Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics

A Weblog Series published on An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution

Contributors:
Keith Miller
Dennis Venema
Richard Colling
Stephen Matheson
Karl Giberson
Gordon Glover
Douglas Hayworth
Ted Davis

Edited by:
Steve Martin

Document Version: 1.2

Last Updated: April 7, 2009

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 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics

Table of Contents

I. Overview of the Series and Contributors ..........................................................................................................3

II. Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics: Series Introduction..........................................................................4
III. Creation, Evolution and the Nature of Science.................................................................................................5
IV. Is the Scientific Academic Community a Hostile Environment for Faith? ......................................................6
V. Teaching Evolution in Christian Higher Education: Faith Shaking or Faith Affirming? .................................7
VI. Evolution and Faith: Communicating their Compatibility in Christian Higher Education...............................9
VII. The Evolution Controversy at Calvin College: Historical Perspective ..........................................................10
VIII. Teaching Evolution at Calvin College: A Personal Perspective ....................................................................12
IX. Evolution in Public Schools: A Threat or a Challenge? ................................................................................14
X. Why Evolution should be taught in Christian Schools ..................................................................................15
XI. The Challenge of Teaching Science in a Christian Homeschooling Setting .................................................17
XII. Teaching Creation in Sunday School ............................................................................................................18
XIII. Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics: Historical Perspective and Future Directions .............................20
XIV. Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics: Conclusion .................................................................................22

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 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics

I. Overview of the Series and Contributors

A series of articles on Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics was published from May 18, 2008 through July 2,
2008 on the weblog An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution. It included thirteen posts by nine different authors.
Authors in order of appearance included:

1. Steve Martin wrote the series Introduction on May 18, 2008 and the series Conclusion on July 2, 2008. He
publishes the weblog An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution.

2. Keith Miller contributed two articles for the series: Creation, Evolution, and the Nature of Science on May
19, 2008 and Is the Scientific Academic Community a Hostile Environment for Faith? on May 22, 2008.
Keith edited the book Perspectives on an Evolving Creation and has written numerous articles on science
and faith including Theological Implications of an Evolving Creation.

3. Dennis Venema contributed the article Teaching Evolution in Christian Higher Education on May 26,
2008. Dennis teaches biology at Trinity Western University.

4. Richard Colling contributed the article Evolution and Faith: Communicating their Compatibility in
Christian Higher Education on May 28, 2008. Richard is the author of the book Random Designer.

5. Stephen Matheson contributed two articles for the series: The Evolution Controversy at Calvin College:
Historical Perspective on June 2, 2008 and Teaching Evolution at Calvin College: A Personal Perspective
on June 4, 2008. Stephen publishes the blog Quintessence of Dust which explores issues of science and
faith.

6. Karl Giberson contributed the article Evolution in Public Schools: A Threat or a Challenge? on June 9,
2008. Karl is the author of the book Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution.

7. Gordon Glover contributed the article Why Evolution Should be Taught in Christian Schools on June 11,
2008. Gordon is the author of the book Beyond the Firmament. His three children attend a private
Classical Christian school. He is currently publishing a series of blog posts on the topic of “Science
Education in Private Christian Schools”.

8. Douglas Hayworth contributed two articles for the series: The Challenge of Teaching Science in a
Christian Homeschooling Setting on June 16, 2008 and Teaching Creation in Sunday School on June 19,
2008. Douglas is an evolutionary biologist.

9. Ted Davis contributed the article Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics: Historical Perspective and
Future Directions on June 29, 2008. Ted is the vice-president of the American Scientific Affiliation, and is
consulting editor for both Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith and Science and Christian Belief.

