow Christians, we don’t shy away from disagreements, but remember the broader context of our unity as fellow believers, the harmony that binds us together.

My own story is more harmonious than dissonant. My interest in music was paralleled by my interest in math and science and my involvement in church. My family and teachers encouraged my interests in science, and I remember how fun it was to play math games with my dad and brother. And every week we were in church: twice on Sunday, plus Wednesday night club, youth group activities, and Bible quizzing. While my church accepted the young earth position, they didn’t emphasize it, and I was never told that a particular science view was essential to being a Christian. When I encountered the evidence for the age of the universe and the evolution of life, I also found Christian authors who showed me how this scientific evidence could fit with Christian beliefs.

But others have experienced more dissonance. Nearly four years ago, Dr. Francis Collins launched this website with the story of a young university student in the midst of a profound personal crisis, what Dr. Collins called “a wrenching crisis of worldviews shaking her deepest foundations.” Without a context of harmony, too many people – young and old – feel they have to choose between two incompatible positions, either Christian faith or the findings of science. BioLogos exists to show another way. We hold fast to the authority of the Bible and the core beliefs of Christianity, and at the same time, accept the rigorous conclusions of mainstream science.

It is with these chords of dissonance and resolution in mind that I come to this opportunity to lead BioLogos. I have long sensed God’s calling to serve the church as part of this dialogue. Some of you know of me from a book I wrote in 2007 with my husband Loren, called Origins. I’ve been speaking and writing on science and faith for many years, but I did this around the edges of my primary career of teaching and research in astronomy. While I thoroughly enjoy teaching students and doing research, over the last year I have recognized God’s hand in leading me to shift my fulltime work to the science and faith dialogue. Now I’m looking forward to using and developing my gifts in service of BioLogos.

Joining me as a new member of the leadership team is Dr. Jeff Schloss, who will serve as our Senior Scholar. Many of you are already familiar with his work, and know he brings not only a strong track record of scholarship in evolution and philosophy, but tremendous skill in communicating to lay audiences. Jeff and I share a deep commitment to the unity of the body of Christ and a desire to remove barriers for people to come to Christ. I am delighted to have him on board.

Jeff and I inherit a strong and vibrant organization from our outgoing President, Dr. Darrel Falk. Darrel brought his deep love and concern for the church, along with his considerable creativity and hard work, to this effort. We plan to continue and build on the excellent programs he established.

One of the pleasures of my first few weeks on the job has been getting to know the BioLogos staff. Kathryn, Lisa, Stephen, Mike, Laura J, and LeAnne each bring key skills to the organization, as well as energy and a passion for the mission of BioLogos. The team keeps BioLogos functioning behind the scenes, from finances to computer programming to event planning. Two team members, Mark Sprinkle and Tom Burnett, have decided to move on to other opportunities after a year of dedicated service to BioLogos. As web editors, Mark and Tom revamped the blog, making it a forum for rich scholarly dialogue and vibrant testimonies, and drawing in new authors to write on a great mix of topics. They also organized the archived material, so that the best of BioLogos is readily accessible. We wish them well in their new endeavors. Joining the BioLogos team is Emily Ruppel as Interim Web Editor. You may know Emily from her work to develop and edit the e-zine God & Nature for the American Scientific Affiliation; she will join us part time at BioLogos while she continues to work with ASA.

We believe God has great things in store for BioLogos. We will continue to focus on connecting with scholars, pastors, teachers, and lay people, but in the months ahead, we will also be sharpening our vision and engaging afresh in strategic planning. We’ll be considering new audiences, new programs, and new priorities. I invite your comments below on directions you’d like to see BioLogos take.

In just a few years, this organization has impacted the lives of thousands of Christians and brought an important voice to discussions taking place within the church. Thanks to the strong support from The John Templeton Foundation and many other generous donors, the vision of Francis Collins is thriving. BioLogos is on the cusp of enormous opportunities and huge potential. While transitions are times of risk and vulnerability, they are also times of great opportunity. My prayer is that God will give us wisdom and guidance to be good stewards of this opportunity. May God continue to use BioLogos to bring harmony to a conversation that has emphasized dissonance for far too long.

As a Board, our transition process has focused on selecting leaders who embrace Christ as Savior and science as the pursuit of understanding God’s work in His creation. Both Haarsma and Schloss have demonstrated their commitment to these two fundamental principals in their scholarship as well as in their lives.

President Deborah Haarsma, Ph.D.

Dr. Deborah Haarsma is Professor of Physics & Astronomy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In recent years she has become well known to the BioLogos community as a regular contributor and consultant to our blog and Questions section, as well as an active member of the Board of Advisors. Dr. Haarsma’s deep commitment to her faith and enthusiasm for science have made her a popular public speaker in churches as well as private Christian schools and universities.

A graduate of Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota, Dr. Haarsma earned her Ph.D. in astrophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An experienced research scientist, her work on galaxy clusters and gravitational lenses has been published in The Astrophysical Journal and The Astronomical Journal.

Dr. Haarsma grew up in a Christian home and an evangelical church. Since her college days, she has felt God’s call to be an ambassador: to share Christ’s love in the academic world of science, and to share the wonders of God’s creation with the church. Her first book, Origins: Christian Perspectives on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design, was coauthored with husband, Dr. Loren Haarsma, a biophysicist. Origins respectfully explores the range of views held by Christians on creation, evolution, and human origins and is used in many Christian schools and colleges to navigate these complex issues. Haarsma’s latest book, Delight in Creation: Scientists Share Their Work with the Church, co-edited with Rev. Scott Hoezee, invites Christians to explore the discoveries of science through essays by Christian biologists, astronomers, mathematicians, and other scientists.

A gifted musician, Dr. Haarsma is active in her local church, playing piano for the choir and worship services. In a recent article, Dr. Haarsma shared how her own worship of God as creator has been intensified by her scholarship in science, saying “I have learned to praise God for the glory of the systems he has put in place. Rather than picturing God making each mountain individually, I praise him for carefully designing a whole system of continental plates that slowly but powerfully raised up the snowy heights of the Himalayas. Rather than picturing God creating each individual flower, I praise him for designing the system of evolution to create an extravagant variety of flowers of all shapes, colors, and scents. A scientific explanation does not replace God; rather, it is our best human description of the natural mechanisms God uses. This understanding can actually increase our awe and worship, giving us a glimpse into how God works.”

Dr. Haarsma is grateful for this opportunity to lead BioLogos in its work to draw pastors, teachers, scholars, and students into the expanding conversation about evolution and its compatibility with biblical faith.

Deb Haarsma is not only a scientist but an active participant in the church and a devoted follower of Christ. I could not be more excited about her leadership from my perspective as a pastor. She deeply cares for the faith community that she is trying to equip with the knowledge of God's creation, so that we will all be able to glorify Him more completely.

Joel Hunter
Senior Pastor
Northland Distributed Churches
Florida

Senior Scholar Jeffrey Schloss Ph.D.

Dr. Jeffrey Schloss is Distinguished Professor and T.B. Walker Chair of Biology at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California where he directs the Center for Faith, Ethics and Life Sciences. He is well known to the BioLogos community through his writings on evolution and faith for our blog, as well as his informative presentations at numerous BioLogos events.

