The Blinne Blog

Episcopal Fudge

Yesterday, the episcopal church passed a resolution that supposedly was a compromise between its beliefs concerning the rights of gays and lesbians and the concerns of the greater Anglican Communion for fidelity to Scripture and Apostolic tradition. You would think that I as a moderate Evangelical would be pleased -- and you would be dead wrong. As for the content of the "compromise" I will leave that critique to the eloquent statements on both the left and right. I did notice something, though, in the critique on the left by Bishop Chane that caught my eye:

The process that brought about the reconsideration of this matter failed to honor the integrity of the House of Deputies by bringing undue pressure to bear on that body.

I would like to expand on this. The whole point of this exercise was to respond to the Windsor Report of the Anglican Communion. When V. Gene Robinson became a bishop in 2003, it created a firestorm that threatened to rip the Anglican Communion apart. The Archbishop of Canterbury asked for a compromise and got it in the form of the Windsor Report. This report requested that the Episcopal Church show regret for this action and place moratoria on both blessing same-sex unions and having practicing homosexuals become bishops (but not priests). If the Episcopal church did not accede to the request they would in effect chose not to participate as a representative to the Anglican Communion. There was no response for three years. Why? Because according to the church, only the General Convention can do this.

Fast forward three years. Before I start I need to explain some process. There are two houses in the Episcopal Church, Bishops and Deputies. Different legislation comes from different houses. If it passes one house it needs to be approved by the other. If it fails to pass one house it is dead. Furthermore, any similar legislation cannot be taken up unless there is a 2/3 vote for reconsideration. Canon law allows for a joint session to be called by the Presiding Bishop under extreme circumstances. The response to Windsor was in A161 which originated from Deputies. It read as follows:

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, that the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church regrets the extent to which we have, by action and inaction, contributed to strains on communion and caused deep offense to many faithful Anglican Christians as we consented to the consecration of a bishop living openly in a same-gender union. Accordingly, we are obliged to urge nominating committees, electing conventions, Standing Committees, and bishops with jurisdiction to refrain from the nomination, election, consent to, and consecration of bishops whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion; and be it further

Resolved that this General Convention not proceed to develop or authorize Rites for the Blessing of same-sex unions at this time, thereby concurring with the Windsor Report in its exhortation to bishops of the Anglican Communion to honor the Primates’ Pastoral Letter of May 2003; and be it further

Resolved that this General Convention affirm the need to maintain a breadth of responses to situations of pastoral care for gay and lesbian Christians in this Church.

Resolved that this General Convention apologize to those gay and lesbian Episcopalians and their supporters hurt by these decisions.

This failed to realize that Windsor was already a compromise. Even so, there truly existed no middle ground here and it went down to defeat and was condemned by both the left and the right. A substitute to effect a moratorium was ruled unconstitutional. Motion to reconsider failed. At this point, it should have been dead. But then something happened. PB Griswold panicked. He said:

"If we don't have something substantial, it will be very difficult for the Archbishop of Canterbury to invite the Presiding Bishop to the Lambeth Conference. I do know the complexity of what the Archbishop dealing with, in communion terms, and he needs for something clear to come from the Episcopal Church."

Well, duh! So, he engineered a joint session and proposed and got passed this:

Resolved, the House of Deputies concurring, that the 75th General Convention receive and embrace The Windsor Report's invitation to engage in a process of heaing and reconcilation; and be it further

Resolved, that this Convention therefore call upon Standing Committees and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecreation of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.

While this was debated in the house of deputies PB-elect Schori made a statement that the church wasn't really of two minds but conjoined twins. Deputies was forced to suspend its rules to not reconsider like matters. So, in four hours the bishops were able to act in what constitutes a non-binding promise (at least that what dissenting bishops Chane says). PB-elect Schori apparently concurs.

The resolution that stands before you is far from adequate but it is the best we are going to do. I am fully committed to the full inclusion of gays and lesbians. I do not understand this resolution as slamming the door.

Furthermore, the "promise" was not able to be kept during the GC itself. The bishop-elect of the diocese of Northern California who was married three times and divorced twice was approved. This would seem to "consecrating someone whose manner of life present a challenge to the wider church"

Everybody waited three long years for this because the bishops need approval from the representatives of the people. What we saw was the bishops acting unilaterally when it became apparent that they would get kicked out of their club because the people on the left and right rejected the phony compromise based on principle. So, against the rules they reintroduced an even phonier compromise that consisted something that was always in their power to do. I can think of nothing else than to call this ecclesiastical tyranny.

