After many years of sitting together in restaurants hearing about how my biology colleague in a community college of Dallas digested the siege mentality of creationists here in the buckle of the Bible Belt, I have invited him to have a meal with my Eastern Orthodox parents and me.
Oddly, his sister worked with Bill Bright the first president of Campus Crusade and says Darwin was a demon, but also that she prays for her brother. I was student president of Yale Crusade.
This guy has seen the national struggle with creationists and’s his colleague in the biology department said science professors in the 1970s were “hated” for teaching evolution.
Given this man’s family story and degree of cynicism about evangelicals, and given I agree with him about Darwin’s theory, and given he won’t be sitting with evangelical antievolutionists for dinner, how should I approach talking to him?
Two committed antievolutionists said it is now “time to present the Gospel to him” and not to focus on “evolutionary distractions”.
He knows of a local megachurch that openly opposes evolutionary theory and he considers them hypocrites as well, just out for money.
I think he has heard the Gospel message about a million times from his sister and others.
He loves icthyology and has 62 fish tanks in his house, and has been to 97 countries. He lives alone and teaches 11 classes per semester instead of 5. He stays in the lab till midnight! High level of dedication to his work.
Thoughts about how to talk with him? My parents are retired doctors and love science.
I think that the secret of any converston where there are opposing standpoint is not to be dogmatic and certainly not to preach. It is an insult to expect him not to know where you are coming from or to assume that he has never heard the gospel.
The point is not to ram God into evolution but to discuss thhe fact that the hand of God may not be visible enough to be noticed by those who do not wish to beleive or are even antagonistic to the idea. God can be in evolution without science knowing it. It would also be a mistake to try and dismiss or belittle his understandings just because they do not match your own.
Keeping diologue open is the ultimat secret of discussion. Putitng someone’s back up or forcing them to defend themselves is a sure fire way to stop such diologue. All you end up with is posturing and assetions.
Having dinner with him is a great start. There is something about sharing a table with someone that is bonding. Talk about your common interests, listen to what brings him joy and sorrow. Let the gospel flow naturally out of your relationship and what he sees in your life.
Ask him about his fish? Ask him about his travels?
Just talk to him like you would to anyone else. If your aim is to convert him to Christianity, then you’ve invited him for the wrong reason, you’re being extremely rude, and he’d be fully justified in telling you to [redacted] off.
P.S. You didn’t actually say he’s not a Christian.
the dilemma here is the same for any individual who wishes to present the gospel to a non Christian…your statement about creationism verse Theistic Evolutionism is not relevant to the dilemma there (that is something fabricated only on these forums that is simply untrue).
Contrary to the very poor theological claims i regularly read on these forums, people do not leave Christianity because of YEC or Naturalism.
The bible very specifically tells us that people lose their faith in God because of unbelief.
No amount of science changes non belief…and that is because Christian faith isnt scientific, God isnt a science experiment that can be tested with all the usual methods. The dilemma with the scientific approach…some significant examples:
How do you demonstrate to a scientist that Christ called demons out of an individual (or two depending on the gospel you read), cast them into a herd of pigs who all ran down into the sea and drowned themselves?
How do you show scientifically that we are following in the footsteps of a man, who rose up into the sky (against the laws of gravity), and dissappeared into the clouds and that one day all those who believe on Him will experience the same phenomenom?
the record of the travels of the apostle Paul has its very credibility trashed when one reads the biblical claim that whilst shipwrecked on Malta, he was bitten by a poisonous snake and survived. The scientific record shows no evidence of any such species on that island. This evidence suggests the new testament theology, given the miracles examples above, is a fabrication.
one of the Bibles greatest prophets and prolific writers (Moses) is considered by quite a number of TEists, to be a myth or at least his writings have no historical accuracy.
when you scientist friend eventually stumbles across the above, and a large number of other tales like them in the bible…and he will…how do you expect to convince him that the rest of the bible claims about “God” are not a fairytale?
the challenge is unbelief!!!
Of course there is one avenue for input…naturalism still doesnt have a reasonable answer for intelligence. Even Dawkins wonders if perhaps an alien race from another planet seeded ours. Of course this begs the question, who started the alien race on the other planet that seeded ours?)…so there’s that discussion to be had i suppose.
