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Author | Topic: Best approaches to deal w/ fundamentalism | |||||||||||||||||||||||
kbertsche Member (Idle past 2161 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined: |
quote:I must respectfully disagree with ICANT. In my experience, scientific evidence alone is not very effective. Most non-experts cannot objectively weigh the evidence, so they must defer to experts. Christians tend to trust the Christian "experts" like ICR and AIG, because they share the same worldview. I believe the big barriers for Christians are not scientific, but philosophical and theological. It is a worldview issue. Most Christians are aware of Dawkins and his type, who conflate the science of evolution with an atheistic worldview. Most are not able to discern the difference between science and philosophy (worldview). Thus evolution appears to be an atheistic, anti-Christian position. If it is perceived as anti-Christian, most Christians will strongly oppose it. Dawkins' position is counterproductive. Here are some ideas for dealing with "fundies" (note: I am a conservative Evangelical Christian, but not a "fundie"): 1) Someone like Francis Collins and his book "The Language of God" is helpful. Collins shows that the science of evolution is NOT inherently atheistic or anti-Christian, but can be incorporated in a Christian worldview. This eliminates the main concern of Christians, that evolution is anti-God. (There are also many other Christians who take a "theistic evolution" position who have written on this topic.) 2) I find it helpful to distinguish between science and philosophy/worldview. I point out that the atheistic worldview is NOT a "scientific" position, contrary to Dawkins. It is philosophy/theology, which science cannot speak to one way or the other. 3) I am convinced that fundies operate from some faulty theological assumptions. It is usually counter-productive to point this out directly, but I have gotten fairly positive responses by teaching good, orthodox theology directed to these points. (It would require some theological credentials and commonality with your audience to have any effect doing this.) The theological errors that I see are:a) a quasi-gnostic view of nature; Bible is "spiritual" and "good", nature is "physical" and "bad". I counter this with Ps 19 and the ancient "two books" or "dual revelation" theological perspective (God reveals truth through both nature and Scripture; both are trustworthy.) b) a quasi-desitic view of nature; the universe is like a clock or machine which runs independently of God. Fundies have the idea that natural explanations somehow "explain away" God's involvement in events. I counter this with Ps 104, Job 38-42, Col 1:17, and Heb 1:3. The biblical perspective is that the universe is contingent; its existence is dependent every second on God's active upholding of it. Hence, God is just as involved in events which occur according to natural processes as those which are miracles. c) a quasi-docetic view of Scripture; Scripture is fully divine but not human. I would try to teach orthodox theology here (Jesus is both fully God and fully man; Scripture is likewise both fully divine and fully human.) If one thinks through the human aspects of Scripture, he will realize that the biblical authors may have had limited or mistaken ideas about their world (flat earth, solid firmament, etc.). The Bible's infallible, inerrant theological message would have been accommodated to this limited, mistaken perspective of the human authors. So we must distinguish between what the Bible is actually TEACHING from what is simply the cultural background of the authors. I tend to focus more on the age of the earth/universe than on evolution with "fundies", but I've found these three approaches to be more effective than discussing the scientific data.
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kbertsche Member (Idle past 2161 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined: |
quote:Do you realize that James Orr, one of the authors of the Fundamentals (from which "fundamentalism" derives its name) was a theistic evolutionist? And that B.B. Warfield (champion of biblical inerrancy) was as well? And that G.F. Wright (another of the original fundamentalists) was open to the idea? I don't think these men fit your characterization of theistic evolutionists as "compromising their faith".
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kbertsche Member (Idle past 2161 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined: |
quote:I believe you are overstating things. They may view the Bible LESS literally than you do, but this is not the same as NON-literal. quote:No, this is an overstatement. They don't view EVERYTHING as symbolic. quote:What about James Orr and G.F. Wright? Were these two original fundamentalists not TRUE fundamentalists? That would be odd! I generally agree with your idea, but your caveat is too narrow. I believe there are other indicators that a passage is not to be taken literally.
quote:I think you are making the problem much bigger than it really is. Do the mountains literally "shout" and the trees literally "clap their hands" (Is 55:12)? If this is not literal, is our salvation literal? Is heaven literal? NO ONE takes EVERYTHING in the Bible literally, not even you. Figuring out how to interpret the text is not just a simple, formulaic task. It requires some thought and study to do properly. But this doesn't make everything fall apart like a house of cards.
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kbertsche Member (Idle past 2161 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined: |
quote:Perhaps so, though I believe he was open to more aspects of evolution than most who call themselves "Progressive Creationists". There seems to be a good article here, though I've only skimmed it: http://www.asa3.org/asa/PSCF/1999/PSCF6-99McGrath.html
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kbertsche Member (Idle past 2161 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined: |
quote:I agree. Fundamentalists often have a fear (or at least a distrust) of science, based primarily on the perception that science is in conflict with the Scriptures. This perception, in turn, is due to a number of things. These include a blurring of the distinction between science and philosophical naturalism (e.g. by Dawkins et al), a misunderstanding of what science is and how it is done, and biblical/theological misunderstandings about the trustworthiness of nature and the interpretation of Scripture. I suggest that the best approach to deal fundamentalists is to address all of these misunderstandings.
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kbertsche Member (Idle past 2161 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined: |
quote:I doubt that this will be very effective in convincing fundamentalists, however. Fundamentalists are just as suspicious of and resistant to liberal Christians as they are of atheistic naturalists. I think a better approach is to find conservative Christians who the fundamentalists will trust, but who have a broader perspective than modern fundamentalists. I've mentioned a few here already (James Orr, G.F. Wright, B.B. Warfield). A number of present-day writers from an evangelical perspective (not liberal Christians, but also not fundamentalists) could also be helpful, including:Deborah & Loren Haarsma, "Origins: A Reformed Look at Creation, Design, and Evolution" Darrel R. Falk, "Coming to Peace With Science: Bridging the Worlds Between Faith and Biology" Denis O. Lamoureux, "Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution" John H. Walton, "Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible" Peter Enns, "Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament" Kenton L. Sparks, "God's Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship"
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