God and Katrina

When natural disasters happen inevitably Christians (including myself) embark on a task known as a theodicy. A theodicy defends God's righteousness against the apparent injustice of the event in question. Tony Campolo does this for Katrina.

There are still other religionists who take the opportunity to tell us that God is punishing America for its many sins. Undoubtedly, there are some al-Qaeda fanatics who right now are saying that Katrina is the hand of God, striking America for what we have done to the people of Iraq and to the Palestinians. Furthermore, there are Christians who, in the weeks to come, can be counted on to thunder from their pulpits that Katrina is God’s wrath against the immorality of this nation, pointing out that New Orleans is the epitome of our national degradation and debauchery. To all of this I say, "Wrong."

The God revealed in Jesus did not come into the world "to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." (John 3:17) There can be no arguments over the claim that, for a variety of reasons, our nation deserves punishment. But when the Bible tells us about the grace of God, it is giving us the good news that our loving God does not give us what we truly deserve. Certainly, God would not create suffering for innocent people, who were--for the most part--Katrina’s victims.

Dr. Campolo is absolutely right that God would not create such suffering amongst the poor. Throughout church history theodicies are the occasion where the greatest theologians most erred because they said too much. For example, errors in Leibnitz' theodicy that this world is the best of all possible worlds was mercilessly critiqued in Voltaire's Candide. Campolo commits an error by denying God's omnipotence. We cannot go there any more than we can go where the religionists above went. When we do a theodicy Scripture guides us where not to go but does not allow relief of a theodicy that is bullet-proof. Silence and humility are the better part of wisdom for a theodicy.

So, if poor people are not the particular object of God's wrath -- Scripture is replete with the concept that God always identifies with the poor and oppressed -- then what's going on here? Could it be the wrong sins are being identified as a cause of this hurricane? If Dr. Campolo is right about the poor --  and I believe he is -- then maybe it is the very oppression of the poor that is being judged.

Let's consider what has happened. The poor in New Orleans could not escape even when their very lives depended upon it. Thanks to the hurricane they now have an opportunity to escape the crushing crime and poverty. This is not to say that many will want to return. But, there are also many that may choose to leave.  For those who do, it is incumbent upon those who call ourselves Christian to welcome our new neighbors and make them a valued part of their new communities. That means housing and jobs and dignity. Their government failed them not only after the hurricane but also before. Let's not fail them again.

We're All Moderates and Catholics

The word catholic means universal. So, in that sense all Christians are little-c catholics. In the midst of an otherwise decent editorial I found an interesting error in David Brooks concerning the Roberts' nomination. First, the quote. A Competent Conservative - New York Times.

Confirmation battles have come to seem of late like occasions for bitterly divided Catholics to turn political battles into holy war Armageddons. Most of the main Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are Catholics who are liberal or moderate (Kennedy, Biden, Durbin, Leahy), and many of the most controversial judges or nominees are Catholics who are conservative (Scalia, Thomas, Pryor). When they face off, you get this brutal and elemental conflict over the role morality should play in public life.

My question who is the moderate amongst the senators mentioned? And when did Justice Thomas, an Episcopalian, become Catholic? Thomas may very well be Anglo-Catholic and attended a Catholic elementary school but that is not the same thing.  It seems that being a moderate Catholic is where it's at these days. I guess anybody can be one, too. Hat tip: Polipundit.

Evolutionary Straw Men

The New York Times reported today that a leading theologian of the Roman Catholic Church is concerned that the view of the Church with respect to evolution is being misrepresented.

The cardinal, Christoph Schoenborn, archbishop of Vienna, a theologian who is close to Pope Benedict XVI, staked out his position in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Thursday, writing, "Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not."

He said that he had been "angry" for years about writers and theologians, many Catholics, who he said had "misrepresented" the church's position as endorsing the idea of evolution as a random process. [emphasis mine]

Evangelical and Catholic scientists expressed dismay with the Cardinal's statements.

Dr. Francis Collins, who headed the official American effort to decipher the human genome, and who describes himself as a Christian, though not a Catholic, said Cardinal Schönborn's essay looked like "a step in the wrong direction" and said he feared that it "may represent some backpedaling from what scientifically is a very compelling conclusion, especially now that we have the ability to study DNA."

