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Tomorrow’s Theology. Today’s Task.

May 13, 2013 Church, Culture, The Text, Theology Comments are closed

A recent article in The Banner, the online and print magazine of the Christian Reformed Church, began with the following:

I suspect that a thousand years from now Christians will look back at the 21st century and say, “How could Christians have let themselves think that?” They’d have in mind our theology—some of the doctrines that are so precious to us and that we consider to be the backbone of Christianity.

Some saw this as provocative. Some as overstating the case. Others as unthinkable.

My thought was, “People are already saying this now.”

The article more or less centers around the issue of evolution, which, at least in one form or another, has attained a near consensus status among scientists as being part of the process of the development of life on earth, including all animal life. Animal life includes people, which is in many ways where the rub is.

Are we, as C.S. Lewis puts it in the Chronicles of Narnia, the “sons of Adam and daughters of Eve”?

Scientists argue that it is not genetically possible for present DNA diversity to have issued from a single pair of ancestors in recent history.

So the writer of the provocative article in the Banner rightly notes that we must begin to assess certain readings and/or doctrines which seem to rely upon a view of the world which may not, in the end, be accurate.

Yet some would say, can’t we just read the Bible literally? Well, no. At least not accurately (with regard to science. Or literature).

As Pete Enns put it in a Biologos article:

The biblical depiction of human origins, if taken literally, presents Adam as the very first human being ever created. He was not the product of an evolutionary process, but a special creation of God a few thousand years before Jesus—roughly speaking, about 6000 years ago. Every single human being that has ever lived can trace his/her genetic history to that one person.

This is a problem because it is at odds with everything else we know about the past from the natural sciences and cultural remains.

There are human cultural remains dating well over 100,000 years ago. One recent example is 130,000-year-old stone tools found on Crete. (Their presence on an island presumes seafaring ability at that time.) Ritual/religious structures are known to have existed as far back as 40,000-70,000 years ago. Recently, a temple complex was found in Turkey dating to about 11,500 years ago—7,000 years before the Pyramids.

In addition to cultural artifacts, there is also the scientific data from the various natural sciences that support a very old earth (4.5 billion years old) and the evolutionary development of life on it—things most readers of this Web site hardly need me to point out. Most recently, the genetic evidence for common descent has, in the view of most everyone trained in the field, lent great support to the antiquity of humanity and sharing a common ancestry with primates.

So reading the Bible literally is problematic for scientific and historic reasons. And there is another reason:

There is a third line of evidence that is a problem for a literal reading of the Adam story. Archaeological evidence gathered over the last 150 years or so has helped us understand the religions of the ancient Near East during and long before the Old Testament period. As is well known, Genesis 1 and the Adam story bear unmistakable resemblances to the stories of other peoples—none of which we would ever think of taking as historical depictions of origins.

Bingo.

And many people realize this, and have realized it for some time.

But apparently not certain readers of the Banner.

Objections ranged from: “Asking a whole lot of big complex questions without any attempt to answer it is not helpful” to “This article should have never made print” to “This article implicitly affirmed a lot of heretical propositions” and finally, “Is it possible to overture Synod to remove and replace the editor of the Banner for behavior so damaging to the well being of the churches?”

There were many more reactions, some of which were very thoughtful, others of which were more of the above (and worse!).

Was it a perfect article? I suppose not. But neither was it terrible. It opens the door to further dialogue, and that’s what we need. It is OK to ask a lot of big questions. And not only OK, imperative. Asking questions is an important, crucial step in learning anything.

Whenever you are no longer allowed to ask questions, you can safely assume you’re no longer in a good place.

We should be asking questions, and not just about tomorrow’s theology a thousand years from now, but about what we might, by grappling with Scripture, science, and the best of human understanding, believe today about ourselves, our world, and God.

Many are already doing it, and we should join them.

—
A few recommended resources:
Looking for the Missing Link – a documentary by my friend Leo Hagedorn
The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say About Human Origins – Pete Enns. One of the best works I have read regarding how we are to read Adam through the biblical lens, both as understood in Genesis, by Israelites and Jews, and by Paul and Jesus.
Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All The Answers Learned to Ask The Questions – Rachel Held Evans
Network for Science, Technology, and Faith – the Episcopal Church

Thumb Drive: DNA to be used for data backups

January 25, 2013 Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Theology Comments are closed

Wish you could store those files, photos, music and video but running out of space?