Dr. Schloss is well respected in the academic community for his extensive work on evolutionary theory, ethics, and the Christian faith. He is a frequently invited speaker at scholarly conferences, has co-edited several academic volumes, and publishes in venues such as Religion, Brain & Behavior, Behavioral & Brain Sciences, and Journal of Theology & Science. His many awards and honors include Oxford University’s Plumer Fellowship, the Crosson Fellowship in Philosophy of Religion at Notre Dame, and the Witherspoon Fellowship in Theology and Natural Sciences at Princeton’s Center of Theological Inquiry.

After a life-changing encounter with the gospel as a college drop-out, Schloss returned to school and graduated from Wheaton College. He went on to do post-baccalaureate fieldwork at the University of Virginia and the University of Michigan biological stations, completing his Ph.D. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Since meeting Christ, Dr. Schloss’s life passion has been seeking to understand – and engaging others in their quest to understand – life through the revelation of scripture, the counsel of the Spirit, and the wisdom of science. Dr. Schloss has worked with Young Life and local high school ministries for many years. He speaks widely on Christian college campuses and at secular universities at Veritas, Intervarsity, and CRU (Campus Crusade) events. And he is grateful for the opportunity to teach and preach at his own and other churches. A mainstay of his life in Christ is a small group of long term friends in the faith, who hold him accountable and with whom he prayerfully considered the call to work with BioLogos.

Dr. Schloss is excited by the opportunity to build bridges of dialogue on the relationship between science and faith, in light of the invitation to “worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth.”

Dr. Schloss will hold a joint appointment with BioLogos and Westmont College.

The future of a great organization depends on the quality of its leaders, and the quality of its leaders is shaped by the courage to form a succession of leaders. BioLogos began with splendid leaders and it is time now to move to the next generation of leaders. I could not support more the appointment of Deborah Haarsma and Jeff Schloss, both able scientists, intelligent teachers, and exceptional communicators of the importance of science for the faith of ordinary Christians.”

Scot McKnight
Author of Jesus Creed
Professor of New Testament
Northern Seminary

The Evolution of BioLogos

It’s been a little more than four years since this project was launched by Dr. Francis Collins and a group of energetic graduate students. At the time, Dr. Collins’ book, The Language of God had resulted in a deluge of emails and letters from Christian students across the globe, inspired by Dr. Collins’ ability to combine his award-winning science with his deeply-experienced Christian faith. Those thought provoking questions combined with Dr. Collins’ desire to offer meaningful answers, provided the inspiration for our website.

Since that time, BioLogos has experienced tremendous growth in the numbers of fully committed followers of Christ who resonate with our efforts and have joined the conversation. Our website now includes over 1200 blog entries and receives nearly 2 thousand “hits” a day. Nearly a million people have visited our website since it’s launch and many of them have returned, for a total of over 2 million visits.

Our annual pastors conference continues to attract some of the most noted authors and leaders of our time. Our summer workshop for Christian teachers is considered a professional high point in the lives of many participants, and we recently awarded 37 grants to scholars and church leaders to advance the dialogue between evolution and Christian faith. We are humbled and grateful as we’ve seen God’s hand at work in all of these blessings.

Throughout this growth, we remain committed to exploring and celebrating the compatibility of evolutionary creation and biblical faith. As always, we are guided by the knowledge that all things are held together in Christ our Savior.

Many have called the 21st century the 'Century of Biology'. A key challenge for the Church in this century is not merely to integrate, but to celebrate, the intricacies and beauty of nature as part of robust Christian faith. The work of the BioLogos Foundation is and will continue to be crucially important in helping the Church to meet this challenge. The addition of Deb Haarsma and Jeff Schloss to an already impressive team is an exciting next step in BioLogos' continuing mission."

Jeff Hardin Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, Department of Zoology
Director, Biology Core Curriculum
University of Wisconsin

In this video Conversation, Joel Hunter articulates the importance of raising a child that can garner knowledge from a variety of sources and to be able to study science with integrity—that is, to be able to pursue the truth to where it leads. Hunter alludes to the danger of letting one’s intellectual inquiry of science be governed by fear instead of by faith that one will ultimately be led to our Creator.

Hunter points out that the directive mankind is given in Genesis 2:15—that we would cultivate the earth and keep it—does not have an expiration date. That is, an attentiveness to God’s creation and its natural processes is something to which all Christians should aspire.

When we honor God’s mandate and begin more deliberately studying and preserving our natural environment, Hunter asserts, we will be attending to broader moral expectations. For example, development of green energy sources will translate into good stewardship and reducing pollution will help us better care for the vulnerable by protecting the environmental health of children. These are just two instances where venerating God’s command will allow us to be obedient in other ways.

“Christians must be good at science so we can carry out the moral mandates we’ve been given by God,” says Hunter.

Editor's note: first posted July 21, 2010. If you'd like to see other great posts like this, go to the BioLogos Navigator topic Education.

Showing Christian schoolteachers that one can be a believer who embraces the Bible as God’s inspired Word and evolution as His creative process has always been a mission of BioLogy by the Sea, the accomplishment of which is never guaranteed. During the first few days, several participants expressed doubt that their faith could be compatible with evolutionary creation. However, as the week came to a close, some of those who had previously denied compatibility seemed to be much more considerate of the notion—if not fully accepting of the idea altogether. If you’ve ever doubted evolution yourself, then you know that such acceptance is no small feat. There are numerous theological and philosophical barriers that must be dealt with, and to think that this could occur in the span of just one week is pretty amazing. Then again, the program had some pretty amazing guest speakers and activities—the most significant of which occurred throughout the week: prayer and worship to the One we all serve, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

While these times served to glorify God and nurture participants’ souls, the week was also filled with activities designed to nurture participants’ minds through the study of biblical passages and biological content. In addition to graduate level courses and accompanying labs in either biodiversity or developmental biology, participants went on field trips to the intertidal zone, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the La Brea Tar Pits, and the Gaslamp Quarter. Furthermore, presentations given by Dr. Gregg Davidson, professor of geology and geological engineering from the University of Mississippi, and Dr. Mary Schweitzer, paleontologist and associate professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences from North Carolina State University, offered key insights into their fields and demonstrated how the tenants of both are based on evidence rather than conjecture.

In short, this year’s BioLogy by the Sea offered another comprehensive look at what it means to be a Christian who accepts the conclusions of mainstream science—not at the expense of our faith in God or His Word, but in light of it. We can only hope that these teachers, who spent an entire week of their summer break with us, left with not only a greater sense of oneness as the body of Christ, but also found new ways to engage their students in matters of science and faith—another facet of the program’s mission. After all, the first step in protecting the next generation from the faith crisis that many seem to experience after they learn about evolution from a secular perspective is showing that it need not be an either-or situation. It’s also an important part of ensuring that Christian young people can rise to the forefront of global scientific research.

