Thanks for posting. I enjoy Joel’s articles, and he did a good job with this one. AIG thrives on escalating the culture wars.
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Not through this article, but I found Biologos late last year due to my searching for good science & sound biblical teaching as direct result of the pandemic. I’m very thankful.
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Hearken unto me, ye heretics and false teachers! Part 2 has been posted.
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Part 2 is up.
I feel good about the part in the Integrate curriculum where we note how YEC and atheists are big allies in promoting the conflict thesis.
A leading atheist, Richard Bozarth, understood this far better than the writers at BioLogos. He once commented…
[ETA: “Once commented” in 1978, that’s right, a year after I was born, because it’s evidently not important to use current quotes when you are dealing with the subject of science. No real need to update your rhetorical material every four decades or so. 
]
… “Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of god. Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer that died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing.” https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/calvin-smith/2022/01/24/biologos-heresy-and-false-teaching-part-2/
I find it ironic that in the same article BioLogos is criticized for taking the “atheist secular pagan” scientists’ word for it when it comes to the age of the geologic column (i.e. commenting on science, an area of expertise), but there is no problem at all taking the atheist scientist word for it when he is commenting on the meaning of the atonement, something he doesn’t even believe in.
There were also a couple fact checks I would like to note, since the article was not really up to my personal standards of journalistic integrity.
Even one of BioLogos’ most prominent spokespeople has admitted…
Followed by a Karl Giberson quote. And then some guilt by association stuff because Giberson quoted science and religion scholar Ian Barbour in 2011. This is proof that the authors don’t really read the BioLogos website or have much of an idea what goes on here. Karl Giberson has not been prominently affiliated with BioLogos since 2011. But according to them, “Karl Giberson has been a major contributor to BioLogos from its inception.” More like was a major contributor at its inception in 2009. There are nine Giberson articles currently on the website, all from 2009 to 2012. It is now 2022, for the record. (I’ve written 17 articles, do I get to be a major contributor?)
Another “major contributor” is Kenton Sparks. He has one article on the website, from 2010: Scripture, Evolution and the Problem of Science - BioLogos
He is painted as a blasphemer because he said Jesus “erred” from time to time. Please go up thread and read what Sparks was referring to as “erring.” It was not sin, it was things like misplacing his saw or hitting his thumb with a hammer while learning carpentry. There is some pretty willful misrepresentation going on there to frame examples of Jesus being limited by his incarnated human body and brain as a “deconstruction of the gospel.”
Here is where we get to the real issue:
Some of the most influential Christian leaders contribute to BioLogos, and BioLogos speakers are regularly invited into Bible colleges, seminaries, Christian homeschool events, and churches under the guise of “intellectual discourse” within the church.
They sound a little jealous.
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An open door, an open heart and an open mind. I think they prefer to keep those closed.
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Answers in Genesis presents reality through their funhouse mirrors: inaccurate and distorted.
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Calvin Smith raises some issues that need a thoughtful response rather than a reaction.
That must go both ways Laura. Don’t you think?
Feel free to clarify what issues you believe those were. BioLogos leadership is already aware that AIG thinks anything other than a literalistic historical reading of Genesis and an outright denial of most of the facts of modern science is “false teaching.” They are entitled to their opinion on that.
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How so? I think we should all encourage curiosity and pursue honest scientific inquiry rather than simply deciding how old the universe must be and working backwards from that, which unfortunately seems to be AIG’s method.
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This entire thread has some interesting reactions including turf protection. I appreciate your research on the quotes. Some writers slagging has no place in these discussions.
I will clarify that the second article did provide links in their footnotes. But they were certainly scouring the corners of the internet to find remaining copies of Enns’s 2010 article at “https://recursos.facultadseut.org/gestion/opac/doc_num.php?explnum_id=170” instead of actually interacting with the current scholarship and conversation the organization is promoting on the website today or citing the views of the current leadership. Deb Haarsma has been president since 2013 and her name was not mentioned and nothing she has said or written was cited in either article. That’s not admirable journalism.
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It’s as simple as this, Paul.
There is such a thing as objective reality. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but no-one is entitled to their own facts. Claiming that facts are not facts is lying, and denouncing facts as “heresy” or “false teaching” is gaslighting. Especially when the person making such an accusation is weaponising the Bible in support of it.
