I’ve just watched that BioLogos video of a pastor at a Florida church explaining – in a rather photogenic, sonorous, and otherwise superficially convincing way – why one has to be very careful about…everything. I say superficially convincing because he doesn’t look or talk like a hayseed or a loon; he looks like any insurance executive or motivational speaker or real estate agent. Yet what he says is pitiful. It’s all about the anxious contortions one has to perform in order not to upset any apple carts or frighten any horses or insert any cats among any pigeons. It’s very fretful, close work, because on the one hand you don’t want to upset these, but on the other hand you also don’t want to worry those, and yet again you don’t want to look like a fool to the others. In short you want to square the circle, so it’s very tricky, and actually all you can do is put on your most sonorous voice and talk very slowly as if you’re thinking hard and hope nobody notices those four corners poking out of the circle.
It’s sad that grown-up non-stupid people feel obliged to do this kind of thing. It’s sad that it’s what’s expected of them, it’s sad that BioLogos treats them as somehow exemplary. It’s sad that they waste a perfectly functional intelligence this way.
I have the same thought reading Darrell Falk’s BioLogos post for today. He has the same problem (of course – they all do, in the nature of the case – that problem is what BioLogos is about) and he betrays it in his words.
The BioLogos Foundation exists in order that the Church, especially the Evangelical Church, can come to peace with the scientific data which shows unequivocally that the universe is very old and that all of life, including humankind, has been created through a gradual process that has been taking place over the past few billion years. BioLogos exists to show that this fact (and it is a fact), need not, indeed must not, affect our relationship with God, which comes about through Jesus Christ, and is experienced by the power of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence.
Emphasis added. The church is not at peace with the scientific data, BioLogos exists to help it get there. Well why is the church not at peace with the scientific data? Obviously, because they suspect that the data get things right and the church does not get things right. That’s what “peace” means in this context: not worrying that the data get things right and the church gets things wrong.
To an outsider, this is obviously a foolish endeavor. When there’s a conflict between scientific data and a story, it just seems kind of futile to struggle to manipulate things in such a way that one can go on taking the story as true despite its conflict with the scientific data. To an insider, however, it’s all-important. But that’s what’s so sad – people frittering away their talents and energy on this sort of futility.
Falk is caught between (as he explains it) Dawkins and the selfish gene, and Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Mohler doesn’t have this anxiety problem, he just dismisses Dawkins and BioLogos. But Falk has it in spades. We can’t help him, because
We at BioLogos believe that Jesus, fully God and fully man, walked on this earth 2,000 years ago in order to show humankind how to live life to the full.
But we would if we could.
Comments
26 responses to “Contortionism”
Yes, it is really superficial. I loved it when he said something to the effect that so many people simply are not using their intellectual capacity, and they have to be given permission to do that! Here is someone who represents an organisation that has kept people in intellectual rompers saying that we have to give people permission to grow up, but we have to do it in a very careful way, so that we don’t upset them, or give them the idea that scripture cannot be trusted — because that would be an awful thing, wouldn’t it?! This is really pathetic, that people should be reduced to this kind of intellectual timidity. Sick and pathetic. The poison of religion at work.
That video is quite revealing — the underlying message is “be careful about getting the rubes thinking too much, or they’ll see all the problems with the Bible!”
The BioLogos Foundation exists in order that the Church, especially the Evangelical Church, can come to peace
Simpering language is a pet peeve of mine. The religious often deploy it as part of what you might call the vulnerable toddler strategy. Two-year-olds who don’t want to comply with a demand that they stop what they’re doing (like trying to grab a pot from the stove) go limp and cry piteously when you pick them up and remove them. They know on some level their only defense is to affect to be weak and pitiful, in hopes the adult will feel bad for being a meanie (and thus stop trying to correct their bad behavior).
All this recent nonsense from Biologos is of just the same character. But it tends to have a paradoxical effect on people like me; I feel provoked to criticize and ridicule them even more strongly, because I don’t like unsubtle, pathetic manipulations. I can forgive the toddler, but not the adult.
We at BioLogos believe that Jesus, fully God and fully man, walked on this earth 2,000 years ago in order to show humankind how to live life to the full.
Believe that and you’ll believe anything.
If they do believe that, surely they have no problem in accepying the equal truth of any other two contradictory claims, so why do they worry about the clash between the bible and the facts?
When push comes to shove, evangelicals will pick religion over science. If learning about evolution might cause one to lose his or her faith, then their answer would be to not teach evolution. This is why Josh’s strategy outlined a few posts ago will fail; you can’t rely on TEs to back science. They criticize atheists for not understanding religion, but they won’t criticize believers for not understanding science – that is the fault of poor-communicating scientists, but never religious belief.
Michael, what’s a “TE”? Also, I didn’t propose or outline any strategy, I simply described a personal reaction.
He probably meant Josh Rosenau. It gets confusing sometimes when the two of you are around simultaneously!