These facts persist in the face of educational guidelines in most states that mandate the teaching of evolution, court decisions that have declared the teaching of creationism as unconstitutional and having “no scientific merit or educational value as science [because it] is simply not science” (McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 1982), thousands of scientific papers and books that document evidence for evolution, direct observations of evolution, and countless endorsements of evolution (and rejections of creationism) by professional scientific organizations. Decades of costly science education reform have not reformed popular acceptance of evolution: most of the public continues to see religion and mainstream science as diametrically opposed, and when presented with that choice, most will choose the supernatural over science, even when it means rejecting the foundations of modern biology. Why?

Many factors – for example, the media and religion -- influence people’s beliefs about the evolution and creationism, as well as their acceptance of science. One of these influences is education. What are students taught about evolution and creationism?

Evolution and Creationism in High School Biology Courses

Students have widely variable introductions to evolution in their high school biology courses. Although most states have educational guidelines that mandate the teaching of evolution, only about 70% of students entering college report that their high school biology courses included evolution (in some form) and not creationism. Although educational guidelines provide important support for teachers wanting to teach evolution, these guidelines are irrelevant to many biology teachers and administrators.

Approximately 20% of students are taught neither creationism nor evolution in their high school biology courses (Moore, 2007). Another “cautious 60%” of biology teachers want to avoid controversy, and neither advocate evolution nor explicitly endorse nonscientific alternatives (Berkman and Plutzer, 2011). Even when teachers do teach evolution, they often cover the topic in a trivial or disparaging way (Bandoli, 2008, and references therein), thereby perpetuating a cycle of ignorance reinforced by popular opinion (Berkman and Plutzer, 2011). When these students arrive on college campuses, they are predisposed to remain skeptical of evolution, for their perceptions and prior knowledge strongly influence their learning. This is especially important for evolution, for many students view evolution as negative and undesirable (Brem, Ranney, and Schindel, 2003) and sense an “overlap of some ideas that the theory [of evolution] advocates with other social, epistemological, and religious beliefs” (Hakoyem and BouJaode, 2008).

The Creationists Down the Hall

Most Americans reject evolution, and most biologists have grown accustomed to headlines such as “Four in 10 Americans Believe in Strict Creationism” (Gallup, 2010) and “In U.S., 46% Hold Creationist View of Human Origins” (Gallup, 2012). However, most biologists are less familiar with the fact that creationism is thriving among undergraduate biology majors (Verhey, 2005; also see above), biology graduate students (Gregory and Ellis, 2009), and former students who have become biology teachers (Berkman, Pacheco, and Plutzer, 2008; Moore, 2007, and references therein).

Despite their training, many biology teachers are creationists. Indeed, fully one-sixth of biology teachers are young-Earth creationists (Berkman, Pacheco, and Plutzer, 2008), and a presentation of young-Earth creationism as legitimate science would presumably confuse students about the basic tenets of science in general, and of evolution in particular. Because teachers’ personal views about a subject affect their teaching of the subject (Carlesen, 1991; Grossman, 1989), and because teachers with strong religious convictions accept evolution less often than their less-religious peers (Trani, 2004), it is not surprising that many of today’s biology teachers explicitly teach creationism in their biology courses. Although few biology teachers in public schools teach creationism without mentioning evolution, 20-25% of today’s biology teachers teach evolution and creationism in their courses (Moore, 2007, and references therein). Although a handful of creationism-based biology teachers are confronted for their malpractice (e.g., Rodney LeVake; see Moore, 2004), most are tolerated — and sometimes even encouraged — to teach creationism, possibly because of pressure from the public and administrators to ignore evolution and/or teach creationism (Cavanagh, 2005, Verango and Toppo, 2005). As Don Aguillard, the lead plaintiff in Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) noted in 1999 (Moore, 1999), “Creationism is alive and well among biology teachers.”

When Biology Teachers Teach Creationism, What Do They Teach?

When biology teachers teach creationism, they usually present only a particular version of the Judeo-Christian creation story. Moreover, these stories are often presented as a scientific alternative to evolution (Moore, 2008), despite the fact that creation science has “no scientific or educational value as science [because it] is simply not science” (McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 1982). Relatively few biology teachers who teach creationism present it as religious idea, philosophical idea, or as part of a survey of several religions (Moore, 2008). They do not “teach the controversy,” in other words, but present the relationship between modern evolutionary biology and their faith as one of self-evident conflict, assuming (and teaching) that their version of creationism is the only true alternative.

Does It Matter When Biology Teachers Teach Creationism?

Yes—high school biology courses have a strong and lingering impact on students’ views of evolution and creationism (Moore and Cotner, 2009). Students who were taught creationism in high school know significantly less about evolution when they enter college than do students who were taught evolution in high school. Similarly, students who claimed that most of their knowledge of evolution came from non-school sources (e.g., the media, church) knew less about evolution than did students who claimed that their primary source of knowledge about evolution was their high school biology class (Moore, Cotner, and Bates, 2009).

Solving the Problem?

Several studies have claimed that additional evolution-related training will help improve the teaching of evolution in high schools. We are not nearly as optimistic. Although workshops and short-courses presumably help and encourage teachers willing to consider teaching evolution, focused instruction about evolution often does not affect students’ or teachers’ acceptance of evolution (Alters and Nelson, 2002; Chinsamy and Plaganyi, 2008). Moreover, these workshops will not reach creationism-based biology teachers who are dedicated to substituting their religious beliefs for science in their classes.

In our experience, these teachers rarely attend such workshops, even if they are paid to do so, and even then their acceptance of evolution is unaffected. After all, these teachers have access to and know the evidence for evolution – it’s widely available, including in the textbooks that they adopt and use in their classes – and they are not convinced by that evidence. We know of no evidence that the availability of such solely science-focused workshops, seminars, and other forms of evolution-related education will significantly affect what creationism-based biology teachers teach. Since the impediments to better teaching of evolution are primarily the philosophical and religious views of biology teachers, programs that do not address the more personal, “non-science” issues of science educators directly and effectively are likely to have little impact on what students learn in high-school biology classrooms. Instead, if further fact-based instruction in evolution is part of the answer, it is likely to be most effective with young children, who are developmentally primed to seek explanations for natural phenomena. However, evolution instruction is essentially absent prior to high-school biology; by high school, a student’s teleological demands have likely been met by supernatural explanations, creating a cycle of adults who know little about evolution and teach creationism-flavored biology.

Creationism has long been popular among biology teachers (Moore, 2007), and there is no evidence that improved state educational standards, proclamations by professional organizations, and decades of science education reform have made much difference. As John Scopes commented almost 50 years ago, “I don’t think the world changes very rapidly” (Anonymous, 1966).

View Literature Cited

Kenneth Keathley and I first met in June, 2011, when I was leading BioLogos and he was responsible for academic programs at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Many Southern Baptist scholars believe the universe is less than ten thousand years old and virtually all are opposed to evolution—the notion of God having created all life forms, including humans, through a process that includes common descent from microbial life. BioLogos, on the other hand, is an organization specifically dedicated to showing that mainstream science—including evolutionary biology—and a conservative biblically-grounded Christian faith are fully compatible. With our respective institutional affiliations, one would have expected Dr. Keathley and I to be at opposite poles in the science and faith dialogue, and on some issues we were. Yet in the brief time we had together that day, we came to see that on the matters that were most fundamental to our Christian faith, we weren’t poles apart at all. Because we were both followers of Jesus who fully respected the Bible as the divinely inspired Word of God, the ties that bound us together were stronger than the forces which seemed to push us apart.