"There is a deep and growing chasm between the scientific and the spiritual world views," he went on. "To the extent that the cardinal's essay makes believing scientists less and less comfortable inhabiting the middle ground, it is unfortunate. It makes me uneasy."

"Unguided," "unplanned," "random" and "natural" are all adjectives that biologists might apply to the process of evolution, said Dr. Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown and a Catholic. But even so, he said, evolution "can fall within God's providential plan." He added: "Science cannot rule it out. Science cannot speak on this."

So have evolutionists misrepresented the Catholic Church's doctrine or is it the other way around? The following is a description of it at the National Center for Science Education web site:

Evolutionary Creationism (EC). Despite its name, evolutionary creationism is actually a type of evolution. Here, God the Creator uses evolution to bring about the universe according to his plan. From a scientific point of view, evolutionary creationism is hardly distinguishable from Theistic evolution, which follows it on the continuum. The differences between EC and Theistic evolution lie not in science, but in theology, with EC being held by more conservative (evangelical) Christians (D. Lamoreaux, p.c). I will therefore move on to theistic evolution.

Theistic Evolution (TE). Theistic Evolution is a theological view in which God creates through the laws of nature. Not just the physical laws, either: it is acceptable to TEs that one species can give rise to another; they accept descent with modification. TEs vary in whether and how much God is allowed to intervene — some slide pretty close to Deists. Other TEs see God as intervening at critical intervals during the history of life (especially in the origin of humans), and they in turn slide closer to PCs. In one form or another, TE is the view of creation taught at the majority of mainline Protestant seminaries, and it is the official position of the Catholic church. In 1996, Pope John Paul II reiterated the Catholic TE position, in which God created, evolution happened, humans may indeed be descended from more primitive forms, but the Hand of God was required for the production of the human soul. (John Paul II, 1996).

I included the description of evolutionary creationism (my position) because I find that the description was a fair description of what I believe. The description of the Catholic view in no way described it as endorsing "an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection". I share Drs. Collins' and Miller's concerns in that the statement could drive Evangelical and Catholic scientists away from their respective faiths by removing the middle ground.

A Way Out

With the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor we will probably embark on another divisive episode on top of the divisive episodes we have seen in the early 21st Century. Justice Connor's career was marked as being in the middle and she also was associated with compromise in church/state relationships. But how well has this compromise served us as Evangelicals living in the United States? Noah Feldman wrote a provocative piece in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine. Here he turned the compromise on its head.

In the courts, the arrangement that I'm proposing would entail abandoning the Lemon requirement that state action must have a secular purpose and secular effects, as well as O'Connor's idea that the state must not ''endorse'' religion. For these two tests, the courts should substitute the two guiding rules that historically lay at the core of our church-state experiment before legal secularism or values evangelicalism came on the scene: the state may neither coerce anyone in matters of religion nor expend its resources so as to support religious institutions and practices, whether generic or particular. These constitutional principles, reduced to their core, can be captured in a simple slogan: no coercion and no money. If no one is being coerced by the government, and if the government is not spending its money to build religious-themed monuments or support religious institutions and practices, the courts should hold that the Constitution is not violated.

Admittedly, this approach goes against the trends of the last several decades, which are for stricter regulation of public religious symbolism and more permissive authorization of government financing and support for religion. At first blush, then, the proposal may strike both sides of the current debate as mistaken, since it requires each to give up some victories in exchange for an alternative solution. Nonetheless this approach is not only faithful to our constitutional traditions; it also stands a chance of winning over secularists and evangelicals alike and beginning to close the rift between them.

As Evangelicals such a proposal is worthy of our consideration. This is because the current compromise is corrupting us. For example, those who propose Intelligent Design pretend that such a position is motivated by secular rather than religious reason. Truth is, neither those who support nor those who oppose Intelligent Design believe this. I believe in design for religious rather than scientific reasons, but I oppose so-called "Intelligent Design" because it is not honest about its motivations. By insisting on a secular purpose our religious expression is muted. The corrupting influence is that we are tempted to equivocate in order to be able to speak in the public square. Ironically, succumbing to that temptation lessens our power because in the end our witness is dependent on our truthfulness.

