Hey Friends,
I just published a new “constructive conversation” booklet this week called Genesis 1 & Science: A Constructive Conversation. It’s available as a paperback and eBook. The first in this series, you may remember, was Baptism and Its Significance. My thanks to Connie Molitor for the great new covers that connect this series with this blog (notice the mustard-colored stripe at the top along with the block-type titles).
As a regular subscriber, please enjoy the first chapter and pass the word along to anyone you think would value or benefit from this resource:
Chapter 1: Introduction
I love Genesis 1 and science, and one of the cool things about being a Christian is you get to spend a lifetime in wonder, worshipping God, and meditating on Scripture and the mysteries of the universe. Indeed, just recently, a friend and I met at a local brewery to contemplate and discuss, among other things, the stars, newborn life, and even the origin of our desire to please God.
Having said this, it might seem strange that there’s also few things that capture my interest more these days than deconversion stories—especially those where certain views of Genesis 1 and science led someone away from God, rather than toward him.
As a Christian minister, church planter, and one who grew up in a toxic church environment, I have a special heart for those who’ve been hurt or disillusioned by the church. As I’ve analyzed experiences (my own and others), as well as studied commonalities in both deconversion and deconstruction stories,[1] I’ve found Scott McKnight’s conclusions about especially deconversion stories spot on:
“The end of my study is that a person apostatizes or leaves the faith to find independence. This autonomy can be intellectual, psychological, or moral (or behavioral) or more than one or all of them. My study leads me to believe we should be looking through the statements of those who choose to announce their departures publicly to what the person wants to do, how the person wants to behave, to whom the person wants to answer. The person’s looking for independence for something.
Regardless of who the person is and where they came from, in the end those who have walked away from the faith have come to terms with an inner reality: they have to make up their own mind and live with the results…
What were the issues and ideas and experiences that precipitated their “crisis,” their walking away, and their quest for a new and different kind of life, one no longer related to that original faith?
- Scripture in tension with what one believes Scripture is/ought to be
- Science and faith in a war with one another
- Christian hypocrisy
- Hell as taught: eternal conscious punishment/torture
- The God of the Bible (Old Testament usually)”[2]
McKnight concludes: “In my study, one and nearly always a combination of the above five major elements forms the core of a crisis in the viability of one’s orthodox Christian faith.”[3]
My desire in the conversation that follows is to affirm the pursuit of intellectual honesty and integrity. The Bible itself says God “desires truth in the inward parts.”[4] At the same time, there’s a certain kind of independence that ends in the autonomous self. It’s been my observation that this later state of mind often diminishes or denies the powerful evidence of human limitation and frailty, our need for community, ancient wisdom, or the possibility of the supernatural and answers outside oneself. It’s the kind of fierce independence that often idolizes humanity or sees oneself as the smartest person in the room—a conclusion, again and in my view, based more in arrogant delusion than intellectual honesty. In the coming pages, I’d like to have a brief, honest discussion about a key topic from McKnight’s bulleted list: science and faith at war with one another. As I’ll show, this war is not only unnecessary, it’s based in fiction. Further, it’s a fiction that’s been fanned into flame by certain isolated and anti-intellectual streams of Christianity that are fixated on misinformed (even if well-intentioned) and overly literal readings of ancient texts.
Again, the full booklet Genesis 1 & Science: A Constructive Conversation is now available as both a paperback and eBook on Amazon.
[1] Deconstruction is rightly distinguished from deconversion in that the former can be a healthy process in the pursuit of authentic faith—especially if it’s channeled in constructive directions. Deconversion, on the other hand, usually describes a journey away from faith—especially the Christian faith.
[2] https://scotmcknight.substack.com/p/on-leaving-the-faith, April 28, 2022 Scott McKnight’s newsletter.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Psalm 51:6, ESV.