I recently discovered the Trinity Forum, an outstanding resource on faith and culture from a Reformed perspective. I’m looking forward to their new initiative on faith and science, funded by the Templeton Foundation. A forum that includes Francis Collins and Dallas Willard as well as Trinity Forum President Luder Whitlock is bound to be interesting and hopefully productive.
Category: Theology
This is a great post by Chris Tilling (there are lots of silly reader comments following the post, but the post is excellent). Chris’ concluding points:
- If we struggle with tensions in the bible, we may need to examine our expectations in light of the eschatological nature of truth. We may need to reframe our concerns according to the relational nature of truth. Put this way, we can perhaps avoid the scissors approach to the bible, one which early church heretic Marcion attempted, as he sought to exorcise all Jewish elements from the bible (talk about a doomed project!)
- If truth is a complex beast, one not easily pinned down, we may need to move beyond a simple treatment and comparison of ‘biblical propositions’ to an appreciation of the living complexity of truth.
- Perhaps our struggles with biblical tensions can help us to reformulate our thinking about the nature of the bible, one that takes more seriously our commitment to the practice of bible reading.
- The longing for the bible to make sense, for tensions to be explained away, is entirely legitimate, perhaps reflecting something of our longing for the coming of the Lord when we will ‘know fully’. Yet we must guard against an over-realised eschatology, one which thinks the things that will happen at Christ’s return have already happened. Acceptance of an over-realised eschatology will tend to end in discouragement, and Paul had therefore to combat it occasionally (2 Thessalonians).
- Thinking of the inspiration of scripture in light of the secretaries letter may help us to embrace a fully human and occasionally contradicting text while at the same time fully embracing the text as written under the authority of God.
And Chris’ concluding prayer:
“Father, there is so much that we do not understand, so much that confuses us in the Bible. We surely only know in part. So we pray for wisdom, for a closer walk with you, for deeper maturity in our faith, that we would be passionate
lovers of truth. Protect, strengthen and develop our faith, that it may bear fruit in our lives, that we truly play our part in the evangelisation of the nations and the transformation of society, remembering always that it is you who carries us; you are our foundation, not we ourselves, not our understanding of biblical tensions nor the strength of our often failing faith. We give you gloryfor hearing our prayer for the sake of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen”
This continues my 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.
Dave: Concerning the image of God, you mention Wolfhart Pannenberg. I notice that in the book you make a few references to Jourgen Moltmann. Most evangelical readers will be unfamiliar with these names. I suspect that the few who have heard of them will associate them with theological liberalism, and worse, with panentheism and process theology. But anyone who serioiusly studies Christian faith and the natural sciences will need to grapple with Pannenberg and Moltmann. So:
Do you see any dangers in Pannenberg’s and/or Moltmann’s concepts of God and creation? How (if at all) would you distinguish your understanding of God and His relation to creation from their views? Or, maybe a better way to put this: do you think Pannenberg and Moltmann’s views of God and creation are consistent with Nicene orthodoxy, or is some version of patripassionism required for a Christian understanding of evolution?
Daniel: You might want to elucidate which views of Pannenberg and Moltmann you mean (they write pretty extensively on God and creation!). As for patripassionism, its rejection, I think, presumes too strong a categorical understanding of the Trinity than is demanded. In other words, that Jesus is God who dies on the cross while the Father is God who receives his prayer and expends his wrath is nevertheless both God who atones and God who satisfies. Moltmann, to my recollection, does not suggest that God the Father is crucified, but rather God the Son who is one with the Father is crucified. (If this isn’t Moltmann’s position then it is mine and one that squares with Nicene orthodoxy . “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5.19). ). This is an important distinction as well as one of those Trinitarian realities that defy logic.
That this is necessary for embracing evolution entails recognizing that death has been part of organic life from the beginning (whether you believe in six-days or six billion years). And thus nature as characteristic of God entails a God for whom death is part of his character. I think Moltmann’s “crucified God” (albeit in the ways I interpret above) would provide for such a God.
