Atheist Jay, Amy Orr-Ewing, and the US Church Being Thrown Under the Bus

Last week’s Unbelievable? program featured Amy Orr-Ewing fielding questions from some atheist callers. Amy did a good job answer the questions, but I wanted to make some observations on the third discussion that took place between Amy and Jay (starting at 43min into the show).

Jay frames his question as being concerned with civilities between Christian-Atheist dialogue and working together on world-problems. My first thought was that this is an odd question for the atheist to be raising for the Christian. Isn’t being disrespectful to religion and the religious or (the “religulous”–as one disrespectful atheists has popularly coined)  the modus operandi for some of the poster-boys of atheism? I don’t see that the same can be said for the poster-boys of Christian apologetics.

Thus, my first knee-jerk reaction was that maybe Jay should focus on cleaning his own “house” and that would do wonders for the dialogue and maybe build some bridges. But I suppose it’s possible that Jay also raises this concern with his atheist compatriots, in which case that’s fair enough to get both sides’ take on the issue. And it’s certainly the case that Christians are sometimes disrespectful with their interlocutors–even if that’s not modeled by lead Christian apologists in the same way it is by lead Atheist apologists. I know I have been disrespectful on plenty of occasions. It’s an area I need to work on.

That’s all I really have to say about the respectful dialogue issue. But as Jay continues to speak it becomes clear that his main concern is with political issues and, specifically, the “the Christian right”. Apparently Amy Orr-Ewing has a problem with the Christian Right too. Jay says,

“My whole effort here is that when I get up in the morning I’m looking to see what we can do with the world-problems: with globalization, with the introduction of technology, with the environmental issues, with unemployment and things like that. We really do need people to get along and try to solve these problems…”

But this is framed in terms of Christians feeling they are insulted by secularists and secularists feeling like Christians are talking down to them.

I think there are two issues here that should have been parsed out. One is the issue of division over the tone of our dialogue. Another is the issue of division over our worldview differences. It’s clear that these two issues meld together in Jay’s mind but, unfortunately, Amy doesn’t do anything to clarify what’s going on here.

Some of that melding is natural and legitimate. I used to talk to an atheist on Facebook a lot. On one occasion it was mentioned that telling a child to be scared of Hell is child abuse. Well suppose the atheist was right about Hell and is also right about the utter intellectual bankruptcy of religion. If these two things are true, then it seems like he could make a reasonable case for stories of Hell being child-abuse. Now child abuse is something we should be emotionally repulsed by. It’s a serious wrong that should illicit not just intellectual disapproval but moral, emotional disapproval as well. On the other hand, suppose the Christian is correct that there is a Hell is that all men have a sense of God’s justice (and, thus, that God will punish their sins). In that case, not telling a child about a real and present danger is itself a form of abuse, isn’t it? And, again, we shouldn’t be apathetic towards it. The point is that worldview division may lead to divisive dialogue. That’s a much harder problem to overcome. Suppose one is invited to dialogue with a member of the Klu Klux Klan on Unbelievable?. It’s harder to show respect to a position you don’t believe is respectable to begin with. What we’ll need to do in this case is find reasons to have respectful dialogue even on an issue we find unworthy of our respect.

But it’s not my purpose here to spell out such reasons. Rather, I’d like to continue to try and clarify issues that become remain confused (and maybe become even more confused) as the dialogue went on between Jay and Amy. So Jay says we need to get along and solve problems like globalization, the environment, or unemployment. But this is not an issue (primarily) relating to a lack of respectful dialogue. This is an issue of worldview and political differences. I suspect that the Christian Right believes unemployment is just as much an issue as Jay and the secular left does. What divides them is how to solve the unemployment problem. That won’t be disappear by talking nicely.

Amy’s response here is unhelpful. She says that she thinks the culture wars are reflective of the churches being co-opted by an angry political movement. She singles out the Christian Right for criticism. I want to address three things: (1) being co-opted by apolitical movement, (2) being co-opted by an angry political movement and (3) what political issues are these angry political co-opters about?