Still, we could not ignore those forces that were pushing us apart: Dr. Keathley had legitimate concerns about theistic evolution¹ and we both believed it important to reflect on those concerns. In response to our conversation, I wrote the following note to him a few days after our initial meeting:

I am very concerned that we (those who are less skeptical about mainstream science) be thinking along with leaders like yourself about the theological issues in a respectful, indeed earnestly prayerful manner. I think we very much need the help of conservative theologians. We cannot rerun the slide towards a watered-down liberal Christianity! I also sensed that you would be willing to listen and explore with us how best to engage mainstream science in a manner different than most evangelicals have done so far.

With those aims of true dialogue in mind, I proposed that Dr. Keathley request a set of articles from his colleagues which would outline their concerns about the evolutionary creation view. The series, which included a set of BioLogos responses to the essays from the Southern Baptist theologians, began in March on 2012 and has continued intermittently throughout the year.

I am grateful to Dr. Keathley for arranging the submission of these papers, and to the authors for taking the time to articulate their concerns. As we have developed our responses, our own thinking has been clarified and this has given us an opportunity to outline our commonalities as well as our differences. I think each of us—Southern Baptist scholars and evolutionary creation scholars alike—would agree that we are nowhere near as far apart as we had thought. Indeed, I think a significant portion of what was perceived as a gulf separating us was due to the fact that we at BioLogos had not yet laid out our positions clearly enough, not least because BioLogos itself has been growing, adapting, and finding our place in the public square. Indeed, we have changed some of our focus as we have carefully weighed the concerns raised by our Southern Baptist colleagues and others to whom we want to be accountable as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Today, along with this overview of the project, we post the last paper of this series. Written in the Fall of 2011 by Dr. Steve Lemke, provost at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, it shows just how far we’ve come in clarifying our positions and addressing key issues other believers have about evolutionary creation. Virtually all of the issues that Dr. Lemke raised at that point have now been addressed in our responses to previous posts in the series. As you read his article, you’ll be able mouse over highlighted phrases to bring up sidebar text showing how we have responded to each given point through the other articles in the series. Indeed, I think Dr. Lemke’s article is a great ending for the series; it re-states clearly both the major concerns and the misconceptions that many evangelical Christians have about evolutionary creation.

This final post in the Southern Baptist Voices Series is also a fitting ending to my term as the as President of The BioLogos Foundation. My goal in leading the organization for these past three and a half years has been to lay the groundwork to help my fellow evangelicals see that the conflict between our faith and mainstream science is not as great as many perceive it to be. In the process, my thinking has been significantly shaped by listening to people who think differently than I do. Some of the people I came to respect and admire the most still believe the universe is less than ten thousand years old. Others believe it is old, but they do not believe that God created life’s diversity through the evolutionary process, and they don’t believe in common descent. Though I think they are wrong about those important facts (even as they think I am wrong about the findings of mainstream science), I have appreciated my interaction with them. After all, laying the groundwork for a more fruitful interaction between science and evangelical Christianity begins with gathering together at the Table to worship, to pray, to study, to think, and to be a manifestation of God’s love together, especially in and through our differences.

We believe that the Southern Baptist Voices project should and will continue, and we’re currently in conversation about the best steps to take to ensure that it does. Moreover there are several other important projects of this sort that have not been quite so visible—at least on the website—and I remain very enthusiastic about them as well. One of my favorite projects has been carried out in conjunction with my colleagues at Point Loma Nazarene University: our annual week-long workshop for fifty Christian school science teachers. Another is our work alongside of our brothers and sisters in Christ at Reasons to Believe. This kind of cooperation—between BioLogos and those who think quite differently about creation than we do—is important for the Church’s witness to our Creator and Savior; the foundation is now in place and we’ll be able to build upon it going forward—laying out our similarities and differences together, rather than building walls between us.

Looking back, leading BioLogos at this very critical junction in the history of the Church has been the greatest privilege of my career. A couple of weeks ago I was with my 96 year old father and we were going through some of his old files. We found a reference to a dream he had in September, 1977, while I was a brand-new Assistant Professor at Syracuse University. At the time, my career as a molecular geneticist was focused on trying to understand how genes worked in engineering the process of development from a fertilized egg. My father dream was that I had made an all-important discovery about the nature of life. Like most dreams, it never came true in the way he expected it might. But a few weeks later in mid-October 1977, I decided to visit a small evangelical church—a move I thought might be my last desperate attempt to find a church for my family and me that would equip me to function as both a scientist and an evangelical Christian: before that day I had all but given up my search for such a community. Yet it was finding that church, not something that happened (or ever could happen) in my lab, that constituted my single most important discovery about the nature of life. Much better than my father’s dream about genes, I discovered there was room for people like me in a Bible-focused church after all.

The Church must not lose its scientists and its many university-educated young people who go on to accept the findings at the core of biology, geology, physical anthropology and astronomy. But we who accept the foundations of these disciplines need the Church to affirm and hold fast to the centrality of Scripture and the truths of the faith, even as the Church, in turn, needs to listen closely to what science has to say about the creation we scientists study so intricately.

I continue to be in regular dialog with people who are somewhat leery about those science textbooks, and I have come to understand the basis of that leeriness. It is not that the science books are wrong, it’s that we scientists have done a somewhat lousy job of sitting down with those who are not scientists and talking about the contents of those books; moreover, it is that we scientists have done too much talking to each other and not enough listening to the legitimate concerns that others raise. We now need to move towards a new reality—a reality which begins with conversation.

That’s what this Southern Baptist series has been about. I know of no better way to end my leadership role in BioLogos than with the final posting of this series. However, even this ending is just the beginning. For all of us, the real work lies up ahead—just around the next bend.

Dr. Lemke’s essay may be found here. Please keep in mind that it was written about fourteen months ago, before the series began. Together with the work of all of the Southern Baptist scholars, this essay shows how important it has been to clarify our positions. Again, as you read the essay, each highlighted section is linked to a “pop-out comment” which will appear in the sidebar as you click or mouse over it. In each case, the comment will show where one of the previous BioLogos responses in this series has addressed the point Dr. Lemke has made. This does not mean that the matter is settled—not by any stretch. It simply means that we’re thinking about the issues he raises and it shows some of our thoughts so far.

Notes

1. Indeed, it is likely the term, “theistic evolution” was part of the problem: evolution is the noun and God’s role in it only an adjective. “Evolutionary creation” is a better term, and the one we prefer.

Part of the BioLogos mission, then, is to show how all things hold together in Christ—to show how a Christian worldview integrates the knowledge we have of God through the Scriptures with the knowledge we have of God through the other areas in which he reveals himself as Creator and Redeemer. Our website contains a wealth of Christian scholarship in a wide range of fields—from biology, to cosmology, to mathematics, to Biblical studies, to history, to theology—all demonstrating that the best contemporary science is compatible with Biblical Christian faith. But today we introduce a new tool—the BioLogos Navigator—to make these posts more accessible, and to show how they inter-relate (see sidebar on the right).

