Ancient Hebrew Poetry

Friendly Fire in the Direction of Pete Enns

    Peter Enns, a senior fellow of the Biologos Foundation who blogs on the Foundation’s website, has written an important book entitled The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say About Human Origins. The most compelling reviews I have read so far are written by fellow evangelicals who are not out to cast aspersions. Their purpose: the classical one of faith seeking understanding. The reviews I have in mind are those by James K. A. Smith, C. John Collins, Michael Heiser, and Peter Leithart (here and here). Like Enns, each of these authors seeks to stand at the intersection of everything we know (or think we know) about human origins, from (1) the book of Scripture and (2) the book of nature.

Knowledge is one and truth is one: Introducing John Polkinghorne

    Bible-thumping creationists and fundy-bashing evolutionists dominate public discussion at the intersection of faith and science. It is great theater but little more than that. One of the saner and more responsible voices on science-and-faith questions is John Polkinghorne. Here is a pdf I prepared, a revised and proofed transcript of Maureen Cavanaugh's 2010 interview with Polkinghorne (audio track here). In the interview, Polkinghorne introduces his chief talking points in less than 2000 words. The pdf contains valuable links to other online audio and print resources. 

Why all the fuss about evolution?

    The universe astronomers and biologists describe for us is an unfolding entity of enormous magnitude and complexity, the result of a journey through time of almost 14 billion years. Deep space and deep time; black holes and anti-matter; natural law and stochastic processes, these and other features of the way things are have all played a part in bringing into existence a teeming mass of biological life on a remote planet in a far corner of an almost infinite whole.

why I am a creationist

Jeremy Pierce does a great job of reclaiming the word “creationism” (go here). He covers a lot of ground, and there is a great comment thread, with Tim Bulkeley making a distinction between history and ontology, and Peter Kirk suggesting that Adam and Eve may have lived somewhere in South Africa, “but where, and when?”

The Waltke-RTS Brouhaha: The Latest

Justin Taylor documents the abiding reciprocal respect that unites Waltke and RTS. Waltke and RTS perceive the Biologos video to be an improperly vetted public relations disaster in need of careful qualification, which Waltke offers. Waltke stands by his argument that “the church should accept creation by the process of evolution.” No backing down there. Lots of interesting tidbits in the correspondence Justin posts for the general public. For further background, go here. For a roundup of comment, go here. 

B. B. Warfield on the Bible and Evolution

The thing that bothers me most about people who wish to uphold the Reformed tradition but who treat those who are not creationists in their sense of that term as dangerous heretics is that they act in utter disregard of the best lights of their own tradition. Some quotes anyone who wishes to be “young, restless, and Reformed” needs to know by heart:

Bruce Waltke Resignation Roundup

Below the jump, the best posts I could find, anti- and pro-Waltke:

The Video that ended a Career: On Bruce Waltke’s resignation from Reformed Theological Seminary

For a review of the scandal – yes, that is exactly how it will be thought of for the forseeable future – see this well-researched Inside Higher Ed piece here. Since the video in question is now off-line, it is worth providing a few salient quotes:

The existence of rednecks disproves the theory of evolution

That is Robin Williams’ conclusion, whose delightful remarks are available on video over at The Enlightened Redneck. I love the way Williams distorts everything just enough to make a self-evident point - in this case, that Aussies are kind of weird - but not enough to stop you from being strung along.

If I were in a grumpy mood, I might claim that a civilization in which politicians demonstrate their bona fides by playing the “I’m less redneck than thou” routine has lost its way. But I bet you politicians have always acted as cheerleaders-in-chief for their tribes. They are certainly more accomplished at that than solving problems.

Should Christian colleges teach evolution?

The tectonic plates that underlie the culture wars continue to move. The movement is slow. It can be measured in inches. But it can set off earthquakes. Rachel Held Evans reports that at the International Forum on Higher Education of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities held in Atlanta recently, “the hot topic of the week was teaching evolution in Christian colleges. Francis Collins, author of The Language of God and founder of the BioLogos Foundation, spoke at the conference, urging professors and administrators to beware of placing students in the position of having to choose between their intellectual integrity and their faith.”