(1) First, I don’t think Amy could have a valid complaint when it comes to the church being politically involved. Amy goes on to talk approvingly about Martin Luther King, a politically active pastor, and about churches in England being involved in a political issue of debt-forgiveness in British foreign policy. So apparently Amy thinks it’s good that the church have a political voice. Perhaps Amy’s criticism then is that the church has been “co-opted” for the wrong causes. I’ll get to that in (3). But before I get to (3)…

(2) Second, perhaps there is something Amy finds disagreeable about angry political activism in the church. It’s not political activism as such (she seems to approve of certain cases) but the tone of the political activism. That can be a valid criticism, but as I suggest above it could also be legitimate to be angry over certain things. Indeed, wasn’t Martin Luther King angry over the social injustices perpetrated by racism? Wasn’t it Dr. King’sanger that drove him and his fellow abolitionists to be activists? I think so. I think Amy should agree that anger over social injustices and harms done to innocents is an appropriate response to have and an appropriate impetus for political activism. So if Amy’s criticism is with the angry political activism per se, I find that unjustifiable.

Now, maybe Amy would want to argue that her criticism does boil down to the adjective “angry” and she finds the kind of anger expressed by “the Christian Right” to be unacceptable. I’m not sure one could substantiate such a sweeping characterization of “the Christian Right,” but at any rate the solution to this (supposing it’s a real problem) would simply involve what I said above: being respectful and finding reasons to be respectful on positions we find unworthy of respect. However, I don’t think that Amy could say that this is her main concern because she says “It’s sad to hear that the Christian faith [in the US] is not associated with a passion for the common good.” Her comments don’t focus on tone so much as the issues. This leads to my third point.

(3) Third, having ruled out the other options, I think the real issue that Amy must have (and which no doubt Jay has) are the issues of political activism in the Christian Right movement. But what exactly are the issues? Presently I think it’s indisputable that the two biggest issues in the culture war are same-sex marriage and abortion. But it seems entirely misguided to think that the Christian Right is wrong to focus on these two issues. At any rate, my concern is not to set forth an argument that the Christian Right is right to focus on these two issues, but to mere clarify that the division is primarily a factual, worldview division and not an issue of irenic dialogue. Even though I don’t know much of anything about Jay, I’m willing to bet that he would be just as upset as he presently is with the Christian Right no matter how irenic it managed to be, so long as it continued to oppose same-sex marriage and abortion.

Why? Because these are wrapped up with worldview values for Jay. Disallowing same-sex marriage is probably a form of bigotry (at least that’s how virtually everyone in the secular left and even some on the religious left frame the issue). Disallowing abortion is a form of misogyny (again, this is how it’s largely framed by the left). Amy’s failure to expose that and stand in line with the Christian Right’s political activism in this regard is misguided. She laments that “the Christian faith is not associated with a passion for the common good” but that’s exactly the basis upon which the Christian Right believes it opposes same-sex marriage and abortion!

That wraps up my main concerns, but I’d like to make some further more sporadic observations on the rest of the dialogue between Jay and Amy.

Jay:

“The arguments that are presented, and I’ll just give you one example, that is evident within the Fundamentalist Right in the United States, somebody like a Mike Huckabee will stand up after the children were murdered up in Connecticut in the school–I mean riddled with bullets, little children riddled with bullets–and he [stood up] and said on TV ‘This is because we’re pushing God out of the schools.’”

Amy:

Wow. Well, Jay, I hope you’re encouraged to hear that most Christians who would here that would just think ‘Oh my goodness, please. Let’s not do that. Let’s not say that

Now I should qualify that I’m not a fan of Mike Huckabee. I wasn’t rooting for him when he ran for president in 2008 and I’ve never followed him or paid any attention to him since then. But what’s so disagreeable about his observation? Is it factually mistaken? Or is it just that his observation is not tactful? I suspect that Jay would find it both factually mistaken and untactful. But for a Christian apologist like Amy Orr-Ewing, I think a plausible case could be made that these sorts of moral atrocities are what we should expect in a society that wants to wash its hands of God and indoctrinate it’s children in a secular worldview which apologists like Amy have incessantly argued has no grounds for moral values. (I don’t know that Amy personally makes this argument, but it is certainly a popular argument among apologists like Amy and, if I’m not mistaken, RZIM which she is a part of.)

