Evangelical Evolutionists met in NYC

This is a couple of weeks old now, but may still be of interest to many:

"The most sobering moment for attendees of the Biologos "Theology of Celebration" Conference in New York City, March 20–22, came when David Kinnaman of Barna Research presented findings on what U.S. Protestant pastors believe about creation. More than half profess a 6-day, 24-hour creation of life. Fewer than one in five, on the other hand, follow Biologos in affirming an evolutionary process as God's method of creation.

Knowing that they are in a minority among Protestants did not limit the gathering's enthusiasm...Attending were such luminaries as N. T. Wright, Alister McGrath, John Ortberg, Tim Keller, Scot McKnight, Os Guinness, Joel Hunter, and Andy Crouch. Prominent scientists included Ian Hutchinson of MIT and Jennifer Wiseman, senior project scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope. Forty-one pastors and parachurch leaders participated..."

The above is taken from the full article at Christianity Today.

I'm just glad to make everyone aware of the Biologos perspective and that there is such a thing as an 'Evangelical Evolutionist.' In fact, there are many of us who hold a very high view of Biblical authority and who also believe that God has used evolutionary processes to create life over a long period of time. The Bible itself allows for interpretations of the first chapter of Genesis beyond that favored by "Young Earth Creationists:" a period of 6 "24-hour/one rotation of the earth relative to the sun" literal days for Creation. Taking that view must necessarily bring one into conflict with current scientific theories, and contributes to an anti-intellectualism in the church that repulses thoughtful people from the Bible's gospel message.

But just start looking at passages like 2 Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90:4 and begin to ask what a "day" means from God's point of view (and the 'days' in Genesis 1 must almost certainly be called such from God's point of view since neither the Sun nor the human race existed for some of these days). We could, if we were very brave, also bring into the discussion the notions of quantam phycisists about the elastic nature of time itself.

We certainly need discussions like that of the Biologos Conference because there is still out in our culture a strong "Science versus Faith" narrative that says one cannot believe in the Bible and in science because they are said to be enemies. The corrolary of this is that one must presumably be a theological liberal who does not "really" believe in the Bible if one believes in evolution. Both fundamentalists and liberals themselves put forward this narrative in different ways. Yet look at someone like C.S. Lewis, who was certainly a traditionalist yet in The Problem of Pain put forward an alternative narrative whereby one could imagine God creating an "Adam" through evolutionary processes.