Dave: Specifically on the image of God in humanity, Pannenberg says in his Systematic Theology that “[i]n the story of the human race, then, the image of God was not achieved fully at the outset. It was still in process. . . . If we think of the divine likeness as being already achieved in Adam’s first estate, we cannot view it as our final destiny in a process of history.” Can you explain a little more how you apply this sort of theory from Pannenberg to your theology of human nature?
Daniel: Not having Pannenberg in front of me, I nevertheless read the quotation as emphasizing that the image of God cannot be attained as a process of history because it is an act of God. “New creation” can never be a product of evolution. I assert that our ultimate “image of God” is attained by the redemptive work of Jesus, which was part of the original plan (Rev 13:8–KJV). Evolution points to a very good but incomplete creation that groans as it awaits its redemption, even from the beginning. God created a free process creation that resulted in free willed creatures who freely rejected God’s overtures and thus made redemption necessary. As a God who loves sacrificially, he always had redemption in mind, even at creation. (Just don’t ask me why. Although it does help explain how it is that Adam could have ever sinned in the first place.)
These are some materials I’m putting together for a study on Lamentations.
Introductory Questions:
What places, institutions, etc. might we think of as holding a symbolic place in our hearts and minds as did the city of Jerusalem to the Judahites?
Why do you think “the city” occupies such a central place in Lamentations? Can you think of other places in scripture where “city” is an important concept? Why do you think this might be so?
Have you ever felt “deserted,” “betrayed,” or “bitter”? Why? How did you express and deal with those feelings?
What do you think about the role of public lament in our culture? For example, what would a “service of lamentation” look like in one of our local churches? Why don’t we like to talk about or practice lament?
Some important background:
Lamentations is comprised of a group of poems concerning the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. by the Babylonians. It is unclear who wrote these poems, although most scholars agree that the writer or writers probably had been left behind in the area of Jerusalem after its destruction. It has traditionally been held that the writer is the prophet Jeremiah.
Jerusalem had been seen as the spiritual, political and economic center of the kingdom of Judah. It was the location of a magnificent temple to God built by King Solomon. The destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians was the devastating culmination of a long war. Those of Judahs’ “brightest and best” who had not been killed in the war were deported to Bablyon (we get a glimpse of this practice in the book of Daniel). Those who remained in Judah after this “Babylonian exile” had been stripped of everything — their incomes, their dignity, their loved ones, and symbol of their national faith, the Temple.
These events were particularly devastating because of the history that preceded them. The nation of Israel had been united under Kings Saul, David and Solomon. After Solomon’s death, his sons divided the nation into two kingdoms, the Northern (Israel) and the Southern (Judah). An immediate reason for this division was that the tribes in the North rejected the heavy taxes levied by Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. Scripture also tells us that the division of the kingdom was God’s judgment for Solomon’s failure to rid the nation of idol worship. (See 1 Kings 12:30-43.) The Northern Kingdom, comprising ten of the original tribes of Israel, regularly engaged in alliances with other nations in contradiction to God’s commands. It was conquered by Assyria in 722 B.C.E.
The Southern Kingdom was comprised of the tribes of Benjamin and Judah. King David was a Judahite. God had promised that David’s kingdom would endure forever. In 2 Samuel 7:11-16, God spoke through the prophet Samuel, and gave this promise:
“Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to be ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men of the earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.
The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’
Judah’s national identity, therefore, was as the chosen remnant of God through whom the Davidic kingdom, and with it the blessing of God, would endure forever. In this light, the destruction of Jerusalem by the pagan nation of Babylon was an inconceivable calamity. It seemed that God himself had forsaken his promises to his people.
Some Helpful Resources
F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Lamentations, “Interpretation” Commentary Series (John Knox Press 1989)
J. Andrew Dearman, Lamentations, NIV Application Commentary (Zondervan 2002)
The Baker Atlas of Christian History (Baker 2005)
This continues my 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.