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 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
II. Evangelicals, Evolution, and
Academics: Series Introduction
This is the first installment in the “Evangelicals,
Evolution, and Academics” series.
Most Evangelicals strongly believe that the theory of
evolution is incompatible with their Christian faith.
The conflict thesis is deeply ingrained in both our
cultural and theological thinking. And for many
Evangelicals the halls of scientific academia are the
heart of “enemy territory”, an academic guild (so it is
feared) that is wedded to “Atheistic Darwinian”
philosophy. The movie Expelled feeds off (and further
feeds the fire) of these fears.
Evangelicals vs. Evolution & Academia: The
Conflict Thesis
But is the theory of biological evolution equivalent to
“Atheistic Darwinian” Philosophy? Are evolutionary
science and an Evangelical expression of the Christian
faith incompatible? Must Christians who accept the
scientific consensus for evolution also abandon belief
and trust in a personal God by whom all things are
created, and in whom all creation is sustained? Is the
scientific establishment our enemy? Must we fear it?
For a small but growing number of Evangelicals, the
answer to all these questions is an emphatic NO. We
do not believe that the scientific evidence for
biological evolution warrants atheism. Our acceptance
of evolutionary science in no way compromises our
faith in the Creator God who revealed himself through
the incarnate and risen Christ. Through science,
including evolutionary science, we are discovering the
wonders of God’s creation. This discovery should be
celebrated, not feared.
A Chorus of Evangelical Voices that Reject the
Conflict Thesis
Over the next month, I will be publishing a series of
guest posts on the topic of “Evangelicals, Evolution,
and Academics”. All of the authors in this series are
Evangelicals; all of them accept the scientific
consensus for biological evolution; and all of them
believe that there can be a positive relationship
between Evangelicals and evolution in academia.
Keith Miller will begin the series by discussing the
nature of science. Since the misunderstanding of this
nature is a primary cause for the perceived conflict
between science and faith, this initial essay sets the
stage for much of the later discussion. In a second post,
4
Miller will examine whether the scientific academic
community is a hostile environment for faith.
Three biologists who teach at Evangelical colleges or
universities will provide the next four posts in the
series. Dennis Venema from Trinity Western
University will discuss whether teaching evolution in
Christian higher education is faith shaking or faith
affirming. Richard Colling from Olivet Nazarene
University will highlight the importance of language,
words, and emotions in communicating compatibility
between evolution and faith in Christian higher
education. Finally, Stephen Matheson will provide a
brief historical sketch of the evolution / creation
discussion at Calvin College, and, in a second post,
will offer some personal reflections on his own
experience at Calvin.
Although much of the public discussion focuses on
post-secondary scientific academia, most Evangelicals
are introduced to evolution, and form their biases
towards it, much before setting foot inside a university
lecture hall. Our next four posts will discuss aspects of
this introduction. Karl Giberson will summarize the
results of a small research project he conducted on the
teaching of evolution in public schools. Gordon Glover
will share his thoughts and experiences on evolution in
Christian schools. Douglas Hayworth will discuss the
challenges of teaching evolutionary science in a home
school setting. Finally Hayworth will provide some
guidance on teaching creation theology in church
Sunday Schools.
Ted Davis will then wrap up the series with some
concluding thoughts on the historical context and
future direction of Evangelicals and evolution in
academia. The landscape has changed dramatically in
recent years, but there are still significant challenges to
be addressed.
Full Circle
In one way, this series brings me full circle. My initial
encounter with biology and anthropology in high
school was a very painful experience. Thereafter I
carefully avoided all opportunities for the evolution
demon to raise its ugly head. This series presents
voices and viewpoints that I wish I had heard all those
years ago. For Evangelicals currently grappling with
the implications of an evolving creation, I hope these
voices prove much more timely.
Enjoy the series.
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
III. Creation, Evolution and the
Nature of Science
This is a guest-post by geologist Keith B. Miller, and is
the second installment in our “Evangelicals, Evolution,
and Academics” series. Keith edited the book
Perspectives on an Evolving Creation and has written
numerous articles on science and faith including
Theological Implications of an Evolving Creation.
Despite the long theological dialogue with
evolutionary theory, many people continue to view
evolution as inherently atheistic and inseparably
wedded to a worldview that denies God and objective
morality. Although this understanding of the meaning
of evolutionary theory is strongly promoted by some, it
is widely rejected as philosophically, theologically, and
historically false. Science is a methodology, a limited
way of knowing about the natural world. Scientific
research proceeds by the search for chains of cause-
and-effect, and confines itself to the investigation of
"natural" entities and forces. This self-limitation is
sometimes referred to as “methodological naturalism.”
The Limitations of Science
The first detailed use and discussion of the term
“methodological naturalism” (MN) was in 1986 by
Paul deVries, an evangelical Christian philosopher at
Wheaton College. He used the term to describe the
legitimate purview of science as one limited to
explaining and interpreting the natural world in terms
of natural processes and causes. Furthermore, deVries
embraced this understanding of the nature and
limitations of science because he saw it as consistent
with, and supportive of, a vibrant and vital role for
theology. In his view, to broaden science to include the
supernatural would be yielding to a culture of
scientism.
Science restricts itself to proximate causes, and the
confirmation or denial of ultimate causes is beyond its
capacity. Science does not deny the existence of a
Creator -- it is simply silent on the existence or action
of God. Methodological naturalism simply describes
what empirical inquiry is. It is certainly not a statement
of the nature of cosmic reality. Science pursues truth
within very narrow limits. Our most profound
questions about the nature of reality (questions of
meaning and purpose and morality), while they may
arise from within science, are theological or
philosophical in nature and their answers lie beyond
the reach of science.
5
From the perspective of scientific inquiry, a
supernatural agent is effectively a black box, and
appeals to supernatural action are essentially appeals to
ignorance. A supernatural agent is unconstrained by
natural “laws” or the properties and capabilities of
natural entities and forces -- it can act in any way, and
accomplish any conceivable end. As a result, appeals
to such agents can provide no insight into
understanding the mechanisms by which a particular
observed or historical event occurred. Belief in the
creative action of a supernatural agent does not answer
the question of how something happens. “A miracle
occurs here” is no more an answer to the question of
“How?” than is “We don’t know.”
Divine Action and Scientific Explanation
One commonly held perspective that tends to reinforce
a conflict view of science and faith is that God's action
or involvement is confined to those events which lack a
scientific explanation. Meaningful divine action is
equated with breaks in chains of cause-and-effect
processes. This view has been called a "God-of-the-
gaps" theology. God's creative action is seen only, or
primarily, in the gaps of human knowledge where
scientific description fails. With this perspective, each
advance of scientific description results in a
corresponding reduction in the realm of divine action.
Conflict between science and faith is thus assured.
However, this is a totally unnecessary state of affairs.
God's creative activity is clearly identified in the Bible
as including natural processes, including what we call
chance or random events. According to scripture, God
is providentially active in all natural processes, and all
of creation declares the glory of God. The evidence for
God's presence in creation, for the existence of a
creator God, is declared to be precisely those everyday
"natural events" experienced by us all.
Some people will argue that MN arbitrarily excludes
supernatural agency from scientific explanation and
unnecessarily restricts the search for truth. It does
nothing of the sort. If God acted in creation to bring
about a particular structure in a way that broke causal
chains, then science would simply conclude -- "There
is presently no known series of cause-and-effect
processes that can adequately account for this
structure, and research will continue to search for such
processes." Any statement beyond that requires the
application of a particular religious worldview. "God
did it" is not a scientific conclusion, although anyone is
of course free to draw such an inference. However, if
God acted through a seamless series of cause-and-
effect processes to bring about that structure, then the
continuing search for such processes stimulated by the
tentativeness and methodological naturalism of science
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
may uncover those processes.
Some non-theists see God as an unnecessary addition
to a scientific description of the universe, and therefore
conclude that there is no rational basis for belief in a
personal God. In fact, as I have argued, God is
unnecessary for a scientific description, but a scientific
description is not a complete description of reality.
Science excludes appeals to supernatural agents simply
because the actions of such agents cannot be
investigated by scientific methods. To then use this
methodological exclusion to support a
philosophical/religious exclusion is completely
fallacious. That science does not make reference to
God says nothing about whether or not God is actively
involved in the physical universe or in people's lives.
Continuous Creation
I fully and unhesitatingly accept the doctrine of
creation. God is the Creator of all things and nothing
would exist without God's continually willing it to be.
Creation was not merely a past accomplished act, but
also is a present and continuing reality. The best term
for this view of God's creative activity is "continuous
creation." I also believe that God's existence can be
known in the creation through faith. However,
scientific observation provides no proof of the
existence of a creator God, indeed it cannot. Neither
does scientific description, however complete, provide
any argument against a creator. Since God acts through
process, scientific description and the theology of
creation are perfectly compatible. Thus Christians
should not fear causal explanations. Complete
scientific descriptions of events or processes should
pose no threat to Christian theism. Rather, each new
advance in our scientific understanding can be met
with excitement and praise at the revelation of God's
creative hand.
IV. Is the Scientific Academic
Community a Hostile
Environment for Faith?
This is a guest-post by geologist Keith B. Miller, and is
the third installment in our “Evangelicals, Evolution,
and Academics” series. Keith edited the book
Perspectives on an Evolving Creation and has written
numerous articles on science and faith including
Theological Implications of an Evolving Creation.
An extension of the “warfare” view of science and
Christian faith is the often-stated claim that the secular
6
academy is hostile to faith. Many conservative
evangelicals unfortunately do see the secular university
as hostile territory. There are certainly individuals
within secular institutions who are openly hostile to
faith, and there are also no doubt some few particular
departments at some institutions where there is a
culture of antagonism toward faith. However, I will
argue that these are exceptions. Furthermore, the
secular academy is an ideal environment in which to
productively challenge and deepen one’s faith, and to
develop a Christian mind.
My Personal Experience with Secular Education
First, a bit of personal background. I attended public
schools growing up, and all of my college and post-
graduate education has occurred in secular public or
private colleges and universities. My faith grew and
matured both through my studies and through my
involvement in Intervarsity Christian Fellowship.
While pursuing my PhD I was involved in a very
dynamic graduate student Bible study that challenged
me to pursue a more thorough integration of my faith
and my chosen discipline in geology. I was
intellectually and spiritually stretched in a way that I
might never have been otherwise. In addition, never
once in my 12 years as a student in college and
graduate school, nor in the nearly 20 years as a faculty
member at a state university, have I experienced
hostility toward my faith. By contrast, I have been
encouraged to deepen my faith and to increasingly see
all that I do in the academy as part of my Christian
vocation. We all have that challenge, regardless of our
occupation or situation, to live our lives in a consistent
and transparent manner and to image God to the world.
Secular Academia: This is not Enemy Territory
Part of the perspective that underlies the portrayal of
the secular academy as enemy territory is a broader
secular/sacred dichotomy that pervades much of
evangelical religious culture. Ignorance breeds fear,
and the more Christians isolate themselves as a
community from the rest of the world the more they
will fear that world. This fear is misplaced, because the
real enemy is not external but internal. And the
interactions we have with others, both inside and
outside of the faith, serve to help us more rightly see
ourselves. We also are called to transform the world
around us, and that requires being engaged with it.
Seriously engaging the ideas and arguments of others
is part of that challenge. Having someone reject or