Modeled on the astrolabes that early astronomers and sailors used to orient themselves under the heavens, our Navigator makes the cross of Christ the starting point by which we understand the cosmos. Each of the four arms of the cross represents one of the domains of knowledge and experience through which God reveals himself to the world: Scripture, the Church, Nature and Culture. These domains are not in opposition to each other, but are complementary and inter-related areas through which we can recognize God at work in the world. Linking these four domains is a network of specific topics relevant to the science and faith conversation. Their arrangement suggests how each relates to the four domains but also to teach other. Clicking on an individual topic tag highlights not only that topic, but other topics that are linked to it—sometimes in unexpected ways.

Clicking a topic tag a second time takes you to the Topic Landing page: a curated selection of the best resources on that subject from the BioLogos archives. (The image above shows the Christianity & Science—Then and Now Landing page, complete with Navigator and highlighted tags.) At the bottom of each page is a link to our Resource Finder, where you can investigate additional materials on that topic, as well. By exploring the relationships between the topics on the Navigator itself, and by delving deep into each topic via the resources presented on the landing pages, readers can focus on specific aspects of the harmony between science and Christian faith while also getting the wide view of God’s providential work in all things in the heavens and on the earth.

In the coming days and weeks, the BioLogos Navigator will be more fully integrated into the rest of the site, accessible directly from the Forum homepage and from the Resources dropdown list at the top of every page. We’ll also be including features that help place each blog post on the “knowledge map” defined by the domains and topic tags. Finally, the Topic Pages will also be periodically updated with the latest and best new materials in each topic. In the meantime, you can access the Navigator by clicking anywhere on the small image in the sidebar, above, and find a link to this post at the upper right corner of our homepage. So take some time to explore our site with this new tool, which we think will to help orient our readers in the science and faith conversation, while always pointing to Jesus, the Christ, through whom all things were made.

Throughout my various conversations with fellow believers, the most-mentioned anxiety over accepting an evolutionary creationist paradigm is the fear of losing the Bible as one’s spiritual anchor and source of authority—the texts that give the global Christian community its doctrinal and philosophical distinctiveness. Growing up in the Baptist tradition and later becoming a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, the inerrancy of “God-breathed”¹ Scripture and its identity as the fount of all truth was paramount in defining my life as a Christian believer. Of course, while some would debate the veracity of such a doctrine as it pertains to this discussion, I believe that neither inerrancy nor authority is at issue when it comes to Genesis’ opening chapter. The real issue is hermeneutics—how we read the authoritative texts.

John Wesley (1703-1791), the eighteenth-century Anglican cleric and theologian who founded the Methodist movement in partnership with his brother Charles, held to a “literal” method of interpretation:

The general rule of interpreting Scripture is this: the literal sense of every text is to be taken, if it be not contrary to some other texts. But in that case, the obscure text is to be interpreted by those which speak more plainly.²

A modern adaptation of Wesley’s hermeneutic states, “If the literal sense makes good sense, seek no other sense lest you come up with nonsense.” But though this is a commonly-used interpretative method in evangelical Christian churches today, I have found that it unnecessarily lends itself to the fear of losing biblical authority. This tendency toward fear is especially acute when the individual doing the interpreting does not have at his or her fingertips the full scope of knowledge required to allow the biblical text to speak for itself—or rather, to allow God to speak through ancient genres with which the interpreter isn’t naturally familiar.

I readily admit that the “literal sense” of Genesis 1—as dictated by our own culture that focuses on material origins and unwittingly holds Genesis 1 hostage to the scientific method—does in fact rule out cosmological and biological evolution as God’s creative methods. But I would also ask the question of whether a “literary sense” of Genesis 1 allows for evolution. To read evolution into Scripture (eisegesis) or out of Scripture (exegesis) would be dishonest, especially considering that the author (or final redactor) of Genesis was not privy to modern scientific discoveries. I would also argue that a “literal” reading of Genesis 1, framed by our own modern paradigm, is unfaithful to the original intent of the author, and that we should take special care to read Genesis 1 “literarily” through the eyes of the ancient Hebrews, understanding what was (and wasn’t) important to them. Dr. Conrad Hyers writes:

This is the interpretive issue, and it cannot be settled by dogmatic assertions, threats about creeping secularism, or attempts to associate views with skepticism . . . . Nor can the issue be settled by marshaling scientific evidence for or against either evolution or six-day creation, since it would first need to be demonstrated that the Genesis accounts intended to offer scientific and historical statements. Otherwise the whole discussion is based on the wrong premises. As such it is scientific creationism itself which compromises the religious meaning of Genesis and is an accommodation to scientific language and method.³

Since Genesis was written in the Hebrew language and most of us can’t read Hebrew, we take for granted the necessity of translating from an ancient language into another in which we are fluent. Yet, we often forget that, because we are separated by at least 2,500 years from the culture that produced Genesis, we also need the culture “translated” for us as well.⁴

Returning to the text

Adopting Wesley’s hermeneutic strongly lends itself to ruling out both old-earth creationism and theistic evolution, but as a firm believer that “all truth is God’s truth,” I felt that I was missing something. Because I believed (and still do) that the six days of creation were six, successive, 24-hour periods (“there was evening and there was morning—the n^th day”), I struggled mightily to understand Genesis 1 in light of what I had been learning about the vast age of the cosmos as determined by the best scientific minds, both secular and Christian.⁵ If the age of the cosmos truly was as old as the scientific establishment has led us to believe, I thought that digging deeper into the culture of the ancient Near East could help me reconcile the two opposing forces of scientific observation and biblical testimony.

It was at this time that I discovered the works of John Walton, Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College. His commentary on Genesis⁶ and his book on the conceptual world of the Hebrew Scriptures⁷ propelled me toward a realization that the focus of Genesis 1 was much less on the material origin of the cosmos and much more on the cosmos’ purpose as a functional and purposeful dwelling place for God—a cosmic temple, if you will. Furthermore, his reading actually accentuated mankind’s role as representative “image-bearers” of God, as wielders of his authority on Earth. I learned that the symbolism and literary structure of Genesis 1, including the 7-day structure of the creation week, had its roots in an ancient Near Eastern (ANE) cognitive environment that held the concepts of function and purpose to be more important than (but not entirely exclusive of) material origins, the latter of which currently guides our modern, scientific way of thinking. It even reconciled the seemingly contradictory accounts of a weeklong series of creative acts and a 14.6-billion-year-old universe.

With these interpretive tools in hand, I was able to successfully assuage my fear of losing biblical authority insofar as Genesis 1 was concerned, and my openness to evolutionary theory came quite naturally. If the preponderance of scientific evidence adequately explained the existence of all biological organisms, past and present, by evolutionary means, I could accept mainstream evolutionary theory⁸ while maintaining the theological authority of the Bible’s opening chapter. As long as I took pains to bridge the vast cultural gap when attempting to determine the theological message of the text—which God accommodated for the Hebrew culture and chose to express in a culturally bound literary form—I wouldn’t need to fear abandoning the Bible as a source of theological truth and spiritual authority. As long as I aimed to let the Bible to speak for itself, using the best biblical scholarship available to determine who wrote the various books of the Bible, to whom they were written, and when they were written, I could have confidence that the end result would be a more faithful pronouncement of what the Bible is actually telling us, millennia later, through ancient voices.