Dave: Let’s consider a question that’s the “Big Kahuna” for many evangelicals — and I admit, a tough one for me: the evolution of human beings and the Biblical account of Adam and Eve. A friend of mine reminds me that Genesis 2:4 describes what follows as an “account” — a tol’dot or “generational history” — though of course I remind him that it’s a different history chronologically than Gen. 1! Theologically it seems that the literal-ness of Adam has been a line in the sand, particularly for folks committed to a Reformed understanding of original sin. You seem to lean towards a “recent representatives” view in your book. A few specific questions here:
Is it difficult or uncomfortable for you to come to a view that’s not strictly monogenistic? Does this mess significantly with your theology of scripture, the image of God, and original sin?
Daniel: No, not necessarily. As for the image of God, if you are willing to assert that God creates with evolution (which I am willing to do), then the image of God becomes a result of that, and thus people evolve as a reflection of God’s own creative and free character. However, in line with Pannenberg, I see the imago dei as destiny rather than starting point. So God creates people in his image; that is, he makes us with the potential to become (as with creation itself). At the same time, God’s plan includes redemption from the beginning. In Christ we are fully the image of God.
I’ve never been one who thought of original sin as genetic (and clearly neither could have the Reformers). Once Adam and Eve go for it, the human race is tainted to be sure, but remember, I see creation as something started and not yet finished, not something perfect that then went awry.
Dave: More than a few people have suggested to me that accepting a non-literal or semi-literal view of Adam is a rejection at least of evangelical Christianity, or worse, the loss of something essential to any sort of authentic Christian faith. How do you respond to such concerns?
Daniel: I do think that an historic Adam and Eve seem to be as essential as an historic Jesus, at least given Paul’s treatment. I grant that adam could be a metaphor for humanity as a whole. But if your concern is the authority of Scripture, having Adam as a person (chapter 2 account) describes what Gen 1 does poetically as a prologue. Still, if Adam turned out to be fictitious (and how would we ever know this?), I don’t think all would be lost. In the end, Christianity rises and falls on the resurrection, not on the garden of Eden.
Dave: How persuaded are you really that the “recent representative” view might be true? I have to confess, it seems to me a stretch to suggest that Adam was a Neolithic farmer or something along those lines.
Daniel: I do think it “might” be true and surely as well as anything at preserving a reading of Scripture in line with a reading of evolutionary biology. And yet it is, like all of this, provisional. If it is the case that people emerge as evolution teaches, having God inject homo sapiens into creation seems just as odd given all that would be required to mask its injection as natural rather than supernatural. But, if Adam is a precursor of Christ, I guess God can do whatever pleases him. My point is that we don’t have to get caught up in defending a literal Adam. We have options.
Categories
Guretzki on Truth
This is a great entry by David Guretzki, Associate Professor of Theology at Briercrest College & Seminary. Quoting in full:
I had this email come to me from an inquirer from the West Indies.
May I ask you a question about Christian Soteriology ?
With so many different denominations out there who insist that there are commandments which they keep that other churches do not keep (eg 7th day Sabbath) and with so many different interpretations of the bible, how does one know what the truth is and is finding the truth about every single commandment to be kept a matter of life and death?
Secondly, why is it that the indwelling Spirit doesn’t guarantee singularity of thought?
Here’s what I said:
1) You ask, “With so many different denominations out there who insist that there are commandments which they keep that other churches do not keep (eg 7th day Sabbath) and with so many different interpretations of the bible, how does one know what the truth is and is finding the truth about every single commandment to be kept a matter of life and death?”
Biblically, I think it is important to realize that “truth” is, first of all, most closely identified with the person of Jesus Christ. As he himself says, ”I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). One of the problems we have had in the modern period is assuming the “impersonality” of truth. But this is in contrast to the biblical assertion that God is grace and truth, and that he manifests that grace and truth personally in his Son Jesus Christ, who is also said to be full of grace and truth (John 1:14). Jesus is, in other words, the exact representation of God’s gracious and truthful being (cf. Heb 1:3). To know Jesus is to know Truth.