argue against our faith is an expected part of that
engagement. This need not involve hostility or
personal rejection, and, as I have stated above, I have
experienced neither from my non-Christian teachers or
colleagues. We Christians, I believe, are often too
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
quick to claim persecution when others reject our
arguments. Sometimes our arguments deserve to be
rejected – we have often been lazy in our thinking, and
failed to take seriously the stewardship of our minds.
Furthermore, if our faith claims are never rejected,
perhaps we are not talking to the right people.
The Scientific Establishment: No Pervasive
Hostility to Faith
Like the claim made against the academy, the charge
that the scientific “establishment” expresses a
pervasive hostility to faith is similarly false. A very
important feature of the scientific enterprise is that it
takes place within a multi-cultural and interfaith
community of scholars. At a typical professional
scientific meeting there will be participants from a
wide range of nationalities, cultures, and religious
traditions. Yet those scientists from these various
backgrounds can sit down together and productively
discuss scientific questions, examine evidence and
reach conclusions. They can do this because scientific
knowledge is not tied to a particular religious or non-
religious worldview – it is universally accessible.
Though science as a discipline is religiously neutral,
individual scientists are not – nor should they be.
People of faith, including many professing Christians,
are active respected members of their professional
societies and occupy prominent leadership positions
within these organizations. This is true of every
professional (geology and paleontology) society of
which I am a member. And the Christian representation
is not a token one. There are thousands of Christians
who are active scientists in academia, government and
industry. Beyond their mere presence within the
scientific community, Christians are becoming
increasingly vocal about their faith in the context of
their chosen vocation in science. This has been one
very positive response to the increasingly loud voices
of those who would see only conflict and hostility
between faith and science.
Scientific Organizations: Building Bridges Between
Science and Faith
Scientific organizations are also increasingly
recognizing the destructive impact of the perception
that science and religious faith are in necessary
conflict. As a result, many are publishing statements,
providing educational resources, and convening
symposia that address the nature of science and attempt
to dispel the “warfare” view. Such organizations
include: the Geological Society of America, the
Paleontological Society, the National Association of
Biology Teachers, the National Academy of Science,
and the AAAS. I personally have been involved in
some of these efforts. It is important that the public
7
recognize that the few prominent and vocal atheist
activists do not represent the scientific community.
Unfortunately, some Christians can see only an atheist
face of science, and are blind to their brothers and
sisters who have been called by God to serve in a
scientific vocation in the academy.
Promoting a Christian Worldview in Science
I will conclude by quoting from a short essay that I co-
wrote with my wife Ruth (a faculty member in
Electrical Engineering):
“Finally, the academy, and professions, can be
engaged by Christians who demonstrate a
mastery of their disciplines, and who take
seriously the views of others. It is the passionate
pursuit of truth, not a defensive response to
criticism or a reactionary denouncement of
others, that will make the Christian worldview a
respected voice. Above all, a life lived with
integrity and in sacrificial service will reveal the
reality of a God who demands our entire lives.”
(Miller, K.B. & Miller, R.D., 1997, “Taking the
Road Less Traveled: Reflections on Entering
Careers in Science,” Perspectives on Science and
Christian Faith, vol.49, no. 4, p.212-214.)
V. Teaching Evolution in
Christian Higher Education: Faith
Shaking or Faith Affirming?
This is a guest-post by biologist Dennis Venema and is
the fourth installment in our “Evangelicals, Evolution,
and Academics” series.
Teaching biology at the university level is a joy and
privilege. There are days that I wonder at the fact that I
am paid for doing what I love. Watching students “get”
the material, see connections, and grow in confidence
as scholars is exactly why I love what I do. While I
enjoyed teaching (as a graduate student) at a large
public university, I enjoy it all the more at a Christian
institution. Here I get to see students develop
holistically: deepening in their faith as well as honing
their intellects, and all for the glory of God.
The Challenge for Christian Academics in Biology
Yet there are also days when I can be heard muttering
“should have been a chemist, should have been a
chemist” – my tongue-in-cheek response to the realities
of being an evangelical Christian biologist. The issue
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
is, of course, evolution. Darrel Falk puts it well when
he describes his early university career:
“During those years, I was inclined towards the
natural sciences and math. I found that if I
restricted my intellectual energy to chemistry,
physics and math, leaving aside biology, all
would go much more smoothly for me. In contrast
to biology, those disciplines seemed to have no
direct implication for my Christian faith. Biology
did, so I shied away from it in large part because
studying it would entail thinking about the details
of evolution, and my faith was too important to
me for that.”
(Falk, Coming to Peace with Science, p.21).
Chemistry in many ways is the perfect science to teach
at a Christian university. It avoids the young-earth /
old-earth issues that challenge physicists and
geologists, and no mention of evolution is required. If
only this middle path was of stronger interest to me as
an undergraduate student.
Approaches to Teaching Evolution in Christian
Higher Education
There are several options for teaching evolution (1) in
Christian settings. One approach is to denigrate
evolution, either overtly or subtly. This is remarkably
simple in practice – omit a few key details here, change
of tone there, smatter some distortions of genuine
scientific controversies, et voila – you are everyone’s
hero, a stalwart defender of the faith. You will never
ruffle feathers telling people (students, administration,
parents) what many of them long to hear. The problem
with this approach is, of course, one’s own intellectual
honesty.
A second option is to minimize evolution – to mention
it as little as possible. This is easy for a chemist, but
almost impossible for a biologist. Biology without
evolution is like physics without either Newton or
Einstein. Or, to continue the chemistry motif, imagine
if atomic theory was perceived to run counter to
Christian faith – and a Christian professor needlessly
emphasized gaps in current understanding to minimize
or denigrate it. It is hard for non-specialists to
appreciate just how central evolution is to biology, but
it is precisely that central. Teaching biology without
evolution reduces it to an 18th-century-style litany of
descriptive lists devoid of meaningful connections. No,
this way will not do either – not if we are to honour
God with our hearts, souls and minds.
The more difficult path, but the one I believe needs to
be followed, is to teach evolution thoroughly and to
8
teach it well. At a secular institution, this is
straightforward; at a Christian institution, this can be a
nightmare. Yet few things worth attaining are easy –
and Christian students deserve an education as
scientifically rich as anyone. Indeed, our calling as
Christian faculty behooves us to offer students the best
education possible, for it is for God’s purposes that
they are in training. Should we sell them short when
teaching evolution, the central organizing principle of
modern biology? God forbid.
Christian Universities: Ideal Settings for Learning
About Evolution
A Christian university is an excellent setting for
dealing with the theological implications of evolution.
Students for whom evolution is a faith-shaking
experience are in a place of safety – surrounded by
faculty, staff and peers who care about their whole
person, not just their scholarship. There are
opportunities for asking hard questions, and hashing
through the issues. To be sure, this is a difficult process
for some students, especially those from families
dedicated to young-earth creationism. For other
students, it is hardly an issue at all. In either case, it is
far better to deal with evolution in a setting where
positive, faith-building support is available. Given the
prevalent belief in our society that faith and evolution
are in conflict, the absence of this support in many
academic environments can lead students to confuse
the evidence for evolution as being evidence against
God.
Faith Shaking or Faith Affirming?
Does teaching evolution shake or affirm faith? It can
do both. Ironically, the greater danger may be denying
or denigrating the evidence for evolution. In the face of
overwhelming evidence (and more mounting by the
day) this approach sets students up for a fall in the
future, should they ever closely examine the data.
Then, faced with the false dichotomy of God or
evolution, they cannot choose well. At best, they will
choose God and reject His works; at worst they will
choose His works (not seeing them for what they are)
but reject Him. One of the joys of teaching biology at a
Christian institution is putting the lie to this false
choice. The history of the cosmos and life on earth is
an amazing story, one that displays the power,
creativity, majesty, and patience of our Creator. As
evangelical students come to see the beauty of
evolution as a vehicle for God’s creative design, many
are affirmed in their faith. They see that they need not
fear evidence for evolution if God Himself has
ordained it as a mechanism of His creative acts in the
past, present and future.
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
1. In this post I refer to “evolution” as the scientific consensus
that all life descended from a common ancestor through natural
processes of speciation (see Allan Harvey’s definitions,
specifically E1 – E4). It is important to note that these
scientific definitions in no way imply the absence of God in the
process of evolution
VI. Evolution and Faith:
Communicating their
Compatibility in Christian Higher
Education
This is a guest-post by biologist Richard Colling, and
is the fifth installment in our “Evangelicals, Evolution,
and Academics” series. Richard is the author of the
book Random Designer.
“God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power,
love, and a sound mind.” II Timothy 1:7
One would think this verse would energize and enable
all Christians in the mission of confidently
communicating Christ’s primary messages of love,
forgiveness, and relationship. Yet from first-hand
experience as a veteran biology educator at a Christian
university I can attest that something is tragically
amiss: A peripheral issue (evolution) is getting in the
way. Indeed, an ungodly and consuming fear of
evolution has engulfed the Christian community. And
when fear reigns, power, love, and sound thinking are
casualties. In addition, this disabling fear is as
contagious as influenza or AIDS – blindly passed from
generation to generation, hence not easy to overcome.
This fear infecting the Christian community derives
from concern that the foundations of the faith, based
upon literal interpretations of scripture, are being
undermined by the claims of science. Regarding
evolution, this concern seems legitimate, especially in
light of advances in biology and genetics. The human
genome project - a 3.1-billion letter linear digital
directory of humanity - was deciphered in 2003. Now,
for the first time in history, we have acquired the letter-
by-letter document revealing humanity’s present and
past genetic connections with all other life at levels of
precision never before imagined. This is not your
mother or father’s gap-laden fossil record. Rather, it is
an exquisitely-defined map of our entire evolutionary
history! So how do Christian educators in the sciences
help people recognize that their fear of evolution is
unnecessary?
Teaching with Truth and Love
9
I believe that education is the key, but it is essential to
recognize that there is much more to education than
just reciting scientific facts and concepts. If we
legitimately claim the badge of bona fide secular or
Christian educators, we must unapologetically speak
the truth of science, but we must also do so with a
sensitive, loving, and accepting spirit – actively
engaging students where they are at.
When my book, Random Designer was published, a
National Public Radio interviewer asked an intriguing
question: “What is the greatest challenge you
experience in teaching evolution at a Christian
college?” I told her that the greatest challenge had
nothing to do with teaching evolution per se: Evolution
is what it is. Rather, I told her that my greatest
challenge was to sensitively listen to and gauge my
students’ backgrounds and understanding so that I
could effectively reassure them that new
understandings in science need never threaten their
faith.
In a diverse classroom of 230 students, this is no small
undertaking because it flies in the face of what they
have been taught growing up. For students coming
from very conservative Christian backgrounds where
evolution is routinely pronounced as evil and regarded
as a litmus test of Christian orthodoxy, the challenge is
to encourage and affirm them in their faith. For non-
believing students, the task is different, but no less
important - encouraging them to keep an open mind -
perhaps even giving this God thing a second look.
When successful in striking just the right balance in the
classroom – speaking the truth in love while also
recognizing and affirming each student where they are
in their spiritual and intellectual journey - something
magical happens. The preconditioned division and
discord that they brought to the classroom begins to
melt away - replaced by understanding and acceptance.
The Importance of Language, Words, and
Emotions
As I suggested above, teaching the actual scientific
facts of evolution is straightforward. However, if the
