Posted by Eliza on: 10.12.2006 /
The second class session had 3 topics: (1) review of the prior week’s lesson, (2) lesson on God, and (3) lesson on creation (actually, anti-Darwinism, discussed in 2 parts below). My after-class discussion with the pastor follows at the end.
One observation, after 2 classes: I can’t begin to share this pastor’s beliefs, but I have been repeatedly impressed (in a positive way) with how certain and content he seems in his faith, and how readily he has answers for questions.
There were more students this time; the influx seemed to be church members. (This time, there were 2 non-white students.) Again, we checked in and got some more handouts (mostly on creationism).
(1) Review of the prior week’s lesson: The first 35 minutes was a re-cap, including going through the 7 discussion questions in the text; the focus was on knowing Christ. Stemming from this, a few students asked questions. The pastor said it’s a consistent position to accept everything in the Bible (or, reject it all), but he said not everything in the Bible was of the same importance. He also said, “If we’re going to understand this book, God’s book, who has to help us? God.” (I wasn’t sure what that meant, especially since he had been so clear last week that God doesn’t communicate with people now, He has said all He needs to say & it’s in the Bible. It seemed circular, to have the Bible help explain the Bible.)
One student expressed concern with Psalm 119, quoted in part in lesson #1 of the text; her concern was because it refers to God but not Jesus. The pastor knew her name and knew she hadn’t been at the first session, so she’s probably a church member. He answered that we had gone though that last week, that (as I recall this is how he said it) Christ was crucial but that didn’t have to be spelled out, it was understood throughout the Bible including the OT.
(2) Lesson on God: We spent 65 minutes on the first 5 questions of 9 in lesson #2. Those were questions about God, with answers from scripture: “How do we know there’s a God?” (answer: from nature, conscience, and the Bible, 1 line of scripture each); “What is God?” (10 lines of scripture from Genesis through the epistles, each giving one quality); “Who is the only true God?” (extensive discussion on this, including white board use and 2 handouts with drawings to illustrate correct and incorrect ways to think about the triune God), and “What does it mean to believe in God?”
As an atheist, I did not find this discussion convincing (or even very interesting, except for the discussion of the trinity; see #3 below for what I did during some of the first 70 minutes). He said the triune God is “in conflict with reason” and stressed that the Father, the Son/Word, and the Holy Spirit are distinct but are each God and all God at the same time; you can’t separate them; and each is not part of God (I may not be doing justice to his description).
I jotted down some quotes from the pastor from this portion, including:
He talked about God as being timeless, having existed forever before creation and forever in the future, and said the universe is expanding into God. (Those ideas are appealing, but imo there is no evidence for this, and I talked with him after class about it, see #5 below.)
Two of his comments made me especially furrow my brow. First, he cited John 1:18, “No one has ever seen God…”, so I raised my hand & asked about apparent sightings in the Bible, including all those people who interacted with Jesus in the gospels (before his death and after his resurrection), and including an excerpt of Exodus 24:9 which I read: “Then Moses and Aaron…[and 72 Israelis]…went up, and they saw the God of Israel…they beheld God, and ate and drank.” The pastor seemed to like this question, saying that in these cases people saw incarnations of God, which is not the same as seeing God the dismebodied spirit, the actual deity. I did not press this further, but was struck that he had just said moments before (as I understood him) that any one part of the trinity was the same as the entirety, so it’s not clear to me how he can find it so crystal clear that noone has seen God (based on the Bible).
Second, he warned, as he did last week, for students to beware of people who tried to prove a point with a line of scripture (again ironic to me, since this is how the text is organized). It turned out that he said this right around the time he read the text’s citation of Leviticus 19:2 giving a quality of God: “..I the Lord your God am holy.” I did not say anything, but this seemed like cherry-picking to me; it comes soon after Leviticus 18, which gives rules for avoiding seeing relatives naked & rules against “uncleanliness,” and not long after Leviticus 18:30 (which warns people to follow those laws against uncleanliness) and before Leviticus 19:5-6 (which talks about making sacrifices to God).
(3) Creation, part 1 — the anti-Darwinism handouts: I read the handouts given out on creationism (actually, anti-Darwinism) during the first hour. One handout was, “Five Questions Evolutionists Would Rather Dodge” by Willam A. Dembski; another was “Should Christians Make Peace With Darwin?” by David N. Menton Ph.D. (the answer is no); the third was a pamphlet “What about…Creation and Evolution” by A.L. Barry, President of the Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod. While reading these, I had tried to remain quiet, but I know I shook my head, made some exclamatory margin notes, and mumbled to myself a bit. I’ll try to keep my comments here under some kind of rein - I could go on for pages. These handouts say things like: “evolutionary theory is in sad shape” and “We may be confident that because God’s Word is truth, no observable fact of true science will be incompatible with it” (the pastor did mention Augustine, who commented on this problem but saw the solution in a different light; Augustine was not correct in this, according to this pastor). I wrote responses in the margins like “99% of species that ever existed are extinct”; and “Archaeopteryx as transitional fossil”; and “every organism is transitional.”
In several places, the handouts set up straw men (imo) to knock down, like (paraphrasing here) Evolution is nothing but chance, and Nature has no power to choose (concluding easily, in both cases, there must have been Intelligent Design — by the Creator). They also made broad, sweeping, false, & misleading claims, saying that most scientists believe that almost all of the fossils on earth have been found; that many scientists think cells are “irreducibly complex”; that “more and more scientists” (giving a long & specific list of types, including biologists and geologists) are coming to believe in a Creator. (Perhaps true for a few scientists here and there. Not true for the majority of scientists. See #5 below, after which I did a web search at home for any evidence that ID is actually spreading among scientists. No evidence found.)
One handout asked “What is true science?” then described King Solomon’s God-granted “unparalleled wisdom [and]…scientific knowledge of nature” (1 Kings 4:33). This seemed like a kind of narrow appreciation of “true science”, imo.
