I’ve been busy hanging out with the lovely people of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, which means I missed most of tonight’s big debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham. (Dan filled me in on some of what went down. I’m looking forward to watching it later.)
Since I’ve been asked: I’m with Nye in that I don’t believe young earth creationism is a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era. I’m also a Christian who loves the Bible and believes it to be inspired by God and authoritative in the Christian life. My view is that Genesis 1, having emerged from an ancient Near Eastern context, assumes an ancient Near Eastern cosmology and addresses theological concerns, not scientific ones. (For more on this, I highly recommend John Walton’s The Lost World of Genesis One.)
And I believe that church leaders who teach that Christians have to choose between the Bible and science, faith and reason, are doing a huge disservice to the Church, essentially setting believers up for failure. That teaching wreaked havoc on my young faith, as I write about in Evolving in Monkey Town, and in several of the posts below.
So since it’s a hot topic, and I’ve been getting a bunch of tweets about it, I figured I’d just link to some old posts and share some of my favorite book recommendations before we find time to talk about it sometime next week:
Blog Posts
“Ask an Evolutionary Creationist”
For The Washington Post: “When Atheists and Baptists Agree”
“What Happened When I Tried to Love God with My Mind”
“A Response to Ken Ham: Let’s Make Peace”
“Review of ‘The Evolution of Adam’ by Peter Enns”
You might also be interested in a series of posts from 2012 about the Bible and learning to love it for what it is, not what we want it to be.
Also, be sure to check out BioLogos.org.
Book Recommendations:
Evolving in Monkey Town by yours truly
The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton
The Language of God by Francis Collins
The Evolution of Adam by Peter Enns
Coming to Peace With Science by Darrel Falk
Saving Darwin by Karl Giberson
So, who caught the debate? What were your thoughts?
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