goal is actual student learning and effective integration,
two practical obstacles come into play - both of which
must be successfully addressed.
The first obstacle is language - the words we use to
communicate meaning and purpose. The unfortunate
reality is that words like randomness, evolution, and
mutation positively drip with ambiguity – frequently
poorly defined and easily misunderstood. The
consequences for relationships can be disastrous as
well-meaning good people talk right past one another
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
and misunderstanding, confusion, and agitation
escalates. Therefore, it is absolutely critical that terms
like mutation and evolution are precisely defined and
understood by all parties.
The second and perhaps the most significant obstacle
to understanding evolution and mapping a path to
peace is that in addition to being poorly defined, words
such as mutation and evolution often carry enormous
negative emotional baggage. Emotions are powerful
because they typically (at least initially - until we have
counted to ten!) overwhelm rationality. After all, I
doubt you would take it kindly if someone called you a
mutant! In addition, although actually inherently
compatible when properly understood, referencing
seemingly counterintuitive words like random and
evolution in the same sentence with God is likely to
elicit red-faced responses from even some of the most
sedate Christians and secular scientists.
These two things – imprecise definitions and negative
emotions - erect powerful barriers to effective
communication and understanding of evolution.
It has been said that people do not care how much you
know until they know how much you care. In my
experience, this is true. Therefore, the first step in
overcoming resistance to evolution is is to establish
understanding and trust.
At Stake: A Credible Faith
Twenty-first century college students are a savvy and
discerning lot: They can smell a fraud a mile away. On
the other hand, they appreciate a Christian educator
who respects and cares enough about them to speak the
transparent truth regarding controversial subjects like
evolution. In short, they want and deserve the real stuff
– including everything that modern biology and
genetics can teach them. Then, armed with actual
knowledge and understanding, they can intelligently
make up their own minds how to put it all together. My
experience is that they do this very well.
It is truly a sad day in the life of a Christian community
when new understanding and insights into God’s
marvelous creation revealed by biology and genetics -
including evolution - are viewed as a threat to faith. No
doubt there are many legitimate questions to address,
but continued denial of evolution by the Christian
community is a sure-fire losing proposition for the
credibility of the gospel and our Christian faith. We
can, and must do better. The next generation is
depending on us to confidently speak the truth in love -
and with no fear!
10
VII. The Evolution Controversy at
Calvin College: Historical
Perspective
This is a guest-post by biologist Stephen Matheson,
and is the sixth installment in our “Evangelicals,
Evolution, and Academics” series. Stephen publishes
the blog Quintessence of Dust which explores issues of
science and faith.
At Calvin College, we describe our institution as "a
comprehensive liberal arts college in the Reformed
tradition of historic Christianity." Our college is owned
by – and is an official ministry of – the Christian
Reformed Church (CRC). Like all pastors and officers
of the CRC, Calvin faculty are required to formally
affirm three Reformed "forms of unity": the Belgic
Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons
of Dort. Furthermore, Calvin faculty are required to
attend a Reformed church, choosing from a list that
excludes prominent Reformed denominations such as
the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), such that
only the CRC and its sister denomination, the
Reformed Church in America (RCA), are workable
choices.
The point of the foregoing is this: Calvin College is an
outgrowth of the CRC, an ethnically Dutch Reformed
denomination with some distinctive characteristics.
(One of those characteristics is a tendency toward
deliberate action and careful documentation of such
action, as we'll see below.) And so, when considering
the history of controversy over evolutionary science at
Calvin, it is important to start with the CRC.
Evolution and the CRC
The CRC has an official position on "Creation and
Science." The summary statement begins as follows:
All of life, including scientific endeavor, must be
lived in obedience to God and in subjection to his
Word. Therefore, Christian scholarship that
integrates faith and learning is to be encouraged.
The church does not impose an authorized
interpretation of specific passages in Scripture;
nor does it canonize certain scientific hypotheses.
Instead, it insists that all theological
interpretations and all scientific theories be
subject to Scripture and the confessions.
In my opinion, there is much to commend here,
although the "insistence" that scientific theories "be
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
subject to Scripture and the confessions" does give me
pause: competing understandings of this conviction led
to the painful struggle I will describe shortly. The
statement then turns to human origins:
Humanity is created in the image of God; all
theorizing that minimizes this fact and all theories
of evolution which deny the creative activity of
God are rejected.
I don't know any Christian who would disagree with
that. But there's more.
The clear teaching of Scripture and the
confessions rules out holding views that support
the reality of evolutionary forebears of the human
race.
This blunt disavowal of human common ancestry with
non-human species is, it would seem, completely
unambiguous, committing the CRC to an unqualified
rejection of entire fields of scientific inquiry.
More to the point of this post, those who know me
should be worried. I am fond of exploring genetic and
genomic findings that are best explained by common
descent, and in various public forums I teach students
(and others) that the human genome is overrun with
features that point quite unmistakably to our kinship
with other organisms on earth. How can a Calvin
professor get away with this? Well, consider the final
sentence of the CRC's statement.
But further investigation or discussion regarding
the origin of humanity should not be limited.
This final declaration is the reason I can be a professor
at Calvin College. Without it, I wouldn't even consider
being a part of the faculty or of the denomination.
So how did this enigmatic statement come to be?
Evolution and Creation at Calvin College: Initial
Controversy 1984-1988
The statement, which summarizes a report approved by
Synod(1) in 1991, represents the culmination of a
controversy that rocked both church and college for
several years. According to Harry Boonstra, author of
Our School, a nice little history of Calvin published in
2001, "the creation-evolution debate became the most
critical controversy in the history of Calvin College." It
came at a time of simmering conflict over issues of
women in church office and other concerns
(hermeneutics, secular politics) that loosely
characterize recent struggles in Christian churches and
11
denominations of many kinds. Dark threats of
"secession" were already being uttered in the early
1980's, and by the mid-1990's, dissatisfaction with
CRC decisions on creation and on women in office had
driven thousands of people – and scores of
congregations – out of the denomination, birthing one
new denomination in the process. It would be a
mistake to underestimate the intensity of the conflict.
The CRC's current position on the matters at hand is
the fruit of that conflict, and it all started at Calvin
College.
The basic outline, sketched by Boonstra, is as follows.
In 1982, Davis Young (then professor of geology)
published the now-classic (and soon-to-be-updated)
Christianity and the Age of the Earth. Young
specifically disclaimed human evolution, but embraced
the great age of the earth and repudiated YEC claims.
This surely lit some fuses, but the eruption of open
conflict seems to have followed the publication (in the
official church magazine, The Banner) of an interview
with Clarence Menninga (then professor and chair of
geology at Calvin) in which Menninga openly asserted
the likelihood of an ancient earth, a lengthy span of
human history, and even the possibility that Adam was
a Neanderthal. Angry letters became an "avalanche"
which became more of a firestorm in 1987 with the
publication of The Fourth Day by Howard Van Till
(then professor of physics and astronomy, and subject
of a previous post at my blog). Like the geologists,
Van Till did not specifically endorse human evolution
(or common descent in general), and the book focuses
on cosmic history without delving into biological
evolution in any detail. But The Fourth Day openly
explores approaches to Genesis that view it as
something other than narrative history. At that point,
the college empanelled a committee to examine the
professors' conduct. I find Boonstra's description to be
riveting:
The mandate of the committee was to determine
whether these statements are in accord with the
synodically adopted guidelines for the
interpretation of Scripture and with the doctrinal
statements of the Christian Reformed Church."
[...] The committee's conclusions and report were
greeted with considerable fanfare. This was
probably the only committee in the history of the
college that elicited a press conference.
Evolution and Creation at Calvin College:
Synodical Conflict 1988 - 1991
The subsequent trustees' report to Synod in 1988 was
"generally supportive of the professors," but the
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
response of the denomination was a swarm of
overtures, overwhelming in their condemnation of the
report. The Synod meeting saw "vigorous" debate,
ending with unenthusiastic endorsement of the
college's report. But Synod empanelled its own
committee (it's a CRC thing), "mandated to study the
relationship between general and special revelation."
And 1988 saw the publication, by Van Till, Young and
Menninga, of the excellent but hard-hitting Science
Held Hostage, which was subtitled "What's Wrong
with Creation Science AND Evolutionism."
It was during this time that public attacks on the
professors' views reached levels of slanderous vitriol
that make me angry and ashamed even now. I will omit
the details; suffice it to say that great harm was done to
the cause of Christ and to the good name of the CRC.
As Boonstra puts it, "scurrilous accusations were used
as often as genuine arguments." These slanders
appeared in huge advertisements in the local
newspaper and in a magazine (Christian Renewal)
popular with conservatives (and, later, secessionists).
I'm glad I wasn't here to see it, and I'm certain I
wouldn't have exhibited the restraint that Dave,
Clarence and Howard showed, and continue to show,
toward people who have earned the strongest of
rebukes for indefensible behavior.
(It should be noted that the professors were not the
only targets; college leaders and trustees were
disparaged with comparable opprobrium.)
Reasoned debate and discussion occurred as well,
thank God, and the best example is the exchange
initiated by Alvin Plantinga which played out on the
pages of Christian Scholar's Review and Perspectives
on Science and Christian Faith.
The committee made its "lengthy and thorough" report
three years later, in 1991. Again, a storm of critical
overtures set the stage for protracted debate in the
Synod meeting. Here's Boonstra:
This time synod debated for eight hours – much
of it focused on a minority recommendation
(Declaration F) that "the church declares that the
clear teaching of Scripture and of our confessions
on the uniqueness of human beings as image
bearers of God rules out all theories that posit the
reality of evolutionary forebears of the human
race." Synod, however, refused to accept this
statement, largely on the grounds that the CRC
had never made an official pronouncement on the
scientific details of creation.
12
If you're confused by this, join the club. That
declaration seems not to differ in any significant sense
from the statement that was adopted and is quoted in
the first section of this post. Boonstra does not explain
how Synod got from Declaration F to the position
statement we have now, but the only real difference I
can see is the all-important disclaimer, the one
sentence that saved academic freedom for biologists
(among others) at Calvin College.
The Conflict Subsides
Shortly thereafter, the conflagration seemed to end –
not with a bang, but a whimper, according to Boonstra:
Synod 1991 still received twenty-four overtures –
mostly critical of Van Till's views – but these
overtures were now in competition with the thirty-
eight overtures against women in ecclesiastical
office. By 1992 this number was reduced to three,
and two final overtures in 1994 were the last blip
on the synodical screen. The church seemed to
signal that the storm was over.
Well, there it is: a not-so-brief overview of the most
intense controversy in the 125-year history of Calvin
College. In the next post, I'll offer my personal
reflections on Calvin College as it is today, based on
my seven years as a biologist and evolutionist at one of
the finest Christian colleges in the world.
(1) The CRC is governed by a yearly assembly, a synod,
composed of representatives of each classis, which is a group of
congregations. A classis, or an individual congregation, can
bring recommendation or complaint to Synod through the
delivery of an overture.
VIII. Teaching Evolution at Calvin
College: A Personal Perspective
This is a guest-post by biologist Stephen Matheson,
and is the second in a 2-part essay on the evolution
controversy at Calvin College; view part 1 here. It is
the seventh installment in our “Evangelicals,
Evolution, and Academics” series. Stephen publishes
the blog Quintessence of Dust which explores issues of
science and faith.
In the previous post, I summarized the momentous
conflict over evolution and creation that rocked Calvin
College and the Christian Reformed Church (CRC)
throughout the 1980's. By 1991, the dust had largely
settled, although ongoing conflict regarding the roles
of women in ecclesiastical office compounded the
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics

