09AR14-31

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Subject line:

AR 14:31 - Francis Collins chooses to push origins controversy

In this issue:

COMMUNISM - going from bad to worse

ORIGINS - Francis Collins on the stump for evolution

SPONG, JOHN SHELBY - the "rigorous culmination of his body of theological work"

Apologia Report 14:31

August 13, 2009

COMMUNISM

The Rise and Fall of Communism, by Archie Brown [1] -- the subhead reads: "Mankind's biggest mistake." The unnamed reviewer finds that "Communism's first big advantage was that it played on two human appetites - the noble desire for justice and the baser hunger for vengeance." Also noted is a telling 1922 remark by Vladimir Lenin: "The more representatives of the reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeoisie we succeed in killing, the better." This is followed by another record of Communism's brutal legacy: "Stalin trusted the Nazi leader more than he trusted his own generals. The Soviet Union killed more top German communists than Hitler's regime did." All is summed up: "The promised communist nirvana brought a mixture of mass murder, lies and latterly the grey reality of self-interested rule by authoritarian bureaucrats." The Economist, Jul 4 '09, p79.

For a stunning global survey of communism's consequences, see also The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression [2].

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ORIGINS

"Evolution, the Bible, and the Book of Nature" -- an "interview" with Francis Collins, former director of the Human Genome Project and author of The Language of God [3], who "recently launched the BioLogos Foundation [www.biologos.org], which 'promotes the search for truth in both the natural and spiritual realms seeking harmony between these different perspectives.'" It seems the dialog can hardly be the spontaneous exchange that an interview format suggests, as the reader is informed that the interviewer here, Karl Giberson, "is ... executive vice-president of the BioLogos Foundation." Giberson is also the author of Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution [4].

Collins makes the strongest pro-evolution statements we've seen from him yet: "Evolution is now profoundly well-documented from multiple different perspectives, all of which give you a consistent view with enormous explanatory power that makes it the central core of biology. Trying to do biology without evolution would be like trying to do physics without mathematics. ...

"Evolution may seem from the outside to have a lot of complexities, and certainly there are lots of details we haven't worked out—and for anybody to say there are no arguments would be a total mistake. But nearly all scientists agree upon descent from a common ancestor, gradual change over a long period of time, and natural selection operating to produce the diversity of living species. There is no question that those are correct. Evolution is not a theory that is going to be discarded next week or next year or a hundred thousand years from now. It is true."

Giberson interjects: "There is a remarkable claim being made today by anti-evolutionists that runs exactly counter to this. This is the claim that evolution is based on a big deception, that there isn't any solid basis at all for the theory, and that scientists are gradually abandoning evolution. Are there evolutionists jumping ship?"

Collins replies: "I haven't met any of these people. And I think I would hear about it, if it were true, as I have identified myself as a believer interested in studying biological evolution. No, I think those claims are completely without evidence.

"Stating this is a convenient way to float the idea that evolution is a conspiracy that is about to be exposed. That's the idea behind the movie Expelled [5], which tries to make that same case—that there is a conspiracy to squash the truth. That viewpoint totally misunderstands the nature of science. Anybody who has lived within the scientific community would immediately—regardless of their worldview—rebel against the idea that science would be able to sustain such a conspiracy. ...

Giberson: "On paper the credentials of the better creationists and ID [Intelligent Design] people are like yours and mine. Take you and Michael Behe. You both have PhDs. You have both done research and published articles. So if somebody wants to put Behe up against Collins and say, 'Well, here's a guy and I like what he says. And here's another guy and I don't like what he says. And you're asking me to follow Collins over Behe? Well, why should I do that?'"

Collins: "Well, that is a fundamental problem we're facing in our culture, especially in the United States. It's why we have such a mismatch between what the scientific data would suggest and what many people believe about things like the age of the Earth and about whether evolution is true or not."