Granted, apologists also argue that we can be good persons without god-belief. So maybe Amy would object to Huckabee’s observations on those grounds. But it doesn’t logically follow that if atheists can be worldview-inconsistent and, therefore, uphold moral values without God that we won’t see a decline in moral behavior as we see an increase in secularism. So while Huckabee may be rationally unwarranted to say with certainty that this event was caused by pushing God out of schools, it does seem like he could be rationally warranted in thinking that pushing God out of schools is a contributing cause to such events.

Amy:

I suppose what I would want to say to you is I’m really sorry that the church does misrepresent Jesus in that way.

I don’t think Huckabee speaks, or was intending to speak, for the church. So why is Amy, in relation to this issue, apologizing for the church misrepresenting Jesus? I’ve already said that I don’t think it’s clear that Huckabee’s comments are factually mistaken, given common apologists arguments about the link between God and morality. I would (and so would Amy) have to know a lot more about the context of Mr. Huckabee’s remarks to know whether they were untactful. It seems to me like Amy is willing to throw the church under the buss unnecessarily in order to appease an atheist. That’s not helpful because it simply makes the atheist feel justified in his misguided distaste for the Christian worldview.

Jay:

I just think we need an understanding, because whether you are a Christian or you’re a humanist or whatever faith you are, digging our heels in and circling the wagons to try to reinforce what our belief systems are doesn’t really serve any purpose.

Amy agrees with Jay here. But what Jay says is actually a bit confusing. How does it relate to earlier parts of the discussion? I would ask Jay if he means to imply that the political activism of the church is somehow “circling the wagons” or an attempt to “reinforce what our belief systems are” and, if so, how? Or is Jay just jumping to a different topic?

Amy:

I would want to go back to the early church and look at how the disciples lived, look at how Jesus lived, look at the principle of self-sacrifice and love of others and the kind of radical generosity that you see taught in the Bible and encourage you to look into that. And maybe to overlook some of the cultural trappings of … [cut off by Justin]

Given the context, I assume she means Jesus and the disciples weren’t involved in the issues of the Christian Right. The Christian Right represents the cultural trappings. But I don’t see Jesus or the disciples involved in the issues of Martin Luther King either, yet Amy finds that commendable. I don’t see Jesus or the disciples involved in the issue of the church in the UK that Amy mentions in regards to foreign debt, yet Amy finds that commendable. Why aren’t these cultural trappings that need to be overlooked on the same basis?

Jay:

We all say that we want to get back and we want to live a good life and we want to pattern ourselves after people, like the Christians who admire Jesus, and we want to do that. But there is something deeper behind this that creates this animosity and ‘it’s either my way or the highway’ attitude and it doesn’t seem to be getting better.

The deeper issue would be worldview.

Amy:

That’s an interesting observation. But I’m reminded of a report that came out here that was looking [inaudible word: numbers?] people volunteering charitably in the country and how many millions of pounds that saved our UK government. And seeing from the statistics how a personal faith in God and, really specifically, a Christian faith, did seem to motivate people to work for and serve their communities. So I’m sorry that that is the evidence that you observe in America, this sort of divided culture warring. And I know that that is the case, I’ve experienced that personally as well. And I think there are reasons for that–historical reasons–but I hope that the corner is turning. And I would want to suggest to you that that is not actually the global picture…

I’m tempted to ask whether a Christian in the UK is in a position to wag their finger at the church in the US, as Amy seems to be doing, given the state of Christianity in the UK (or rather lack there of). But it’s a shame Amy didn’t mention that a similar thing is true about charitable giving in the US. Maybe she just isn’t aware of it.

Amy again throws the (US) churches under the bus by apologizing on our behalf. So what solution does Amy have to the culture warring? What exactly is she apologizing about in regard to the culture warring? Does she think the culture warring model is ineffective and does she have a better UK model for us to follow?

