Monday, May 15, 2006

 

Coming to Peace with Evangelism

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There is an interesting piece in Science & Theology News (a worthwhile source of news about the intersection of science and religion) by Darrel Falk, author of the book, Coming to Peace with Science: Bridging the Worlds between Faith and Biology. The aim of his book is to lay out his reasons why he thinks the evangelical Christian Church:

must come to grips with the fact that there does not need to be this growing dichotomy between the world of evangelicalism and the parallel world of science. Just as I had personally come to peace with biology, I felt that the church ought to be able to come to peace with it as well.

In the article, Falk tells the story of the fallout caused when someone widely distributed an early version the manuscript of his book within his denomination. He faced possible expulsion from his teaching position at Point Loma Nazarene University but not only did he receive support from within the university but more generally within his church as well. Falk then relates the story of how:

Some time ago, I met for the first time the person who copied and mass distributed the early draft of my manuscript. It was a social situation and no mention was made of the fact that he had been part of a group that had worked for my removal from the faculty of my university. We talked about other things and enjoyed our visit together.

He puts that down to the work of Christ in the church. He credits the same source for the fact that:

The intelligent design leaders have been especially kind to me. Within the context of their big-umbrella philosophy, one of their leaders has indicated that he likes to think of me as one of their own, even though we differ on a major premise — the notion that one can expect to be able to prove the existence of the designer through scientific study.

Now my cynical mind might put that reaction down to the fact that the leader knows that ID never had anything to do with scientific study and their differences are for show only. But I wish Falk well. It is nice to see that evangelicalism and science are not inevitable enemies.
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