Later, Collins adds: "[I]t's an awful circumstance we've put young people in. Many of them, raised in conservative Christian homes and taught that evolution is wrong, send emails to me every week. They are in crisis, trying to figure out whether the church that seems to be lying to them about origins is lying to them about everything else."

Then Collins insists that we have a "responsibility to read the Bible at more than the most superficial level.

"Curious believers will want to go deeper, but that deeper searching has to involve more than searching through the Bible. We must also search through the other book that God gave us—the book of nature. We must not pretend that one of these books is untrustworthy if it seems on the surface to conflict with the other. It's our responsibility, as individuals and as a culture and I think, frankly, as Christians."

Giberson: "But this places a huge burden on the teaching ministry of the church to pass on that level of sophistication. I can't imagine evangelical churches embracing this task."

Collins: "We must. Because what we're doing now is passing on a burden to the youth. And it's a burden that many of them are going to be weighed down with to the point where they will not have their faith anymore. ... I have hopes that over time we can come to the realization that the current battle between the scientific and spiritual worldviews is not God's battle, but is one created by us. That means we should also be able to find a way toward peace." Books & Culture, Jul/Aug '09, p18, 21, 22.

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SPONG, JOHN SHELBY

Eternal Life: A New Vision, by John Shelby Spong [6] -- "the controversial retired [born June 16, 1931] Episcopal Bishop of Newark, NJ, may rightly be considered the bellwether of the most advanced opinions in theology that still cling to a nominal Christian identity. With subtlety and complexity, Spong promotes an idea of an ongoing existence beyond our physicality, one that entirely supersedes 'religious' notions of Heaven or Hell and even conventional notions of God. For conservative Christians, Spong's views are heretical; for many other readers, Christian and non-Christian, Spong's writing here as elsewhere is intelligent, engaged, comforting, and uplifting. VERDICT Spong's thought and theology are crucial stimulants for every thinking Christian; an important book." Library Journal, Jul '09, p73. [7]

The similarly brief Publishers Weekly review (Jul 13 '09, p53) reads: "In this challenging, intellectually rigorous culmination of his body of theological work, retired Episcopal bishop Spong ... provides a lucid historical analysis of the development of human religious thought from the onset of self-conscious awareness to the present, and a compelling argument for the creation of a new religious paradigm. Offering deeply personal reflections on his own Christian journey and priestly career, Spong reviews a lifetime of passionate engagement with biblical study and with questions of faith, charting his growing discomfort with language that seemed 'limited, falsifying and inadequate.' Arguing that modern scientific understanding necessitates dismissing outdated metaphors and assumptions by which faith seeks to calm human anxiety, Spong suggests an understanding of God 'not as a person, but as the process that calls personhood into being.' Spong's examination of the gospel resurrection accounts includes an intriguing interpretation of John's portrayal of Jesus as 'a being so courageously present that he was open to the ultimate reality of life, love and being.' This work, bound to be influential, offers new insights into religion's big questions about life and death, making an invaluable contribution to both religious scholarship and faithful exploration." [8]

(Believing Christians, as usual, will be appalled by Spong's thoroughgoing apostasy.)

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Sources, Monographs:

1 - The Rise and Fall of Communism, by Archie Brown (Doubleday, October 2009, hardcover, 736 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/ksxwtg>

2 - Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, by by Stephane Courtois, et. al. (Harvard Univ Prs, 1999, hardcover, 912 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/llq8ls>

3 - The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis Collins (Free Press, 2006, hardcover, 304 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/kwsovm>

4 - Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution, by Karl Giberson (HarperOne, 2009, paperback, 256 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/nm8fh8>

5 - Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (DVD, Starring: Ben Stein, Director: Nathan Frankowski, Studio: Premise, Release Date: Oct 21 '08, Run Time: 95 minutes) <www.tinyurl.com/bs8wb2>

6 - Eternal Life: A New Vision: Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell, by John Shelby Spong (HarperOne, September, 2009, hardcover, 288 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/mqtcco>

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