Fuz Rana Opening Argument

Here is Fuz Rana’s opening argument. His argument for the main thesis was composed of four points (or I guess you could say sub-arguments). Since his overall case resulted in a more complicated argument map I’m going to present points/arguments separately. (Note: I’ve found that a Safari browser slows down a lot with these argument maps, but Chrome works fine.)

Dr. Rana’s First Argument (click picture to enlarge)

 

Dr. Rana’s Second Argument

 

 

Dr. Rana’s Third Argument

 

Dr. Rana’s Fourth Argument

 

My Thoughts

Dr. Rana had some better organization overall, but the organization did start to break down in places. For instance, he said at one point that he has four points then he lists eight points and only focuses on three. Also, as you can see, Dr. Rana left his third argument entirely undeveloped. If some of what he said in argument two was supposed to support three he failed to clarify that in the debate. Still, he was much more organized than Dr. Ruse and I didn’t have to be as creative in trying to map his case (this is a common trend I notice with atheists in formal debates… they usually are a lot more sloppy in trying to stake out a position and often seem reluctant to do so). Dr. Rana’s speech has some of the same drawbacks as Dr. Ruse’s; namely, the discussion is too technical for laymen in the audience to adjudicate the issues. Still, Rana did a better job trying to illustrate and spell out his case than Dr. Ruse, who relied much more on a bare, thumbnail sketch.

Between the two opening arguments Dr. Rana had the more compelling and more flushed out argument.

 

Just a thought

[Update: Threw out this post while running out the door to pick up my nephew from school, but now I'd like to develop this more]

Why do so many apologist feel the need to reassure us that the origins debate isn’t important? My guess would be that in part it is because they think, even if subconsciously, they have or are soon going to “lose” this debate to science. This is probably even more true for laymen than for the apologists. That wouldn’t reflect an unheard of psychological phenomena. When people fail at something they tend to console themselves by telling themselves that the thing wasn’t really important anyway. (I could provide case studies for that from my old psych books, but I’d rather not dig them up unless someone really wants the documentation.) As far as many evangelical apologists and academics are concerned, the origins debate (at least in regards to the age of the earth) is over and done with. The science is conclusive. Thus, we should adopt an OEC stance and for those who still want to debate the issue we need to remind them that it doesn’t really matter. Interestingly, they aren’t yet convinced that the science is conclusive when it comes to a historical Adam. Thus, you will hear a lot more apologists and evangelicals recognize the importance of this issue. My prediction is that a historical Adam will never gain any more traction in the scientific community than YEC and, thus, eventually the majority of apologists and evagelical academics will discover that-lo and behold-this too is a non-issue.

That’s not to say that there isn’t something to be said regarding the unimportance of the origins debate. I don’t mean to imply that apologists can only think the debate is unimportant for this psychological reason. My initial comment was pretty sloppy in that regard. But it’s also a bit sloppy to talk about the importance of the origin debate as a whole. As I see it, the origins debate runs along a spectrum. Some issues are in fact vital to the health of the church because the issues reflect deeper theological and hermeneutical issues that have wide-ranging implications. Two examples of this would be a historical Adam and *why* one arrives at the position they do.

To further spell out the latter example: suppose one says science has magisterial authority (as an OEC recently told me!). That seems like a theological position with harmful implications. Or suppose that when Eve was tempted by the serpent she chooses that the serpent is correct about the fruit not being harmful but she refrains from eating the fruit simply because it no longer looks appealing to her. The command is not to eat the fruit. Eve doesn’t eat the fruit. But it still looks like Eve is guilty of sin, even though she hasn’t broken the command. (This illustration comes from an old Bahnsen/Sproul debate.) What it illustrates is that we can arrive at the right position or at a non-harmful position for the wrong reason or for harmful reasons. I’ve said several times now that I don’t think an OEC position is harmful or bad per se. But I think a lot of people are adopting OEC for the wrong reasons, reasons that are potentially harmful. That’s important, even if the conclusion (by accident) happens to be unimportant.

Michael Ruse Opening Argument

Here is Dr. Ruse’s opening argument.