One category of comment was illuminating to me - the warnings. “Christians should be particularly careful how they view Divine Creation because it is foundational to the whole Bible and Christianity” and “Evolutionism inevtiably breaks the relationship between sin and death, thus negating the need for a Savior who would save us from sin, death and the power of the Devil. Finally, when the Lord returns in Glory on the last day…will scholars attempt one last naturalistic explanation for even this?” I truly had not realized how deeply threatening some Christians find the idea of evolution. (I have no reason to disbelieve that the universe is billions of years old, so imo it seems reasonable that interpretation of scripture should incorporate that…fact. You may well disagree!)
(4) Creation, part 2 — the anti-Darwinism lecture & ID books: We only got through 2 of the 4 points on creation in the text: “What does the Bible say about the creation of the world?” and “How did God create man?” The same student-member who had questioned Psalm 118 (in #1 above) asked whether the pastor thought there was room for “Old Word Creationists” as well as “New World Creationists.” The pastor said he didn’t know what she meant, so she explained that some people thought the six days of creation were longer than six 24-hour days. That got a vigorous response — he was very clear that six days meant six days, based on Exodus 20:11 and Exodus 31:17. He said there was no other option than 6 literal days, and any other attempt was “not the way of integrity…we have no authority to change the Bible.”
I raised my hand & pointed out that the sun wasn’t created until the 4th day in Genesis 1, so didn’t it seem possible that a “day” had a longer duration, basically a different definition, in the first 3 “days”, before the earth’s revolution could be measured against the sun? That seemed to throw him for a moment, but he recovered and started saying (with a smile, at me) “Some people who don’t like Christianity say…” but he stopped when I shook my head and frowned at him, so then he moved on & just said it wasn’t so.
He then turned the focus against “Darwinism.” He said there were “profound theological problems with believing in evolution” including figuring out when and how the soul came into being. He said “there’s a huge amount of arrogance in the academic community — they think, “those stupid Christians’ and they are condescending,” which seems perfectly believable. He stopped referring to the class text & instead showed 4 Intelligent Design books he had brought to class. He held each one up and told a bit about it, including one written by someone who “doesn’t even mention Christianity.” He liked them all. He said, “these ID people are brilliant” and said that scientists “are signing on weekly, daily, hourly” to ID. He talked about how Darwinism was about to be proven wrong (citing from one of his ID books, published 20 years ago).
I had a very hard time listening to this. It seemed like a huge misrepresentation of the actual balance of support for evolution v. ID in the scientific community. I’m sure the people sitting around me thought I was passing a kidney stone — I moaned, and writhed, and said “No!” in a low voice a few times. But I didn’t say anything louder than that about it in class.
(5) After-class discussion: I helped 2 of the student-members pick up the room & put away the Bibles, then went up front to talk with the pastor (with one Christian student, not a church member, standing there too). The pastor and I had a pretty good discussion, though amusingly some of it was in shorthand, as one of us brought up one standard argument and the other made a standard rebuttal comment back.
I asked: “You said God is timeless. But, it seems to me, having created the world, God became anchored in time.” (That didn’t seem to bother him.) “And, you said God was not lonely before creation.” (He had said there were the 3 of the triune God, to keep each other company; it might have been a bit of a joke.) “So, then, why did God create the universe/world and create man? Or, since He is omniscient and knew that man would fall into sin, and that He would eventually send His son for salvation, then finally bring about the Kingdom of God… why didn’t He just go straight to the final step?” The pastor paused for a moment, then said we were created so we could know Him. (I shrugged a bit, not a convincing reason imo.) The pastor said, “He didn’t create us as robots, you know” and I said “I know, I know, free will and all” and that ended that topic.
Then I pointed out that the pastor had said there was nothing (except God) before God created the universe, and that the universe was expanding into Him — but (I said) we/he didn’t actually know those things were true. The pastor agreed readily and cheerfully, but it didn’t sound like he would have changed what he said in class.
We started talking about evolution. I think I asked how he could reconcile all of the findings of the natural world that seem to support evolution. The pastor countered that evolution would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics (an argument in one of the handouts, and a favorite argument among creationists). I said emphatically (forgive me: without thinking I used a “you are so wrong” tone of voice) “No, it doesn’t” and started explaining the Second Law of Thermodynamics (applies in closed not open systems; an organism or species or habitat is an open system, since energy is added to the system, for example as food [for the organism] or sunlight [for the entire habitat], and leaves, for example as heat) but he didn’t seem interested in hearing about the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
We talked about his ID books, and I leafed through them. The one that he had mentioned as being by someone who “didn’t even mention Christianity” actually argues in its first and last chapters against evolution and against the creation account in the Bible (the author writes broadly and repeatedly that “Genesis” is wrong). He has underlined in them extensively, and has written comments in the margins. When the other student standing with us asked which of these ID books the pastor recommended, and he said “oh, any of them,” I spoke up and pointed out that this book discounted Genesis and that he might therefore not want to recommend it to a Christian. I was heartily surprised to hear the pastor say, “Oh, that doesn’t matter.” That response seemed to fly in the face of his comments in class (that the Bible is true, and belief in it is of crucial importance). It seemed that, when it came to creation, combatting “Darwinism” was more important than avoiding anti-Biblical rhetoric.
I told the pastor that I would be very interested in seeing any data to support his comments about ID gaining rapid and widespread support among scientists, and asked if he had any such data; he said “Oh, I don’t have any” but didn’t sound concerned. (That same “support for ID is gaining rapidly” comment had been in the pamphlet from the president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. See my comment above, in #3, regarding my fruitless online search after class for anything that would support this statement.)