This leads me to conclude that no human individual (or denomination, for that matter) is able to grasp the truth in its fullness on her or his own. We know the truth analogously to how one knows another person. Thus, we would be better off thinking about “truth” in relational terms. In other words, to know, biblically, is to enter into relationship, not simply to grasp cognitively. To know means to know someone moreso than knowing something. While cognitive grasping of the nature of another person is an important aspect of knowledge, it is only a part of what it means to know.
To know the truth, therefore, means to know Christ personally in a growing way. It is what we call the walk of discipeship and following after Jesus. Consequently, differences of opinion on what Scripture means, how we are to keep commandments, etc. should not at all come as asurprise, given the fact that we (Christians) are all in the process of coming to know Christ more fully, and to becoming increasingly conformed to his image. Since we now only see dimly and only know in part, we are bound to disagree, especially because we continue to fall into sin and division. But when we see Jesus face to face, then we shall “know fully, even as [we are] fully known.” (1 Cor 13:12) Full knowledge in the kingdom of God will consist of knowing God the Father fully in and through the one mediator, Jesus Christ. Though we cannot yet claim to know God fully in this life, we claim the Scripture that he does know us fully in Jesus Christ. Our knowledge of him is, in other words, in the process of “catching up” to how he already knows us.
In regard to whether finding the truth about every single commandment to be kept is a matter of life and death, I would say this: God alone is the one who holds life and death in his hand (Deut 32:39). As important as it is to ensure that we are living in obedience to God’s commands, we do so recognizing that it is only as God gives his Son and his Spirit that there is no condemnation (Rom 8:1-2). Those who think that a particular interpretation of a commandment is the key to life and death are still stuck in the idea that truth has something primarily to do with cognition, or even with right action, rather than right relationship. As disciples, we seek to do everything that Christ commanded (Matt 28:19), but we do so knowing that we do nothing to save ourselves. So we continue to debate over how best to live in obedience to Christ, but we do so recognizing, again, that our knowledge is still incomplete and dim.
2) You ask: “Why is it that the indwelling Spirit doesn’t guarantee singularity of thought?” Hopefully, the above begins to answer that, but I will expand here. Part of the problem, I think, is that we tend to think of “unity” as “uniformity of thought” or “singularlity of thought” rather than “cohesion of thought around a common centre.” I use the example of a large group of people standing around a very large and complex architectural structure–like a Great Pyramid of Egypt or the Taj Mahal. Singularity of thought would mean that every observer sees the architectural wonder from exactly the same perspective and using exactly the same set of words. But such uniformity wouldn’t likely even begin to capture the fullness of what is to be “known.” In contrast, “unity of thought” would accept that while all the people encircled around the object are viewing the same thing (i.e., they have a common centre of focus), they by no means will see the same thing. Thus, someone viewing the Taj Mahal from the north side will see very different things from the person viewing the Taj Mahal from the south side. But it is still the same central focus informing both. That is, I think, what it means to have unity of thought over against the idea of singularity of thought.
If in fact we all thought in uniform ways, the Christian pursuit of the knowledge of God (in the biblical sense) would be in danger of ceasing. Uniformity of thought would mean we would all agree on everything, and once we agree on everything, down to every possible minute detail, we would be tempted to set aside our pursuit of God and the fullness of his glory. We would be tempted by that great temptation which tempted Adam and Eve: You shall be like God, with the ability to know good and evil in the way that only God knows (Gen 3:5).
Furthermore, Scripture makes it clear that it is the Spirit of God alone who knows the deepest thoughts of God (1 Cor 2:11). In order for us all to know God in uniformity of mind, and to be agreed 100% on every minute detail of theology would require that all of us would know all things. And that, of course, would again, by definition, make us equal to God. Rather, it is as a fellowship of believers, the Church, the body of Christ made up of many members (1 Cor 12:12ff) that we come to know God. There is, in other words, no individual member that can claim to “know it all,” lest that individual be tempted to say, “I have no need of you.”