If you’re like me, you’re constantly shifting stuff off of your aging laptop onto a hard drive that you hope will last long enough for the day you’ll need to access it.

What if you could store data on yourself? Like maybe your forearm, or… forehead?

The latest in biotech says that may not be a stretch:

A team of Harvard and Johns Hopkins geneticists has developed a new method of DNA encoding that makes it possible to store more digital information than ever before.

Apparently I’m not the only one running out of space – according to Robert Gonzalez: “Humanity has a storage problem.” He goes on to state that “With data accumulating at a faster rate now than any other point in human history, scientists and engineers are looking to genetic code as a form of next-generation digital information storage.”

In fact, they say the world’s information is “doubling every two years,” which is probably a conservative estimate, based on my own Instagram usage.

The story goes on to note:

Archival storage is where DNA comes in. As storage media go, it’s hard to compete with the universal building blocks of life. At theoretical maximum, one gram of single stranded genetic code can encode 455 exabytes of information. That’s almost half a billion terabytes, or 4.9 * 1011 GB. (As a point of reference, the latest iPad tops out at 64 GB of storage space.) DNA strands also likes to fold over on top of themselves, meaning that, unlike most other digital storage media, data needn’t be restricted to two dimensions; and being able to store data in three-space translates to more free-space. DNA is also incredibly robust, and is often readable even after being exposed to unfavorable conditions for thousands of years.

My question is: when will I be able to tweet hands-free, and device-free? And when I can I take a photo with my eyeballs? My 20-20 vision could use some filter options, however, and perhaps a zoom lens. Clearly I don’t understand the technology, because I tried to write this blog post simply by thinking it.

But a serious question becomes: what are the ethical ramifications for this, if any? Will we hire people to donate DNA to store data on them? Will people get “DNA storage” tattoos as a way to make some extra cash? Or worse, will we begin cloning mindless beings to simply act as data storage units? Or maybe we could find a way to make cats useful.

In any case, this gives new meaning to the term: “thumb drive.”

Theology vs. Science

February 3, 2011 Culture, The Text, Theology Comments are closed

“Set the sails of fear, the winds a-stirring…”
~ Charlie Darwin by The Low Anthem

If science conflicts with theology, what should give way?

In the past, the church excommunicated the likes of Copernicus and Galileo for their findings which differed with the prevailing theology of the day. And this was based, it was argued, on Scriptural grounds. Of course, later the church had to admit it was wrong, and theology had to adapt to science.

This continues to play out today over the issue of creation and evolution. Are the two ‘theories’ truly at odds? Could God have been involved in creating over long periods of time through evolution, or does evolution necessarily imply there is no God? Or perhaps could evolution show that God, and even we ourselves, are different than we’ve thought?

Two religion professors at Calvin College, the Christian Reformed church’s official college, are asking hard questions about evolutionary science and Reformed theology (much of this blogpost comes from Roxanne Van Farowe’s article in the latest issue of The Banner).

Professors Daniel Harlow (pictured left) and John Schneider (right) of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., published scholarly articles asserting that strong evidence from both biblical studies and science creates conflicts with parts of the historic Reformed confessions and requires theological explanation.

In particular, they question whether Adam and Eve actually existed, whether there was a literal Fall, and whether we need to reinterpret the doctrine of original sin as presented in the Reformed confessions.

The papers were published in The American Scientific Affiliation’s journal Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith.

Harlow wrote that he was exploring from the perspective of mainstream biblical scholarship, which is that “Adam and Eve are strictly literary figures—characters in a divinely inspired story about the imagined past that intends to teach primarily theological, not historical, truths about God, creation, and humanity.”

Harlow also wrote, “Genesis 3, read in its immediate context, does not depict the man and woman’s transgression as an act that infected all subsequent humanity. . . . For teaching about the Fall and original sin, then, we must wait for Paul and the church fathers.”

Schneider wrote that the traditional understanding of the Fall does not fit with current science: “[T]he narrative of human evolution makes it very hard, if not impossible, to maintain [the position that human and demonic creatures are responsible for evil]. For it seems, on this science, that not just natural evils . . . but also the disposition for human moral evils, are practically part of God’s original design.”