Of course, things are never that easy when it comes to biblical authority. The functional ontology and temple imagery of Genesis 1, as well as its parallels with other ANE creation myths and temple dedication texts, carry over into the next two chapters of Genesis, which feature the creation of Adam and Eve and the entrance of sin and death into the world of mankind. What was I to do with the historicity of Adam and Eve?

If the Hebrew Scriptures stood alone as a source of spiritual authority in my life as a Christian, it wouldn’t be much of an issue. I could accept a mythological Adam and Eve within the framework of an etiological account⁹ of human origins, but there is this second corpus of literature held sacred by Christians commonly known as the New Testament. As a Christian, I now had an issue with Paul and his clear treatment of Adam as a real person rooted in human history. If that wasn’t enough, I was also confronted by the salvific role of Jesus himself. How could an historical, literal Jesus solve the very real problem of sin that resulted from the rebellious act of a mythical, literary Adam? I’ll address those issues next time, when we look at the second fear many evangelical Christians have about considering evolutionary creation: the fear of losing our Savior.

Notes

1. The literal meaning of the Greek word θεόπνευστος (theopneustos).
2. John Wesley, The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley (London: Epworth Press, 1931), vol. III, 129.
3. Conrad Hyers, The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1984), 26; emphasis in the original.
4. John H. Walton, interview. From the Dust: Conversations in Creation. Blu-Ray Disc. Directed by Ryan Petty. Mountain View, CA: Highway Media and The BioLogos Foundation, 2012.
5. For a secular treatment, see G. Brent Dalrymple, The Age of the Earth (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994); for evangelical Christian treatments, see Davis A. Young and Ralph F. Stearley, The Bible, Rocks and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth (Grand Rapids: IVP Academic, 2008); Howard J. Van Till, The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens Are Telling Us about the Creation (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1986); Howard J. Van Till, ed., Portraits of Creation: Biblical and Scientific Perspectives on the World’s Formation (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990).
6. John H. Walton, The NIV Application Commentary: Genesis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001).
7. John H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006). See also John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009); John H. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011); Gordon J. Wenham, Word Biblical Commentary: Genesis 1-15 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1987); Gordon J. Glover, Beyond the Firmament: Understanding Science and the Theology of Creation (Chesapeake, VA: Watertree Press, LLC, 2007).
8. See Daniel J. Fairbanks, Relics of Eden: The Powerful Evidence of Evolution in Human DNA (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007) and Keith B. Miller, ed., Perspectives on an Evolving Creation (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003).
9. “Etiology,” Wikipedia, accessed October 08, 2012, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etiology.

However, with so much content on the site, older posts—even the best ones—often became lost in the shuffle. So we asked ourselves two questions: How do we give our visitors access to our vast archive of resources, and how do we make sure they are finding the resources that address their most pressing questions?

The answer is our new Resource Finder.

The Resource Finder rests on a foundation of 41 topic tags, covering everything from Genesis to genetics to worship. By selecting any topic, users can find the posts addressing the issues that interest them. Looking for more detail? Users can also narrow their results by choosing an intended audience and format, or by adding more topics to the search.

Here’s an example: Say you’re looking for resources about creation and origins. Just click the “Creation & Origins” tag, and the matching results appear below almost instantly.

You can refine the results by adding a second tag to the search. Let’s add “Genesis”. The results will list all the entries that match both tags first, followed by posts that match either. You can change the list to include only results that match all selected tags by choosing “All” rather than “Any” at the top of the tag list.

Lastly, let’s pick a format and intended audience. How about videos for pastors?

And there you have it! From over 1,300 resources, we’ve found five specific videos, geared towards pastors, that address both Genesis and origins. Want to share the results? Just copy and paste the link from your browser! Even better, by click the orange RSS button in the top left corner of the page, you can create a custom feed for Google Reader (or any other RSS reader) that will let you know whenever a new resource matching those categories goes live on our website!

We’re excited to see what the BioLogos community thinks about the Resource Finder, and even more excited to see how it will impact the ongoing dialogue about science and Christian faith. So have a look and share your thoughts in the comment section below!

La visione di BioLogos asserisce che sia le Sacre Scritture, sia la scienza moderna rivelano la Verità, e che queste due verità non sono in contraddizione l’una con l’altra. Mentre da un lato ci sono differenti visioni all’interno della comunità di BioLogos su come riconciliare le verità della scienza con le verità delle Sacre Scritture per quanto riguarda alcuni argomenti specifici (ad esempio in relazione alla storicità della figura di Adamo¹), crediamo concordemente che la Bibbia sia la Parola di Dio, autorevole e divinamente inspirata. BioLogos accetta il moderno consenso scientifico sull’età della Terra e la teoria del progenitore comune, incluso il progenitore comune degli esseri umani.

Evoluzionismo

Mentre da un lato BioLogos accetta l’evoluzione, dall’altro rifiuta totalmente l’Evoluzionismo, ovvero la visione atea del mondo che così spesso accompagna l’accettazione dell’evoluzione biologica nei discorsi pubblici. Coloro che propongono l’Evoluzionismo credono che ogni aspetto della vita sarà un giorno spiegato tramite la teoria dell’evoluzione. In questo modo L’Evoluzionismo è un sottocaso dello scientismo, una più ampia visione secondo la quale l’unica reale verità è quella che può essere scoperta dalla scienza. Sono queste le posizioni tenute comunemente dai materialisti (anche chiamati naturalisti filosofici) che negano l’esistenza del sovrannaturale.

La visione di BioLogos celebra Dio come il Creatore. Qualche volta viene chiamata Evoluzione Teistica o Creazione Evolutiva. Il Teismo è il credere in un Dio a cui sta a cuore il creato e che interagisce con esso. Il Teismo è diverso dal deismo, che indica la convinzione dell’esistenza di un creatore distante e non direttamente coinvolto con l’universo, che spesso è poco più della somma totale delle leggi della fisica. L’Evoluzione Teistica, perciò, è la convinzione che l’evoluzione sia il mezzo con cui Dio ha creato la vita.

Poiché il termine evoluzione è talvolta associato all’ateismo, un termine che meglio descrive il credere in un Dio che ha scelto di creare il mondo per mezzo dell’evoluzione è BioLogos. BioLogos deriva dalle parole greche bios (vita) e logos (parola), riferendosi a Giovanni 1:1: “Nel principio c’era la Parola, e la Parola era presso Dio, e la Parola era Dio”.