I mentioned that there were a number of examples in biology of what seems like poor design & asked how that fit in with his belief in creationism. I mentioned junk DNA and several anatomic structures in humans: the appendix, the recurrent laryngeal nerve, and started to mention the superior mesenteric artery (SMA; it can compress the left renal vein or the duodenum). He broke in and said that man was a perfectly designed creature until The Fall (the topic of the next class), and that any and all imperfections came about as a result of sin. I asked whether that meant Satan had caused them, and he said that Satan had no creative power; those imperfections (whatever they were) were punishments from God.
I decided there was no point to trying to bring up one last topic, the incredible length of time evolution has had to work, since he is a Young Earth Creationist and the claim of an old universe would be baseless to him.
We parted on pleasant terms. I’m not sure how much of this week’s class on “Angels and Sin” I’ll get to, will need to find childcare; I’ll try to go!
Comment by: Helen
1Wow Eliza - another awesome write-up! Thanks for taking time to share with us how class #2 went.
It seems like Siamang was right - it was pretty hard for you to sit through the anti-evolution part of the class.
I think you’ve hit upon something very key here. If you keep in mind the possibility “Christians are deeply threatened by this and are responding accordingly” I think you’ll find it explains all sorts of things (some) Christians say and do.
It might not have been a joke. I’ve heard Christians say that a lot: that God didn’t need to create us because he had fellowship with himself before he created any human beings.
I love that you were so outraged you found yourself using “You are so wrong!” tone of voice :-)
I think it’s awesome that you can make the choice to remain on pleasant terms with someone who has just said lots of things you deeply disagree with, many of which seem unfair and misleading, and then has not shown serious interest in your responses.
Oh no…I hope you can find childcare! I was thinking, you could take your son if he can sit quietly and read a book and I doubt anyone could have grounds for complaint. However I would be a bit cautious about taking him because who knows what the pastor might say. It’s possible he might say things you’d rather not have your son hear.
I’m not saying this because I’m afraid your son will be ‘converted’ by what he hears. To explain what I mean - I often felt I would rather not have had my children hearing what was said in sermons about sex. And here’s something that happened at church when my son was eight. He was already an excellent reader and was looking through the church bulletin one Sunday before the service. He asked me “Mom, what does that word mean?” He had come across the word ‘pornography’ in a paragraph suggesting that church families protect themselves against pornography by signing up for a particular internet website blocking service. (I said I’d explain later; what I said was, it’s pictures of people with no clothes on, which some people like to look at, which is weird - and he agreed and that was the end of that)
Around the same time I stopped listening to Christian news in the car when my children were with me because of what they might hear.
It seems ironic and unfortunate that I would be more concerned about what they heard from Christian than secular sources. But that’s how it was for me after the ‘pornography’ word experience.
Comment by: Julie Marie
2There you have it. If religion does not have the concept of humanities utter depravity they lose a powerful control mechanism.
Rather than re-examine beliefs in the light of new understanding, rather than explore the possibility that the concept of God and his role in the world and individuals lives may need updating, they will perpetuate lies. LIES.
I don’t know why I should be so surprised, I’m eyeball deep in history books now, and it was ever thus. Compared to what happened in the mideval period in the name of the Lord, I would say advancing a few books on ID, some with contradictory and conflicting information, is mild.
Comment by: notarev
3Just thought I’d let you know that there are lots of Christians out there who would react to these sessions almost exactly as you do.
We believe that God doesn’t play games with his universe - that the scientific evidence is real and true, and that the stories in the Bible are not intended to be “scientific”, since modern science didn’t even exist when those stories were written. Too many Christians seem to be afraid that ambiguity and doubt destroy faith. For me, faith is a companion to ambiguity and even doubt. I have no problem as a Christian saying, “I don’t know” to many of the questions “your” pastor seems to have the answers for. But I still have faith.
Evolution does not weaken my faith in God. My belief that the creation stories in Genesis are allegories does not mean that I believe that Jesus did not rise.
Thanks for sharing. I would even be so bold as to quote Jesus: you are not far from the Kingdom!
Comment by: Stephan
4My changed view on evolution is one of the things I have taken away from my interaction here and on the discussion board. I went to a private Christian high school and college, and the science classes were pretty much what you heard in this class - young earth, evolution is weak, etc.
I have never, however, bought into the argument that evolution weakens Christianity, so my changed view on the reality of evolution has not had any adverse effect on my faith.
I think it’s very unfortunate when these peripheral issues become central to the faith. When you set up anything, evolution in this case, as important to Christianity, you risk building on a weak foundation. Science in continually learning more about how things came to be. If you base your faith on this, then your faith needs to change with science or perish. If science proves evolution (as many say it has), and your faith is based on the idea that evolution is false, then something has to give. In this case it sounds like the church is willing to turn a blind eye to science, but in many cases I’m sure people would be willing to turn their back on the church and religion.
Part of my evolution of faith (pardon the pun) is to determine what issues are central and focus on those. Evolution doesn’t make the cut. I’m sorry that some feel differently.
Comment by: Dan
5Great write up Eliza! I reckon you’d make a good anthropologist! :)
Sorry you were subjected to all of that! I can’t decide whether I should admire your determination and curiosity or be slightly concerned about your developing masochistic tendencies? ;)
Seriously though, as a Believer I’ve been v. interested in the creation/evolution debate for a long time. I don’t feel the need to interpret the Genesis creation stories literally and I don’t have any axe to grind (I don’t think) against evolution, but there still seem to me to be some significant gaps in the theory(s) and I sympathise with some aspects of ID. I guess that makes me anathema to many fundamentalist evangelicals AND to most (neo-)Darwinists simultaneously! Oh well, not much I can do about that for now I guess…
Comment by: Pastor David
6Hmmm … fun with the pastor. The idea of an unchangable God (immutability) does not actually come from the Hebrew religion, but from Greek philosophy. Yes, it rears its head one or two places in the NT, but for the most part is entirely missing from the Biblical description of God. Indeed the Biblical desciption points in the opposite direction — that God is not only capable, but does, change.