It appears the two are coming under some heavy fire, because their teaching conflicts with the historic confessions of the church.

The articles in question were approved by the college, yet college president Gaylen Byker said at a faculty senate meeting that the two professors had violated the Form of Subscription, according to the college’s student newspaper, Chimes. (The Form of Subscription requires Calvin College faculty to teach and write in accordance with Reformed confessions.)

But should theology really trump science?

Calvin physics professor Loren Haarsma co-wrote a book on Christianity and evolution with his wife, Deborah Haarsma. He said that a conversation between academic disciplines about hominid/human evolution is overdue on the campus.

“The fossil evidence does not point to a single pair of ancestors for the human race,” he said. “We feel we have to ask these questions because our study of God’s world has forced us to ask these questions.”

But theologian Al Wolters, a professor emeritus at Calvin’s sister school, Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, does not agree with the two professors’ work.

“The issue of the historical Fall is a cornerstone of Christian beliefs, shared by all major branches of Christendom,” Wolters said. “To openly explain it away as myths and literary devices to square with scientific evidence is a pretty momentous step to take.”

In 1991, synod (the CRC’s annual leadership gathering) had stated that “all theorizing that posits the reality of evolutionary forebears of the human race” was ruled out by Scripture and the confessions.

However, Synod 2010 removed that declaration from its position statement on creation and science.

Here’s what others are saying in reaction:

“Let’s be honest here. There are ulterior motives to all the theories, exegetical mythology, and redefinitions. That would be that people want their human reasoning to usurp God. They want to be their own god and determine their own truth. They also want the Bible to be open to reinterpretation because then it will excuse any and all ungodly behavior. People support evolution and strive to make science their “God” because they love themselves and their sin.”
“Forget their jobs; they should be excommunicated. Such heresy and conformism to the rhetoric of today’s dogmatic worldly “thinkers” is intolerable. Without an Adam, who needs a second Adam?”
“Harlow is making an argument for his position that Adam and Eve were simply literary figures. That is the main point of the article. Instead of creating humanity “very good” as scripture says, Harlow sees original sin as part of the evolutionary and original genetic make-up of humanity (proto-humanity). It is very different from an Augustinian view. In Harlow’s view of original sin (quoting and agreeing with others) original sin was something humanity was intrinsically created with but only came to realize later in time after the process of evolution took its effect.”
“The point of the article is seen when Harlow clearly says that “In current Christian thinking about Adam and Eve, five basic scenarios are on offer,” and then proceeds to list them. He then says that the last one, the literary theory, is “a view that is largely unknown in evangelical circles,” and then he goes on to explain that theory and the appeal of it. He does seem to be siding with the literary theory, but the paper is nonetheless clearly presented as one option only out of many acceptable ones.”
“How exactly does a literary idea of creation eliminate the possibility of a personal God? And didn’t God not send Jesus until about 2000 years ago? Doesn’t that leave a lot of humanity missing out on a crucial piece of revelation? The Christian faith, after all, is a faith that happened at a certain point in history, with some coming before and some after. How would this view of creation be different?”
“It is crucial to read and think about the Bible. But if you take everything at face value, don’t bother applying the considerable resources and discoveries humanity has at its disposal, and refuse to accept things that are nearly irrefutable and that don’t present any sort of danger to the Bible or Christianity, you’re doing a disservice to yourself, all those around you, and God.”

Here is the comment I posted on the article’s page:

As a pastor I can understand being held to teach in conformity with the form of subscription, even if I don’t prefer it. But does it really make sense to force professors in the sciences such as the Haarsmas to be bound in their teaching by late-medieval theological documents?Additionally, Wolters’ argument that “the issue of the historical Fall is a cornerstone of Christian beliefs, shared by all major branches of Christendom” is not really an argument that supports that the historical fall actually took place. It merely underlines the fact that it is an historically important doctrine. Just because we’ve always thought “X”, does not provide evidence that “X” is actually the case.Not that I am disagreeing with him, and I know he would say more given the space, I just think we have to use better language than saying, “Well this is just too important to change.”
People also thought slavery was pretty important (economically) and also thought it was important that the earth was the center of the universe (theologically).

We’ve since thought otherwise.

What do you think? Post a comment to continue the discussion.