Disegno Intelligente

Al contrario di alcune interpretazioni, il Disegno Intelligente (o ID, dall’inglese Intelligent Design) non fa nessuna specifica affermazione teologica. Al contrario, coloro che propongono l’ID argomentano che “determinate caratteristiche dell’universo e degli esseri viventi sono meglio spiegate da una causa intelligente, piuttosto che da un processo indiretto come la selezione naturale”², e che l’esistenza di questa causa intelligente è una ipotesi scientificamente testabile. Inoltre, i teorici del Disegno Intelligente tentano di dimostrare che una causa intelligente è la migliore spiegazione di certi fenomeni come i sistemi irriducibilmente complessi (ad esempio i “flagelli” batterici) le specifiche e complesse informazioni contenute nel DNA.

Anche coloro che supportano la visione di BioLogos credono in una causa intelligente. L’universo e tutto ciò che contiene è stato creato ed è sostenuto e governato da Dio:

…in [Cristo] tutte le cose del Cielo e della Terra sono state create, visibili e invisibili …tutte le cose sono state create tramite Lui e da Lui. Egli stesso è prima di tutte le cose e in Lui tutte le cose sono tenute insieme. (Col 1:16,17 NRSV).

BioLogos si differenzia dal movimento del Disegno Intelligente nel senso che noi non abbiamo problemi nel riconoscere la scienza moderna tradizionale. La selezione naturale come descritta da Charles Darwin non è contraria al teismo. Similmente, siamo più che soddisfatti di come la biologia evoluzionista ci informa riguardo al meccanismo di creazione, con la piena consapevolezza che tutto ciò che succede ed è successo capita ed è capitato attraverso l’azione di Dio. Celebriamo la creazione come completamente generata da Dio. Ci meravigliamo della sua bellezza e siamo grati di avere il privilegio di sperimentare la creazione stessa.

BioLogos celebra la realtà dei miracoli, inclusi i miracoli delle Sacre Scritture, ma anche quelli che sperimentiamo nel mondo dei giorni nostri attraverso le preghiere a cui Dio dà ascolto e attraverso l’azione dello Spirito Santo nelle nostre vite. D’altra parte, la dimostrazione di tali azioni sovrannaturali nella storia del mondo è, noi pensiamo, improbabile da provare scientificamente. Ricapitolando, BioLogos differisce dal movimento del Disegno Intelligente in tre aspetti:

1. Siamo scettici riguardo alla possibilità della scienza biologica di provare l’esistenza di un “Disegnatore” intelligente (che noi riteniamo essere il Dio della Bibbia), mentre i sostenitori dell’ID ne sono confidenti
2. Troviamo non convincenti quei tentativi dei teorici del Disegno Intelligente di dimostrare scientificamente le azioni sovrannaturali operate da Dio nella storia naturale, mentre i sostenitori dell’ID credono di averlo già sufficientemente dimostrato
3. Non troviamo nessun motivo biblico per vedere i processi naturali (inclusa la selezione naturale) come qualcosa che ha rimosso Dio dal processo della creazione. E’ tutta una Sua opera ed è tutta stata intelligentemente predefinita. Coloro che credono nel movimento ID per la maggior parte rigettano tutte o alcune delle più importanti conclusioni della teoria dell’evoluzione.

Creazionismo

BioLogos afferma che la Terra e l’universo sono stati creati.

Il Creazionismo, generalmente, si riferisce al credere che la vita sulla Terra è il risultato di un intervento sovrannaturale diretto, concordemente con una interpretazione altamente letterale della Genesi 1-3. Ci sono due correnti principali di Creazionisti, coloro che credono che la Terra sia giovane e coloro che credono che sia antica.

I Creazionisti della Terra Giovane (anche denominati YECs, dall’inglese Young Earth Creationists) ritengono che la Terra abbia dai 6.000 ai 10.000 anni, un quadro derivato dalle genealogie presenti nella Bibbia. Gli YECs credono che il modo più fedele di leggere le Sacre Scritture sia sotto la prospettiva di una creazione durata letteralmente 6 giorni, come descritta nel primo capitolo della Genesi, e inoltre credono letteralmente che una alluvione mondiale, come descritta nella Genesi 6-9, sia stata responsabile dell’aspetto geologico della Terra e della presenza di testimonianze fossili. I sostenitori del Creazionismo della Terra Giovane respingono inoltre l’esistenza di un progenitore comune di tutte le specie e credono che la vita sia stata creata, come essa appare ora, da una azione sovrannaturale. Considerano la “macro-evoluzione” (distinta dalla “micro-evoluzione” intraspecifica) come incompatibile con le Sacre Scritture e alcuni addirittura argomentano che si tratta di una minaccia diretta alla Cristianità.

BioLogos non è d’accordo con il punto di vista dei Creazionisti della Terra Giovane. Questa visione infatti rifiuta le scoperte di quasi tutte le discipline della scienza moderna per arrivare alle sue conclusioni e trascura la rivelazione del magnifico lavoro di creazione da parte di Dio, rivelazione che ci viene donata dalla scienza. Noi riteniamo inoltre che il punto di vista degli YECs nasce da una particolare interpretazione della Genesi, che non tiene conto del complesso contesto culturale e teologico nel quale è stata scritta.

I Creazionisti della Terra Vecchia (anche denominati OECs, dall’inglese Old Earth Creationists) accettano che la Terra e l’universo abbiano miliardi di anni di vita, ma ritengono che questa scoperta sia concorde con una interpretazione alla lettera del primo capitolo della Genesi (spesso interpretando i giorni di creazione come lunghi periodi di tempo oppure immaginando lunghi momenti di pausa tra un giorno della creazione e l’altro). Gli OECs ritengono che la scienza moderna corrisponda strettamente alla narrazione biblica e difendono l’idea che Dio abbia incluso le moderne idee scientifiche nella Bibbia, talvolta attraverso un linguaggio segreto che sarebbe andato perso a causa della audience delle origini. I sostenitori del Creazionismo della Terra Vecchia non accettano la macro-evoluzione ed un comune progenitore per tutte le forme viventi.

BioLogos è in disaccordo con il punto di vista dei Creazionisti della Terra Vecchia. Mentre tale visione da un lato accetta il consenso scientifico riguardo all’idea di una Terra molto antica, dall’altro rigetta i ritrovamenti della genetica moderna, della paleontologia, della biologia dello sviluppo, della biologia dell’evoluzione e di molte altre sotto-discipline biologiche che hanno poco senso se considerate in modo separato dalla macro-evoluzione e dalla teoria del progenitore comune. Inoltre noi crediamo che Dio ha scelto di rivelare se stesso nel contesto della visione del mondo, della cultura e del linguaggio degli autori della Bibbia.

In che cosa i Cristiani sono d’accordo

Nonostante queste differenze, tutti i Cristiani sono d’accordo che il Dio della Bibbia è il Creatore del cielo e della Terra. Siamo d’accordo nell’autorità della Bibbia, anche se siamo in disaccordo su quale sia la migliore interpretazione di alcuni passaggi particolari. Siamo d’accordo nel credere che Dio sia continuamente attivo nel suo sovrano governo dell’universo, anche se siamo in disaccordo su quanto Dio agisca attraverso le leggi naturali piuttosto che tramite miracoli. Siamo uniti nel rifiutare l’Evoluzionismo, anche se abbiamo diverse argomentazioni alla base di tale rifiuto (alcuni rigettano la scienza dell’evoluzione, mentre BioLogos rifiuta il velo di ateismo posto sulla scienza). Siamo concordi sui fondamenti della nostra fede: che tutte le persone hanno peccato e che la salvezza viene solo attraverso la morte e resurrezione di Gesù Cristo. Siamo d’accordo nel ritenere che il Dio della nostra salvezza sia lo stesso Dio che vediamo nelle meraviglie della sua creazione. Quando contempliamo la complessità insita nel DNA, la bellezza di un delfino o la vastità della Via Lattea, possiamo unire i nostri cuori in una accorata lode per il divino Artista che tutto ha creato.