If pointing that out is “turf protection” and “writers slagging,” then quite frankly I don’t know what isn’t.
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Then why don’t you invite him here for a discussion?
I “joined” AiG 2 days ago (made a signin) after reading Christy’s very good response, and emailed the staff, asking if they would consider bringing this to Mr Smith’s and AiG’s attention. I don’t have any direct line to him, though.
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Joel Edmund Anderson reply to Part II of the AIG attack has been posted. (There will be a part 3 where he talks about the BioLogos writers.)
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Incidentally I see that @Joel_Duff has his own take on AIG’s hit job in his This Week in Creationism series:
He makes an interesting observation that he thinks AIG must be taking the heat from organisations such as BioLogos and Reasons to Believe. I think he’s got a point there. Over the years, the YEC position has become more and more unsustainable, the evidence against it has become stronger and stronger, and rebuttals to their claims have become more and more accessible, more and more refined, and expressed in more and more evangelical-friendly ways, and as a result they’re increasingly having to resort to shouting, bullying and weaponising the Bible in order to maintain traction.
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AIG IS TO BE FORGIVEN FOR THEIR MANNER OF READING THE BIBLE. THEY ARE YET COMMITTED TO A 19th CENTURY PRE-SCIENTIFIC WORLDVIEW. THEY BELIEVE THEY ARE TRUE DEFENDERS OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. IT IS FOOLISHNESS TO RATTLE THEIR CHAINS.
I believe in evolution but I fail to see the combination of theism plus evolution as something capable of proof. What would that even mean?
Why is it necessary to tie creation to the idea of an omnipotent and omniscient god? I believe this is another leap of logic similar to that of creationism.
Evolution means that we do not need a Creatrix; this aspect of Her is negated. Indeed, theistic evolution is based more so upon the concept of a Watcher who is available to be experienced, perhaps but who does not change things up by performing magical feats upon either request or command.
Get thee behind me Satan.
Many of the issues with predestination fade away with the concept of an extremely powerful Entity that is in no way omnipotent nor omniscient. These concepts relating to perfection derive from Plato, which is a great irony.
Many of us use the term Yahweh instead of God, Father or even Jehovah, which has been softened, exactly because we find Yahweh’s actions and thoughts to often be shocking if not perverse, and using this term Yahweh is a form of iconoclasm.
I also note that the traditional beliefs amount to the idea of a Creatrix who toys with us to achieve Her own needs, not ours. She purportedly came up with the intricate point by point outlaying of Christianity and salvation and yes, most of it is based on pseudo-logic involving original sin and who’s to blame for that.
With a watcher, things like this simulation notion of humanity are muted but it seems clear that in the traditional faith, Yahweh needed his followers as much as they needed him, How many times does Yahweh either destroy humanity or threaten to destroy the Jews and start all over again. We see Moses and even Joshua, shall we say, men who are hardened by life experience and they continue to try to reason with Yahweh when He’s in one of His moods.
None of this seems consistent with omniscience nor does it seem consistent with rationality. My feeling is that virtually no Jew nor Christian believes that the book of Joshua is based upon history or reality except in the most remote senses of these words. Joshua is to teach a lesson about not accommodating unholiness but unfortunately, it conflates polytheism with being unholy and this is not logically connected at all.
There’s nothing less scientific about paganism or animism in terms of belief in the divine but people of the Book seem to believe that monotheism was an achievement of sorts rationally and scientifically. It is not. Monotheism might be correct but it’s no more likely than a host of 70 gods and goddesses running the world unless we are actually able to commune with such a Spirt which many use as an end around. This is because we don’t want to be atheists; most of us want to be believe in Truth but we are unwilling to bend reality to fit a text. Doing so would be dishonest and destructive to us, not to those who chose to believe in a male God without a consort, which seems incoherent to me but eh…
Goddess bless
Greetings! I am not sure what this means, though. I don’t think Biologos has attacked them. It is reasonable to respond to them with kindness and logic. We all are at risk for logical inconsistencies. I myself came from a YEC standpoint, and have many family members who still struggle with that. I’m only recently realizing I’m not that good with most areas of faith–maybe that simply reflects that I’m learning more than I did before (a little knowledge is dangerous!).
I do agree that we should not respond aggressively to aggression, though!
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