In Exodus 32, the Israelites have just made an idol while Moses is on the mountain with God. God says to Moses, “Your people whom you have led out of Egypt have sinned” and God goes on to threaten to destroy them all except Moses. To this, Moses responds to God that they are “your people whom you led out of Egypt.” Moses recalls the promises God made to the patriarchs,
(Another great example is Genesis 19 when Abraham bargains with God)
If we say that the three persons of the Triune God have existed in relationship throughout eternity, that means that they have eternally been open to change. A relationship is the ability to adapt, adjust, and change in reaction to another person. Thus the Father, Son, and Spirit have eternally been changing one another.
Furthermore, God calls us to a relationship with the Triune God. Is it truly a relationship if we change in relation to God, but God is unable to change in relation to us? An immutable God negates the possibility of a God who could enter into relationship with us.
But it has higher stakes than even that. An immutable God could not experience emotion. For the Greeks, emotions require change. Emotions mean that the world around us has changed and affected us. To be truly immutable is to be “above” emotions. An immutable God cannot love Christians, or the Church, or anything else. A real difficulty since we are told in 1 John that God is love. For our more conservative friends, it might be more challenging to realize that an immutable God cannot hate sin, or unbelievers.
Of course, the worst of all emotions are pain and suffering. To be in pain, to suffer, is to change in relation to the thing causing the pain/suffering. To the Greeks, seeking to understand suffering in the world, the gods were immutable first and foremost because it put them beyond the sufferings of the world. Christians say that God not only can suffer, but that the Triune God willingly chose to suffer and die on the cross. That is not immutability.
Comment by: David H
7For Christians intelligent design is a requirement (if you believe in a creator God, then his intelligence initiated creation). I remain mystified, however, why that excludes evolution. My wife does science. She has done experiments where you add ingredients at precise intervals under controlled conditions until, at some later time, you achieve a known result. If God spoke the universe into being, I’m sure he could “manage” the advent of man. Fighting evolution remains such a strange fixation for Christians and seems deeply fear based.
I once asked a fairly conservative friend what would happen to his faith if something from the Bible was ever proved wrong (i.e. a fundemental belief or character was irrefutably found to be incorrect or never existed). He gagged a bit, then said it couldn’t happen because the Bible was always and completely right. I tried to press him to no avail. He just got more and more agitated about how I could say such a thing. I finally told him that for me belief in God comes first and that is why I believe what is in the Bible. Many Christians want the Bible to serve as some sort of proof about God. Therefore, they believe the Bible and that is why they believe in God. That is wrong in so many ways (both from the perspective of common sense and Christianity).
My mom used to say we will know the truth about evolution when we get to heaven. These days I am more of a mind that we may never know, on earth because short of a time machine there may not ever be any absolute proof and in heaven, if there is such a place, because the issue may be of such insignificance that it never comes up in conversation (oh, by the way, your ultimate holiness, what about that whole evolution thing?).
My chief complaint about the entire debate is it surely distracts Christians from their true mission — which is supposed to be showing God’s love to all of creation, whether it descended from trees or not.
Comment by: Pastor David
8The key, for classical Christian understanding of this, is that time itself is a creature of God. God is beyond time, precisely because God created time. BUT …
The God we know, God as God has chosen to be revealed, is the God in history and time. God chose to become involved in time and history when God called out father Abraham and blessed his descendents. God continued to chose to exist/be known in time throughout the history of Israel. Finally, God chose to be incarnate within time, in the person of Jesus Christ.
Is there “God beyond/above/outside of time”? Sure. But that is not the primary way that God has chosen to be known, and to dwell on it too much is to spend time in idle speculation (not always a bad thing, often quite fun, but not something on which Christians should base doctrine).
There is a subtle but important distinction here that this pastor should know. Luther talked about this God that arises out of our speculation, this God above/beyond/outside of time. Luther called this the deus absconditus — the hidden God. God as God exists in eternity, God as God exists within the Triune Godhead, without us, is beyond our knowing by the very nature of the thing. We can only know with certainty about God what God has chosen to reveal, how God is in relation to us (the deus revelatus). Certainly, there is more to God than what we know, more to God than who God is in relationship with us … but exactly how and who is speculation on our part.
Comment by: David H
9The example used by Pastor David is one of my favorites from the Bible. Different versions of the Bible translate Ex 32:14 in varying ways. The American Standard and the Revised Standard Version, which are generally accepted by fundementalist, both say “God repented of the evil” he planned for his people — which is exactly what the KJV says. So God didn’t just change his mind, he was sorry he even considered such an action.
To me this suggests a variety of issues. 1) Perhaps the biblical authors lacked the language to describe how God reacted to the pleas and arguments from Moses. 2) Perhaps modern authors have poorly translated the words used by the original authors. 3) Perhaps lots of people have super-imposed attributes on God that don’t necessarily exist.
Comment by: Karen
10Eliza, just wanted to comment that you are doing a wonderful job of “setting the scene” for us with your evocative writing. I feel like a “fly on the wall” reading these dispatches. ;-)
Yes. I think your reporting on this course is an eye-opener not only to you but to a lot of people reading of just how fear-based fundamentalism is, and how deeply threatening fundamentalists find all sorts of things that don’t have to threaten their faith. It’s really unfortunate for all kinds of reasons, but the attitude goes back to the historical foundations of the fundamentalist movement, and I’m sorry to say it’s deeply ingrained.
Pot, meet kettle.
Someone elsewhere accused you of trying to make this guy look like an ass. Frankly, I think he’s doing a very good job of that all by himself. [Rolling my eyes...]
Comment by: Eliza
11Pastor David, thank you for filling in theological background - I can see how the instructor was referring to the hidden and revealed God without using those terms specifically. The speculation aspect was what I was pointing out after class, and he did agree readily that’s what it was. And thanks too for your comments, with pointers, on God changing his mind and expressing emotion - I’d had the sense there were references to that in the OT, but couldn’t remember where. (Of course, there’s the Flood - doesn’t the covenant at the end show God changing his mind?)