Please keep in mind that this is an edited or what you might call a “creative” construction of Dr. Ruse’s argument. Debaters often don’t have the best organization in their speeches and many of their remarks aren’t directly (or indirectly) to their argument for the main thesis. So in order make a concise argument map I have to read in some implications and take later points as support for other assertions that were made much earlier and then dropped or, sometimes, not made at all but only implied. So the best thing to do is look at my argument map and compare it with the actual speech. Right now I don’t have any audio or video for the speech that I can link you to, but when I do I will link to it. (Actually I have audio, but I don’t think I would be allowed to upload it).

Dr. Ruse Opening Argument

My Thoughts

There was some organizational issues in Dr. Ruse’s speech. But considering that he didn’t have any notes with him and just “winged it” from his few PowerPoint slides he did pretty good. His main line of support for the thesis that naturalistic processes are sufficient to explain the complexity of the cell is pretty much impossible to judge, from his presentation alone. His sketch of how it might be that a cell originates and gains complexity via natural processes was way too surface level for anyone not already deeply knowledgeable of the science to evaluate. In that regard, Dr. Ruse fails to present a cogent argument, to his audience, supporting his thesis. The idea that eukaryotes are a product of endosymbiosis was given plausible support by referring to the study which found organelle DNA with the same prokaryote DNA. This point should be addressed by Dr. Rana later. The rest of his points weren’t given the same kind of support.

His attacks on ID theory were very weak. Near the beginning of his speech he raises several questions for ID theory: Is the designer supernatural or natural? Are there multiple designers? etc. It’s not clear why Dr. Ruse is raising these questions. Are these just interesting points raised by ID theory or does Dr. Ruse mean to suggest that ID can’t be viable until it provides answers to these questions? I don’t see how he could possibly support this latter point and, in any case, he doesn’t even try to.

Dr. Ruse seems to undercut his own rebuttal to to the appearance of design by making it very clear that natural laws aren’t incompatible with design. Thus, showing that natural laws are sufficient explanations in many other cases and maybe even this case doesn’t do anything to undercut the design inference. Furthermore, Dr. Ruse’s fallacy of selective attention could be turned around him. The inference that natural laws are sufficient in cases x and y, so they will also be sufficient in case z could itself be guilty of selective attention if it doesn’t take into account difficulties in seeing the sufficiency of natural law in this particular case.

Dr. Ruse’s response to the anticipated bacterial flagellum (BF) example was under-developed. While different type of flagellum might be expected under naturalistic evolution (NE), given that there are BF, the point is that BF themselves wouldn’t be expected under NE. The bad design argument has been answered endlessly. Exaptation sounds plausible on the surface, but again is impossible to judge for those not already familiar with the debate.

The Origin of Life: The Great God Debate 2

Tonight will be the debate between Fuz Rana, from the old-earth apologetics ministry Reasons to Believe, and atheist Michael Ruse. The debate question/topic is: Are natural process sufficient to explain the origin and complexity of the cell?

You can live-stream the debate here: http://watch.biola.edu/origin-of-life-debate-live

I’ll be working on getting transcripts and maps out for this debate as soon as possible on christiandebateanalysis.com

Some pre-debate thoughts:

It seems a bit odd to have a philosopher (Michael Ruse) debating a scientist (Fuz Rana). I suspect that if one side or the other loses the debate this could serve as an excuse as to why they lost the debate. That might be a legitimate excuse depending on how the debate pans out.  One might automatically assume that since the question to be debated is scientific in nature that Fuz Rana will have the obvious advantage. Not necessarily. These types of discussions usually quickly turn philosophical. Recently Fuz Rana was interviewed with atheist Adam Rutheford on Unbelievable? It didn’t take long for that scientific discussion to turn philosophical and I’d be surprised if the same didn’t happen here. If that does happen, Dr. Rana will be at the disadvantage.

Update:

For Michael Ruse’s opening argument see here.

For Fuz Rana’s opening argument see here.

