Evangelicals and Evolution:

A Student Perspective
A Weblog Series published on An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution

Contributors:
Ryan Bebej
Emiliano Carneiro Monteiro
Eric DeVries
Jordan Mallon
Bethany Sollereder

Edited by:
Steve Martin

Document Version: 1.0b

Last Updated: December 1, 2009

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individual authors. You are free to share, copy, or distribute this document in full within the limitations of the
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 Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student Perspective

Table of Contents

I. Overview of the Series and Contributors.......................................................................................................... 3

II. Evangelicals and Evolution - A Student Perspective: Introduction.................................................................. 4
III. My Journey from Opposing Evolution to Studying It...................................................................................... 4
IV. An Evolutionary Biology Student Discovers Christ ......................................................................................... 6
V. My Transition from a Conservative Creationist to a Theistic Evolutionist...................................................... 7
VI. Clarifying Concepts in the Creation-Evolution Dialogue ................................................................................. 9
VII. Avoiding the topic of Evolution in Christian Academia: Reflections from a Theology Student ................... 10

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 Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student Perspective

I. Overview of the Series and Contributors

A series of articles on “Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student Perspective” was published from October 24, 2009
through November 23, 2009 on the weblog An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution. It included six separate posts.
Authors in order of appearance included:

1. Steve Martin wrote the series Introduction which was published on October 24. He publishes the weblog
An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution.

2. Ryan Bebej contributed the article My journey from opposing evolution to studying it which was published
on October 26. Ryan is a Ph.D student at the University of Michigan in the Dept. of Ecology and
Evolutionary Biology where he studies the early evolution of whales.

3. Emiliano Carneiro Monteiro contributed the article An evolutionary biology student discovers Christ ... and
the toxic anti-evolutionism that often taints the Gospel which was published on November 2. Emiliano is
a doctoral student studying cellular biology with a focus on morphology at the Universidade de São Paulo,
São Paulo, Brazil. He is currently researching the digestive system of a Phasmid (stick bug) species, as
well as physiological features of its digestive processes.

4. Eric DeVries contributed the article My transition from a conservative creationist to a theistic evolutionist
(albeit with some unanswered questions) which was published on November 9. Eric is a post-grad
biology student at Calvin College.

5. Jordan Mallon contributed the article Clarifying concepts in the creation-evolution dialogue which was
published on November 16. Jordan is a Ph.D. student at the University of Calgary where he is studying the
evolutionary palaeoecology of the Late Cretaceous herbivorous dinosaurs from Alberta.

6. Bethany Sollereder contributed the article Avoiding the topic of Evolution in Christian academia:
Reflections from a theology student which was published on November 23. Bethany is working on her
Masters in Christian Studies at Regent College in Vancouver, where her studies focus on evolutionary
theodicy from an evangelical perspective.

