Thursday, February 6, 2014

It's the Scopes Monkey Trial of Our Century, and the Century Ain't Even That Old Yet

Until I read this article I had thought it was all right to totally ignore this debate.  After all, in my mind there is no inconsistency in being Christian and also having a healthy respect for and belief in science.  In fact, I've been quipping lately that Bill Nye won because he made bow ties cool before Doctor Who said they were, and Ken Ham lost because his biggest clobber was to say "It's in the Bible" as if that made something a scientific fact.

Now I'm less comfortable as I wonder why we Christians think it's okay to dump the responsibility for defending our religion from crackpottery on the scientists.  This article does a good job of encouraging all Christians to think through how we tell our story in the context of the science which the vast majority embrace.
Maybe it's timely for the many of us who take the Bible seriously but not literally to include ways of talking about our beliefs in a way that communicates our wonder at the created, evolved world as well as our sense that what has been learned through millenia of scientific inquiry serves to expand our ideas about God, not diminish them.


I'm glad to have seen Elizabeth Stoker's story.  It's a long-ish read, but it's shorter than the Nye/Ham debate.  Photo Credit:  ABC News  

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