PC Answers Questions to a Doctoral Student on Evolution and Religion

Last year a doctoral student at a university in Tennessee discovered my blog and a few discussions on Baptist online forums of which I had taken parting 2003. The student was researching the issue of evolution and religion for his dissertation, and I am apparently one of only a handful of evangelical Baptists that accepts the theory of biological evolution. Doesn’t speak well to the validity of my position, does it?

Nevertheless, the student sent me a few questions whose answers I shall now post.

First, are you currently a Baptist pastor?

No. I am a Baptist looking for a ministry in which to pastor.

I’ve pastored in churches in Texas and North Carolina.

I’m a son of a Baptist pastor and a grandson of Baptist missionaries.

Oddly enough, while I have been looking for ministry work in Southern Baptist churches, my wife and I have been attending a Methodist church here in Ohio, partly because it is like a Southern Baptist church we enjoyed in Texas.

And just this past Sunday, the pastor (a conservative and an inerrantist) made an aside comment that Christians should not be beating each other up over evolution.


Second, many people with whom I've talked have told me that the SBC has gotten increasingly fundamentalist in the last couple of decades. Would you agree with that? Any comments on it?

I include this lengthy response because I it might be of interest to you.

Yes, that is unfortunately true. I have fundamentalist friends and family, and I both love them and thoroughly enjoy ministering with them. And while I do not agree with many of their distinct positions, I don’t care that they have them.

The SBC has always been a very conservative body of Christian believers. The vast majority are conservatives in which there is a very large block of fundamentalists of various sorts. There have always been a significant minority of moderate Baptists and a very insignificant minority of liberals. The leadership of the SBC was made up of moderates and conservatives.

As I’m sure you are very much aware, the issues of biological evolution and the interpretation of the Bible caused tremendous controversy in the SBC during the 20th century. Under pressure from fundamentalists and conservatives, the SBC leadership wrote a confession of faith in 1925 and amended it in 1963. Both of these versions state the orthodox Christian beliefs that God created the world and that the Bible is authoritative. Moderates and many conservatives sought to be present an inclusive document.

However, in the 1980s, conservatives (with fundamentalist leaders) began to use their denominational leadership positions to reform the structure of the SBC to prevent anyone but conservatives from being appointed to positions in the organization. At the same time, conservatives began to fire all the non-conservatives that were already in SBC positions. They also fired conservatives who were critical of the other firings and the takeover. This continued through the 1990s and culminated in the conservatives and fundamentalists amending the confession of faith in 2000. After it was adopted, every employee of the SBC was required to sign this document or be fired. Many, many were fired or made a hasty retreat before they were. By itself, the implementation of this confession and its fall out had the SBC reeling from the inside out.

However, the 1963 version of the confession included a prologue that explicitly stated that this document was “not to be used to hamper freedom of thought or investigation in other realms of life.” This allowed SBC employees (particularly seminary professors) from holding positions contrary to the 2000 confession just so long as they do not teach or preach otherwise. The last decade of the SBC has been repeated incidences of fundamentalist weeding these employees out and getting them fired.

What occurred in the SBC seminaries during the 1990s and 2000s has now begun to occur in Baptist colleges such as Carson Newman in TN and, most recently, at Truett-McConnell College in Georgia which plans to become the first Baptist college to require its faculty to affirm the 2000 confession.

http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/4671/53/
Many of the same fundamentalist leaders are involved.

None of the three Baptist confessions (even the fundamentalist penned version of 2000) reference the issue of evolution either explicitly or implicitly.

http://www.sbc.net/bfm/default.asp

But there are many issues important to SBC fundamentalists on which there is less than solid convention support. And there is very little support for amending the Baptist confession.

Therefore, for the past few years, the fundamentalist leadership of the SBC has been using the trustee system of the various convention agencies, including the seminaries, to enact theological standards which would not pass via the regular practice of convention vote.

I mention all this because if you’re asking about the SBC becoming increasingly fundamentalistic and how this relates to evolution and education (particularly in TN), then this is what has been done to the Baptist seminaries and what is now being done at the Baptist colleges.


Third, and this is related to the second question, how common are your views on evolution among evangelicals? As I said, from my own perspective, they seem extremely rare.

From my perspective, I assume that they are very rare too. Most evangelicals seem to associate biological evolution with atheism.

But if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that most Southern Baptists who accept the theory of biological evolution would keep it to themselves.

Obviously, biological evolution isn’t mentioned in 2000 plus year old documents that make of the Bible. It’s certainly unessential to the Faith. A Christian can reject evolution and still have a healthy and productive spiritual life. And it’s not an issue with which the average pastor, religious teacher, or church confronts. Combined with its controversial nature, for a pastor or religious teacher to announce their support for the theory would only be a distraction from the essentials.

In my four years at seminary, I never heard a professor state their position on the issue. Only one student ever stated his position to me and only through commenting on my blog. During that time, I only heard two SBC leaders make statements at seminary denouncing biological evolution, and both of them are two of the three recognized individuals who led the Fundamentalist takeover of the convention.

Given this and all I mentioned regarding the Fundamentalist takeover of the convention, I think it’s quite understandable that many SBC employees and pastors would keep their position quiet.


Fourth, in the baptist discussion board I read when you were talking about Brady Tarr, you were talking about reading Genesis as an apocalyptic text. What do you mean by that? I'm afraid I'm not theologically trained.

It was a hypothesis I had then that I have yet to pursue any further than you have read. I have only met one Old Testament scholar (a friend) who holds this position. I’ve never seen it in any other paper, article, or book that I can find.

The Apocalyptic genre of literature essentially presents a “spiritual” interpretation of history. It offers a “behind-the-scenes” view of what is going on with particular events and peoples and how it relates to God and the writer of the apocalyptic work’s intended audience. Apocalyptic literature is popularly known to focus on future events, but it just as often comments on present and past events. The Biblical books of Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel, and Zechariah are prime examples but there are others in and outside the Jewish and Christian canons.

Apocalyptic literature will use symbolism, word play, exaggerated actions, fantastic creatures, “angelic beings”, truncated history, and otherworldly scenarios. This Biblical genre has a lot in common with basic dreams and many apocalyptic passages will occur in the context of a dream (Daniel chapters 2, 4, and 7; but also, as I will argue one day, Genesis 28, 40, and 41). The first three chapters of Genesis contain symbolism, puns and word play, fantastic talking animals, “angelic beings”, and many other apocalyptic characteristics that I’ll argue. The connection to the Tree of Life in Revelation 22:2 is my favourite.

But even though my apocalyptic argument has yet to be made, many other evangelical and conservative scholars who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and the Genesis story hold the story to be figurative but true because its genre (whether poem, psalm, apocalypse, “myth”, short-story, etc.) permits to be non-literal but true.

Ask a fundamentalist about whether he or she believes that the book of Revelation is true. Naturally, he or she will say yes that they do, even though it is written in symbolic, non-literal language.


Fifth, have you been to the Creation Museum in Kentucky? I don't think it's far from you, but I figured you'd have blogged about it if you had gone. Any comments on it?

I have not been to the Creation Museum in Kentucky.


It was this question of which I was reminded while reading the Baptist Press article on “Noah’s Ark”. The Baptist Press quoted a statement from Answers in Genesis, the apologetics ministry that operates the Creation Museum just outside of Cincinnati. I currently live just over an hour away from the museum but have yet to visit.