Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) Professor Bruce Waltke was forced to resign because he observed that faith and evolutionary science are compatible in a video in which he said, according to a reconstruction of his remarks by USA Today:
If the data is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution, to deny that reality will make us a cult ... some odd group that is not really interacting with the world. And rightly so, because we are not using our gifts and trusting God's Providence that brought us to this point of our awareness.
His remarks had to be reconstructed because Waltke was apparently driven by the "culture of fear" which pervades the evangelical community to ask the BioLogos Foundation, which had posted the video as part of their advocacy of science's compatibility with faith, to take it down. And they did, yet Waltke was still compelled to resign.
Neither the video nor its contents should have come as a surprise. It wasn't Waltke's first run at the subject [1, 2]
The reaction is a surprise in part because Waltke isn't otherwise a liberal, as Tony Cartledge explains:
Waltke is by most measures a very conservative scholar. Though he accepts a theistic version of evolution (acknowledging the reality of evolution while trusting that God guided the process), he also believes in an inerrant Bible and a literal Adam and Eve. But even that is too big a stretch for the most ardent inerrantists, leading to RTS's over-the-top response.
Perhaps Waltke's use of the word "cult" was the step too far.
If so, the reaction to his comments gives it legs.
[H/T: Tony Cartledge]
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for commenting. Comments are moderated. Yours will be reviewed soon.