damage and led to significant departures of members
and congregations from the CRC. Ten years later, in
2001, I joined the faculty. I offer here some thoughts
and observations on the current situation at Calvin and
in the denomination regarding biological evolution.
Harry Boonstra's history of Calvin College (Our
School) was published in 2001, on the occasion of the
college's 125th birthday, and a decade after the
momentous synodical report on "Creation and
Science." Before describing the episode, he provides
some rationale for his decision to emphasize it, and
here is one interesting claim:
...after the 1991 synodical report, "Creation and
Science," there has been very little formal
discussion on creation and evolution in either the
CRC or Calvin College. Neither has there been,
to my knowledge, an overview of this controversy.
No doubt many of the participants were battle
weary, but the questions require ongoing
discussion.
That was seven years ago, and I haven't noticed
"formal discussion" of evolution in the CRC since
then, nor does it seem that the topic is being discussed
more actively at Calvin than when I came in 2001.
Most notably, it seems to me that the subject is not
considered to be strongly controversial or dangerous.
There was a small brouhaha in the student paper and
on the faculty listserv in 2004, centered on comments
by a faculty member that I and others found to be
muddled and somewhat dismissive of evolutionary
science, and there were tiny ripples of dissent when I
and others agreed to participate in an "Origins
Symposium" that included presentations by four Calvin
faculty in juxtaposition with presentations by four
YEC proponents. There have been some uncomfortable
moments, and there are surely many on our faculty and
staff who harbor doubts and suspicions regarding
common ancestry. (This includes some who are fans of
the old-earth creationism of Hugh Ross and colleagues
at Reasons To Believe.) We still hear from disgruntled
constituents, and some of them can be obnoxious. But
there is no strong reason to expect a campus conflict
centered on evolutionary biology.
On the positive side, some of my colleagues, most
prominently Loren Haarsma, have contributed to
discussions of evolution, creation and design, openly
embracing evolutionary explanations. And Deb and
Loren Haarsma (both of the physics and astronomy
department) have recently published a book exploring
origins from a Reformed perspective; published by the
CRC itself, the book discusses human evolution
without obvious equivocation. I am known as an
outspoken advocate for common descent on and off
campus, and have spoken publicly on the topic of
evolution and explanation quite recently, at a large
CRC church and in tandem with my friend and
colleague in the philosophy department, Kelly Clark.
My blog is well known to my colleagues, and one
particularly successful entry (which deals explicitly
with evolutionary biology) is featured in the current
issue of Calvin's e-zine, Minds in the Making.
These observations indicate that the Calvin College of
today is a safe place for a Christian biologist who is
excited about the explanatory power of common
descent. But I'm not sure they communicate just how
far the college seems to have come. So let me close
with a personal account that should make it very clear
that academic freedom at Calvin, with respect to
evolutionary theory, is quite strong.
A few months ago, I went before the Calvin College
Board of Trustees to be interviewed for reappointment
with tenure. The interview went very well, and I was
recommended for tenure. We discussed several
interesting topics, one of which was my emphasis on
God's sovereignty regarding his creation. My
"statement on the integration of faith and learning"
outlines my contention that the typical creationist
notion of the Fall – a cataclysm so radical that it utterly
ruptures the fabric of creation and makes the world
before the Fall completely incomprehensible – is an
unacceptable underestimation of God's sovereignty
over the cosmos. From there, we turned to questions
about the Fall itself, and I described my position quite
bluntly: I have no doubt about human common
ancestry with other animals, but I also recognize that
this creates difficult questions about the nature of the
Fall, and I look forward to further work (by scholars
more qualified than I am) on this problem. After a
time, I was asked to step out of the room while the
group deliberated. In the hallway, I ran into the
president of the college, Gaylen Byker, and we were
soon having an engrossing and amiable chat about
human animal ancestry (with animal welfare and
veganism as a backdrop). Unfortunately, we were
interrupted by the Trustees, who summoned me back
into the room to affirm my work as a Calvin College
professor and to warmly congratulate me on being
recommended for tenure.
I hope the point of all this is obvious: the leaders of
Calvin College may well have preferences regarding
the amount and timing of discussions of common
descent, and perhaps the fundraisers would love it if
we never brought it up at all. But they have never