The Scripture teaches that the Spirit is a Spirit of unity (Eph 4:4), not a spirit of uniformity. (By the way, such a spirit of uniformity is what leads people into deception, especially in cults, and indeed, in all kinds of fundamentalisms where diversity of thought is discouraged). This is why the apostle says, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph 4:3). If the Spirit ensured uniformity, the moral imperative to us to make the effort to maintain unity would be negated. Instead, to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit means that we as Christians are called to recognize the spiritual unity that we have in Jesus Christ, in the unity of our baptism, and the oneness of God the Father, even in the midst of disagreements. It means working hard to remember that even when we disagree at various doctrinal points and in matters of practice, we still share a common confession of faith in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in whose name we were baptized. Technically speaking, then, the only appropriate cause for a break of fellowship with those with whom we disagree is when we disagree about the identity of the God whom we worship.
Categories
The Task of Theology
. . . the task of theology is not simply to ask ‘What has the church said and believed, and how can we best express that so that people today will be able to understand it?; it must also ask and answer the question, ‘What should the church say and believe today?’ Consideration of the internal coherence must also entail concern for what we might call the ‘external reference’ of the story which the church tells, of its correspondence to some actual state of affairs in an beyond the world, its responsibility to some objective reality which stands over against itself and of which it seeks to speak. This is vital if theology is to remain essentially a quest for truth, rather than a simple bid (driven by nostalgia or a misguided sense of historical obligation) to preserve the shape an coherence of a particular theological tradition at all costs.
Trevor Hart, Faith Thinking: the Dynamics of Christian Theology (assigned text for Missional Theology I at Biblical Seminary).
Here is an excellent summary of a recent conference at the Lumen Christi Institute on the relation of the natural sciences and Christian faith concerning human nature. Why do moderate-conservative Catholics always seem so far ahead of us evangelicals in developing nuanced, careful, thoughtful interactions with cultural products such as the natural sciences?
HT: The Catholic Thing, a really excellent online journal of Catholic social thought.
This continues my 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.
Dave: Daniel, one of the things I appreciate most about your approach is your focus on integrity and truth as key theological values. But the first response from many evangelical readers is likely to be: “exactly — and only in the Bible can we find inerrant truth. If supposed ‘truth’ from science conflicts with claims in the Bible, we must presume that the scientists are operating with inadequate presuppositions. The only ‘true’ science will be science that begins with the belief that the Biblical record is true.” Many evangelicals who follow this line of argument insist that young earth creationism is the only viable option, while others accept an old earth but believe the Biblical references to the creation of separate “kinds,” and particularly to the special creation of Adam and Eve, rule out Darwinian evolution.
It seems to me that this line of argument touches on a seam in evangelicalism that runs close to the boundary between groups historically considered evangelical or not-evangelical — the inspiration and authority of the Bible — which in turn hits on an underlying fault line concerning epistemology. We see in contemporary evangelicalism ongoing ferment about precisely how to define the implications of Biblical inspiration and authority, and the appropriate use and limits of human reason in exploring the ‘human’ aspects of the Bible, evidenced by the row over Peter Enns’ book Inspiration and Incarnation.
In your book, you say “[t]he Bible says ‘six days,’ but there’s no way that’s right unless astrophysics and geology are patently false . . . correctly interpreted scientific discovery will always agree with correctly interpreted Scripture and vice versa.” Can you elaborate a bit on the epistemology and theology of Biblical inspiration and authority that underlie your approach?
Daniel: When we speak of the authority of Scripture, we speak of Scripture and not our interpretation of it. An infallible Bible does not make its readers infallible too. Therefore, any stance on Biblical truth is always a provisional one. We see through that glass darkly (!) and we walk by faith. To me, this is where science can be of enormous assistance. If science correctly perceives nature, and nature bears witness to God, then science can assist in those places where Scripture is ambiguous or disputed because all truth is from God. As for “correct” interpretation, correctness in the case of Scripture depends on corroboration from history, experience and ultimately eschatology, while in science, correctness depends upon further discovery, replication and corroboration across disciplines. In both cases, revelation relies in some part on a consensus of many people across culture and time (which is why evolution and the resurrection are both so influential today).
