Being raised in a conservative Christian background, learning about theistic evolution from Francis Collins’ book was challenging to me when I was younger. I struggled for some time with whether Christianity and evolution were legitimately compatible or if I just wanted them to be compatible.
One thing that has encouraged me with believing in compatibility is seeing that some people and scientists from a non-Christian background (including Francis Collins) have come to believe in Christianity while already holding evolution as true before their conversion.
Here are some examples I’ve found from the BioLogos website and/or books. If you know of any others (including yourself or someone you know), I’d love to learn more.
My formative years came along far before those books were written, but I found them helpful as well. My personal story was a bit more internalized, as in college had a basic faith and was faced with looking at what was known about biology and comparative anatomy between species, and decided how that could be compatable with what I had been taught about the Bible. It seemed like either the Bible was wrong, or I had just experienced interpreting it wrong. I chose to accept both biology and the Bible as being true, but was exposed to no real books to support me in that. I was encouraged in that one of my biology profs, Dr. Buzbee, who taught genetics, was Christian and in a sense became an example, though never really was a mentor for me. I suppose that shows that even in just living our lives, we can affect and be a positive example showing Christ for others, even though we never know it.
I am another in that category. I was not raised Christian but by two psychology majors with science and liberalism (particularly of 60s) as their worldview. I had the Bible and I liked its stories, but it remained an open question for me whether it would join my other SF&F books or I would take it more seriously. So the question was always whether I could find any meaning or value in it with the findings of science as a given. Existentialism (Camus and Kierkegaard) and Pragmatism (C.S. Pierce) were important stepping stones as well as the fiction of C.S. Lewis).
Im a late starting pastors kid. My father enterred his university studies when i was about 12.
I guess that is interesting because it means that early on all i learned about was secularism and naturalism, then God came during my teenage years through to adulthood.
Ive learned the theological approach to Christianity from a theolgian directly and his peers (doctors and professors of theology)
Because of that exposure, academic criticism is front and centre in my mind and that is prpbably the main driving force behind my beliefs. I then went to college and studied education, further developing academic habits of inquiry. I cross reference extensively and for good reason, those academics taught me to do this.
When i read the notion of conflating and compromise here, obviously my theological exposure immediately contrasts the soundness of the human logic used to facilitate poor doctrinal research.
So i dont do this because im a redneck, i do it because it truly is academically unsound and causes very obvious internal conflicts in the bible narrative
I dont really have a wow story of conversion. Mine is more a regret of having to miss my saturday morning play time with friends to go to church (with desks and church pews). Its partially because of that childhood experience that i dont go to church much.
Some interesting stories…and journeys…here. I was raised in a religiously hostile environment but began to wonder about the existence of Someone beyond myself while camping in the shadow of Mt Whitney long ago…the night sky, uninterrupted by city lights or billboard lights etc, was so intensely overpopulated by stars that you cannot even imagine such a sight. I felt the stars were trying to tell me something --and trying very hard too! — but I could not figure out what it was. Though my family was hostile to these things, one of my parents was having their midlife crisis and began watching Billy Graham crusades on television. I scoffed at it but eventually I was the only one in the house waiting for the next crusade broadcast to be made.
…Long story and several things contributed to my decision to believe in Jesus. I have been through various stages since then,. grew away from the early form of Christianity that I embraced but later came back to it. “This time around,” if you want to call it that, I have more understanding of some things and enjoy “majoring in the minors” in terms of how I view some popular Christian issues, like the relation of the biblical text to science, history, anthropology and more. All for now!