AI: Francis Collins’s views on evolution have not influenced the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) to change its prevailing skepticism or opposition to the theory. While his work has provided resources and a model for individual Southern Baptists to reconcile faith and science, the official and dominant position within the SBC remains strongly aligned with young-earth creationism or views that consider evolution incompatible with a straightforward biblical interpretation.
For some individual Southern Baptists, Francis Collins’s book, The Language of God, and his founding of the BioLogos organization have been influential. His approach of “theistic evolution” (or “evolutionary creationism”) has helped some within the denomination navigate their personal faith while accepting the scientific evidence for evolution. Personal accounts detail how Collins’s work, along with that of figures like C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller, provided a framework for accepting the scientific consensus on origins without feeling they had to abandon their Christian faith.
The Southern Baptist Convention as a body has not adopted or moved toward Collins’s perspective. Key SBC leaders and institutions have explicitly rejected his views.
Many in Biologos would measure their success in a different way than this – by providing a way for people who study science and learn the truth in biology to continue their belief in Christianity. It is to understand despite naysayers in both atheism and some sectors of Christianity that there really is no conflict.
47% believe humans evolved over time through processes guided or allowed by God. This aligns with theistic evolution or evolutionary creationism, which integrates scientific understanding with divine purpose.
33% accept evolution as a purely natural process, with no divine involvement. These Christians fully embrace the scientific consensus without theological framing.
17% reject evolution entirely, believing humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.
What proportion of US Evangelicals fully accept evolution?
Only about 27% of U.S. Evangelicals fully accept evolution, with most favoring a version guided by God. A majority still reject the scientific consensus.
Here’s a detailed breakdown based on the latest Pew Research Center data and related surveys:
Evangelical Views on Human Evolution
27% of Evangelical Protestants say humans evolved over time.
Of these, most believe the process was guided or allowed by God—a view known as theistic evolution or evolutionary creationism.
66% reject evolution, believing humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.
Yes and people in other places like Europe think we are a bit peculiar.
76% of Europe is Christian. And 70% of those accept evolution. Since the population of Europe is more than twice the US that is a LOT of people!
yep. And that is why Biologos exists… to promote the scientific worldview in the evangelical community.
I certainly think God was involved. Like I said in the other thread… I believe God created the universe for a relationship NOT just to sit back and watch. The difference from Intelligent design… aside from me personally equating design with machines, is no support for the idea the evolutionary process requires divine intervention in order to work. It works just fine by itself, but that doesn’t mean there is no room for God being involved to get particular results He wants… like those pesky religious animals running everywhere.
I’m not sure of the reason for asking this. I don’t think that Dr Collins belongs to the SBC. I know some very good people from that group, and they are apparently improving in many ways–but Russell Moore had to leave because of some significant differences.
“Losing My Religion,” by Moore, is helpful to read, and also some of his podcasts and emails from Christianity Today, where he currently works, are great). SBC used to be fairly liberal, till there was a revolt about the 1970s, I think.
well, I have been a member of an SBC church all my life, and it is certainly not a monolithic block. There are moderate congregations, and fundamentalist organizations, and mixtures of both.
But interestingly enough, I bet 90%of the members couldn’t tell you who Francis Collins is.
They are known in Togo, where some of my family lived for about 30 years (but were not SBC themselves), for helping people to go to college for education, etc. They have a good reputation.
I am a Baptist, but not of the SBC. Independent with no denominational heirarchy with power over the local congregation.
Apart from my husband and kids I don’t know of anyone from any Baptist church I have been a part of who accepts evolution. Period.
I don’t believe I have ever heard anyone mention Francis Collins or Biologos. I suspect if they did, it would be in the context of anathema. AIG is seen, by the ones I know who think about the issue, as protecting the word of God and right belief. This is one of the reasons we finally left our former church. The greater one was Christian nationalism..
My family and I now attend a PCA church and have found the situation to be similar, except that the views have the support and approval of an official denominational heirarchy as well as the backing of a 17th century interpretive standard.
@Gary_M, you mention your background is LMS. I’ve assumed they handle these issues similarly. Is that the case?
My pastor has said he feels evolution is compatible with Christian belief, but I think he is more in the Hugh Ross camp personally, though I purposely have not asked him just to avoid putting him on the spot due to the diverse opinions in our congregation. I know several members who are in that camp, as well as others in the ID camp, and a handful who accept evolution as per mainstream science. A big portion never think about it, and another big portion are default young earthers, with some definite AIG supporters. A tough crowd for a pastor to navigate, so pretty much he avoids the subject. He has referenced “atheistic evolutionists” a time or two in sermons, and once I tried to explain the difference in philosophical naturalism and methodological naturalism, but that is really above the heads of the vast majority of the people in the pews.
