What Is Gleanings?

At Christianity Today, we’re constantly tracking important developments in the church and the world. Often we use our network of reporters around the world (and for that, visit our main site). But we also monitor other news outlets, bloggers, newsmakers’ social media feeds, and countless other information streams. Gleanings compiles the most urgent and interesting items we’ve found, explains why you need to know about them, and gives you the background you need to understand them. It’s our snapshot of what God is doing in the world, hour by hour.

Free Newsletters

« Family Research Council Shooter Pleads Guilty to Terrorism | Main | More Convictions for Egypt's Maspero Massacre—But Copts not Soldiers »

February 8, 2013

BioLogos Selects Woman to Lead Evangelical Evolutionists

Former Calvin College professor will take over foundation started by Francis Collins.

The BioLogos Foundation has announced that former Calvin College physics professor Deborah Haarsma will take over the organization as outgoing president Darrel Falk transitions out of his role.

According to BioLogos, Haarsma previously was professor and chair in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She has studied "very large galaxies (at the centers of galaxy clusters), very young galaxies (undergoing rapid star formation in the early universe), and gravitational lenses (where spacetime is curved by a massive object)."

But Haarsma's work in astronomy is less likely to garner criticism than her views of Scripture, creation, and evolution. Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum, recently disinvited from several homeschooling conferences for comments he made regarding BioLogos's Peter Enns, already is speaking out against Haarsma's leadership, alleging in a blog post that she "denies the authority of Scripture when it comes to Genesis" and "accepts evolutionary ideas wholeheartedly."

But according to BioLogos, Haarsma says that "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.”

CT has regularly reported on BioLogos, including an interview with founder Francis Collins, a dispatch from last year's gathering of evangelical evolutionists in NYC, and how a BioLogos video led to the resignation of prominent Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke, underscoring tensions on evolution at evangelical institutions.

CT has also regularly reported on evolution, creationism, intelligent design, and human origins, including an infographic on current views, a Village Green on how intelligent design can gain credibility, and how it's time for a difficult, grace-filled family meeting. Recent CT cover stories have examined the search for a historical Adam and a tale of two evangelical scientists—one a young-earth creationist, the other an evolutionary creationist.

Comments

Who cares what Ken Ham has to say? He knows far less than Waltke and Enns about original languages and far less about science than Collins. Although I'm not convinced of evolution as explanatory for the whole picture (especially the Cambrian Explosion which drove Gould to come up with an unfalsifiable and ridiculous hypothesis to explain it away), evolution is not heretical unless we are considering Augustine, NT Wright, William Lane Craig, Alister McGrath, John Polkinghorne and Wolfhart Pannenberg are heretics now.

Augustine believed in a young earth created instantaneously. As for the others, yes, if they believe in evolution, they are heretics. Evolution destroys the gospel, plain and simple.

Chris Nelson, you should read Augustine's work instead of just what others say about him and his writings. Creation ex nihilio is not the same as everything created instantaneously AND staying that way. A good synoposis of his positions is below (not my synoposis, I would have been far wordier).
"Augustine wrestled with Genesis 1-2 throughout his career. There are at least four points in his writings where he attempts to develop a detailed, systematic account of how these chapters are to be understood, including his work The Literal Meaning of Genesis which was written between 401 and 415 AD. Augustine discerns the following themes in his reading of Scripture and weaves them together into his account of creation. God brought everything into existence in a single moment of creation. Yet the created order is not static. God endowed it with the capacity to develop. Augustine uses the image of the dormant seed to help his readers grasp this point. God creates seeds, which will grow and develop at the right time. Augustine asks his readers to think of the created order as containing divinely embedded causalities that emerge or evolve at a later stage. Yet Augustine has no time for any notion of random or arbitrary changes within creation. The development of God’s creation is always subject to God’s sovereign providence.

Augustine argues that the first creation account (Genesis 1:1-2:3) cannot be interpreted in isolation but must be set alongside the second creation account (Genesis 2:4-25), as well as every other statement about the creation found in Scripture. For example, Augustine suggests that Psalm 33:6-9 speaks of an instantaneous creation of the world through God’s creative Word, while John 5:17 points to a God who is still active within creation. God created the world in an instant but continues to develop and mold it, even to the present day. This leads Augustine to suggest that the six days of creation are not to be understood chronologically. Rather, they are a way of categorizing God’s work of creation. They provide a framework for the classification of the elements of the created world so that they might be better understood and appreciated.

Certain biblical passages, he insisted, can legitimately be understood in different ways. The important thing is that these interpretations must not be wedded to prevailing scientific theories . Otherwise, the Bible becomes a prisoner of what was once believed to be scientifically true."

There are only two roadblocks facing Biologos:

(1) The Bible

(2) Evolutionary textbooks and websites

Biologos' main message -- that Evolution is compatible with Christianity -- can be clearly defeated from either or both directions.

Romans 5:12 clearly says that "Therefore as by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned." Although the passage speaks of human death, one could legitimately, I think, understand that there was no death before Adam's sin, and therefore no millennia of species dying out as they gave rise to other species. Plus, Genesis states that "everything reproduced after its own kind," and that God's creation was "good." I see no room for the concept that species changed into other species. We are not talking here about micro-evolution, or adaptation, viz., small changes within species. Those have been observed, & do not contradict Scripture. I view those who try to combine the Bible and evolution, not as heretics, but as people who are trying to court friendship with the world. Similarly with those evangelicals who are jumping on board the Global Warming train.

Post a comment:

Verification (needed to reduce spam):