Books about Evolution and God

What are some good books about how Evolution and belief in the Christian God can co-exist?

If you have not already done so, look at this home site under resources, and click on recommended books on the drop down menu. Good place to start, may be a good time to make a Christmas list.

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I am more interested in the EC point of view. Thank you for the answers.

Co-existence is the tip of an iceberg, so I offer only a few specifics. This may be off the beaten path for you but Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind is an interesting historic commentary on the relationship of the two and the needs at present. He wrote a follow-up (Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind) but I haven’t read it in full yet. As for a biblical-exegetical voice in the origins/Christian/evolution dialogue, John Walton (esp. Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament and Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology) has some interesting points.

What’s the goal of your interest, if I can ask?

Hello Emily, and welcome to BioLogos - feel free to look around and ask other questions if you have any.

Here are my pics for good reads from an EC perspective:

A lot of people find Francis Collins’ book The Language of God a meaningful read. I think if you read just one book on the subject that would be a good one. I also am a big fan of Darrel Falk’s book Coming to Peace With Science.

The Haarsma’s book Origins is also a great overview of the various Christian positions on origins.

I too am a fan of John Walton’s books, and his The Lost World of Genesis One and The Lost World of Adam and Eve are great reads as well.

@Celticroots -

I see you’ve actually been around for a while - my bad! I guess I’ll change my welcome to a belated welcome. :slight_smile:

You ask a very good question, @Celticroots. I see that @Eddie has suggested some ID-friendly titles that are more accepting of common ancestry than most ID books, and those works might be helpful to some. I note however that you want specifically EC books rather than ID books. I appreciate that, so let me suggest just a few of many possible titles. In general, books about EC by authors who would take a BL-type theological approach are numerous, but many of them are devoted more to specific aspects of the issue (for example, the question of the historical Adam or reviewing the evidence for evolution) than to evolution and Christian faith in general.

On our site we recommend many books here: Recommended Books - BioLogos
All six in the category “Christianity and Evolution” are well worth reading. Where to start depends on your background and level of theological engagement you want. Deb Haarsma’s book (written with her husband Loren) might be the best overall introduction for most readers; it’s the one I recommend most frequently when lay Christians ask me for a good book about evolution and faith. I also favor anything by Denis Lamoureux, including the heavy-duty book listed there. However, a much shorter version of that book would be easier to tackle, unless you want all the details (and some readers will want those): https://www.amazon.com/Love-Jesus-Accept-Evolution/dp/1556358865

Finally, I like this book by Gary Fugle (see the introductory paragraphs to this column of his): Where is God in Nature? - BioLogos

I hope this helps. Keep bringing your questions to us.

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Thank you all. I will check those books out.

And at the risk of blowing my own horn, Scot McKnight and I have a book coming out in January. Scot’s half deals with scriptural issues, and my half is an introduction to evolution, a discussion of population genetics (humans come from a population, not solely from a pair) and a discussion of why Intelligent Design fails as an adequate way of looking at the evidence.

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I am a writer as well (not published. Yet) I’ll look for your book when its released to get a Kindle version.

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Thanks for your recommendation.

Are there any good books for children, say grades 1-5, that cover the same ground, and have the same viewpoint, as the six in the “Christianity and Evolution” list?

Thanks!

As far as I know, (and I’ve been keeping an eye out for a while now), there aren’t.

(One woman posted a book she made herself on our homeschooling forum: Here is the link: Some additional evolution-related materials I've enjoyed using - #6 by tigerlily )

I have read Billions of Years Amazing Changes with my kids, but it is not a Christian resource.

Some teachers have reported that this website is very helpful, but I think it might be geared more toward junior high and high school. Activity Maps – FASTly – Faith & Science Teaching

I was afraid that that was the situation.

I’ll check out the self-produced book.

Thanks.

I am a bit late to this conversation, but will add in my own two-cents. I am also one of the BioLogos Voices, and concur with a number of previous posts. Dennis Venema has a great gift for communicating complex science in ways understandable to non-experts, and I will be sure to get my own copy of the book he is authoring with McKnight. I will also mention my own book, When Faith and Science Collide. A revised edition will be coming out in late 2017 (probably with a new title), but the current version is still viable. It is designed to provide readers with a systematic method of working through apparent conflicts between science and Scripture, that is honoring to both. The method is applied to the age of the earth and evolution (including human evolution) to demonstrate the lack of genuine conflict. Happy reading!
Gregg

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