In any case, a person has to first recognise the case for a belief in God…that is the challenge for you there. I think that the Intelligent Design proponents have a case for you to present there. The probability that a primordial soup produced intelligent life are overwhelmingly in favour of I/D and strongly favour an intelligent creator who “made us in His likeness”
I guess it depends on why you’re having him over for dinner and what he expects? What kinds of things does anyone talk about with dinner guests?
If this is a secret ambush intended to hold him hostage for another gospel presentation, then don’t expect the relationship to continue.
If I were invited over as a guest, I would expect the host to want to get to know me better, find out what we have in common, learn more about my background, passions, interests, what I do when I’m not doing my job, etc.
Considering your colleague, I’d want to know how he manages to teach 11 sections in a semester! and what motivates him to do that.
Somewhat “missing the [legitimate] point” you are making, the island in question is literally “Μελίτη,” transliterated “Melité” which could be this:
I don’t know if it “works” in terms of the trajectory of Paul’s journey, but I have a hard time believing that “nobody in Acts knew about Malta,” which is prominent enough in the Mediterranean and was under Roman control by 218 BCE…and Mljet has venomous snakes…
I knew an ichthyology guy who had ‘only’ a dozen fish tanks. The kool thing was that they were linked in groups by cleat pipe, with pipes from one variety of fish running through tanks of those they couldn’t live with, so it was possible for any of the fish to be seen with/next-to any other kind.
If it was me, I’d start talking about fish tank setups, but that may not be your thing.
I had a great conversation with a vintage car enthusiast last night. I grew up with one, and can appreciate the beauty of design, although I am not an enthusiast. There was enough overlap in our interests that I also learned about his family and his job.
This is possible with nearly anyone who is willing and able to talk with someone outside their field of interest, who is interested in “getting to know you a bit.”
Taking interest in another person’s interest in something, maybe unimportant to you, helps make connections, build a relationship.
I appreciate this sarcasm. Was thinking along the same lines myself.
Nobody (well, there might be somebody, but I don’t know them) wants to be invited to dinner to be confronted with an argument they weren’t expecting or didn’t want to have. It makes the Gospel seem like an aggressive sales pitch–the way time shares are sold.
If that is “spreading the Gospel” I wouldn’t want it. It just looks like the host is meeting a quota, rather than loving their neighbor.
Best to learn about why fish are so cool and ask for a tour sometime of his aquaria.
And that unbelief comes quit often because of having been raised YEC.
Deny it all you want, but unbelief isn’t something that just happens to someone, it has causes – and finding out you’ve been misled is a big one, especially when you’ve been taught that if Genesis isn’t scientifically correct then the Bible is worthless.
No, first a person has to recognize that he is broken – then he’ll be able to hear about a Savior. Making a “case for a belief in God” is almost always pointless because very few people come to God via reason.
And anyone as educated as described here will see that this is a “God of the gaps” argument and not only ignore it but resent having it mentioned because “God of the gaps” arguments are an insult to intelligence.
You impose something onto humanity that God did not make. God is not so imcompetant as t make a race that can overturn His design within daays of its concepton. Humanity is nt broken. it is how God made us.
You cannot expct the rest of the world to beleive something that just is not rue.
In most cases, I think it is more than just a single issue however. Of some I know, they reject Christianity on the basis of not only the adherence of some Christians to false teaching about science, but making it central to their worldview, while at the same time not living lives exhibiting love towards others as commanded by Christ. That may be exhibited not only through social aspects, but in recent years also through creation care issues as well. I myself reject that sort of Christianity, though I admit my struggles to live it, as I love my truck, and air conditioning. And travel.
That’s been my observation as well. The vast majority of people raised in the church are given a more wholistic approach to Christianity. It’s those who are taken down a very narrow and black/white version of Christianity that seem to be the most at risk of having their faith destroyed by a single issue. In my own experience there was some YEC taught to me in Sunday school in my preteen years, but it was never presented as an absolute necessity. It was a whole host of other questions and issues that led me away from the church, none of which was the fault of anyone in that congregation. I have seen others struggle with the same issues, but remain in the church and actually have their faith strengthened by the experience. Each human is different, I guess.
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“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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