3
 Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student Perspective
II. Evangelicals and Evolution - A
Student Perspective: Introduction
This is the first post in a seven-part series on
“Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student Perspective”.
For many evangelicals, their first serious encounter
with evolution occurs as a student in post-secondary
school. Evolution is certainly encountered and
discussed prior to this, but it is usually in the form of
anti-evolution propaganda. Our churches, youth
ministries, Christian camps, and other Christian
organizations are very good at attacking evolution; they
are not so good at introducing thoughtful material on
the dialogue between modern science and an
evangelical expression of the Christian faith. Thus the
first encounter with the evidence for evolution in
college or university can be a formative experience for
evangelical students; it can be traumatic or awe-
inspiring, depressing or exhilarating, faith shaking or
faith affirming.
Better Availability of Resources for
Today's Students
Fortunately evangelical students today have access to
much better resources than past generations. Today,
there are numerous books, articles, and electronic
material that provide a positive view of evolution from
an evangelical perspective; even twenty years ago these
resources were virtually non-existent. Today a healthy
minority (maybe majority?) of evangelical scientists
accept the scientific consensus for evolution, our OT
biblical scholars acknowledge that the best scholarly
interpretations of the ancient scriptures (including
Genesis) do not in any way exclude evolution, and a
healthy number of our theologians accept that God
created through the process of evolution.
This recent, and significant, change is reflected in our
mainstream evangelical institutions. For example,
Wheaton (which could possibly be referred to as
“Evangelicalism’s Rome”) has for years been offering
a Theories of Origins science course for its
undergraduates. The major course objective is to give
students a background for evaluating the merits of
scientific and theological claims for origins theories.
Source material from a range of creationist positions
(YEC, OEC, and EC) is reviewed in the course.
Student surveys show that a YEC position on human
origins is historically the position with the most support
at the beginning of the course, and the position with the
least support when the course ends.
4
The Series
Over the next month, in a series of posts on this blog,
five post-secondary students will be sharing their
perspective on evolution. Three science students will
share their personal accounts on reconciling their faith
with evolutionary science. In separate posts, Ryan
Bebej and Eric DeVries will describe their transition
from opposing evolution because of their faith, to
accepting evolution while growing in their faith.
Sandwiched between these posts, will be the story of
Emiliano Monteiro, a student of evolutionary science,
who found faith in Jesus Christ through a campus
ministry, but then discovered that his new Christian
community rejected the conclusions of the science he
was studying. The fourth post in this series will be
from Jordan Mallon. Jordan has been involved in the
creation-evolution dialogue for quite some time, and he
will share three concepts that he has found helpful in
this dialogue. Finally, Bethany Sollereder, a theology
student, will discuss why Christian academics often
avoid the topic of evolution. Evangelical academia may
be making progress, but there is still room for vast
improvement.
The evangelical landscape on the science-faith dialogue
has changed dramatically in the last generation.
Although we are still a long way from making peace
with science, I am hopeful that within another
generation evangelicalism will have accomplished this
once seemingly impossible objective. If we are to
arrive there, it is this generation of students that will be
carrying the torch.
Enjoy the series.
III. My Journey from Opposing
Evolution to Studying It
This is a guest post by Ryan Bebej and is the second in
our series on “Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student
Perspective”. Ryan is a Ph.D student at the University
of Michigan in the Dept. of Ecology and Evolutionary
Biology where he studies the early evolution of whales.
That I am currently studying evolution is somewhat of
a miracle. If ten years ago someone had told me that
today I would be earning my Ph.D. at a large public
university, researching the evolution and paleontology
of mammals, I would have never believed them. Why
not? Well, for the majority of my life, I believed that
the concept of biological evolution was complete
rubbish. I was raised in a close-knit Christian family
that was very active in our local church, and I had
 Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student Perspective
always been taught that the Bible was literal history,
precluding any types of evolutionary scenarios.
These anti-evolution sentiments were indirectly
affirmed even in my public high school. In the small
town where I grew up, being a Christian was virtually
assumed, and schools were very accommodating of
religious belief—even in the classroom. I recall that the
little background on evolutionary theory that I gleaned
from my high school biology class was prefaced with a
disclaimer that we didn’t have to believe any of it if we
didn’t want to. Needless to say, I promptly forgot most
of what was said about Charles Darwin, natural
selection, and the like, and I continued believing what I
thought almost everyone else around me believed: that
God created the universe miraculously several
thousand years ago and that the idea of evolution was
simply not true.
My Initial Exposure to Evolution in College
However, once I got to college, things began to change;
it was there that I began to seriously wrestle with
