As a side activity, I once followed an MDiv course in a seminary near Kiev, given by American professor and pastor Tim Dane. I learned a lot about the Scriptures during that course. Unfortunately, he also spent time explaining “astronomy” and his interpretation of the distant starlight problem. I was deeply disappointed by the way his lack of understanding of the matter emanated from his explanation and the fact that he was teaching this kind of stuff in pastoral Master’s level education. Sadly, most of the attendees were pastors themselves and they willingly absorbed what was being taught about this topic (because, unlike with Bible interpretation, they had no background knowledge for evaluating what was being said). They probably took his “explanation” as being true and are still sharing it with their congregation members in their own communities.
Later I spoke with professor Dane during lunchtime and he advised me to go join a ministry like AiG to study “real science”… He’s the type of person who is okay with starlight being created in transit. This experience was very disappointing. It’s difficult to respect someone academically after hearing such falsehoods being taught by them on a topic that’s not their expertise.
One example, he thought the universe is perfectly spherical, with the Earth at the center… He even made a drawing of it. That’s because he does not know the difference between the observable universe (which is spherical and centered on Earth by definition) and the universe itself.
OF COURSE!!! That’s a no brainer, but I would be hard pressed to see how a theistic evolutionist predisposition-ed pastor could teach theistic evolution without mangling scripture or even us the book of origins-GENESIS
Wisdom informs the process … deciding which parts of the Bible make sense on their own, which parts need some additional explanations… and which parts really need to be glossed.
Job tells us that God keeps snow and hail in treasure houses of Heaven. I defy any preacher to explain Hail or Snow without MANGLING the Book of Job.
Of course a pastor of preacher should be prepared to raise issues of science and evolution when talking about creation. How else will people get to make the appropriate links between science and the bible today?
Besides which I don’t think that evolution is a matter of opinion. It is part of our exploration of the world with our God given intelligence.
I know there are those who dispute evolution (more in the US than in the UK) but there are equally scientifically minded people in our congregations who need to hear such connections and not be made to feel they have to choose between modern science and a valid and reasonable faith in God as creator and redeemer. If I had not heard a scientically minded preacher in my youth helping me to see that there was no conflict between modern science and the biblical testimony of God as creator I may not have stayed in the church.
Indeed, that alone is what makes Biologos worthwhile. When I get tired of the recycled arguments, and the infighting over technical details, I have to remind myself that the debate is not about who is correct, or who wins the argument, or even being entertained, but rather about the eternal destiny of human souls.
There was an other church nearby where the pastor and eldership was anti-evolution. I had friends there and occasionally attended services, but decided to stick with the “sensible” church. One of my friends was the son of the one of the Elders at the other church. He eventually rebelled and left the church,
I think if there’s one thing that pastors need to bear in mind, it is that when they make claims about science in general – and scientific evidence in particular – they are making claims that can be fact-checked, and, if they’re not careful, can potentially be shown to be demonstrably untrue (as in, for example, there are counterexamples that can be cited). If they are teaching obvious untruths – especially if they are attaching any doctrinal importance to them – they will be compromising their credibility in the eyes of anyone who checks them out or is confronted with evidence that contradicts them, and so undermining their own ministries.
It’s a point I keep making with my YEC friends. Unfortunately, while they unanimously agree with me in principle, some of them just don’t seem to “get it” in practice. I have one YEC pastor friend who still keeps claiming that historical science relies on unverifiable assumptions even though I’ve carefully explained to him several times exactly how the assumptions are verified.
Having said that, I think we should make some allowances for some artistic licence, especially among pastors with no scientific background. If they’re just quoting some factoid or other purely for illustrative purposes, where there isn’t any doctrinal importance attached to it, it may make us cringe to hear them getting it wrong or muddled, but it’s not worth losing sleep over.