J. W. Wartick Response to an Earlier Post on YEC

Mr. Wartick has responded to an old BAAYEC post of mine. I’ll go ahead and post his full second response here, followed by my own (since I have nothing else to post at the moment). For his first response see the comments here.

Mr. Wartick says,

I think you’ve actually pretty much granted the exact point I was trying to make; namely, the text itself does not tell us the date of creation. Thus, the young earth position is an interpretation which must be argued for. That’s all I’m arguing. It seems like you agree with this. Fantastic.

Now, my next point was that the text does not anywhere suggest a way to get the age of the universe. YECs tend to add the generations together and argue that’s how we get the age of the universe. But the text does not suggest anywhere that these family trees are complete (and in fact they are demonstrably incomplete in some places). The parallel with “Trinity” is nonexistant. Trinitarian terms and usages are found throughout the text. Jesus is explicitly called God in the Bible. Tell me, where in the Bible does it show us how to get a date of creation from the text?

So I would need textual evidence to suggest that there is a date of creation found somewhere in the Bible. Here my claim is weaker than before. I’m not saying that someone has to show me a specific date in the Bible (and despite your bluster, any number of “run-of-the-mill” YECs do this. I agree that no major organization I know of does so, but sometimes it is permissible to note that when a preponderance of “people on the street” make a claim, that may be representative of the movement, despite what the academically minded parts of the movement say). Instead, I am essentially pointing out that (I think I can fairly say “most” here) some YECs simply assume their interpretation is so obvious that anyone who would deny it is not orthodox. Hence, the shibboleth. The test of orthodoxy for some is YEC. I ask: “Why?” What is the textual evidence which is so strong to suggest an age of 6k or 10k years for the universe when it never actually mentions these things? That is the point I was trying to drive home. It seems that point was missed, likely due to a lack of clarity on my end.

I respond,

I think you’ve actually pretty much granted the exact point I was trying to make; namely, the text itself does not tell us the date of creation.

I think you’re trying to trade on an ambiguity here. We can distinguish two claims (we could add others, but this all that’s really relevant): (1) the text explicitly dates creation by Gregorian calendar; (2) the text contains enough information to give us an approx. date for how old the earth is.

You’ve tried, in your own bluster, to burden the YEC with something like (1). I’ve granted that no YEC can do this. Every other YEC would grant this too. However, that doesn’t establish (2). Granting your point here is entirely insignificant.

Thus, the young earth position is an interpretation which must be argued for.

Again, I don’t know of a single YEC who would deny that they are interpreting the text and, of course, YEC argue for their interpretation. That’s a trivial observation. Everyone interprets the text such that we could say the belief that there is one God is an interpretation of the text. The belief that Jesus is God is an interpretation of the text. But there is a danger in trading on another ambiguity here and, frankly, I think some OEC try to trade on that ambiguity. This gets back to my illustration with Rob Bell. How was Rob Bell using the idea that his opponent was interpreting the text? (I assume you’ve heard the interview or can at least readily access it.) He wasn’t just making a factual observation that understanding what Scripture says involves an interpretive process. What he was actually doing was trying to undercut the strength of his opponent’s position. He was hoping his opponent and his audience would compound with the simple observation that it’s an interpretation of the text that (1) the interpretation, therefore, can’t be held to dogmatically and (2) that other legitimate interpretations exist. Well neither (1) nor (2) follow necessarily from such a basic fact.

That’s all I’m arguing.

Well if all you’re arguing is that there is no explicit Gregorian calendar date for creation and that YEC is an interpretation of the text then that hardly seems worth arguing about… but you can spend your time arguing whatever you want I guess.

Now, my next point was that the text does not anywhere suggest a way to get the age of the universe.

I don’t agree with that. I think, for instance, Stephen Lloyd makes an interesting and compelling argument for a young earth. See his debate with Ross and Samples (you can listen to it at Unbelievable? or see my argument maps and Q&A transcripts at my other site: christiandebateanalysis.com). I’m sure you will have responses to his argument and I can anticipate what some of those might be; nevertheless, I find it to be a good argument. I think a few other points could be mentioned as well.