evolutionary theory for the first time. In my
introductory biology class at Calvin College, we read
some articles about evolution by writers ranging from
Phillip Johnson to Howard Van Till to Richard
Dawkins. These initial readings didn’t convince me to
change my views, but they did prompt me to start
thinking critically about evolution for the first time.
In my second semester, I took an animal biology class
that spent a good deal of time focusing on how
evolution works according to population genetics. Prior
to this, I had never really understood the basics of
evolutionary mechanisms, and I admit that I was a bit
alarmed at how plausible it seemed. Could evolution
really have occurred? If it did, what would that mean
for my faith? This became a crucial issue for me, and I
began to read ravenously and watch anything and
everything I could get my hands on that discussed
evolution. Yet, despite my little obsession with the
topic, if someone had asked me what I thought about
evolution at that time, I would have answered with a
resounding, “I have no clue.”
My Second Year: The Evidence Builds
I read a ton during the summer following my freshman
year. By the time my sophomore year began, I had
realized that there was an awful lot of strong evidence
for biological evolution. During my second year of
college, the strength of this evidence continued to
grow. In my comparative anatomy course, the
homology of structures across disparate animals, as
revealed by their development, provided compelling
evidence for common ancestry. I also took two geology
5
courses, in which I learned about radiometric dating,
stratigraphy, and how to interpret the rock record, and I
became thoroughly convinced that the earth had to be
billions of years old rather than thousands.
In a January term evolutionary biology class, we
surveyed the fossil record, and I was completely
overwhelmed by the anatomies of transitional fossils,
of which I had virtually no prior knowledge. These
fossils exhibited the mosaics of anatomical
characteristics that one would expect to see in an
intermediate form, and they came from fossil beds
during the time periods between their proposed
ancestors and descendents. In my mind, the evidence
for the evolution of life on an ancient earth continued
to grow (and this was before I even knew about the
abundant genetic evidence). I became convinced that
evolution was anything but false; in fact, given the
weight of the evidence, it seemed to be the only
coherent explanation of the past and present biological
world.
Evolution and My Faith
But even as I began to accept that evolution was a real
phenomenon, I still wasn’t sure how this could be
reconciled with my Christian beliefs. Growing up, I
had always thought that there were two positions: you
were either an atheistic evolutionist or you were a
Christian who was opposed to evolution—there was no
middle ground. Fortunately, my Calvin professors, in
both the science and religion departments,
demonstrated to me that there are many people who
don’t fall into these two polarized camps. There are
many Christians who agree with the findings of the
greater scientific community, while managing to
retain—and even grow and strengthen—their faith.
This revelation opened up a whole new set of doors to
me that I had no idea even existed.
Since those first couple of years when I was afraid that
my knowledge of evolution would lead to a crisis of
faith, I have found the opposite to be true. My study of
evolution as a scientist and my pursuit of integrating
my scientific knowledge with my Christian beliefs have
helped my faith to grow by leaps and bounds. I often
wonder how my faith would have been affected had I
been confronted with the evidence of evolution
somewhere other than Calvin. If I had not had the
support and encouragement of such understanding
Christian professors who cared deeply about my
personal and spiritual development, my faith might not
have remained intact. But by God’s grace, I was in just
the right place at the just the right time, and today I
take great pleasure in studying the long history of life
in God’s creation.
 Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student Perspective
IV. An Evolutionary Biology
Student Discovers Christ ... and
the Toxic Anti-Evolutionism that
often Taints the Gospel
This is a guest post by Emiliano Carneiro Monteiro
and is the third post in our series on “Evangelicals and
Evolution: A Student Perspective”. Emiliano is a
doctoral student studying cellular biology with a focus
on morphology at the Universidade de São Paulo, São
Paulo, Brazil. He is currently researching the digestive
system of a Phasmid (stick bug) species, as well as
physiological features of its digestive processes.
My New Life in Christ
My story with Christianity, and with its struggle with
science, began on January 31st, 2007. In the middle of
a great big mess in my life I met Alberto Malta, a very
dear friend and a leader with Campus Crusade for
Christ at the Universidade de São Paulo. I was in the
last year of my undergraduate degree in biology and
after a long talk with Alberto, I took the first step
towards the Christian faith and accepted Christ. Before
that, in my adolescence and throughout college, I
would have described myself as an agnostic or an
atheist, although today I realize my position was
probably pantheistic. The Campus Crusade for Christ
website published a little post about my story at:
http://www.ccci.org/training/evangelism/cojourners/bui
lder-model.aspx
My Introduction to Creationism
At the time, I was already well aware that some
Christian denominations did not accept evolution and
held a ‘literalistic’ interpretation of the book of
Genesis. Although it surprised me at first I didn’t really
mind; I was busy experiencing my new life and setting
my things straight. Furthermore I saw no problem with