David H, I like your comments on the different translations. Sounds like the original is pretty clear that there’s change/regret on God’s part there. It is interesting (circling back to your comments heading a separate post) how some people focus so much on the details of the window-dressing and less, perhaps, on the murkier (but probably more important) considerations of what’s outside the window. (Not a great analogy, I like your better about math/physics/colors!)
Karen, I hadn’t seen the pot/kettle aspect, or the “asinine comeback” ;-) aspect, until you pointed them out - when he made the “Some people…” comment, I was pretty stunned - it seemed like an odd, out-of-nowhere comment - my adrenaline shot up & I got very uncomfortable. It seemed like the situation could degenerate really fast. Luckily, the frown and headshake seemed to do the trick. If I’d recognized (correctly or incorrectly) that line as a distractor, to shift attention to me as an “enemy”, I might have tried to say something about that, & the situation probably really would have degenerated!
Comment by: Eliza
12Dan, notarev, and Stephan - one thing that strikes me is that evolutionary theory does not attempt to explain the origin of the universe. And while it can be used to try to explain the origin of life, there’s little data and lots of skepticism about how the first steps would have occurred from inorganic matter. What evolutionary theory does best is describe the progressive complexity & divergence/convergence of life forms - the “origin of species” (as Darwin titled his book). I think some people who vehemently oppose evolution see it as coopting the creation of the universe and first life - that really would be threatening to the idea of God the Creator.
But having set up the universe and first life, then it doesn’t seem impossible that God could have let the process unfold, marveling at what came about…and, perhaps, making plans about, with, and for the most cognitively advanced of those, the ones closest to being “in his image”, including breathing souls into the first of them (whenever that was), sending his son down as one of them.
Comment by: Doreen
13Thanks for posting Eliza. You ask great questions.
Why must preachers feel they have to respond in this way instead of responding with, “That’s an excellent question” or “I never thought of it that way”?
I get really upset when anyone who questions anything in the Bible or anything in a particular denomination than immediately becomes “anti-Christian.”
doreen
poetcomic.blogspot.com
Comment by: David H
14Eliza, I like your brief explanation of evolution. And I don’t see why God couldn’t have handled things as you say. Furthermore, I have never heard a good explanation for why that would be a threat to God or our belief in such a being.
Comment by: lisa w
15eliza, I like what you wrote here:
Comment by: Rachel
16Excellent point, Eliza! This was first pointed out to me years ago by my Gramps, who believed in evolution and in a Creator. He did not see Darwinism and the Bible as contradictory at all and he was well-learned in both science and theology. Actually, I think he was quite brilliant… although I may be a bit biased. :-)
Comment by: Rachel
17Galileo, while embroiled in his conflict with the Catholic Church, is reported to have said, “Scripture is intended to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”
Comment by: Rachel
18Thanks for the detailed report, Eliza. I loved the part about you moaning and writhing in your seat!
You might enjoy reading Brian McLaren’s book “The Story We Find Ourselves In.” It depicts a Christian understanding that integrates acceptance of Darwinian evolution and belief in a loving Creator. It would be an interesting counterpoint to the views presented in this class.
Comment by: jim
19Not sure how this practice plays out in the Medical community but often those inside the club fail to notice that they practice the very same things they criticize others of doing.
Remind me why you are doing this again?
You really left me in the intellectual dust with your closing comments. It was like watching someone dunk a basketball right over the head of a defender- Very impressive
Please keep this up and keep a record- this could be part of a book
Comment by: Benjamin Ady
20Eliza,
Thankyou for sharing! Your experience and writing about it has opened my eyes a little bit, in that I was kind of under the impression that “all those strange, slightly scary fundy christians” were “out there” (for instance, in Monroe, and Snohomish County in general, or down in White Center, perhaps, that is to say, in rural and poor areas (and the red states?)). But right here in my own neighborhood, a mere 35 blocks from a really big university. I guess if “they” are that close, maybe I can’t so easily just mentally write “them” all off.
Comment by: Mike O
21Man, I wish I didn’t find this so late … 20 posts is a lot to take in!
First, Eliza, I think it’s important to realize that you and the pastor are coming from two completely different angles (God/no God), basing their belief systems on two completely different sources (bible and science), neither of which can be proven to the other. So while it may be frustrating to listen to him say things that you find implausible and unsupportable in your frame of reference, he is completely comfortable accepting them as truth using his frame of reference. Same as you are. If science seems to contradict scripture, you choose science, regardless of the biblical arguments against it, and he chooses scripture, regardless of the scientific arguments against it.
I happen to believe BOTH are God-given, that both science and scripture are completely consistent and true, but there are things we can’t explain. I believe that God created the science you are using to support your beliefs. For example, I happen to believe that God created the earth in six 24-hour days, but your argument that the sun wasn’t created until the 4th day wobbled me a bit. Jim’s comment above
was excellent, and on that point, I am that defender.
I just think it will help if you realize that you are no more likely to convince him of your frame of reference than he is of getting you to accept his. And I think if you continue with that in mind, it will make it easier for you to just listen to, and try to understand what the man has to say.
More to come…
Comment by: Mike O
22Continuing on, a couple of people have commented so far that the pastor needs to learn to say “I don’t know” and “good question” rather than pretending he has an answer for everything. I think it shows some inexperience on his part in talking to people who don’t hold him as some kind of authority (their pastor).
Comment by: NCxian
23I’ve finally discovered that if I just wait a few days, all the good stuff will get said, and I can just agree! :)
Comment by: Mike O
24Karen said in #10
I don’t understand this line of reasoning. It seems a bit hyperbolic to me. I’m not a fundamentalist, but I do lean that way. It’s not the beliefs where I differ, it’s the way they act. But I don’t see the fear aspect. Are we afraid, or just sure of what we believe, but without the “master’s degree in Jesus” to support it?