The other temptation is related to money. The government has their own "golden rule": He who has the gold makes the rules. When we accept government money for faith-based institutions we must accept the restrictions. This also corrupts us. One of these restrictions disallows proselytizing. While we ought not force someone to be converted, an Evangelical who cannot speak the "evangel", the good news, is a contradiction in terms. This temptation gets resolved either by not preaching the Good News or not helping the poor. The Bible makes neither of these optional.

In short, Feldman provides a way out and is a reasonable proposal as seen at least by this Evangelical. I don't have a sense how this will play with the secularists but if it is acceptable to them then maybe we can move beyond the "Culture Wars".

Pathological Science

Since I am in both the scientific and Evangelical communities, I've used my position to explain the scientific community to the Evangelical one, specifically the subgroup that believes in YEC and ID. Now I'm going to turn it around. When the scientific community looks at things like YEC and ID they scratch their heads. Worse, they come up with a theocratic conspiracy theory (not very parsimonious IMHO).

Irving Landmuir gave a talk in 1953 about what he termed as pathological science. This seems to explain some of the crazy scientific conclusions. Hat Tip: Dr. Randy Isaac, Executive Director of the American Scientific Affliation. His final note is well taken "No religious group has a monopoly on pathological science."

The characteristics of this Davis-Barnes experiment and the N-rays and the mitogenetic rays, they have things in common. These are cases where there is no dishonesty involved but where people are tricked into false results by a lack of understanding about what human beings can do to themselves in the way of being led astray by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions. These are examples of pathological science. These are things that attracted a great deal of attention. Usually hundreds of papers have been published upon them. Sometimes they have lasted for fifteen or twenty years and then they gradually die away. [emphasis mine]

Now, the characteristic rules are these

Symptoms of Pathological Science:

1. The maximum effect that is observed is produced by a causative agent of barely detectable intensity, and the magnitude of the effect is substantially independent of the intensity of the cause.
2. The effect is of a magnitude that remains close to the limit of detectability; or, many measurements are necessary because of the very low statistical significance of the results.
3. Claims of great accuracy.
4. Fantastic theories contrary to experience.
5. Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses thought up on the spur of the moment.
6. Ratio of supporters to critics rises up to somewhere near 50% and then falls gradually to oblivion.

A lot of the "science" in ID and YEC have the above characteristics. Two approaches have come out of the scientific community in how to deal with what they believe is bad science (correctly IMHO). One treats the mistake as sincere and the other seeks to do battle with conspiracies. How the scientific community dealt with the Kansas situation is an example of the former. I encourage my scientific and engineering colleagues to continue along that path. If the other path is taken and you falsely accuse people of a conspiracy or belittle their faith it will only harden the bad science.

Bono's Crusade

U2's Bono has been trying to help the poor in Africa for years. Recently, he has hit on a winning strategy, courting Evangelicals. In doing so, he got President Bush and the G8 to agree to erase the debt to many of the world's poorest nations.

The Guardian Unlimited noted the following:

He has not been afraid to use his Christian faith to appeal to the American religious right, dining with Billy Graham and his son Franklin, and quoting Gospel verses to Jesse Helms, which reduced the 83-year-old Republican to tears.

Bono has spent six years trying to change the mindset of the world's most powerful country in relation to its poorest continent, risking his own reputation and that of his band by associating with some of the most controversial figures in American public life.

The Guardian doesn't go into details in how Bono wooed Evangelicals but BeliefNet does:

Usually when the words “evangelical” and “poverty” appear in the same sentence, the minister at the helm is Jim Wallis, Ron Sider, or Tony Campolo. And when Rick Warren is written and talked about, it’s almost never in the context of any political issue.

But Warren, who is the pastor of Saddleback Church, a megachurch in Lake Forest, California and the author of the blockbuster book “The Purpose-Driven Life,” is diving into the issue of Christian responsibility to combat global poverty.

The move took the form of an open letter campaign to President Bush, launched June 3 by Warren together with heavyweights Billy Graham and British evangelical John Stott and sent to over 150,000 evangelicals nationwide.

“I deeply believe that if we as evangelicals remain silent and do not speak up in defense of the poor, we lose our credibility and our right to witness about God's love for the world,” Warren wrote in his appeal for participants in the campaign.

A top evangelical leader, Warren’s support lends powerful weight to the cause of ending global poverty. Barna polls have found that Warren comes in near the top of the list when pastors are asked who they feel is the most influential evangelical leader. He was listed first in the “Time” magazine list of the 25 most influential evangelicals, along with other more traditionally political evangelical leaders such as NAE president Ted Haggard and Southern Baptist Richard Land. 