Darwin's theory. Evolution didn't get in the way of my
faith but actually helped. To me, it was a wonderful
and elegant process that explained how life developed.
Back then the subject of creation and origins rarely
came up. When it did I often told people that I accepted
evolution but wasn’t a fanatic about it and that there
should be more profound and fulfilling explanations
that lay outside science.
But tension soon arose. At the first church I attended
(Igreja Batista Esperança) everyone kept talking about
“Dr. Adauto Lourenço”. I soon discovered that he was
a physicist, with a doctorate degree from Bob Jones
University, and a creationist. I wasn’t completely aware
6
at the time of what kind of arguments creationists used
to defend their point of view. I never met Adauto
Lourenço in person, but I rushed to buy a set of 5
DVDs with his lectures.
Discussions: Some Fruitless, some Fruitful
While watching the DVDs I had my first faith crisis.
Here was a Christian preacher spreading information
that was simply not true. Soon I ran across more and
more information about the whole “Creation vs
Evolution” subject. In no time I was familiar with most
(if not all) arguments used by creationists to defend
their point of view. I was also aware that almost all
their arguments were false. To make the situation
worse the topic suddenly seemed to be really important
for those around me. However, the many discussions I
had were tiring and fruitless, so I avoided arguments
about it as much as I could when at Church or among
Christian friends.
I even had one or two arguments with my girlfriend,
Karollina, on the subject. She is also a biologist and
played a big role in leading me to Jesus Christ. Until
recently, she defended a creationist point of view (she
was never profoundly interested in the whole
controversy though). Through my own investigation,
interest and dialogue, she became aware of the full
array of Creationist’s arguments. She has since
reviewed her ideas and now accepts the compatibility
of evolution and the Christian faith.
Evangelical Christianity in Brazil
Evangelical Christianity is having truly exponential
growth here in Brazil. That is great because many
people are getting to know more about the gospel and
are engaging in following Jesus Christ. It is also very
good that we Brazilians are developing our own
identity and addressing the unique problems we face
here south of the equator. Still, the process is slow and
evangelical Christians in Brazil tend to follow trends in
the US evangelical church. Antagonism towards
evolution is one harmful idea that the American church
has exported to Brazil.
I’m extremely grateful to those who helped me grow in
my Christian faith. Still, it breaks my heart to see so
many honest followers of Jesus believe that one must
deny evolution in order to be a Christian. That is due
partly because of a lack of information, but also due to
the spreading of misinformation (for example, the
ministry of Dr. Adauto Lourenço). I continue to find
the subject of evolution completely fascinating, and
learn more and more everyday. I do not think that the
knowledge of the theory of evolution should interfere
in a destructive way with anyone’s beliefs.
 Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student Perspective
Portuguese Resources on Science and Faith
Francis Collins’s book Language of God really helped
me. I remember thinking while reading: “Hey, this guy
agrees with me!”. I also had the opportunity to meet
and talk to some ministers and theologians whose
views on Christian faith and science differ from the
creationists. Unfortunately very few books that show a
positive relationship between faith and science get
translated into Portuguese, and other resources in
Portuguese are almost non-existent.
Instead, creationism is being widely promoted amongst
evangelical communities in Brazil as being the one and
only Christian approach to science. It is despairing for
me to see anti-evolutionary misconceptions and false
scientific statements being spread in a country that
already has significant challenges with its educational
system (poor management, and lack of investment from
the state). I don’t think there has ever been a poll in
Brazil to measure the acceptance of evolution, but I
doubt the results would be good.
Conclusion
So that is my story. I am hopeful that with prayer, love
and action, we may see a change in the evangelical
churches in Brazil. I am hopeful that they can spread
the Gospel in a way that is relevant for my fellow
countrymen, but without the damaging additions to the
Word of God that are intellectually faulty and hinder
faith in Jesus Christ.
Paz de Cristo
V. My Transition from a
Conservative Creationist to a
Theistic Evolutionist (albeit with
some unanswered questions)
This is a guest post by Eric DeVries and is the fourth
post in our series on “Evangelicals and Evolution: A
Student Perspective”. Eric is a post-grad biology
student at Calvin College.
I’m an evolutionist, a theistic evolutionist to be
specific. My transition to this position is relatively
recent and I still have much to learn about the
interaction between faith and science. I can’t say that
my journey is a unique story, but maybe it resonates
with some readers of this series.
So here it is.
7
Early impressions of Evolution
I grew up in a typical, western Michigan, Dutch family.
By this I mean to say my family was reserved, proper,
and attended church every Sunday. Our first church
was a mega-church named Calvary which we attended
until I was in 4th grade. At this point my dad decided
that he was tired of all the behind the scenes drama so
we left to find a “better” church. Ironically we ended
up at one of the spiritually deadest churches I have ever
attended. It was there that the idea of evolution was
first presented to me. And in a typical “good” Christian
way, it was described as a theory which directly