The SBC is still controlled by the fundy crowd, but they do not have enough support to do what they want, as it takes a 2/3 vote to kick out a congregation who, say, has a woman pastor. An exception was Saddleback, probably due to its prominence. Regarding evolution, I do not think they have an official position, but rely on such language as statements of scriptural inerrancy which implies literalism as their default position. It would not surprise me to see a big denomination split down the way, and the only reason it has not occurred in my cynical mind is money and how funding works in their system, and in the local congregations. No one wants to split and lose the mutual benefits of pooling their funds. Maybe I am just being cynical, but that is what it seems to me.
Sorry for the word diarrhea, just thinking on the keyboard, always a dangerous thing.
Did you know AIG has a children’s Sunday School curriculum? I didn’t until our old church bought it. We didn’t leave for years, but it got harder and harder explaining to our kids why half the Sunday school lesson was wrong. The damage to the faith of thinking kids is massive.
Yep, the damage is real. I was talking with some old friends whose kids are now 40ish who grew up with mine, and it was surprising how many of their children deconstructed and now reject Christianity or are apathetic towards it. And consistent with what you are saying about damage, the more conservative to fundamentalist parents seem to have the highest percentage of kids who fell away from the church. I am blessed that my kids are both active in organized religion, and they grew up on a steady diet of PBS and Nova, and attended schools that have no problem with evolution and related stuff. So much for secular universities destroying faith. The fundamentalists do a much better job of that.
Sigh. So it’s all natural, but there’s magic under the statistically smooth surface. Well… that’s a belief (not a relief). Not the knowledge kind. But enough for most here. I wish it were for me, I really do. I just can’t run the two entirely separate magisteria side by side. Although nature is apparently undetectably infiltrated by supernature. It’s that super. It can do that. Without a trace.
The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod: We teach that God has created heaven and earth, and that in the manner and in the space of time recorded in the Holy Scriptures, especially Gen. 1 and 2, namely, by His almighty creative word, and in six days. We reject every doctrine which denies or limits the work of creation as taught in Scripture. In our days it is denied or limited by those who assert, ostensibly in deference to science, that the world came into existence through a process of evolution; that is, that it has, in immense periods of time, developed more or less of itself. Since no man was present when it pleased God to create the world, we must look for a reliable account of creation to God’s own record, found in God’s own book, the Bible. We accept God’s own record with full confidence and confess with Luther’s Catechism: “I believe that God has made me and all creatures.”
My church is, like @Kendel attended before, Baptist (General Association of Regular Baptists). Although I don’t know of anyone else who is theistic evolutionist, I was surprised by an apologetics video course this summer by Chip Ingram. He is very congenial and kind, and mentioned that he was surprised that people like Francis Collins exist. He extolled his studies in the Human Genome Project, and “The Language of God. “ On the other hand, Ingram told everyone that Ken Ham was right–that we could just choose how to view evidence as we liked, and it all boiled down to prejudice. That hand waving really broke down everyone’s regard for the evidence. One person remarked that she was relieved that she did not have to feel awed by the science arguments, as a result, when she argued for YEC.
In the Sunday School discussion, I praised what I knew of Collins as a brilliant, humble Christian. Some others said that all of the Bible hinged on a right understanding of Genesis (including my pastor), and two others expressed concern that Collins and others could not, by extension, be Christians. This was even though they acknowledged that it was not the gospel, so to speak. I did not tell everyone my own beliefs this time, as I thought it might be too hard for them to grasp yet. I have told about 20 people in my church my beliefs. I think they tolerate me kindly. .
What magic? Well I suppose there is that quote by Arthur C. Clarke, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Knowledge is just belief you live by. For scientific knowledge this equates to theory which has become accepted by consensus as one of the tools of scientific inquiry itself.
Science and religion are not separate magisteria because the separation only works one way. Science works by a methodology therefore religious conclusions are irrelevant to science. But scientific conclusions are simply what is reasonable given the objectively repeatable evidence and thus religion must conform to these conclusions to be reasonable.
Natural law is not infiltrated. It is simply not a causally closed system – not deterministic. It only dictates the probability distributions. In other words, miracles can be dismissed as statistical outliers – just coincidence, and the religious dismissed as people with overactive pattern recognition.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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Evangelical Views on Human Evolution