Dave: Well, ok, but let me push back a little more, if I may, with a long-winded follow up question. Sorry it’s a long question, but I know it’s important to me and to many of my readers who above all crave authenticity in how we respond to questions like those you deal with in your book.
Let’s take the example of when the Biblical writers speak in terms of Ancient Near Eastern cosmology — a three tiered universe, a disk shaped earth with pillars supporting a solid-dome sky, etc. Is the hermeneutical task vis-a-vis the contemporary sciences here a matter of interpreting what they really meant notwithstanding surface appearances to the contrary? Or is it more fair to say that they most likely really mean what everyone else in the ANE would have meant, which we now know is inaccurate?
It seems to me that this question sits on top of some important fault lines in evangelical theology. Does contemporary science in this instance (a) help us understand the true intention of the Biblcal writer; (b) help us understand that God accommodated the writer’s incorrect background assumptions in communicating an infallible message; (c) help us understand that the historical-literal-grammatical hermeneutic is too flat for discerning the revelatory content of the text, (d) vindicate Barth’s notion that “revelation” and “text” are not coeextensive; (e) all of the above; or (f) something else?
I have to be honest — I have a hard time swallowing that the Biblical writers and redactors really intended to communicate that life on earth, including human beings, evolved over billions of years, and that contemporary science illuminates that intent. It seems clear to me that the Biblical text reflects a distinctive Hebrew version of the prevailing ANE creation myths, and that the authors / redactors had no notion at all of a slowly evolving universe. I tend to think that if an evangelical theology of the inspiration and authority of scripture can’t deal with this, then it’s not a theology that is dealing in reality.
So the question: accepting the scientific reality of biological evolution has to impact evangelical theologies of Biblical inspiration and authority beyond just the old concordist approaches, doesn’t it?
Daniel: I wish I typed better…
Let me begin by asserting that the “word of God is living and active” meaning that revelation through that word is not static. Getting to original intent is extremely problematic in my view.
Nevertheless, I would argue that the as far as the ANE is concerned, I would hold that the genres in which Scripture come to us allow for a] a factoring out of acculturated terminology– whether that’s a three-tiered universe or any other artifact of that period in which the Bible was written, and/or b] interpretation that remains true to what we believe the authors (may have) intended while incorporating contemporary understanding and further revelation/illumination.
I like Barth, and I’d probably add as to c] the caveat that the h-l-g hermeneutic is partial rather than “too flat.”
I take for granted that nature has always operated under the same principles it currently operates (which is what evolution teaches) and had the Biblical writers had access to modern science, their work would have read differently while communicating the same “word of God.” So yes to your view. Concordism is mostly a dead end. But I don’t think that means that the Bible is locked in its ancient timeframe which is why it remains such an amazing book and a powerful “sword.” Heb 4:12.
Following is the start of my conversation with Daniel Harrell, author of Nature’s Witness (things in italics are my questions).
1. What motivated you to take on this project?
Theological integrity demands that whatever we think about faith and life correspond to the way things actually are as opposed to how we want or wish things to be. God is the God of reality. If evolution is real, then to reject it presents difficulties for Christian faith and theology. A proposed alternative is to assume that ultimate truth resides in the heart and mind of God and to assume evolution to be part of that truth (“all truth is God’s truth”). Based upon confirmed scientific data, a flourishing, robust Christianity stays faithful to the Biblical narrative as its source for theological reflection, while at the same time heralding scientific discovery as an accurate description of the universe on which theology reflects.
2. What sort of responses / reactions did you encounter from other Christians as you were exploring your approach? To the extent there were positive responses, how did they encourage you? To the extent there were negative responses, how have you manged them?
Overall, I have a received very positive responses. This may be a result of living and working in Boston with so many universities where people of faith are motivated to find areas of convergence between their beliefs and their academic interests. The most encouraging responses are those form people who are excited about being able to think theologically about evolution. The most negative from those for whom evolution=godlessness. Inasmuch as those folks are open to discuss, the conversations have been excellent.