So I’m realizing “Monday Afternoon Quarterback” (with the day changed to reflect when I’m actually getting around to writing) is both a) not a very exciting title for these sorts of posts, and b) not an entirely accurate title given that the goal of these reflective posts isn’t so much to second guess myself as it is to sort of, well, reflect on the previous Seven24. For the time being I’ll just give each post its own unique name until I find one I like.
Anywho, just about anyone who was there last night can attest to the fact that it was an interesting night. For those of you that were there, what was it like for you (I’d love it if you’d leave a comment, positive or, um, not positive)? Was it thought provoking? Helpful? Confusing? Frustrating? I’d love to hear your thoughts. (I put all that here instead of at the end of the post just in case you get bored and don’t make it that far 
).
I don’t know that I’ve ever been so nervous to speak.
It was a weird kind of nervousness though. I wasn’t nervous to speak per se…I’ve done that enough that speaking in front of people isn’t a big deal for me. Similarly, I wasn’t doubting the quality or accuracy of my content.
What made me nervous was knowing that I was taking a position on an issue that completely contradicted the position that just about everyone in the room had heard in church before.
For that reason, I really wanted to avoid answering the question that I talked about last night. At the same time, I knew I needed to. I didn’t need to in order to convince everyone that my point of view was the correct one (as I repeatedly emphasized last night, I don’t really care about that). Rather, I knew I needed to give this message to a) help make sure our people aren’t afraid of science, and b) help people realize that they can believe in evolution and still be a Christian, thus greatly reducing the likelihood of anyone losing their faith in science classes.
In case this isn’t already clear, the question for the evening was, “How did we get here?”
I went in to the night planning on giving about a 45 minute sermon (I’ve really been trying to move away from the “monologue” style sermon, but with some of the issues we’ve been talking about this summer it has seemed necessary), although as always I was open to taking questions.
I got about, oh, 20 minutes into the sermon and the questions started coming. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced at Seven24 before. It was actually pretty cool. There were constantly 3-4 hands up waiting to be called on. It was obvious that they were a little surprised by what I had to say, and several people, understandably, had some pretty major objections. It bears mentioning that most of my material came from the book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis Collins. That was the book that really helped me close the door on young earth creationism and intelligent design and embrace theistic evolution.
I was careful to stress the fact that a person’s view on creation and evolution is an issue that it is ok for Christians to disagree on. I was also careful to point out that when we are dealing with questions of life’s origins we have to approach the question with some humility because none of us really know for sure. Additionally, I was careful to stress the difference between theistic evolution and atheistic evolution. That was a particularly important issue to emphasize, I believe, because too often in church we can be led to believe that evolution is anti-God, that it denies the authority of the Bible, that it denies the reality of sin, and denies all sorts of other fundamental Christian beliefs.
This, of course, is simply not true. Atheistic evolution or naturalism does these things, but theistic evolution does not.
At any rate, the night itself was interesting, as the questions kept coming and coming. Normally I finish teaching at about 8:35-8:40 p.m., and the service ends at 9:00 p.m. Last night I stopped taking questions at around 9:00, made about ten minutes of closing remarks, and with music the service didn’t end until 9:35. That’s a two hours plus church service for those of you scoring at home. The questions may have raised by blood pressure just a smidge (nothing like having to answer unscripted questions on the spot on a difficult subject in front of 60 people), but it was great. I was stoked to see so many people so engaged.
Honestly, I’m not really sure what to think of the whole night. On the one hand, the compatibility of theistic evolution and Christian faith is a message that Christians simply must understand. On the other hand, I recognize that there are a lot of Christians who reject theistic evolution. Also, my own “conversion” of sorts to this sort of understanding was a process that took several years, and it would be impossible for me to prevent all of the information that led me to change my own beliefs on this subject in 45 minutes.
What was cool was that during the closing set I had a couple of friends, at different times, come to the back and ask me what I needed prayer for (ordinarily at the end of my message I tell people that I’ll be in the back of the room and am available for prayer if they’d like it). I told them both that my biggest prayer was that everyone in the room would be able to make some sense out of the things that we talked about. Whether they agreed with me or not, I wanted everyone to leave last night understanding that God is the creator, and there is nothing that science can tell us that should cause us to doubt that. If evolution by natural selection is in fact true, then it is a great miracle of God that is to be celebrated. If it’s not, then virtually every scientist working today has been duped, and God is still the creator.
Either way, it bears mentioning that I did not begin a career in ministry because I am passionate about science. I am interested in science, to be sure, but God has given me a passion for the gospel, and that is why I am in ministry. I’d much rather spend the majority of my time talking about the gospel than talking about science. Science is an “open hand” issue as far as I’m concerned, and at the end of the day I don’t care that much about what people at Seven24 believe scientifically. I care only that they are honest about what thye believe, and that they don’t let their faith get needlessly shaken by science.