YECs tend to add the generations together and argue that’s how we get the age of the universe. But the text does not suggest anywhere that these family trees are complete (and in fact they are demonstrably incomplete in some places).

I agree with you here and, like I said, I’ve pointed this out myself in the past. I don’t hold to the universe is 6k or 10k years old; however, I have no problem adopting those approx. for the sake of discussion or simplicity.

The parallel with “Trinity” is nonexistant.

I beg to differ. You wanted YEC to find some text that says something like “And so God made the heavens and the earth in 3k B.C.–by Gregorian calendar reckoning of course.” That’s parallel to a Jehovah’s Witness wanting Trinitarians to find some text that says something like “God is three persons in one substance.”

Trinitarian terms and usages are found throughout the text.

Which is just to say that the text contains enough information for us to deduce with good and necessary inference the doctrine of the Trinity. Likewise, YEC *have* given arguments that we have enough information for us to deduce with good, if not necessary, inference an approx. age of the earth. You may be unpersuaded by such arguments, but there’s no point banging your Bible saying “Show me the text!”

Jesus is explicitly called God in the Bible.

Right. That’s *consistent* with Trinitarian language (concepts). But it’s just one piece of the puzzle.

Tell me, where in the Bible does it show us how to get a date of creation from the text?

Genesis.

So I would need textual evidence to suggest that there is a date of creation found somewhere in the Bible.

And YEC have tried to give such evidence. They have even attempted to give counter-arguments to the genealogies-gap objection (see here, for instance). I don’t find it persuasive myself, but then I don’t go around pretending like YEC merely claim their position is obvious without arguing for it or that YEC think there is an explicit date given.

and despite your bluster, any number of “run-of-the-mill” YECs do this. I agree that no major organization I know of does so, but sometimes it is permissible to note that when a preponderance of “people on the street” make a claim, that may be representative of the movement, despite what the academically minded parts of the movement say

Sorry, I’m not buying it. I’m a YEC. I know other YEC. I was raised in a YEC church. I’ve read some YEC literature. I’ve had interactions both with “run-of-the-mill” YEC and academic YEC. I’ve never found anyone, besides people like Ussher circa 400 years ago, claiming to be able to put such an exact date on creation.

some YECs simply assume their interpretation is so obvious that anyone who would deny it is not orthodox.

I agree that some YEC do that. Maybe even most do that. I can understand why they find their interpretation obvious. I think it’s a shame that they are so uncharitable toward other interpretations. But I also don’t think it’s a wholesale issue, such that all other interpretations are orthodox. Peter Enns approach is unacceptable, in my view. OEC could agree with that and some do.

Hence, the shibboleth. The test of orthodoxy for some is YEC. I ask: “Why?”

In the context of this specific issue I don’t think it has anything to do with YEC per se. A lot of it is probably grounded in the way atheists (e.g., Dawkins, Coyne) have tried to broadly frame the discussion. Christians have accepted that framing of the issue. Some of it, of course might be correctly framed and some of it not. I think the broad or over-all framing that atheists have give to it is illegitimate.

The Stuff We All Agree On When It Comes to Christianity

I get the chance to speak around the country. I meet all kinds of Christians who hold a variety of views related to Jesus, the Bible, and God. Many are errantists, believing the Bible to be a man-made product, some think Jesus didn’t physically rise from the dead, some think the God of the OT is evil. All will tell you that they believe in God and the Christian message. You see Christians just disagree on how to interpret the Bible or even how to approach the Bible.

I’m sensitive to a variety of views held by Christians on this matter. I see the reasonable nature of every view; I recognize that each approach has its own virtues and its own liabilities. I’m not discouraged by this reality, but encouraged that there are so many reasonable approaches to Christianity. I *am* discouraged, however, when we allow our fallen (or unfallen, for my Pelagian brothers) human nature to get the best of us. Rather than finding areas of agreement, most of us choose to divide over areas of divergence. Regardless of your position on these issues, I’d like to point out the areas where all of us, regardless of atonement theory or inspiration theory (or lack there of) can agree. As Christians, we all affirm the following premises:

1. God exists.

2. God created the universe.

3. Jesus is special.

4. God and Jesus help us.

As Christians, we all agree about these things. While we agree on these aforementioned critical, foundational issues we disagree on details like whether Jesus’ atonement was substitionary or whether Jesus is fully divine or fully human. We agree on the big stuff and disagree on the details. Don’t even get me started on our agreement with atheists… Wow, lots of agreement there too. Ahhh, refreshing, isn’t it?