contradicted the bible and was therefore wrong; so
wrong in fact that those who accepted it were
ostracized as “unbelievers”.
Attending a Conservative Christian school
in a Liberal part of America
When I was in grade 6 my family moved to a part of
California that many would describe as relatively
liberal. Being the only Christian school in the area, my
parents enrolled me in a conservative, Baptist school.
Again the idea was taught that evolutionary science
could not be reconciled with God’s plan for humanity.
Only this time instead of just hearing it, I integrated it
into my belief system and self-identify. I came to
believe that whomever held to the theory of evolution
was at best direly misguided and at worst going to hell.
Instead of joining an existing church, my family
connected with a couple other families to start our own
church. We lived the challenges of launching a church
in an area resistant to organized Christianity. One of
the biggest challenges was church growth, which was
extremely slow. This lead to quickly solidifying the
relationship between my family and the few others who
were part of the church and it was with these families
that my love of the outdoors, of mountains and the
ocean, developed. The hobbies of hiking and
backpacking became central to my life in California,
sparking my interest in biology. Evolution was not
really avoided as a subject of discussion with this
group of families; it was more put on a side burner, and
not considered an important enough issue to waste
energy discussing. Instead we went about meeting a
much more diverse group of people, realizing that
Christianity does actually consist of more than the
conservative, Dutch social group we were part of in
Michigan.
Learning to be more Open-Minded in a
Conservative Heartland
Moving back to Michigan is a turning point in this
story. The irony is that I started becoming more open
 Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student Perspective
minded in one of the most conservative places in
America after I had learned to be a fundamentalist in
one of the most liberal areas of the country . On the
recommendation of my dad, I became connected with
Young Life, which is a Christian organization in high
schools. I loved it. These people, instead of hiding their
failings, accepted them and worked those weaknesses
into their stories, changing them into something that
God could work with to teach others. My experiences
in the conservative Christian school in California had
taught me the exact opposite, to hide my failings and
only deal with them between myself and God. It took
me a long time to accept this new approach, nearly two
years in fact.
We started attending a church in Grand Rapids which
was pretty “radical”. The pastor there had no
reservations about discussing topics which most
churches would avoid. The sermons opened up dinner
table discussions. Our discussions became more open
minded, and my parents tackled controversial topics;
we were not afraid to ask some hard questions about
our conservative brand of Christianity. We never
outright denied specific traditional beliefs, but we were
encouraged to ask questions about these beliefs. Yet
through this entire time I never gave up on my belief
that evolution was a theory from the devil, and that the
proponents of evolution were like little demons running
around spreading a theory directly against the will of
God.
These discussions, along with my eventual acceptance
of my failings, became a crucial point in my ability to
mentally prepare myself to engage evolution once I
went off to college.
Starting College and my investigation into
Evolution
After graduating from high school I attended Calvin
College. Calvin was like pouring alcohol on a fire as it
caused my desire to ask questions, and in particular
questions regarding evolution, to explode. Why did so
many Christians at this Christian College actually
accept this theory which I had been taught was wrong
(notice the difference between belief and taught at this
point in my life)? I began to dig deeper into the
evidence for evolution; and the more I learned the more
concerned I became. Evolution made sense, or at least
its basic arguments made sense. Some of the particulars
were, for me, a bit sketchy. But the basic claims of
evolution had a logical ring to them, and they appealed
to that left-brained side of who I am. So I accepted a
conditional form of evolution which excluded the
common ancestry of apes and humans. These new ideas
brought tension between my faith and what I was
8
beginning to accept about evolution. It was a real
testament to the changes I had been going through
since moving back from California that I was able to
spiritually and intellectually engage evolutionary
theory.
Evolution and Biblical Interpretation
My exploration of evolutionary theory, and its
implications, made me revisit my ideas of biblical
interpretation. I began to see that a literalistic
interpretation of Genesis leads to many discrepancies.
One, which may not seem as blatant as others, but
oddly enough is the one I remember most, is the
geography of the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 2 the
garden is described as having 4 rivers flowing through
it. One of those is located in Egypt, while two others
are located in current day Iraq, and the fourth has its
probable current day location in Ethiopia. How these
four rivers found themselves, within the recent past
(geologically speaking), to either originate or terminate
in one area is still beyond me.
This rethinking of biblical interpretation was important
in my journey. But even more important was the
evidence supporting evolution. Coming back to Calvin,
following a semester in Spain during my third year, I
decided to take a J-term evolutionary biology class.
This class was a three week course exploring the
evidences behind evolution. I had previously studied