13
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
expressed any opposition of any kind to anything I
have ever said or written about evolution.
There is much more that could be said, but we'll save it
for comments and discussion. But I would be remiss if
I didn't end with a tribute to Davis Young, Clarence
Menninga, and Howard Van Till, not just for writing a
book that changed my life but for courageously paying
a price that purchased the blessings I now enjoy at
Calvin College. Dave...Clarence...Howard... thank you.
IX. Evolution in Public Schools: A
Threat or a Challenge?
This is a guest-post by Physicist Karl Giberson, and is
the eighth installment in our “Evangelicals, Evolution,
and Academics” series. Karl is the author of the book
Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in
Evolution.
America’s evolution controversy is rooted, curiously,
in her noble attempts to provide every child with a free
quality education. Early in the 20th century, when
public schools began to educate students beyond the
8th grade, the curriculum included impressive amounts
of science. And, although evolution in textbooks like
that used in the Dayton school where John Scopes
taught was a minor topic, students were bringing home
accounts of origins at odds with what they were
learning at home and in their churches. William
Jennings Bryan was the first great champion of the idea
that taxpayers should not have to fund schools that
undermined their values.
Evolution in the Public Schools: A Recipe for
Atheism and Moral Anarchy?
The public schools have remained the primary
battleground for the origins controversy, particularly in
the courts where endless challenges to the teaching of
evolution have been launched by local school boards
from Pennsylvania to Louisiana and California. Anti-
evolutionary pundits like Phillip Johnson have charged
the public schools with promoting atheism in the name
of science, even suggesting that evolution is
responsible for widespread moral anarchy of the sort
we saw at Columbine.
Johnson is joined by crusaders like Ken Ham, the late
Henry Morris, John Ankerberg, the late D. James
Kennedy, Anne Coulter, and others who claim, as
earnestly as any Old Testament prophet, that evolution
is the basis for Nazism, homosexuality, rising divorce
rates, pornography, drug addiction, socialism, atheism,
14
and every other imaginable ill. School children are
supposedly being taught to think of themselves as
meaningless assemblages of molecules with no more
purpose or meaning to their existence than the pencils
in their desks.
These hyperbolic claims should raise our eyebrows.
They certainly raised mine. Having known
schoolteachers for all my life, from my sainted mother,
to my sister and brother-in-law, to all the teachers I had
in public school, to my countless students studying to
become teachers, and so on, I simply could not imagine
that any public school teacher anywhere would teach
any of these things. These peculiar ideas are not in the
textbooks; they are not natural extensions of
evolutionary theory; they are very unlikely to be a part
of the worldview of the teachers—so why are Johnson
and Ham claiming children are being indoctrinated
with these ideas? Do they know something we do not?
Research Reveals the Rhetoric is Wrong
My intuition gave rise to a modest research project a
few years ago. My student, Tim Johnson, and I looked
at the public school curriculum in Quincy,
Massachusetts. Quincy schools, located on the bulls-
eye of America’s bluest state, are hardly restrained by
local conservatism and far beyond the reach of the
creationists. There is thus no reason to suspect that
public schools are constrained by any pandering to the
foes of evolution.
As we expected, our examination of the textbooks and
teaching standards, and our interviews with teachers
confirmed that evolution was being taught with
thoughtful and careful consideration of the concerns of
the students. Religious issues were addressed directly
in the classrooms and students were assured that
evolution did not rule out belief in God as Creator. No
doubt the imaginary wall between church and state was
repeatedly breached by Quincy’s conscientious
educators.
Our study, summarized in the article “The Teaching of
Evolution in Public School”, concluded that there was
“no evidence that public school teachers in Quincy are
exacerbating tensions with students and parents in the
way that evolution is presented; indeed, most of them
are expending energy in minimizing such
tensions…Quincy public school teachers are
appropriately sensitive to the religious backgrounds of
their students.”
We concluded there was no basis whatsoever for
Johnson’s charge, in "Defeating Darwinism by
Opening Minds", that American educators have chosen
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
to “tell the people that all doubts about naturalistic
evolution are inherently absurd … and that their silly
misgivings will be allowed no hearing in public
education.”
Our research suggested exactly the opposite, and I
suspect that this inference could be extended to the
majority of public school systems in America. Anti-
evolutionary pundits like Johnson and Ham are simply
wrong. They are little more than shrill demagogues
pretending to fight imaginary foes and selling lots of
books in the process. Quincy public schools nowhere
teach students that they are the result of “a mindless
evolutionary process.”
The Theological Challenge for Evangelicals
This is not to say, however, that all is well and that
evolution can be comfortably harmonized with
traditional religious understandings. It is one thing to
note that evolution need not exclude God as creator
and quite another to show exactly how creation and
evolution are to be harmonized. In "Saving Darwin:
How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution",
published this month by HarperOne, I offers some
tentative suggestions in this direction. But this
harmony comes with a price that many evangelicals
may be unwilling to pay—the loss of some key aspects
of the traditional creation story.
I suggest in Saving Darwin that we must abandon the
historicity of the Genesis creation account. Adam and
Eve must not be thought of as real people or even
surrogates for groups of real people; likewise the Fall
must disappear from history as an event and become,
instead, a partial insight into the morally ambiguous
character with which evolution endowed our species.
Human uniqueness is called into question and we must
consider extending the imago dei, in some sense,
beyond our species. These are not simple theological
tasks but, if we can embrace them, I think we may be
able to finally make peace with Darwin’s Dangerous
Idea.
There is a lot of work to be done. Evangelical churches
have typically been unwilling to confront this topic—
except to run off evolutionists like Howard Van Till
when they become controversial—and it will be a great
effort to reorient the teaching ministry of the church to
bring it into alignment with the generally accepted
ideas of modern science. But only when this task has
been accomplished can we declare the war in the
public schools to be over.
15
X. Why Evolution should be
taught in Christian Schools
This is a guest-post by Professional Engineer Gordon
Glover, and is the ninth installment in our
“Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics” series.
Gordon is the author of the book Beyond the
Firmament. His three children attend a private
Classical Christian school. He is currently publishing
a series of blog posts on the topic of “Science
Education in Private Christian Schools”.
Private Christian schools exist to give parents a
distinctively Christian alternative to secular education.
From my experience, however, the way that the
Christian worldview is compared and contrasted to
secular philosophies often results in academic subjects
being treated as individual battle-fronts in an all-out
war against secularism. While the intent is to prepare
Christian students to effectively argue the case for
Christ and promote biblical thinking wherever they
find themselves, good science often becomes a casualty
of friendly-fire.
Methodological Naturalism: Friend or Foe?
Somewhere along the way, as the shifting lines of
battle were being hastily redrawn, methodological
naturalism (MN) ― the methodology traditionally used
to approach questions about the physical world ―
found itself pinned down in the same foxhole as
materialism ― a worldview philosophy that says the
physical world is all that exists. Even though MN
raises no weapon against Christianity, it unfortunately
wears the same uniform as materialism and the two are
easily confused in the fog of battle. Once this happens,
the natural sciences cease to be effective tools of
learning and discovery, and are instead taken by force
and conscripted into the service of Christian
apologetics.
This unfortunate case of mistaken identity is most
evident in the life sciences, where comparing and
contrasting our material frame to that of other creatures
for the sake of scientific inquiry is summarily rejected
as a dangerous philosophy that treats mankind as a
meaningless cosmic accident. As a result, science
teachers in Christian schools have little choice but to
‘fight the good fight’ by shielding students from any
practical utility of evolutionary biology and supplying
them with every conceivable reason why this 150 year-
old paradigm of natural history is fundamentally
flawed. So why would any private Christian school
risk losing students, teachers and financial support by
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
teaching evolution ― an issue that has become a key
litmus-test of faith for evangelicals?
Why Teach Evolution? #1 - It is Good Science
The most obvious reason to teach evolution is that it is
good science. There is simply no other natural cause-
and-effect approach that unifies the life sciences under
a single coherent paradigm. And unlike the
supernatural intervention paradigms typically taught in
the place of physical science (such as special creation
and intelligent design), evolution actually allows
practicing scientists to draw non-trivial conclusions
about God’s creation ― an important point entirely
underappreciated by Christian parents and teachers
who are not called to sort through the challenging data
of natural history and make sense of it.
It is important that students understand how scientific
ideas, even when incomplete, fundamentally flawed, or
theologically offensive can still add to our material
understanding of the created order. However, all too
often Christian schools use biology class to highlight
the perimeters of our scientific ignorance and focus on
only those areas where the theory of evolution breaks
down. They mercilessly criticize the paradigm for
failing to answer questions that don't even fall under its
jurisdiction. If we took this same paralyzing approach
with us into the physics classroom, Newton’s laws of
motion, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle would all be
mocked as ‘godless’ paradigms of matter and motion
that fail to address spiritual realities, and are hopelessly
flawed at the fundamental level. After all, none of
these ideas even pretend to offer a complete picture of
reality; and each are based on necessary assumptions
that fall apart on some level. While such an approach
might have the temporary effect of making science
look silly and incompetent in the face of biblical truth,
it doesn’t prepare our graduates for success in the real
world where seeing through a glass darkly doesn’t
require us to close our eyes completely.
Why Teach Evolution? #2 - It Enhances Critical
Thinking
Teaching evolution in a private Christian school can
also provide many fruitful opportunities for students to
exercise critical thinking skills. Whether we like it or
not, the undeniable patterns found in comparative
anatomy, the fossil record, biogeography and
molecular genetics all converge on a single universal
scenario of common ancestry. If Christian students
face this overwhelming reality for the first time in the
workplace or at a secular university, a crisis of faith
can follow. It is much better for students to learn about
evolution in a Christian school setting where they have
16
access to Christian faculty, staff, and parents that can
provide faith-building support.
The questions that are bound to arise can indeed be
challenging. Do these obvious patterns reveal an
authentic natural process of creation, or could they
have been purposefully built into the created order (by
fiat) to enable man to make sense of the world around
him? What are the theological consequences Christians
face if this scenario is authentic? What are the
theological consequences we face if this scenario is
only apparent? And if the traditional Christian doctrine
of special creation is indeed non-negotiable, does
“enabling scientific progress” excuse God for creating
a biosphere that conspires at every level against a
superficial reading of the biblical creation account?
These are the real challenges of evolution ― not blood
clotting or the bacterial flagellum!
Why Teach Evolution? #3 - It Offers an
Opportunity to Discuss Biblical Inspiration
Teaching evolution also provides ample opportunities
to discuss the nature of special revelation and the scope
of biblical authority in a very relevant context. Rather
than cause us to question the inspiration of Scripture,
teaching evolution should force us to examine the very
nature of biblical inspiration itself. On what level does
God speak to us? Does God emphasize the technical
details of cosmic structure, making the Scriptures
relevant only to those generations who shared the
cosmology of the biblical authors? Or does God
emphasize the teleological details of cosmic function,
making the Scriptures relevant to every generation
regardless of their “contemporary” scientific
paradigms?
Not Easy, but Essential
The questions raised above are difficult and there are
no easy answers. But Christian educators must be
willing to tolerate a certain amount of unresolved
tension in the science classroom. Not every question
will have a satisfying answer, but our children are
better served by teaching them to think through the
issues and deal with the theological consequences that
are inevitable once we start poking around the cosmos.
If we fail to teach our students the proper use of
contemporary scientific paradigms in their current
form, no matter how theologically unsettling they
might be, we are effectively denying them a seat at the
table of discovery and isolating an entire community
(professional scientists) from the light of the Gospel.
We all want our children to have the best education
possible, to succeed in their various life pursuits, to
learn how to think critically about the world around
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
them, and to develop a theologically robust God-
centered worldview. Teaching evolution as a valid
paradigm for understanding the life sciences, at the
appropriate age level, is entirely consistent with these
goals.
XI. The Challenge of Teaching
Science in a Christian
Homeschooling Setting
This is a guest-post by Evolutionary Biologist Douglas
Hayworth, and is the tenth installment in our
“Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics” series.
Douglas and his wife homeschool their three children.
One of the most challenging tasks facing
homeschooling parents is providing a good science
education to their children. And providing a healthy
academic and theological perspective on evolution is
one of the most difficult aspects of this task. There are
several specific challenges that must be faced. First,
there is typically a knowledge gap; few parents have
the training necessary to properly guide middle- and
high-school level learning in science subjects. Second,
few if any science curricula from Christian publishers
provide the necessary academic and philosophical
guidance on issues of science and faith. To make
matters worse, these publishers often claim or imply
that they do provide strong guidance in these areas and
thus give typical parents a false sense of security.
Third, grade-appropriate supplementary resources are
currently nonexistent or unavailable to homeschoolers.
Fourth, hands-on laboratory experimentation, which is
necessary to reinforce the empirical nature of science,
is more difficult and expensive for individual
households than for public and parochial schools. I
derive these points from my personal experience as a
homeschooling parent of three children and from my
observation of nonscientist Christian homeschooling
friends.
Challenge #1: Lack of Parental Scientific
Knowledge
Lack of parental scientific knowledge is often a
significant challenge. No parents are trained in the
broad range of academic areas required to fully
examine the evidence for cosmological, geological,
and biological evolution. They must depend on the
expertise of others. As their children grow older,
parents must increasingly rely on the authority of their
chosen curriculum and textbooks rather than their own
life experience and direct knowledge. Ironically, this
17
knowledge gap begins to form at exactly the time in
children's education when they should be learning to
critically evaluate information and authorities. This
makes it more and more difficult to answer or
meaningfully discuss important questions that will (or
at least should) arise concerning the relationship of
scientific knowledge and Christian faith.
Challenge #2: Inadequate Science Curricula
Most Christian homeschooling parents choose science
textbooks and resources from Christian publishers.
Having done so, most parents will become uncritical
about its primary content and theistic perspective,
falsely assuming that the curriculum adequately fills
the knowledge gap by raising all the important
questions and providing all the appropriate Christian
answers. In fact, I am not aware of any "Christian"
texts that fairly (i.e., meaningfully) cover science in
relation to origins, natural history, evolution and
design, not to mention other significant science topics
that have theological implications. I contend that
Christian parents (even young earth creationists (YEC)
who wish to perpetuate the "incompatibility" or
"conflict" thesis) would provide their children with a
better science education (i.e., critical thinking skills) by
learning from a secular textbook because they would
be more vigilant in scrutinizing what is presented and
therefore also more engaged in the subject.
Challenge #3: Finding Supplementary or
Alternative Resources
Three years ago, my daughter's 7th grade curriculum
included the first text (physical science) in J. Wile's
series (Apologia Press), which our curriculum supplier
(Sonlight) had recently adopted for middle and high
school. I soon discovered that the book's entire
presentation is bent and contorted to support YEC. At
first, I attempted to use the situation as a learning
opportunity for my daughter; I wrote discussion
questions and counterpoint examples corresponding to
Wile's book chapters. Needless to say, it was a lot of
work for me, and I think not very productive for my
daughter.
I finally came to the conclusion that it would be better
to supplement a secular textbook with a discussion of
relevant issues rather than attempt to undo and correct
the theological bias and scientific errors of a Christian
text. Secular textbooks that are intended for public
school use must pass the scrutiny of many scientists
and diverse school boards throughout the country; as a
result, they more accurately present reliable scientific
consensus and have very little theological baggage (see
post #8 in this series). The disadvantage in using a