I’m not afraid.
I could use the same line of reasoning to say that people who don’t believe in God don’t believe because they’re afraid that what they believe will be found out to be wrong.
What’s the difference?
Kettle? Meet Pot.
I agree with much of what he is saying, but that’s not the point. I understand he can’t do this during his class time, but he needs to be willing to go deeper with you seperately, and really dig and not give such trite answers. It will help him understand better, too.
Comment by: Helen
25Mike, I’ve seen that some conservative Christians seem to live relatively fear-based lives, but you seem to happily not be one of them. And maybe your friends aren’t among the fear-based folks either.
I’d like to see such things as being fear-based pointed out as centrally antithetical to principles such as “perfect love casts out fear” - and therefore I’d like to see them directly addressed by Christians talking about spiritual growth.
What concerns me is that they are not always directly addressed and so Christians who are deeply fear-based don’t necessarily get challenged on it, which I think they should be. I’m fine for it to be a challenge full of grace, since we’re all human - I just want it see it directly addressed rather than missed. Since I do think it is missed in some Christian communities.
Comment by: Eliza
26Mike O and Karen,
It seems to me that there are 2 ways fear can play in here. One is fear of crumbling the foundation of beliefs that are based on one major source, if that source could convincingly be shown to contradict other reliable information. (That’s not how fundamentalists would describe vigorous opposition to much of science, I’m sure.) So, then, the response is to belittle the source, and restrict access to education about the source.
The reason it isn’t a direct symmetry is that secular scientists are more amenable to reviewing new information & changing the dominant paradigm if the old one doesn’t work any more. (I was going to qualify this with “imo”, but I actually think this claim is supportable…imo!)
Not that that’s easy to do - but it has happened, over and over in science. For example, medicine used be certain that stomach ulcers were caused by stomach acid, end of story. (There was a fundamental belief in stomach acid as the cause of ulcers.) Now, we accept that most stomach ulcers are caused by a particular bacterial infection, which would have seemed like a hopelessly laughable suggestion before research findings that provided data to support the claim, including data that shows association of those bacteria with ulcers, but more importantly research that shows that introducing those bacteria causes stomach ulcers in someone who didn’t have any before, and giving antibiotics to kill those bacteria results in healing of stomach ulcers that weren’t healing before. But, anyway, it’s not that secular scientists are afraid of the Bible (as far as I can tell) - it’s that the Bible doesn’t add new, reliable information about the natural world (which is what secular scientists are explicitly focused on). If it did, my guess is that it would be welcomed (and “mined”) and that information folded together with information from other sources considered reliable, including observations of the natural world, to come to conclusions.
The second way fear plays in is the big, scary “stick” of eternal damnation. That probably underlies the first fear above, but it also has a life of its own. For example, my guess was that the pastor’s short comment, “It’s God who keeps your heart going”, probably had a big effect on the Christian students, emphasizing or reinforcing in just one phrase the crucial, crucial importance of having (keeping?) correct beliefs. Most of the discussion about why to believe in God (mostly in the first week) was focused on the “carrot” - the chance for eternal salvation, eternal life, eternal contact with Jesus/God/love. And that’s appealing, but I’d guess that all it takes is an occasional comment reminding people of the horrible stick, to make looking toward the carrot seem all that more important.
Comment by: Eliza
27Responding more to Mike O’s comments:
Yes, but I keep coming back to this: his beliefs, and his role as a pastor promoting and explaining these beliefs, don’t allow room for uncertainty, at least not about the topics that have come up so far. Feeling certain, and perhaps by extension acting certain, seem like logical extensions of believing that one’s belief is the only correct approach.
I think my questions are more aimed at pointing out what seem like inconsistencies, between what he’s said (or the Bible says) in one place, vs. in another place. I’m interested in how he puts those together & how they make sense to him. (So far, he always seems to have a ready explanation, which he sounds certain about.) Also, I’m asking about apparent inconsistencies between the “outside world” and his beliefs/the Bible, but in those examples his approach seems basically to interpret that external data in a way that makes it consistent with his beliefs/the Bible (or, to discount the external data). It’s in that second type of question that our frame of references clash more - I include my question about day length before and after the sun in this category. I don’t expect my comments to change his frame of reference, but I don’t mind poking it a bit & asking, “but then what about this?”. Of course, one basic difference is that I may be thinking “new information is good! and interesting! and thought-provoking!” and he may not have any reason to share that point of view, being secure in the information set he already has.
Comment by: Paul
28Thanks Eliza…
i’m reminded of something my friend says, which is don’t blame God for christians…
maybe we should blame Darwin instead ;)
Comment by: Eliza
29Paul, :-)
Turns out, believe it or not, Richard Dawkins and others already have used Darwinian explanations…! See Wikipedia’s discussion of memetics in religion (go up to the top of that page for an explanation of “meme” and “memetic”).
Comment by: Paul
30ah i see an irony in that ‘meme’ is quite a trendy thing for people to drop into blogs… especially some of the trendier christian ones… something i noted here
I wonder what Richard would make of that sort of appropriation :)
Comment by: Julie Marie
31I like your paraphrase of Paul, Paul. :)
Comment by: Eliza
32:) Agree (and nice photo, too)
And your blog topic from that day fits right with something that has come up here several times - a Christian language (”Christian-ese” and similar terms have been proposed). But I noticed the glossary links in your blog give mostly fancy terms, including Greek, Latin, and Hebrew terms, not “love” and “saved”. Someone should come up with a more basic “Christian-to-secular” dictionary!
(P.S. one of the things I like about this class is that the pastor-teacher doesn’t use “Christian-ese” - he uses regular English, and explains any terms he uses like “born in Christ”)
Comment by: David H
33Mike O, I grew up in a fundy background and still see family and friends who have remained in that background. I have to watch what we talk about because they frequently get angry with me and it usually isn’t over evolution vs. creation (although that has happened).
