Entries by Admin

Why Does Postmodern Society Need Christian Universities?

/0 Comments/in /by

Because Christian Universities believe that there is Truth at the end of dialogue, we engage the difficult and complex questions that will allow our graduates to participate in the postmodern world as reconcilers. Our graduates will be adept at hearing different positions, understanding how others make value claims, and be comfortable engaging in dialogue intended to allow the Holy Spirit to “lead us into all Truth”. We aren’t trying to win arguments and demonstrate that our way is superior but are trying to faithfully represent Christ and the Gospel.

 

We Should Be Concerned With Losing Our Distinctive Identity—But Not Too Much

/0 Comments/in /by
I had the privilege of attending Notre Dame as a graduate student in the early 1990s and studying with historian George Marsden.  George was working on his seminal book at the time, The Soul of the American University, and he would share rough drafts with his graduate students for us to review.  This was kind of like eating at a five-star restaurant and being invited to tour the kitchen to see the meals being cooked.  The “secularization of the academy” was much discussed at the time.  Along with George’s book, Catholic historian James Burtchaell’s The Dying of the Light was published at roughly the same time.

Topic #7: Evangelicalism and Higher Education

/0 Comments/in /by
In response to the secularization of American higher education, explicitly evangelical schools, colleges, and universities have arisen to provide education within a distinctly evangelical framework. By educating students in a wide range of fields, and not just distinctly Christian disciplines such as biblical studies and theology, these evangelical institutions maintain that all education is shaped significantly by theological commitments. At the same time, graduates of these institutions are being prepared for careers outside the church where these theological commitments are not held. In light of this, some “leading questions” are

Science and the Knowledge of Creation

/0 Comments/in /by
The Christian perspective on nature is deeply rooted in profoundly evocative creation narratives (Gn 1-2; Ps 8; Jn 1; Co 1; et. al.). The inter-textual approach between the Prologue of the Gospel of John as a commentary on Genesis is most instructive. The focus is not upon the seven days of creation but upon God and the divine Logos as the sole agency of all created existence. It is conspicuous however that two verses from the great creation story of Genesis 1 have the Creator fashioning the earth and its seas to “bring forth life” (vss. 20, 24) as a secondary agency in creation. Since Augustine (4th – 5th centuries) there is a sense that the seven days of creation are taxonomic in some way and not to be regarded as literal 24 hour days. Ultimate causation belongs to the Creator and nothing in the nuts and bolts of modern science actually contradicts this. Side-taking, either / or judgments against science is not only unnecessary but unwise.

Accidents That Happen Accidentally

/0 Comments/in /by
I’m late to the party for Topic #6, though I’ve been following the conversation with interest, and better late than never. The mere existence of this discussion is cheering: it couldn’t have taken place when I was in high school, in the 1960s. And our discussion is representative of a much larger ongoing dialogue, as evidenced by books such as Four Views on the Historical Adam, coming from Zondervan this November, Bradley J. Gundlach’s Process and Providence: The Evolution Question at Princeton, 1845-1929, also scheduled for publication, by Eerdmans, in November, and Tim Stafford’s The Adam Quest: Eleven Scientists Explore the Divine Mystery of Human Origins, due at the end of this year from Thomas Nelson.

Why Conservative Christian Piety Should Animate Evangelical Engagement with Science’s Sticky Subjects

/3 Comments/in /by
“Well, it’s kinda hard for me to believe in Jesus because—well, you know, the dinosaurs and everything.” Stuart was in the first year of a graduate degree, with wavy brown hair and cheeks to match the hue of his posh pink polo. Sawing at a tough bit of curry chicken over dinner during an Alpha course, this agnostic student was responding distractedly to my question, “What strikes you as the most troubling feature of Christianity’s claims about Jesus?” For all that it lacked in rhetorical verve, Stuart’s off-hand comment voiced one of the fundamental difficulties educated non-Christians must overcome in order to embrace Christianity: the popular face of our religion seems squarely and thoroughly incompatible with scientific knowledge. 

What We Need Is An Entmoot

/0 Comments/in /by
Strictly speaking, evolution doesn’t make any claims about the nature or origin of sin.  Sin is and, throughout the history of Christianity, has been, a theological concept.  It is rebellion against God.  And the last time I checked, the latest scientific discussions of the mechanisms by which natural selection operate on random genetic mutations did not include any references to Divine displeasure.  Thus, it’s not yet clear to me how evolutionary theory should threaten my fundamental understanding of sin.

Living with Unfinished Conflict Between Religion and Science

/3 Comments/in /by

I’d like to take a step back here and ask what may seem to be a stupid pair of questions. Why are we, where issues of science and religion are concerned, writing mainly about evolution? And does the lack of historical perspective make this a more troubling and divisive issue for us than it needs to be? 

The perspective available to us is quite deep. Heliocentrism was once seen as an attack on faith, and perhaps as a more threatening attack than evolutionary theory appears now; not human origins and purpose but the origins and purpose of the whole universe inevitably came into question. The Biblical creation story, to start with, doesn’t work so well if our planet is a sort of footnote in a solar system, and if that solar system is just a speck in a galaxy. Christianity got over this intellectual difficulty, or rather didn’t even fully experience it. Church authorities digested the problem over time and quietly allowed for it in their doctrine. Luckily for them, the scientific debate was over before most ordinary people even knew of it.

Wake Me When The Revolution is Over

/6 Comments/in /by
What we need in the midst of these paradigmatic shifts are people of faithful character who neither duck the hard questions, settling for pat answers, nor abandon their faith because the answer is uncertain. Rather, they press on toward the mark in pursuit of the new Paradigm that brings some measure of reconciliation, at least until the next anomalies come along.

I Miss the Middle Ages

/3 Comments/in /by
Today’s controversy over evolution and the historical Adam is best understood as the ongoing controversy over the Copernican revolution because of the great degree of overlap between the central concerns raised by each—concerns about how the overall Christian understanding of the world and its history, especially the central theological role played by humans, fits with the reality disclosed by science.