Specifically, Bono is tapping into a concept known as creation care. In it Christians have a stewardship not only of the environment but also of humanity. Time had an issue with the Top 25 most influential Evangelicals. Bono tops the list of those who influence Evangelicals. Howard Dean take note. This is how it is done.

Intelligent Design: An Evangelical Critique

Recently, I have been very critical of Intelligent Design. Why would an Evangelical Christian, even a scientific one, do that? Am I like Phillip Johnson contends, worse than an atheist? I do this because in addition to believing that Intelligent Design is scientifically unsound, I believe that it is unbiblical. For those of you who don't care about whether Intelligent Design is biblical then this is not for you. Go to Panda's Thumb. There's plenty of fodder there. I'm speaking to those who do care.

There are numerous passages of Scripture that deals with God as designer. One of them is Psalm 139.

139:14 I will give you thanks because your deeds are awesome and amazing.²²You knew me thoroughly;²³

139:15 my bones were not hidden from you,when²⁴ I was made in secret and sewed together in the depths of the earth.²⁵

Before I get to my main point, I would like to address an issue with interpretation of Genesis in light of YEC. Note that I am using the Net Bible translation. I'm using this one because it has a good technical commentary and also has good conservative credentials (being endorsed by Chuck Swindoll and Wayne Grudem). I would like to point out note 25.

²⁵ sn The phrase depths of the earth may be metaphorical (euphemistic) or it may reflect a prescientific belief about the origins of the embryo deep beneath the earth's surface (see H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 96-97). Job 1:21 also closely associates the mother's womb with the earth.

When the science is truly uncontroverted (embryos do not grow in the ground) the possibility of metaphor and pre-scientific accommodation is allowed, even in Evangelical exegesis.  Note that kind of phraseology is used in both Genesis 1:24 where animals were produced by the earth and Genesis 2:19 where Adam is formed out of the ground. Thus, the YEC interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 is not a necessary one. In order to show a non-literal interpretation to be the correct one (or more to the point which non-literal interpretation is correct) requires more support. My limited point here is that such an interpretation is possible.

Back to my main point. Regardless of the use of metaphor or pre-scientific accommodation, Psalm 139 is clear that the development of the embryo is designed by God. Neo-Darwinism makes the argument that embryonic development and evolution are driven by the same underlying genetic and epigenetic mechanisms. Jonathan Wells got his PhD in developmental biology. He told his colleagues at Berkeley:

Introduction to Jonathan Wells
To: Participants in the Evolutionary Biology Virtual Discussion Group
From: Jonathan Wells

Thank you for inviting me to participate in your discussions. Let me begin by introducing myself.

I first became interested in evolution as an undergraduate at Princeton, where I studied geology. Years later, I also became interested in religion and studied theology at Yale, where I wrote a Ph.D. dissertation on the 19th-century Darwinian controversies. [1] At that time, I learned that the historical conflict between Christian theology and Darwinian evolution had almost nothing to do with biblical chronology, but turned primarily on the issue of design. Pursuing my interest in evolution, I came to Berkeley in 1989 to study embryology, since understanding how organisms develop is obviously relevant to understanding how they evolve. I am now finishing a second Ph.D. dissertation on mechanisms of early development in frog embryos. [emphasis mine]

Back then Jonathan Wells saw a connection. Now he participates in seminars that says there is a discontinuity of development and evolution. Not only does he seek to go against evolution but also against development. Note this quote:

To be sure, genes (DNA sequences) affect development, but many lines of research suggest that body plans and other morphological features are laid down prior to and largely independently of gene expression.

Excuse me? How come identical twins are identical? Identical genes by and large produce identical morphology. In his nonsensical mess, he does give a decent definition (if you take out the allegedly and note that natural selection is not the only mechanism for genetic change):

In neo-Darwinism, evolution is explained by the natural selection of small mutational changes in the "genetic programs" that allegedly control embryonic development.

Why am I making such a big deal about the connection between development and evolution?  Biblically speaking, development is designed. If something else uses the same or similar mechanism as something already shown to be designed then you have an effective argument that the evolutionary process is designed also.

There is one very big practical problem with my argument, though. It is not a scientific argument, but it's a Biblical one. The apologetic value is slight because it argues for evolution to Evangelicals but doesn't argue the Gospel to evolutionists. This should not be sneezed at however because there are many young Evangelical scientists who might not now lose their faith because they are persuaded that the evolutionary mechanism is true.