Now most of my readers are probably really confused, so let me get to the point:

J. Warner Wallace is the newest edition to the Stand to Reason ministry. When he sticks to historical, apologetic issues I think he does good. But whenever he “opens his mouth” (or “uncaps his pen”) in other areas he has me cringing. Just to give a few examples: his run in with presuppositionalism, his promotion of a post arguing for loss of salvation, and now his origins article.

In his origins article it’s not so much what he says but what he fails to say.

1) He fails to say why the origins debate is unimportant.

2) He fails to say what he has in mind by “dividing”.

3) He fails to say in what contexts his advice makes sense and in what contexts it doesn’t make sense.

So, take (1), for example. The article comes off as an attempt to say that the origins debate within the church is unimportant. “We agree on the big stuff and disagree on the details” he says. Well if by “big stuff” he means the broad strokes of the narrative he outlines in points 1-6 that’s (trivially) true, just as in my own mock-post. But if by “big stuff” he means important stuff–and this is exactly how many laymen following STR will take it and how Mr. Wallace intends it–then he hasn’t even begun to make an *argument* for that conclusion.  And of course *that* is what the origins debate is ultimately about, isn’t it? The importance of the details or whether these issues we are arguing over classify as “details” as opposed “big stuff.” But Mr. Wallace’s post glosses over that. Just as my own mock-post glosses over the entire debate between orthodoxy and heresy or evangelicalism and liberalism.

Now I know, I know, fans of Mr. Wallace may want to focus on the analogy I’m using of liberalism and *think* (mistakenly) that I’m saying the origins debate is an issue of heresy vs. orthodoxy. Well, I’m *not* saying that. I’m simply using it as an example of how Mr. Wallace fails to actually say anything significant and, in fact, presents us, subtly, with his own biased take on the issue without arguing for his biased take on the issue. What he’s actually asserting (not arguing, mind you) is that BioLogos is wrong in how important it gauges the issue. Likewise, I guess Answers in Genesis is wrong in its evaluation of the issues. The post uses the “Can’t we all just get along” appeal… an appeal that is, unfortunately, all too effective in intellectually bypassing the actual debate for many laymen.

Consider (2). Mr. Wallace talks about “dividing over our points of divergence.” But he doesn’t tell us what he means by “dividing”. Does he mean that division = disagreement or does he mean division = church split or … what? There can be strong senses of the word and weak senses. And of course whether division in any sense is appropriate or not hasn’t been argued for by Mr. Wallace. He has just thrown in the word “dividing” and hinted that this is contrasted with his own position. So “dividing” looks suspiciously like a “boo” word–a word with more rhetorical force than intellectual content.

Consider (3). Mr. Wallace talks about how “As Christians, we all agree that God exists. He is the creator of the universe and all life within.” That’s true, of course. We also have that in common with Muslims and Jehovah’s Witness. So in what way does such a trivial, simple fact relate to what he is getting at in the article?? In what way does this matter that it doesn’t matter for a Jehovah’s Witness?

Suffice it to say that in this post and other areas Mr. Wallace is making a contribution to STR that I think STR could do without. If he wants to present us with arguments as to why the origins debate is unimportant I’m open to hearing it. Yes, Christians who disagree over origins have points of agreement too. Mormons and Christians do too. And now we all know that Mr. Wallace thinks the areas of disagreement in the origins debate are unimportant. No doubt the fact that Mr. Wallace thinks this will be enough to convince some STR fans to think this way too. But let’s not be bowled over by the appeal to kumbaya and unity. Even if Mr. Wallace is right, it’s not enough to agree with him for the wrong reasons or, rather, for no reason–since none was given.