The Top 20 Blog Posts of 2015

Continuing a tradition that extends all the way back to 2014 (Here is last year’s post.), I’m closing out the year by giving a summary of our top blog posts.

This year we’ve seen a steady increase in our web traffic, and about 43% of pageviews are on the blog–or what we now call the blogs (in case you’re interested, a slightly larger share of pageviews is on our Common Questions pages).  We have a very loyal following who reads about everything we post.  But then the articles that do very well, like these listed here, result from readers sharing them in their network of friends.

We’re not able to manipulate something into going viral, but when you read a post you find particularly interesting, we’d appreciate you helping to extend our reach by sharing it on Facebook or Twitter or Reddit (or even just emailing it to others).  We hear regularly from thankful people who have just discovered BioLogos because of that kind of sharing.  We know there are many more out there who would like to hear there is a community of faithful Christians who thoughtfully engage the best science of today.

So, below are the top 20 blog posts of 2015 in terms of total number of pageviews.  These include only posts that were first published in 2015.  There are a few older ones that continue to get solid readership, like Pete Enns’ Genesis 1 and a Babylonian Creation Story from 2010 and The Firmament of Genesis 1 is Solid but That’s not the Point from 2011.  And there are several posts from Dennis Venema’s series Evolution Basics that continue to do well (everyone who really wants to understand the science of evolution should read that series!  How about that for a New Year’s Resolution?).

1. Of course celebrity and controversy fuel pageviews, so it is no surprise that our top two posts come from that category.  Our most-viewed post of 2015 was Brad Kramer’s interview with Bill Nye the “Science Guy” back on February 4, the anniversary of the Ham-Nye debate.  This makes two years in a row for Brad scoring the top post with an interview of a celebrity. To continue the streak, he’s working hard now to secure an interview in 2016 with Donald Trump (that’s a joke… I hope).
2. My own fifteen minutes of fame came last summer when I announced my resignation from my former institution because of a change in policy about origins.  We did not intend to make a big deal out of it, but when news organizations started contacting me we decided to tell the story before the speculations hit the press.  That resulted in President Haarsma’s July 10 post, Response to Jim Stump’s Resignation.  It touched a nerve with a lot of people, and brought to light a tension within Christian colleges that is not going away.
3. The third most-viewed blog page of the year was my 10 Misconceptions about Evolution on September 28. This was something I’d had brewing in my mind for awhile as I came across things people say about evolution.  A couple of the prominent anti-evolution groups wrote responses to this, claiming that I was mischaracterizing their views.  But I never said, “this is what AiG thinks, or this is what Creation Ministries International thinks”; only “here are some misinformed things I’ve seen people saying about evolution.”  I could supply citations for all of them (and names and phone numbers for many of them!).  The fact that the YEC groups don’t hold to all ten of these is good.  The fact that they do hold to some of them is not so good.  For example, both of their responses to the misconception that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics disproves evolution is really quite remarkable.
4. Further evidence that people like to read about our interactions with Answers in Genesis are the next two posts.  Coming in at number four is a very recent post (December 7) by a guest author who used to volunteer at AiG: Tales of a Recovering Answer Addict: From Young-Earth Apologist to Evolutionary Creationist.  In it Mario Russo tells of his passion for Young Earth apologetics until he went to seminary and learned to interpret Scripture.
5. Brad Kramer and I went on a road trip to visit the Creation Museum last summer.  Brad wrote up an account of that trip, My Trip to the Creation Museum, for August 17.  It was our fifth-most viewed blog of 2015.
6. Brad also wrote the post for November 30 called 5 Common Objections to Evolutionary Creationism.  In it he organized the kinds of things he and I heard while working the booth at the annual Evangelical Theological Society conference, as people stopped by to chat with us.  It was number six for the year.
7. I’m particularly proud of number seven, as it comes from a former student of mine who did some interning for BioLogos.  Hannah Birky gives some of her own story in How Science Led Me to A Deeper Faith, published on January 6.
8. On November 10, Brad Kramer published a post with the title, No, Modern Science is Not “Catching Up” to the Bible. There is so much confusion about the relationship between science and the Bible, and this post is the introduction to a series Brad will be writing on a new book, Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible between the Ancient World and Modern Science, by Kyle Greenwood.
9. Why God Works Slowly is the title of a post by “Science Mike” McHargue on July 2.  He is the co-host of a popular podcast, “The Liturgists” along with Michael Gungor.  In his post–the ninth most-viewed of the year–he reflects on our fixation with time and God’s apparent unconcern with it.
10. And rounding out the year’s top 10 was Ted Davis’s post C.S. Lewis and Others: Non-Literal Views of Adam and Eve.  This was one of the posts in a series Ted did on philosopher Robin Collins’ views on original sin, posted on April 2.

I’ll go more quickly through the next 10:

11. Tim Keller on Original Sin, Atonement, and Evolution.  This was repackaged to be part of the series on the Atonement. (June 15)
12. The “Cosmogonic” Form of Genesis 1.  An excerpt from Conrad Hyers’ article, “The Narrative Form of Genesis 1”. (January 22)
13. Reflections on our Interview with Bill Nye, by President Deb Haarsma. (February 5)
14. Discussing origins: BioLogos, Reasons to Believe, and Southern Baptists.  Part one of the transcript of a panel discussion at the 2014 ETS meeting. (January 26)
15. Tim Keller on original Sin, Atonement, and Evolution (Part 2) The second part of #11 above.  (June 16).
16. Clarifying Issues: My Response to the BioLogos Series Reviewing “Darwin’s Doubt” by Stephen C. Meyer.  (January 4)
17. Is the Fall like the Atonement?  Is there Room for Multiple Theories about the Origin of Sin? by James K.A. Smith (June 2)
18. Substitutionary Atonement and Evolution, by Joseph Bankard.  Part of the series on Atonement.  (June 9)
19. Neanderthals, Humans, and Interbreeding: Old Bones, New Evidence, by Dennis Venema.  (July 3)
20. Francis Collins Interviewed in National Geographic, Social Media Reacts  Reprint of an interview with BioLogos founder, Francis Collins. (March 30)

We are so grateful for all of our readers. We hope to see all of you and more in 2016.