Nature's Witness: Conversation with Daniel Harrell About Evolution and Faith — Why Do This?

This post introduces a series in conversation with Daniel Harrell, author of “Nature’s Witness:  How Evolution Can Inspire Faith.”  Daniel is a long-time Pastor at Park Street Church in Boston, MA.  Park Street is an historic evangelical church.

Some readers of this blog, or other friends, colleagues or fellow church members who might stumble across it, might wonder why I’ve been diving into this topic.

First, let me say that I hope I can discuss the relationship between Christian faith and the natural sciences without being divisive.  Obviously, many people within the evangelical tradition, which I claim as my own, including some friends and family members, hold strong views that differ from mine.  I don’t write to dismiss those people, whose fellowship I greatly value.

At the same time, I understand my calling, training, and life’s work to be about exploring Christian faith and culture.  This involves dialoguing with people oppose or are indifferent about the Christian faith concerning the truth and relevance of the gospel, as well as contributing to the spiritual and intellectual vitality of the Church, as God enables me.  If the Church is failing to live up to some of the cultural challenges presented to it, or is not engaging questions of truth with integrity, I believe it’s part of my calling to offer whatever small contribution I can, relating to areas God has prompted and enabled me to study, towards reforming how we as the Church contextualize the gospel and represent Truth.

I hope it doesn’t appear that I have some delusion of grandeur about my own role in this process.  It’s easy to come across as condescending when one has developed strong opinions after a period of careful study.  There is a great array of Christian scholars and writers who are far more diligent and capable than I on any faith-and-culture issue you might name, some with perspectives different than mine, from whom I hope to continue learning.

Yet — I do believe that the evangelical tradition I love so much is facing something of a crisis of legitimacy because of the natural sciences.  Our posture towards truth discovered in the natural sciences has too often been defensive, disingenuous, and dishonest.  These are obviously strong words, and I use them, as we lawyers like to say, “advisedly.”  But I think we need to be clear-headed about what is at stake.

As Christians we believe in Truth, with a capital-“T”.  We should, of course, be appropriately chastened in our epistemic claims about what we think we know of ultimate Truth.  Indeed, I think the “strong foundationalism” of some kinds of evangelical theology is part of our problem.  Nevertheless, we are not after mere existential fantasies or illusory emotional states.  We believe and proclaim that Jesus Christ is the center of a reality created by God, not of our own making.  If we tie that proclamation to untruths about the nature of the material creation, we at best dilute our message and at worst make ourselves into hypocrites and liars.

Moreover, particularly in the global North / West, we live in an age that craves authenticity.  Anyone under age fifty today in North America can smell dissembling a mile away.  I believe our failure to accept truth from the natural sciences, and our apparent inability to reflect in a theologically robust and mature fashion on such truth, is a significant reason why Christianity has become more and more marginalized in North America.  Is it any surprise that people suspect us of pulling a fast one when they realize that, in exchange for the warm comforts of faith, they have to check their brains and education at the church door, deny the reality of natural history, and buy into an incoherent alternative pseudo-science?

Finally, I think the 800-pound gorilla that is faith-and-science is unsettling to many faithful evangelical Christians in ways that represent a significant failure of pastoral care within our tradition.  A reasonably smart and informed person who digs in to the stock “answers” he or she is likely to receive regarding these questions in an evangelical context will find them lame.  For many — and I can testify that this was true for me and for many other people I’ve met — this can prompt significant spiritual and emotional turmoil.  This gorilla cannot be ignored or it eventually will squash many fine Christian people.

The good news is that, in the best tradition of evangelicalism, increasing numbers of evangelical scientists, pastors and theologians are beginning to discuss evolutionary science openly and clearly.  Daniel Harrell, I think, is one such person.  These conversations actually have a significant history in evangelicalism, going back to some contemporaries of Darwin who did not think his theory an inherent threat to faith.  Even so, church history demonstrates that it can take hundreds of years to develop a robust, widely accepted consensus on challenging questions.  There are some significant theological challenges inherent in biological evolution, and there is not yet a clear or simple solution to every challenge.  These challenges shouldn’t be feared, because retreating from Truth is not an option.  Rather, we need to try to meet them humbly with every grace God provides.

Next post:  starting my conversation with Daniel Harrell.