It isn’t just my contention that anger is a standard symptom of fear. If we don manage to talk about the thing that has sparked their anger, it frequently comes down to something about which they are afraid (e.g. liberals taking over the country, gays destroying family values, the enemies of America taking over the world, that there aren’t enough laws to control bad people, that they won’t be allowed to be Christians without the protection of government, and I could go on).
Maybe all of these fears are not irrational, but my fundy friends and relatives sometimes get irrational in explaining why these issues are important. When they get going about the nationalism thing, I usually tweak them by pointing out that Christianity is growing much faster in countries where it is unlawful or socially unacceptable than it is here where it has a great deal of protection. Of course, such tweaking may be why they are often miffed at me.
It should be noted, though, that many scientists react angrily to Intelligent Design adovcates and creationists. Having spent some time at James Behe’s site (author of Darwin’s Black Box), that reaction is sometimes irrational also. I’m not positive, but don’t think the evolutionist anger is because they are afraid that their belief system will be destroyed. It seems that it is more a reaction to the people and what they think those people might do (even a mindless horde can do a lot of damage). But their anger appears to be somewhat fear-based also.
Comment by: benjamin ady
34Paul,
I love your paraphrase.
I love the tongue in cheek glossary of emergent terms you have linked. One entry from that: “Colson, Charles: Evil evil man who is out to get us”. Hilarious.
Comment by: Karen
35I think Eliza explained the difference well (the stomach ulcer is my favorite anecdote on the topic), so I’ll just add - “What she said!” :-)
In terms of fundamentalism and fear, it’s fascinating to research the history of American fundamentalism, which is about a century old and very well-documented. (A side note: I spent 30 years as a fundamentalist, took tons of courses, church membership classes, you name it and never learned anything about the history of the movement itself. Very weird.)
Anyway, fundamentalism is at its heart a reactionary movement. It was founded by Christians in response to a 19th century intellectual movement called Modernism, which attempted to deconstruct the bible and figure out who actually wrote the various books, and when. The conclusions of modernism, and the theory of evolution, were deeply threatening to the Christian leaders who founded fundamentalism.
I find fear engrained in all sorts of ways in fundamentalists. There are the persistent and outlandish stories that David mentioned (a fundamentalist I know recently was told by her relative that Canadians are rounding up Christians and putting them into concentration camps. I’m serious). Then we have the impending rapture and apocalypse as portrayed in the heart-pounding Left Behind genre. And just a week or two ago I read a NY Times story about a new and also unfounded “threat” that’s making the rounds in Christian youth circles that says less than 4% of today’s youths will be Christians as adults. Of course this highly suspect statistic has fundamentalist parents completely coming unhinged.
So. I’m very glad you’re not afraid, but there is an unproportional and irrational amount of fear in the fundamentalist community as a whole.
Comment by: Helen
36By the way, Peter just posted a blog entry about that article (with a link to an online copy of it) on Church Rater:
The Teens Are Escaping!
Comment by: Bro. Bartleby
37I find that “mumbled to myself a bit” as well as wrestling with imaginations of God as well as being confused by just ‘being’ as well as catching a glimpse of eternity every now and then as well as delighting in ‘just being’ as well as being unsure and then being sure and then again finding surety in every breath one takes while at the same time contemplating things unknown while searching the path for another fingerprint left behind by God.
Comment by: Eliza
38I read somewhere a few weeks ago that democracy isn’t possible without skeptical journalists. It struck me that the voters have to maintain some skepticism, too. So, while I’m sitting in this class, an inadvertent thought has popped into my brain a few times: “hmmm, this approach isn’t compatible with democracy”. (Don’t do anything that could be a sin, don’t question the church leader, don’t try to come up with an alternate interpretation, everyone should believe our way - the Right Way.)
Folding in David H’s comments about his family member’s concerns:
Their concerns (at least some of them) are at a national, governmental level - and seem focused in large part on increasing control over other people (”bad people” and gays and liberals, as above) through laws (rules, with sanctioned punishment for those who break them). Again, just doesn’t seem compatible with democracy - or, at least, not democracy in a pluralistic society - imo. And that’s kind of scary.
Comment by: Mike O
39To my fear comment, I understand where you’re coming from now. It hasn’t been my experience.
Let me explain where I was coming from … I just question accusations like that made about someone else. It’s to easy to say, “They’re just afraid” when you don’t understand why they won’t come over to your line of reasoning. I’ve heard Christians do it to atheists, too, and i have the same reaction … who are you to say they’re afraid?
Thank you for explaining.
Comment by: Paul
40Eliza, Julie Marie, Benjamin thank you for your kind words :)
Eliza I agree, I am by profession an accountant and we have a whole language of our own and we don’t what to put it in laymen’s terms as that would ruin the mystique and not allow us to charge such big fees :).
Ok slightly tongue in cheek but i think there is a time/place for a specific specialist terms amongst specialists but when it comes to non-specialists we should try and use plain english, otherwise we’re just trying to put a barrier in the way for the sake of sounding a lot cleverer than we really are, lol.
Am glad the pastor in your class is speaking plainly - guess it explains something of who the class is aimed at.
One Q that I had was is the pastor aware of this conversation, he might find it useful feedback? :)
Comment by: Helen
41Paul wrote:
I don’t think we have any indication he’s aware of it (unless Eliza told him at class #3)
It would be wonderful if he would find it useful feedback - however, he doesn’t seem that interested in Eliza’s comments made to him in and after class, so that tends to imply to me that he would have equally little interest in this. But maybe I’m wrong.
In general I like to tell people if we’re writing something about them or their church. My main concern about telling him in this instance is that the class is ongoing and I don’t want Eliza to feel pressure to do anything which would make her uncomfortable about going to the class. So I’d like her to decide if/when to tell him.