population genetics, homology, and common ancestry
in first two years of college, but had yet to see a
condensed list of the evidence supporting each idea.
We examined the various anatomies of the ear bone in
the transition from land to water in the story of the
whale. We read The Song of the Dodo by David
Quamman, which sifts through the various ideas
presented by naturalists over the past two centuries
before delving into island biogeography and its affects
on the composition and genetics of an isolated
population. But most important was our discussion
about genetics, which was spurred on by our readings
in Quamman and our study of the whale. I began to see
the picture of history painted by genetics using the
mechanism of evolution.
And it convinced me.
Now I identify myself as a theistic evolutionist; an
interesting transition.
Conclusion
I transitioned from a conservative creationist to a
theistic evolutionist in a journey that took anywhere
between 4 and 8 years, depending on the starting point.
Today I see evolution as a beautifully fluid display of
 Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student Perspective
the creative aspect of God. But that does not mean I
have all the pertinent questions answered. One of the
biggest unanswered questions is how to explain death.
Evolution is pushed forward by death, but according to
the biblical account death is an evil only present in the
world after “the fall”. And for that reason how do I
explain “the fall”? So evolution doesn’t explain
everything, and it actually presents new problems.
But evolution happens. For me the bible no longer
dictates what I believe about science. I don’t think it
was ever meant to. Science describes science. That’s
that.
VI. Clarifying Concepts in the
Creation-Evolution Dialogue
This is a guest post by Jordan Mallon and is the fifth in
our series on “Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student
Perspective”. Jordan is a Ph.D. student at the
University of Calgary where he is studying the
evolutionary palaeoecology of the Late Cretaceous
herbivorous dinosaurs from Alberta.
The transition from young earth creationism to a
position that reconciles evolution and faith doesn’t
occur abruptly. It’s a process that takes time and
usually proceeds by the gradual piecing together of
concepts and information. This was certainly the case
for me. When I was growing up, I sympathized with
young earth creationism as taught by the conservative
Lutheran church I attended. Now I research and teach
evolutionary science at the university level, but only
after a prolonged period of soul-searching and careful
study during my post-secondary education. My
theology of nature is still incomplete, but the clarifying
concepts introduced below helped to deconstruct the
barriers that often polarize the evolution-creation
‘debate’ and allowed me to gradually formulate what I
consider a more integrated view of science and faith.
Hopefully, these concepts will help other students in
their struggle to harmonize evolution and evangelical
Christianity.
1) Agency and Mechanism in Creation
The word ‘creationism’ is understood by many
evangelical Christians to refer to the miraculous and
instantaneous creation of life by God. This view is
prevalent and has pigeonholed many of us into
confusing agency for mechanism. That is, the act of
creating becomes needlessly associated with divine
intervention. The corollary is that any explanation for
life’s diversity that doesn’t appeal to miracles, such as
evolution, is assumed to somehow exclude God’s
9
creative agency. Evolution is often described by
believers and non-believers alike as ‘godless’.
This conflation is unfortunate because the Bible teaches
that even natural processes, such as weather, are under
God’s control (e.g., Lev 26:4; Deut 11:14; 1 Sam
12:18; Job 5:10, 37:6; Ps 135:7, 147:8). More to the
point, we are each called a creation of God (Ps 139:14)
despite the fact that human conception and
development proceeds by entirely natural processes.
The Bible’s distinction between agency and mechanism
therefore allows God to exercise His creativity using
the laws of nature He instilled at the beginning of
creation. In this sense, creationism doesn’t preclude
evolution at all! I liken evolution to the Lutheran
doctrine of the Real Presence, in which God is “in,
with, and under” the natural processes that produce
biodiversity on Earth.
2) Methodological and Ontological
Naturalism
If evolution were truly godless because it does not
invoke divine intervention, then the same argument
would necessarily apply to all of science because the
scientific method excludes all appeals to the
supernatural. Miracles, by definition, can’t be measured
or explained and therefore they do not further our
knowledge about how the universe works. Sir Isaac
Newton once believed that the stability of our solar
system was due to the miraculous intervention of God,
but the French astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace later
showed that the stability could be explained entirely
through the natural laws of gravity.
It’s important to note, however, that the preclusion of
miracles from science is only done in practice. Science
cannot comment on whether or not miracles happen, or
whether or not God exists; science is neutral on these
matters. God may perform miracles every day, but for
the reasons given above, the scientific method simply
can’t detect them. The search for natural processes that
operate in the universe is called methodological
naturalism. The atheistic belief that there’s no God and
that the natural world is all that exists is called
ontological naturalism. The former is perfectly in line
with Christian principles, but the latter, obviously, is
not.
3) Accommodation and Concordism
If there’s nothing inherently atheistic about the
scientific theory of evolution, why do so many