public school textbook for homeschooling is that
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
teacher resources (answer keys, etc.) are not available
to the general public. For me personally, this is not a
significant issue since I am trained in evolutionary
biology and well read in science-theology issues, but I
suspect it can present a significant challenge for typical
parents. For 8th grade, my daughter used a Glencoe
Life Science book, which a schoolteacher friend gave
to me. That was a successful schooling year, but I had
to manually "work" all the chapter questions in order to
check her answers. As a biologist, I am not certain how
well I will be able to help her with physics this coming
school year.
Challenge #4: Providing "laboratory" experience
Interacting with the natural world using scientific
methods is the surest way to instill an inquisitive
attitude towards the structure and function of creation.
Although individual households cannot afford the
equipment needed to perform many traditional science
experiments, they have the advantage of flexibility. For
younger grade levels, I recommend using "knowledge
encyclopedia" books (rather than traditional
textbooks), coupled with as many hands-on activities
as possible. Visit science centers, natural history
museums, conduct cooking and other kitchen work as
chemistry and physics lessons, plant a garden and
measure growth rates, go bird watching and fossil
hunting.
For older ages, find projects that require learning more
about a science subject or application thereof. For
example, last year my son and I studied electronics
together so he could learn how to assemble an LED
timer circuit to light up a space ship model. Frequently
look up "how stuff works" on the internet. Encourage
your children to consider the theological implications
of all that they observe around them. For example,
when studying and examining ecology (e.g.,
ecosystems, food webs and nutrient cycles), ask your
children (and yourself!), "How could this orderly, God-
given "balance of nature" function without animal
death?"
Help Meet the Challenge
In summary, good curricula and resources for teaching
middle and high school science at home are scarce to
nonexistent. Although there are some good
supplementary books and study guides about creation-
evolution issues that have been published recently
(e.g., Origins by Deb and Loren Haarsma), these are
high school level materials and are not integrated
topically with an ordinary sequence of science topics.
These also do not address some of the other science-
theology issues, including those to relating to the
practice of medicine. (A good world literature and
18
history-based curriculum that covers the spectrum of
Christian responses to medical advances is helpful
here. By the way, this is the strength of the Sonlight
Curriculum my wife uses for our children.)
Over the last couple of years, I have been navigating
these intellectual waters, attempting to identify science
resources for Christian homeschoolers who wish to
teach something other than a YEC perspective.
Despite there being an immense amount of information
available on the internet, parents will find it almost
impossible to identify any well-organized, non-YEC
curricula and other resources for science
homeschooling within a Christian worldview.
Thankfully, the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA)
has always sought to assist the church in appreciating
the wonders and challenges of science. Recently, the
executive director, Randy Isaac, asked if someone
would be willing to organize a special section or wiki
group on the ASA website to address the needs of
homeschoolers. I immediately volunteered and am
currently developing ideas for the project. My personal
goal is not so much to advocate the evolutionary
creationist view but to outline and review all available
resources so that parents can make informed choices
about the options that exist. Hopefully, complementary
materials can be suggested, and (in time) new study
guides and supplements can be written and posted.
The project is in its infancy, so I welcome any and all
ideas that interested readers might have. What kinds of
teaching aids are you looking for? Are you willing to
review a particular textbook or curriculum that you
have used? Have you written any materials for your
own children? What kinds of questions have your
children asked about science? I'd love to hear your
feedback in the comments. You can also contact me
directly by email at Doug@BecomingCreation.org.
XII. Teaching Creation in Sunday
School
This is a guest-post by Evolutionary Biologist Douglas
Hayworth, and is the eleventh installment in our
“Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics” series.
In my previous post, I discussed issues related to
teaching science in a homeschooling setting. For that
topic I focused on middle- and high-school levels,
where the main challenge is finding curriculum that
does not promote young earth creationism (YEC) or
some other version of the faith / science conflict thesis.
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
I now turn my attention to that other realm of teaching
and learning in which most devoted evangelical
Christians regularly participate: Sunday School. In so
doing, I will shift my focus from older to younger
children for several reasons, which I trust will be
obvious as I proceed.
Sunday School Begins with Creation.
Most Sunday school curricula for grades 1-4 comprise
a repeating one- or two-year cycle through the stories
of the Bible. Lessons 1-4 at the beginning of the
sequence are usually creation, Adam and Eve (the fall),
Cain and Abel, and Noah (the flood). After going
through this bible-story cycle several times, children
graduate to middle school where Sunday School
curriculum is almost always topical or creedal
(catechism) in format. If creation and the garden of
Eden story are ever discussed again, it is within the
context of discussing the creation/evolution issue or as
it relates to specific doctrinal statements in one's
catechism. I suspect that some churches never again
revisit the Genesis stories with their teens and adults.
Fortunately, some good resources do exist for
discussing creation "issues" and theology with teens
and adults (e.g., Allan Harvey's lesson plans). Whether
churches will take advantage of these resources is
unclear.
My main concern relates to the formative elementary-
school years. I fear that the creation-evolution
controversy has so dominated the landscape that it has
diverted attention from the most important lessons of
the Genesis story. In fact, YEC organizations are so
well funded and clever in marketing their message that
they have convinced many churches to use their
children's Sunday school materials. As a result,
children are preconditioned not only to adopt the
conflict thesis but also to understand the Genesis
stories in very narrow theology terms. Creation is
reduced to meaning "in six days" and "no evolution"
when it ought to evoke our deepest and most profound
thoughts about our existence, of God's sovereignty and
intimacy, of his transcendence and immanence, and of
our calling as his image-bearers.
Don't misunderstand me. What our children need in
Sunday school is not a counter-offensive aimed at
correcting YEC's scientific or theological flaws. That
would keep the attention on all the wrong things. What
our children (and friends) need is a presentation of
Genesis that sparks the imagination like a good fairy
tale or children's story. Genesis is the opening chapter
of God's great story, not the preface to an instruction
manual or science textbook. Fortunately, children may
be better prepared to understand the Creation
19
narratives than adults because they are less concerned
about distinguishing between "fact" and "meaning".
Tell the Story. Explore the Story.
The creation, garden, and flood narratives are certainly
MORE THAN mere stories, but they are NOT less
than that. Just as the four gospels cannot be understood
properly (or the differences between them reconciled)
unless each author's individual theological purpose
(i.e., "story-telling purpose") is appreciated as the
primary framework, so, too, the creation narratives
cannot be understood without keeping in mind the
story-telling context. And aren't we all agreed
(evolutionary, progressive and young-earth creationists
alike) that the point of Genesis chapter 1 is that God
created everything that exists? It is irrelevant whether
it took six days, a blink of an eye or billions of years.
Keeping the "story-telling" theme in the forefront helps
to keep focus on God's message (i.e., the moral of the
story) rather than theologically insignificant details.
So, call it a story and tell it like a story. Describe
Genesis as God's story to the children of Israel through
Moses. Then explore the story as the moral tale that it
is. Use the "framework" model to outline the creative
works of days 1-6. (Even if one takes the six days as
literal, the framework is still the best way to
understand the significance of those days.) For a craft,
don't have the children draw the events of each day on
separate pages (as is commonly done). Instead, have
them add the days' events sequentially to one picture;
then ask them if there is any part of the world that is
missing. For the garden story, ask the children to think
about what the various elements represent? Tell them
that "Adam" means "man" (it is an individual's proper
name only secondarily). What does the serpent
represent? What do the trees represent? What do Adam
and Eve's disobedience represent? Ask the children
how they are like Adam and Eve. Do they like to learn
about different animals and learn their names? Do they
ever do things they know are wrong? Do they feel
ashamed when they do wrong?
Give the Simple Back Story. Don't Over-answer
Questions.
When questions arise, provide a little more of the back
story. Explain how the pagan people in Abraham and
Moses' day worshiped the sun and moon and believed
in many gods that battled one another and created
humans to be their slaves. These pagans also had
garden-of-Eden stories that attempted to explain why
humans always struggle to do what is right yet
constantly fail. Genesis is God's retelling of these
pagan stories in a way that corrects their wrong ideas.
It is perhaps an understatement to suggest that our
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
Sunday School teachers may need some training about
the back story themselves.
Most of all, don't provide more answers than children
need at their level, and don't strong-arm them by giving
definitive answers. We evolutionary creationists
shouldn't try to explain how we know that the creation
stories aren't literal, and YEC's should not try to insist
that a literal interpretation is the only valid and "safe"
Christian interpretation. Children (and our Sunday
School teachers) need to know that there are some
things about which they must suspend judgment until
they are older or more widely read. When children ask
about reconciling evolution and the creation account,
remind them of the story (literary context) and then
explain that adult Christians differ on how exactly they
make sense of the two ways God reveals himself to us.
However, we all share a trust in a faithful God, a God
who has a message of purpose and love for all of us
Adams and Eves.
Tell the stories and let God speak for himself.
XIII. Evangelicals, Evolution, and
Academics: Historical Perspective
and Future Directions
This is a guest-post by historian of Science Ted Davis,
and is the twelfth installment in our “Evangelicals,
Evolution, and Academics” series. Ted is the vice-
president of the American Scientific Affiliation, and is
consulting editor for both Perspectives on Science and
Christian Faith and Science and Christian Belief.
For at least a century, evangelicals have typically
rejected both evolution and higher biblical criticism.
Sometimes there are good reasons: the claims of some
biblical scholars are so outrageous, and the claims of
some scientists so anti-religious, that a strongly
negative response is entirely appropriate. Too often,
however, the evangelical encounter with modern
science conforms to what historian Mark Noll has
called “the scandal of the evangelical mind”—namely,
“that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”
Fundamentalists and Evangelicals: Significant
Differences
John Stackhouse has given an excellent definition of an
evangelical. I especially like the breadth of his criteria
for being an evangelical and his emphasis on
ecumenical cooperation. Evangelicals and
20
fundamentalists share many core beliefs, but differ
from one another mainly in attitude, especially their
overall attitude toward modernity, including science.
George Marsden, the leading historian of
fundamentalism, defines it as “militant anti-
modernism,” and both parts of that definition are
crucial. Where fundamentalists have historically
emphasized separation from the world and its
“worldliness,” evangelicals have typically been much
more willing to engage the world on its own terms, and
thus their understanding of the world is negotiated to a
much greater extent than that of fundamentalists.
Evangelical Tension with Science
Nevertheless, evangelicals exhibit considerable tension
and ambivalence when it comes to science, especially
human evolution. On the one hand, evangelicals
enthusiastically embrace the findings of science, when
it comes to most applications in medicine and
engineering. They also accept the experimental
sciences, such as physics, chemistry, physiology, or
thermodynamics. They have no problems with
gravitation, the periodic table, the circulation of the
blood, or the law of entropy. Here, their attitude is
highly empirical: if it can be shown from repeatable
experiments and observations, it’s true and presents no
challenge whatsoever to religious belief.
On the other hand, evangelicals are quite hesitant to
accept some conclusions of the so-called historical
sciences, such as geology, cosmology, and
evolutionary biology. Fundamentalists reject the very
legitimacy of those sciences, and have created their
own alternative explanation, “creation science,” which
comports with their particular views of biblical
authority and hermeneutics. Evangelicals are more
ambivalent. Many evangelicals accept the big bang –
indeed, quite a few evangelical leaders believe that
aspects of the big bang theory strongly support belief
in the divine creation of the universe. Many
evangelicals also accept modern geology, with a 4.65
billion-year-old earth and the long history of living
things before humans arrived on the planet. But
evolution - understood here to mean the common
descent of humans and other organisms - presents very
serious problems for many, perhaps most, evangelicals.
Evangelicals and Evolution: Looking for
Alternatives
This motivates many evangelicals to look for
alternative views. Some embrace creation science.
Others prefer one of the many varieties of “old earth
creationism” or “progressive creationism.” Probably a
large number prefer the confident, sometimes even
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics
cocky tone of the “intelligent design” movement.
Officially (at least), ID takes no stance on the age of
the earth and universe, though most ID adherents have
no quarrel with mainstream science on those issues.
Technically ID has no stance on human evolution,
either: as long as “design” can be shown within science
itself, evolution is in theory acceptable to ID
advocates. In practice, however, many ID leaders have
said strongly negative things about both “evolution”
(or “Darwinism”) and “theistic evolution,” leading
most observers to conclude that ID is just another form
of antievolutionism, albeit the most sophisticated form
that has yet appeared. Many ID advocates view the
hypothetical “just-so stories” of evolutionary biologists
with scorn: they want to see convincing evidence that
what might have happened actually did happen, before
they embrace a fully evolutionary account of life’s
history.
Reconciling Evolution with Scripture
Most evangelicals do not see any viable way to
combine human evolution with the following beliefs,
which they base on their interpretation of the Bible:
 the uniqueness of humans, who alone bear the
“image of God”
 the fall of Adam and Eve, the original parents
of all humans, from a sinless state, by their
own free choices to disobey God
 the responsibility of each person for their own
actions and beliefs, within a universe that is
not fully deterministic
 the redemption of individual persons by the
atoning sacrifice of Christ.
Evangelicals cannot and must not be separated from
their crucial beliefs about human dignity, freedom,
responsibility, sin, and redemption. The 64-dollar
question is: can they maintain those beliefs without
simultaneously affirming the necessity of an historical,
separately created first human pair?
Evangelical Theologians and Biblical Scholars: It is
your move
Reconciling the theory of evolution with these core
beliefs depends to a great extent on evangelical
academics, particularly theologians and biblical
scholars. Can they be persuaded that the scientific
evidence for evolution is sufficiently strong to warrant
a re-examination of the traditional view? Can a
credible gospel and credible science be harmonized?
21
There exists an enormous gap between popular
conceptions of science – conclusions, methods, and
attitudes – and those of scientists themselves. This gap
is not unique to science among practitioners of
specialized knowledge, and it is not unique to
evangelicals among the lay public. But it is real and
very significant, and it affects theologians and biblical
scholars no less than anyone else. Those who try to
bridge this gap are mostly scientists (in their role as
educators at colleges and universities and insofar as
they write books for lay readers) and science
journalists. Both of those professional communities
tend to be skeptical if not hostile toward Christian
beliefs, and this can exacerbate an already difficult
state of affairs. If ways can be found to popularize
good science, while showing appropriate sensitivity to
the concerns of evangelicals, it would be a very good
thing.
Signs of Hope
Certainly there are reasons to hope. The conversation
about science and religion is considerably broader now
than it was at the time of the Scopes trial in 1925. Back
then, many Protestants faced a very grim choice. On
the one hand, they could follow politician William
Jennings Bryan and the fundamentalists, rejecting
modern science in the name of biblical authority and
orthodox beliefs. On the other hand, they could follow
theologian Shailer Mathews and the modernists,
rejecting biblical authority and orthodox beliefs in the
name of modern science. There was no one out there
like John Polkinghorne, a leading contemporary
scientist who accepts evolution but also upholds the
Nicene Creed (a pertinent example is his book, The
Faith of a Physicist).
And Polkinghorne has plenty of company – Francis
Collins, Joan Centrella, Owen Gingerich, Simon
Conway Morris, William Phillips, and Ian Hutchinson
(to name just a few) are all excellent scientists, and
they all believe in the divinity of Jesus, the bodily
resurrection, and the actual divine creation of the
universe. But they are all scientists, not theologians
(except for Polkinghorne, who is both). In Galileo’s
day, it was the scientists who eventually convinced the
theologians and biblical scholars to accept Copernicus’
theory of the earth’s motion around the sun, but it took
a long time. And the process was difficult and often
painful. I suspect we are in for more of the same.
 Evangelicals, Evolution and Academics