Comment by: Helen
42Mike, I like that you question things if they haven’t been your experience. It seems like a good way to learn, imo.
Comment by: Mike O
43Even if he didn’t agree, I think he would be interested, and maybe honored in a twisted sort of way, to know that his little class is drawing attention he had never intended. I know how I felt when my thoughts were posted here … I felt like I was given a platform.
But this is also a very good point. It could change their ability to communicate for the better or worse. If he sees this and if he sees the value, it could make him more willing to dialogue. On the other hand, if he doesn’t see the value, it could put you at odds with him.
A risky proposition. Even though I think it would backfire, I would probably let him know because, who knows? Things aren’t great now - maybe they’ll improve.
Then again, maybe not.
Comment by: Helen
44Mike O wrote:
I just don’t want to risk him being offended and asking Eliza to leave. I don’t know if that might happen or not - maybe I’m being unnecessarily paranoid…
Comment by: Helen
45Mike O wrote:
Yeah - me too.
I don’t know if that’s such a big deal to a guy who gets the platform every Sunday. ;-)
Comment by: Karen
46I was one of them for 30 years, Mike, and I know about the fears of fundamentalists firsthand both through my own experience and that of my extended family. I also volunteer my time helping out at an online support group for people who are leaving fundamentalist beliefs.
Believe me, I would never be presumptuous enough to diagnose a situation if I didn’t have very real experience with it myself. I understand your concern about that tendency and I try to avoid it.
The larger point I was making is that the history of fundamentalist is reactionary and based on fear. (It’s very interesting research if you haven’t done it already.)
I believe that foundational feeling of being “threatened” by something - be it modern biblical criticism, or science, or “the world” in general - still runs strongly throughout the movement.
Comment by: JG
47Karen,
Could you please define what you mean by “fundamentalist” so that we can understand clearly which group of people you are referring to.
I note Rachel’s comments in this regard in comment 42 of:
http://conversationattheedge.com/2006/08/10/a-christian-language/
You state as a fact rather than as a belief that:
At a rough guess how many fundamentalists do you think there are in the world? And very roughly how many fundamentalists have you known personally? Are you satisfied that you have known a representative sample or are you branding all “fundamentalists” with the attributes you believe (with hindsight) were true of the group you have fallen out with.
In your thirty years, how many different churches were you involved with, in how many different parts of the country and in how many different “denominations” or church groupings?
You refer to research. Can you provide a brief summary of a few of the key sources you used for your research. Are these original sources or simply the views of other people. If the latter, can you indicate the background of these other people.
Can you also explain what you mean by fear? For example, most parents I know wouldn’t want to let young children cross a busy main road on their own or to walk home on their own late at night. Is that fear? Or simply natural concern and common sense?
Comment by: Helen
48Please continue any further discussion about fundamentalists and fear on
Are Fundamentalists fearful?
when I reposted the latest comment (by JG).
Comment by: Eliza
49Helen in #44 above said:
I’ve pondered what to do on this. I do think it’s possible he might tell me (not ask me) to leave the class, & I’d rather not have that happen. Unfortunately, I don’t see any great way to “test the water” about that possibility! But I’m thinking about it.
If anyone thinks it’s unfair of me to post my comments on the class here without notifying the pastor-instructor (but also without seeking to identify him, and without trying to reach members or potential members of his church to expose them to my heretical comments) - please say so. If there’s an overwhelming tide of opinion one way or the other, it may help me decide how to approach this. Thanks…
Comment by: Helen
50Eliza, not that I’m trying to make you paranoid ;-), but bear in mind that you don’t know what the pastor could be saying about you to his church congregation. He might be asking them to pray for you; he might be mentioning you in sermons.
We don’t know that he is but we also don’t know that he isn’t. In my experience pastors feel free to do that sort of thing anytime they see it as furthering God’s work on earth in some way or other.
Comment by: Patty
51Why can’t people give God the credit deserved instead of arguing over opinions and fighting about which one is right? Why is it so hard to believe that the All Powerful, All Knowing God’s Creation has evolution built into the design? In the same way that the smallest particle is part of the universe, so we are part of God. It takes ALL of us to make the Whole, including everything on our planet and in the universe— known and unknown; understood and not understood; proven and not.
I don’t think God cares if we go to church on Sunday. I don’t think God cares if we believe in the Bible, whether it is ‘real’ or not. I don’t think he even cares if we believe in or accept Jesus (I can’t buy that you won’t be saved if you don’t “know” Christ. It condems far too many innocent souls.)
I think God cares how we BEHAVE. He cares how we treat each other. He cares who we ARE. What matters is what we DO; what we contribute and what is truly in our hearts.
I don’t think God will “return in Glory” until we all join together and stop bickering. Perhaps religion should be abolished. I can’t see any one belief system that has the corner on the whole truth– because God is a reality that is far too immense for us to understand fully until we come together as One.
Comment by: Eliza
52Patty,
Thanks for your comments! I have the same view when I think of what God would be like. (I’d say “is like” but that’s not my belief, at present.) You have a view of peace and unity - how can anyone be against that???
Well, you and I could have sat together in the back of this class - then the pastor could have asked the congregation to pray for both of us!
Comment by: Shawn Neider
53It is true that Christians feel threatened by the Theory of Evolution but it is also true that with many of the same lack of data and evidence, evolutionists are threatened by Christianity and Creationism. Both must ulitmately be accepted or rejected on faith as all of the evidence can be explained in multiple ways.
Comment by: benjamin ady
54Shawn,
Thanks for commenting!
Possibly the difference would be that the science based, hypothesis testing model is, in its ideal form, a model where cynicism is encouraged, and we are happy to incorporate your new better model (one that more accurately and elegantly explains all the data). Whereas the faith based model, in its ideal form, encourages, in a sense, the opposite of cynicism, and is somewhat less than willing to throw out the old model if we find one that works better.
Do I make any sense?