Growing up, David believed that Young Earth Creationism was the Christian position on origins and how God created. As he endeavored to learn more, he was intrigued by Francis Collins book The Language of God because Francis did not present evolution as a rival theory to Christian faith, but as something that described God's method of creation. David studied biblical interpretation and found John Walton's scholarship to be tremendously helpful in understanding the original purpose and intent of the Genesis narrative.

Reflecting on his personal journey, David thinks that it is important that we don't oversimplify questions related to science and faith, but that we explore them deeply in order to understand science in a robust, Christian way.

Parents, youth leaders, teachers—all of us—need to encourage young people to have a passion for God’s world and God’s Word. We should help them learn to distinguish between primary issues of the faith, and secondary issues that Christians may in good conscience disagree on. And we must equip them to think critically and biblically through the many different issues of science and faith so that they can be effective citizens and witnesses in today’s society. Today I’d like to introduce a new resource for the Church in that equipping mission for today’s Christian young people; but first, let me give a bit of my own story.

Prepared for the conflict

My amazing parents homeschooled me through eighth grade. I loved the freedom to explore things that I enjoyed; the challenge of tackling subjects well beyond my “official” grade level; and the joy of forming deep relationships with my parents and brothers. We used many high-quality science texts, but in my memory, all of the resources on origins available to us promoted an often-combative Creation Science perspective.

In ninth grade, I went to public high school armed and ready for the fight I had been trained to expect. When my biology teacher taught evolution and required us to write an essay, I hi-jacked the essay topic and turned it into an apologetic for six-day creation. Because I was in “conflict mode,” I was not ready to consider the arguments for evolution, or the possibility that Christians could actually accept it. I stayed on guard for the next three years until I headed off to the less hostile territory of Wheaton College.

As a student in Wheaton’s explicitly Christian environment, I felt a new safety to explore different biblically faithful positions that Christians hold, while at the same time maintaining my commitment to my faith. I majored in English and Secondary Education, and as one of my science requirements I took a class called “Issues in Biology.” My professor’s Christian faith shone through her teaching, and her words have stayed with me to this day: “Jesus is not going to be standing at the gateway of heaven,” she said, “holding a clipboard in his hand and asking, ‘Did you believe in six-day creation? Did you believe in evolution?’ He’s going to be asking the one question that matters: ‘Did you believe in ME?’” Yes! I thought. I agree. My professor then proceeded to surprise me: she was the first person to clearly articulate for me how someone could both believe the Bible and accept evolution. I realized that this— alongside many others—was a secondary issue, and that whatever my position on origins might be, I could have fellowship with Christians who held different positions.

But this particular biology professor had more to say than, “we can all just get along.” I remember her bemoaning a phenomenon that she had observed as a teacher: Christian students, raised in a strict Young Earth Creationist background which only portrayed the weaknesses in evolution, would often lose their faith when confronted with evolutionary theory in its full strength. Having only ever heard one perspective, they hadn’t learned to think critically through different viewpoints. Furthermore, they identified their faith so strongly with Young Earth Creationism, that when science seemed to contradict their understanding of origins, they felt they had to jettison not only their Creationism, but the whole of their Christian faith.

During my training as a high school teacher, I learned another way to understand what was happening in the minds (and lives) of these students using Piaget’s theory of cognitive equilibrium. In simplified form, the theory says that students have a mental construct of how they see the world (called a schema by Piaget); with this schema, they are happy and peaceful—in a state of equilibrium. When they encounter new information, however, they get pushed into an uncomfortable state of disequilibrium. In order to return to equilibrium, they must either assimilate the new information into their existing worldview, or they must accommodate their worldview to fit the new information. Resilient learners and a robust faith can handle such challenges.

But the faith of the students my professor described was different— strong, but brittle; it did not have the resilience that comes through testing. Indeed, in 1644, John Milton described such untested conviction like this: “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for...” (from Areopagitica: A speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England). To use Piaget’s terms again, evolution threw these students into a disequilibrium from which they could not recover; they could not assimilate evolution into their Creationist worldview, and they could not or would not accommodate their worldview to fit the scientific evidence—so they floundered.

Training for resilience

In my own roles as a teacher and youth leader, I strive to introduce young people to new ideas that will stretch them—even cause them to lose their equilibrium at first. Too much new information conflicting with students’ pre-existing ideas will mean that they cannot assimilate the new information or accommodate to it. Too little new information will mean that they are not being challenged. Both extremes mean that the student is not learning. What I aim to do is to push them into disequilibrium, but also then provide them with the tools to assimilate/accommodate for themselves, and reach equilibrium again—with a deeper, enriched, and more nuanced worldview.

While this has been my strategy to personally help train up resilient young Christians in classrooms and youth groups, last year, Dr. Ruth Bancewicz (the Test of FAITH Project Leader, contributor to this blog, and fellow member of City Church Cambridge) brought me on board to work on another exciting project. Since then, I have been able to use my passion to provoke young people to think more deeply in my role as author of the Test of FAITH homeschool material.

As it was when I was a homeschooled student myself, the vast majority of homeschool science resources available today focus on the issue of origins, and from a Young Earth Creationist perspective. We have developed the Test of FAITH homeschool course to allow young people to learn about the different perspectives that Christians hold on a wide range of issues. In fact, let me emphasize that less than one-third of this material is about origins! For my part, I have loved the opportunity to delve into other issues of science and faith while developing this course; we think students will also appreciate seeing how a biblical worldview engages with such diverse topics as cosmology, the environment, neurology and the soul, free will and determinism, and bioethics.

Both the broad range of issues addressed in the Test of FAITH curriculum and the approach this curriculum takes to those topics will benefit students in several specific ways:

• Learning about different viewpoints will encourage homeschoolers to think critically through ideas and their consequences.
• Coming in contact with a variety of views will cause students to question why they believe what they believe, and will give them th tools to emerge from that questioning with an even deeper faith in God.
• Showing that Christians can disagree on various secondary issues, yet still remain committed, Bible-based believers, will help diffuse the acrimony that often surrounds science-faith issues.

I still have many questions, and I feel that my journey in understanding how science relates to my faith has just begun. However, Test of FAITH has been a significant marker on my own path, and I hope it will be a milestone for many homeschoolers around the globe, as well.

Science and Christianity: An Introductory Course for Homeschoolers is available for free download at www.testoffaith.com/homeschool. The 3-8 week course is designed for use with the award-winning documentary Test of FAITH: Does science threaten belief in God?

Ten free Test of FAITH DVD’s are available to homeschooling Biologos supporters! Contact abigail@testoffaith.com to reserve your copy.