Teaching on controversial subjects is an important part of the job. At my core I’m not a guy that likes controversy, nor am I a guy who likes to stir up trouble. I do, however, believe in honesty. I also believe that if we’re not asking difficult questions at church then where can we ask them? And if we can’t be honest about the existence of these sorts of questions, then what are we even doing? For those reasons I’ll continue to put myself out there to address difficult questions for as long as God allows me to keep teaching. The church has spent too much time earning a well-deserved reputation as a place that is intellectually dead. I guess my goal is that the church is the place what we can first and foremost worship God, and secondly be challenged intellectually more than we are anyplace else in our lives. That would help us shed that reputation, and that would help us to be people that can love God with all our minds.
5 Comments
July 21, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Last night was indeed interesting. Coming from a predominantly Calvary-based background, I’ve held for years the Young Earth Creationism theory, and pretty strongly/passionately too. Without my realizing it until last night, however, I think I’ve let this issue slip into the “doesn’t matter all too much” category. I didn’t get really upset hearing you were a theistic evolutionist, nor did I change my perception of you. I hope that everyone who was there can look at this issue in a very “open-hand” manner, and see that no matter what, God is the Creator and however He did it, it was/is awesome.
July 21, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Brian,
I commend you for engaging the students in such an important discussion. I am excited that you are willing to make yourself and the congregation at Seven24 uncomfortable; only after hard conversations will Christians sway away from clinging to neo-Christian dogmas and embrace justice, poverty, humility, and the slaughtered Lamb.
I took countless hours researching and re-researching to convince myself that I could remain a Christian when I embraced theistic evolution. From my past with mainstream evangelical Christianity and Calvary Chapel I was convinced that if I believed in “Darwin instead of Christ” I would be diametrically opposed to “biblical Christianity.” I found McLaren, The Story We Find Ourselves In, and Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell incredibly helpful in putting my mind at ease in understanding that Christianity is not a wall of bricks, and, if we remove the brick of creationism, the wall most certainly does not fall down on us.
God bless, and I pray that your teaching does not come back to bite.
-Cameron
July 22, 2008 at 8:06 am
Hey Brian – This is an awesome entry – I started having problems with Christianity when I began to realize that discussing science, or progress, or being curious about anything outside the commonly accepted doctrine was a huge taboo. I think science and Christianity can coexist but there are people on each side that seem to think their specific version of the truth is the only truth out there. I think our brains and ability to reason, tolerate, reevaluate and grow are the most important attributes we have as people, and its hard to be a part of any group that avoids logical and analytical conversation, yet expects others to take their opinions seriously. People need to be able to incorporate new information into their framework if they really want to prove their credibility and be respected by the rest of the world, and I think you are leading the way of that in your own church.
July 22, 2008 at 2:34 pm
What’s always bothered me is that people completely ignore the first three words of Genesis: “In the beginning…” Well, the beginning of what? The beginning of something, but most likely not the earth because the earth didn’t yet exist. So God creates this amazing place and then in verse 2 the translators blow it and translate a word that’s supposed to mean “became” into “was.” Verse 2 translated properly should read, “And the earth BECAME without form and void.” It opens up a whole new set of possibilities for a pre-Adamic world. Evolution of some sort is a reality and we probably just need to get over ourselves and deal with it.
rg
July 22, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Courtney- I agree, I really hope people can approach this issue in that way. Regardless of our perspective we can all agree that God is the creator and we can celebrate that. Thanks for your comment.
Cameron- These sorts of difficult, uncomfortable conversations are indeed necessary. I’ve never been one to be controversial for controversy’s sake, but I do believe that the church is the place where we have to be able to wrestle with difficult questions. Such wrestling will bring us to the place where we can better understand Jesus and then live out of that. I also found the two books you mentioned helpful. I thought it was a bit snarky of McLaren to have his book actually take place on the Galapagos Islands. It worked though, and was a terrific read. I’m looking forward to talking on the 31st. Thanks for commenting.
Alex- I find it ironic that while in one sense culture is becoming much more pluralistic, in another sense it is becoming much more dogmatic. Our ability to tolerate people with different political/cultural/social/economic/religious views seems to be declining at an alarming rate and I find that to be deeply troubling. The openness to new ideas that can be incorporated into one’s framework that you described is necessary in all sorts of environments. I believe the Christian story is an amazing one, and I believe that it centers around God becoming man, coming to Earth, and subsequently modeling a way of life for us to emulate. He didn’t come as a dogmatic fundamentalist, he came as a humble man who invited people to share in his story. That is a beautiful thing, and I am inspired by that every day of my life. Part of ‘following’ is being willing to engage the minds he has given us and to think openly and constructively about the world around us. To the extent that the church corporately and each of us individually fail to do that, we fail to participate in this radical thing called the Kingdom of God. Thanks for your comment.
Ron- word.