[…] Butterflies and Wheels This entry was written by whyevolutionistrue and posted on July 5, 2010 at 2:34 pm and filed […]
I tried and failed to send a trackback from Panda’s Thumb: The resurrection of Omphalos
What a fascinating dispute. I would like to see it continued and, to that end, wish to offer Dr. Mohler some ammunition.
Darrel Falk reports that BioLogos has produced a transcript of your speech. The transcript includes the following:
Now, just what kind of evangelical Christian do you think would be deaf to the word inerrant?
And I tried and failed to format that URL appropriately. It’s not my day, I guess.
Oh, right Ophelia, of course! Duh. That, actually, is why I refer to him as Rosenau, though I know it probably appears that I’m doing it to be curt. I’m not – I save curt for the content.
Coming from a fundamentalist family, I can tell you that it’s mostly fear-based. The mere suggestion that some things may not be true causes an emotional reaction which leads to rejecting the facts and/or rationalizing them away. So I can at least see where the above strategy is coming from—creep quietly into the room and slip little facts under their pillows. I don’t think it’s very useful, but nor do I think the opposite is that useful either. My own route was through self-questioning—Sagan books and the like—but I don’t know how that would be implemented on a macroscopic level.
Gratuitously unrelated: Is the moderator at WEIT lacking in humor? On the thread with the video of the hot dog eating contest, this comment of mine was rejected: “It’s meant to be symbolic, showing America’s hunger for knowledge.” That’s hilarious, amiright?
The bit where Falk says that scientific data “need not, indeed must not” affect Christians’ belief in God is particularly telling. The BioLogos people aren’t as openly hostile to science as the creationists, but their basic strategy is the same: they’ve come to their conclusions already and are just looking for ways to rationalize them, and they don’t intend to let any scientific evidence interfere with that process.
‘We at BioLogos believe that Jesus, fully God and fully man, walked on this earth 2,000 years ago in order to show humankind how to live life to the full.”
Others have arguably done a better job at showing how to live, and dispute could rage on forever over both what Jesus was trying to do and what he actually achieved; that is, once all dispute over the historical reliability of the Gospels has been settled.
The ‘fully God and fully man’ bit was a bit hard to chew for the early Christians, resulting in schisms and heresies. As God is supposed to be immaterial, eternal, omniscient and omnipotent, and a man is none of those, the only reality that idea can have is as a permanent contradiction, albeit shoved to the back of the believer’s head.
So I am with Roger. Believe that, and you prove yourself capable of holding two contradictory positions. Simultaneously.
Oedipus, yes, that is hilarious!
Sorry Josh S; I meant Josh Rosenau. I should have used a complete name. TE is shorthand for theistic evolutionist – sometimes referred to as a EC evolutionary creationist. I think Josh R is messing with people who are likely to turn around and bite him in the ass.
Ah, thanks Michael – I should have figured that out on my own. :-) And yes, I agree. I think a whole lot of them (Rosenau, the NCSE, the AAAS) are cozying up to some very sinister figures. They’re trading immediate expediency for what I think are more important long-term considerations. And they don’t see it.
Classic quote from the Biologos comments:
As long as you love God, nothing else matters.
With their attitude of thinking Genesis is too controversial to mention even in church, why shouldn’t I think they won’t back off on any subject when challenged – including science.
I forgot this one:
I assume this goes back to Falk’ view of being in the middle somehow, but I am not getting the dualism of RD’s thinking nor his discomfort with complexity. I thought God was supposed to be simple, but now God is complex. What is a nontheologian supposed to think?
Sorry, Michael, but it really is quite simple. A non-theologian is supposed to think that the theologian is always right. And he makes sure that he is. If the argument requires something simple, he’s got that. But if the argument demands comfort with complexity, he’s got that too. Theologians make it up as they go along. Just watch Pastor Hunter ducking and diving. He’s got to have an answer for everyone, otherwise someone will just check out, and that’s part of his budget gone.
On a positive note, this (“this fact … need not, indeed must not, affect our relationship with God,”) is the best to be expected: maybe in a few generation the grandchildren will live life even more fully.
Apophatic theology 101: no affirmative statement can be applied to God. We cannot say He is not-simple; we cannot deem him not-complex.
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Okay so the deal is, even though we know there is no good reason to believe “God” exists, that is trumped by the duty to love this “God” that we know there is no good reason to believe exists.
That makes a lot of sense.
Eric, thanks I should have realized that. I still don’t get the reference to Dawkins and complexity, but perhaps the commenter is referring to Ockham’s razor – adding god to an explanation increases the number of assumptions and its complexity?
Just a picky mathematical point; if you square the circle (construct a square of area equal to a given circle) the corners do “poke out”.
As far as the pastor goes: ’twas ever thus; enthusiasm will always make up for a lack of logic. The entire advertising industry is founded on such premises.
Contrary to the atheist billboards, a lot of people will start worrying if they suspect there’s no God. Give them something that lets them accept the “supernatural” or “spiritual” and science and they’ll grab it with both hands.