articulate adequately. Some gave me encouragement;

XIV. Evangelicals, Evolution, and
Academics: Conclusion
This is the final installment in our “Evangelicals,
Evolution, and Academics” guest-post series.
others challenged me. But all of them enriched my own
spiritual and intellectual journey. So to Keith, Dennis,
Richard, Stephen, Karl, Gordon, Douglas, and Ted –
thanks. Thanks a lot.

After six weeks and thirteen posts we have come to the

end of our series on Evangelicals, Evolution, and
Academics. As nearly every post indicated, the
Evangelical engagement with evolution in academia is
one characterized by considerable tension and conflict.
It is a conflict that, to most observers, will not end
anytime soon.

However, many Evangelicals, including all those who

participated in this series, hope and pray that the
continuation of this conflict will be short lived. We
want our community to rediscover an authentic
theology of creation, and to stop relegating the opening
words of scripture to simple science and history. We
want science classes in our homeschools, in our
Christian schools, and in the public schools to be
viewed as opportunities to explore the wonders of
creation, all of God’s creation, even processes of
creation that seem threatening to our faith. It is these
sometimes threatening opportunities that can enable
robust spiritual growth.

There is certainly hope. Many evangelical scientists,

and evangelical biologists in particular, see no conflict
between their orthodox Christian faith and the
evidence for biological evolution. Even though anti-
evolutionism often remains strong in their churches
and college affiliations, these evangelical scientists
have worked hard to present the truth contained in both
of God’s books. This presentation of the truth
frequently takes courage as well as healthy doses of all
nine fruits-of-the-spirit (Gal 5:22,23).

Although the implications of biological evolution can

seem faith shaking, they can also be faith affirming.
This is certainly true in Christian universities where the
support of Christian educators can help students work
through the theological minefields. However, it can
also be true in secular universities, institutions that are
often ideal environments to challenge and deepen one’s
faith.

This series has been a learning experience for me

personally. I very much appreciated the perspectives
and experiences shared by all contributors. Some
presented ideas that were completely new to me; others
helped me clarify thoughts that I was not able to

22