The Next Frontier: Why Evangelical Seminaries Must Engage this Issue
I approach this discussion as a seminary professor who teaches theology and Christian Thought courses, including a course devoted to “Theology and Science.” I have discovered that our seminary students have had very little exposure to complex discussions of the relation between science and theology. They often come into seminary (as I did) with minimal science background and often with only peripheral exposure to questions and issues around the intersection of science and religion. Some of them, having been raised in conservative Christian traditions, matriculate with perceptions about the fundamental incompatibility between scientific explanations about origins and orthodox Christian faith and theology. The evangelical seminary context calls for special attention to possibilities of constructive dialogue between the scientific consensus on origins and an evangelical, orthodox theology committed to the authority of Scripture.
It is not exaggerating to say there is urgency about this issue. Most observers recognize that the institutional American church is in a state of decline (see, for example, David Olson’s The American Church in Crisis, Zondervan, 2008). Part of the reason for this decline is that church leaders are not equipping their congregants to intelligently engage challenging worldview issues (including, among others, theological, philosophical and ethical questions). A recent book by David Kinnamen, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church…and Rethinking Faith (Baker, 2011), shows that close to 60% of churched teenagers drop out of church after high school, often rejecting their faith altogether. One of the reasons for this, as Kinnaman’s research shows, is a perceived “anti-science” attitude within the Church. Pastors, youth pastors, and other church leaders either ignore issues raised by science or they take an aggressive stance against it (reflecting the “conflict” model in Ian Barbour’s oft-cited typology). Recently, a group of Christian sociologists studied fifty “deconversion narratives” and published an analysis of those narratives. They discovered that a major reason for many of these deconversions was the lack of engagement within the church regarding complex intellectual issues like the relation between faith and science (a full 2/3 of the respondents spoke about intellectual issues). In the words of one former Baptist in the study: “Christianity is a disease; education is the cure.”
Traditionally, apologetics has been directed primarily to non-Christians (atheists, agnostics, or adherents of other major religions). But another apologetic need is arising today within the church itself. This apologetic argues that the perceived forced choice between science and faith is a false dichotomy. But it is one that is perpetuated by many pastors, youth pastors and other leaders in conservative streams of Christianity. Seminaries need to engage with science on issues like “origins” because they need to equip pastors with a sophisticated worldview and a capacity for nuanced discourse around the intersection of biblical hermeneutics, theological anthropology, and scientific explanations of cosmic, terrestrial and human origins. In short, pastors need to be able to help parishioners who are convinced by the scientific consensus on origins to realize that they can accept this consensus while simultaneously affirming the Bible’s unique, divine authority as the inspired word of God. They can acknowledge that while science helps us to explain things at an empirical, natural level, Scripture provides explanations and insight into theological, moral, and metaphysical realities. Alastair McGrath’s use of Roy Bhaskar’s stratification metaphor is helpful here: science and theology offer distinct but complementary (and even overlapping at times) layers of explanation. As Galileo, citing Cardinal Baronius, famously said: the Bible was written to tell us how to go to heaven; not how the heavens go.” People should not feel forced to choose between either science or faith; either science or theology; either science or Scripture.
When seminaries (and pastors) engage science integratively and hospitably, rather than with deep suspcion and hostilly, a number of complex issues emerge that demand sustained attention. How should Genesis 1 and 2-3 (two distinct but related creation accounts) be interpreted (i.e. what is meant by a “day” in Genesis 1 and should we understand Adam and Eve as historical persons or as theologically symbolic archetypes? What are the theological implications of accepting an evolutionary account of human origins on our understanding of the imago Dei? How should we understand the connection between sin and salvation (from what–or to what–are we saved by Christ)? Can or should a doctrine of “orignal,” or “inherited” sin be preserved in an evangelical theology which takes an evolutionary creationist account? Or is the noticeable reality that all people are in fact sinners (what theologians have pointed to as the most empirically verifiable doctrine of all) enough to secure for us that we need a Savior–irrespective of one’s view on a literal Adam/Eve and a historic Fall? Furthermore, there are a host of implications for our understanding of evil and suffering (theodicy): If death has been around for millions of years of evolutionary history, then death is not the consequence of human disobedience. Is God, then, somehow implicated in death’s sting–from the very beginning?
Many more questions could be listed. It would not surprise me if these questions surrounding the intersection of theology and science become the next frontier of popular, evangelical debate (we’re probably already there). A number of theologians, philosophers, and scientists who are self-identifying evangelical Christians are exploring these questions and others in the pursuit toward a more integrative Christian theology and a more cohesive Christian faith. Books and academic papers are being written, grant projects are under way (see for example the numerous, diverse BioLogos projects on “Evolution and Christian Faith“), and conferences and colloquia are taking place. Key to the sustainability of these academic projects, however, will be their translatability into the parlance of the everyday pastor and of the “Christian in the pew,” many of whom have been socialized within their evangelical faith to either avoid science or to combat it. It will be important to show that this integrative work is consonant with a high view of Scripture and the primacy of Christ for salvation. It will also be important to develop and articulate a fully-orbed, progressive, evangelical theology that connects the dots between creation, sin, salvation and the Eschaton–and which allows science to have a prominently descriptive role (one of the strata) in that theology. For that to happen, evangelical seminaries will need to be involved.
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