evangelicals oppose it so strongly? The answer in large
part has to do with the assumptions we bring to the
scriptures. Evangelicalism, under the influence of
 Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student Perspective
fundamentalism, has promoted the idea that in order to
take the Bible seriously, we must believe that it
provides a literal and accurate description of the
physical universe. That is, God revealed to the authors
of Scripture scientific facts about the universe that
could not otherwise have been known to them at the
time. This assumption is known as scientific
concordism. A concordist interpretation of the Genesis
creation accounts obviously does not leave room for
evolution.
In spite of the popularity of concordism as it pertains to
Genesis, history shows that it’s a largely unwarranted
assumption. At various points in the past, prominent
Christian scholars used the Bible to support numerous
outdated ideas about science, most notably geocentrism
(e.g., Jos 10:12; 1 Sam 2:8; 1 Chr 16:30; Job 38:4; Ps
19:4–6, 24:2, 50:1, 93:1, 96:10, 104:5; Ecc 1:5; Hab
3:11). These ideas have since fallen by the wayside in
light of scientific knowledge, and Christians now read
these parts of the Bible in a different way. Rather than
blindly insisting that our understanding of the physical
world must accord with a literal interpretation of these
passages, we now appreciate that God sometimes
accommodates His message to the limitations of human
understanding. The sun may not literally rotate about
the earth as the Bible describes, but it certainly
appeared that way to the earth-bound Hebrew people of
the Old Testament. The principle of accommodation is
the understanding that God spoke to the authors of
Scripture using language and imagery with which they
were familiar. Many Christians now feel that, given the
previous shortcomings of concordism, the Genesis
creation account might likewise be better understood as
an accommodation of God’s timeless message to the
culture of the ancient Hebrew people. If that’s indeed
the case, then accepting evolution may be no more
heretical than accepting that the earth goes around the
sun!
Further Reading
The concepts introduced above are obviously
interrelated and merit much lengthier discussions than
given in this essay, but time and space prevent further
elaboration. I’ll offer instead a few relevant resources
that helped shape my thoughts here. Stephen Godfrey
and Christopher Smith’s co-authored book Paradigms
on Pilgrimage dedicate a couple helpful chapters to
exploring more fully the concepts of agency and
mechanism, and methodological and ontological
naturalism. Denis Lamoureux’s books Evolutionary
Creation and I Love Jesus and I Accept Evolution
similarly provide a thorough discussion of the
principles of accommodation and concordism. All the
various concepts considered here are connected in
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Keith Miller’s edited volume Perspectives on an
Evolving Creation. Steve Martin tells a similar story to
mine in a blog post here. Be sure to also see Steve’s
selected bibliography for more resources about the
relationship between science and faith.
VII. Avoiding the topic of
Evolution in Christian Academia:
Reflections from a Theology
Student
This is a guest post by Bethany Sollereder and is the
sixth in our series on “Evangelicals and Evolution: A
Student Perspective”. Bethany is working on her
Masters in Christian Studies at Regent College in
Vancouver, where her studies focus on evolutionary
theodicy from an evangelical perspective.
“I just don’t think that’s a very interesting question...”
the professor said slowly from the front of the full
lecture hall, “there are so many more important issues.”
The first year class of graduate students collectively
sighed in disappointment. The questions about
evolution had poured in when they were told they
could ask any question of a panel of professors at the
end of the year long course in Christian thought and
culture. The answer they received seemed like yet
another evasion.
The Science – Faith Dialogue: Great
Potential in Christian Academia
I have now spent six years in the Christian academy
and I find it remarkably hard to understand why the
discussion on the interaction between faith and science
is so often avoided. If anything, it is a wonderful
doorway into many “more important” topics such as
hermeneutics, models of biblical inspiration, ancient
worldview, cultural engagement, and interdisciplinary
studies. The science-faith topic stems from and reaches
into all these areas and many more. The beauty of this
subject area is precisely that its implications are so
wide-reaching. The same tools that you use to exegete
Genesis 1-11 extend out into the rest of the biblical
literature. For example, an understanding of ancient
near eastern cosmology gained in Genesis 1 brings an
excellent understanding of passages as diverse as 1
Chronicles 16, Job 26, Psalm 104, Isaiah 40,
Philippians 2, and Revelation 21! A discussion that
takes modern science into account can challenge
traditional readings of everything from theodicy to
literary criticism, leading to a wide array of interesting
topics. Perhaps it is because it can lead in so many
directions that professors avoid it: it is a conversation
 Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student Perspective
that might never end.
The Challenge of Teaching about Origins
On the other hand, the issue of origins in particular
seems to be uniquely challenging from both an
emotional and a spiritual perspective. Step the wrong
way in this issue, and it is not simply belief in the
historicity of the opening chapters of Genesis that
threatens to topple, but potentially a person’s entire
faith! However, given the spiritual volatility of the
topic, isn’t the Christian academy the perfect
environment to critically examine issues of faith, and
therefore issues of origins? Would it be better for the
student to struggle through these issues in the context
of leading a church or working in the secular
environment? Yet, even though questions about origins
are embarrassingly common, it seems that the topic is
often sidestepped in order to avoid giving offense.
Even when asked directly about it, answers from
Christian faculty are often short and evasive; there
seems to be a fear of committing too strongly to one
side of the debate. Perhaps this betrays a lack of clear
thought on the side of the faculty; perhaps it is simply
an unwillingness to engage in such a volatile issue so
directly. Yet it is precisely because it is such an
explosive topic that we need more thorough training in
the area.
“I feel so frustrated” a student once confessed to me, “I
feel like everyone deals with the evolution debate as if
it’s a conversation we’ve already had, yet I’ve never
heard it talked about once in two years!” From the
faculty’s point of view, I can imagine that dealing with
the same issues over and over again, year after year,
would be exhausting. It is true that addressing the
hesitancies of students in relation to the science-faith
interface must be tiring, especially when it can be a
remarkably pedantic area, and can branch almost out of
control. But that is not a good reason for avoiding it!
I’m sure that New Testament Greek professors do not
consider it an exhilarating task to teach the declensions
year after year. However, delivering this technical
information is foundational, and they realize that the
relative drudgery of grammatical basics will one day
lead to more interesting debates on interpretation.
Reclaiming the Study of God’s Works in
our Culture
I wish that the science-religion dialogue would receive
a similar grounding: some aspects of the topic may be
tedious, but this grounding is necessary in light of the
current cultural battles. And the cultural battle is real. A
Gallup poll on Darwin’s 200th birthday found that only
39% of Americans accept evolution, while another
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36% do not have an opinion either way. For one
hundred and fifty years, evolution has provided biology
with its unifying theory and the evidence for it has only
strengthened over time. However, 61% of Americans
still do not accept evolution as valid. Perhaps the
ambivalence in the Christian academy is simply a
reflection of the wider culture’s lack of conviction. In
this case, it would be a great opportunity for the
Church to rise up and become, once again, those who
drive discovery of the natural world forward while
providing a theological framework in which to
understand those revelations.
New Resources for Evangelicals
At the Bible College I attended, a small faculty was
responsible for covering a wide spectrum of academic
disciplines. As a result, the idea of tackling the massive
issues involved in the science-faith dialogue may have
seemed quite daunting. Ten or fifteen years ago this
task was even more difficult since there were so few
books that affirmed both evolution and an evangelical
faith. Today, however, there is a torrent of books which
provide both the scientific and hermeneutical material
necessary to “get past” the most common roadblocks to
accepting evolution: how to read Genesis and how to
reconcile the theory of human evolution with our
affirmation of divine creation. Francis Collins, Darrel
Falk, Denis Lamoureux, and Loren and Deb Haarsma
have all provided valuable resources to the evangelical
community.
With so much good information “out there”, why is
there still a reluctance to discuss the science-faith
interaction in our academies? I think that we shy away
from the challenges science presents to our
interpretation of the Bible because there is always a
“fear factor” involved in evangelical hermeneutics.
This was clearly seen at my Bible College where
biblical criticism was largely portrayed as that
“slippery slope” where “liberals” began by questioning
the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and ended up
denying the resurrection of Christ. There was very little
effort put into incorporating the beneficial aspects of
criticism because there was so much fear that one
might go “too far”. We evangelicals are happy to
admit, as a sort of joke, how susceptible we are to guilt;
it is much less frequently admitted how susceptible we
are to fear. Yet the reality is that as God’s children we
have nothing to fear when searching for truth in God’s
Works and his Word. The discoveries of science and
the tools of higher criticism help us to understand better
the amazing world in which God has placed us and the
ways in which God has revealed himself to us. With
the excellent voices speaking from within both science
and theology, the time is ripe for moving past this
 Evangelicals and Evolution: A Student Perspective
debate. But we should do this carefully by working
through the issues rather than ignoring them.
Conclusion
Fortunately those first year students in that full lecture
hall I mentioned in the opening did not have to wait
long for a more helpful response. Another professor on
the panel took the microphone and spoke about fossils,
genetics, his preference for the term “evolutionary
creation” over “theistic evolution”, and the importance
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of a robust theology of creation without extreme
dogmatism over the method of creation. It was a brief
answer, and it did indeed stir up controversy in some of
the tutorial sessions after the class, but it was one of the
first times I had observed a positive, informative
answer that clearly dealt with some of the issues raised.
I hope this type of response is a harbinger of what we
can come to expect of Christian academia, and that
Evangelical students will receive the guidance they
need in the science-faith dialogue.