There is a reason why science cannot answer this question. ID needs to understand a theological concept known as concursus. Concursus is the doctrine that God in his Providence acts through and with second causes.  (Second causes are those things in which God acts indirectly.)  God's design while not hidden from His children is thus hidden from science. Trying to prove design from science is a fool's errand. Or put differently, if you want to know if something is designed, talk to the designer.

Christian Apologist Lead Astray By Intelligent Design Movement

Update: A reader notified me that the way I quoted was unclear. I've reformatted my entry to make it clear who is talking.

As you will see from the following interview Lee Strobel has a subtle, penetrating, mind and this has served him well in his apologetics works. But, he's not a scientist and he is dependent on scientists who are Christians to give him good information. Unfortunately, he has not been served well by them. Hat Tip: Short Attention Span.

Strobel is interviewed by  Christianity Today Magazine.

Christianity Today: You start your book with a scene with you as a young reporter. You're sent to West Virginia, where a bunch of religious townspeople are protesting the teaching of evolution in their textbooks. I was wondering if you thought that some of the things going on in public schools today would be similar to that.

Lee Strobel: If you look at public opinion polls, the public at large is generally skeptical about Darwinism.  It just doesn't ring true to a lot of people. There's an underlying widespread skepticism that neo-Darwinism could explain the diversity of life.

I take a different approach to that than some people do. I want more evolution to be taught, not less. What I mean by that is, right now, students are only getting one side of the coin. They're only getting a cursory overview of what neo-Darwinism is and being told some facts that some people believe support it. I want them to hear more about it. I want them to hear the evidence that challenges neo-Darwinism. I want students to be able to critically think about whether or not this makes sense. I want them to be free to follow the evidence wherever it points. That, to me, is academic freedom, that they should be able to pursue the evidence.

I'm not saying that Intelligent Design ought to be taught in public schools. I am saying that kids ought to be open to possibilities and pursue the evidence wherever it points, including in that direction.

The Blinne Blog: Give Strobel some points for not just cheer leading for Intelligent Design. You get the sense (and this is near-universal in the Evangelical community) that if you laid all the cards on the table Intelligent Design has the winning hand. Other more subtle proponents might say Intelligent Design doesn't have a strong hand, but neo-Darwinism has a weaker one. This is the root of the average Christian's opposition to how Darwinism is taught in the Public Schools.

And it is a pack of goods.

First Young Earth Creation and now Intelligent Design have been telling Christians that Darwinism is on the run. This is simply not true. There are thousands of papers describing in detail a host of evolutionary pathways. These pathways include many of Behe's supposedly irreducibly complex systems. Many of these papers are very recent. Not only do scientists know that the mechanisms of evolution work, but there is greater understanding how it works. The latter part could be used in a design argument because the genetic mechanism is quite beautiful. (Listen to the Francis Collins keynote on the ASA web site.) Anthony Flew is now being tauted by the Intelligent Design community. He stopped being an atheist because he believed neo-Darwinism, not because he doubted it. Design and Darwinism are not by necessity mutually-exclusive categories.  Even if the Darwinists are terribly self-deceived it is an utterly wrong to characterize them with the  "on-the-run" self-perception. Unfortunately, it is the Christian lay people who have been deceived. This produces the slander of the scientists that they are just a bunch of atheistic materialists. Some are, but many are not.

Christianity Today: How can Intelligent Design get past the creationist label?

Lee Strobel: It's always the Darwinists who bring that up. I've done this on my TV show, Faith Under Fire, where we'll have a debate between someone who is convinced of Intelligent Design versus a Darwinist. The Intelligent Design person brings up scientific data and arguments based on scientific evidence to support his or her beliefs. And then it goes to the other side, and that person is immediately accused of injecting faith and injecting religion and trying to be a subterfuge to teach the Bible in schools.

Well, time out here, who's bringing up religion? I didn't hear the Intelligent Design advocate bring up religion. It's being brought up by the other side. It's an ad hominem argument that Darwinists use to throw sand in people's eyes to suggest that this is just biblical creationism in another disguise. What I'd like to see is the debate centered on the evidence and the data. Why are people so afraid of evidence that happens to point toward an affirmation of what the vast majority of people on the Earth believe in the first place?

The Blinne Blog: As a Christian who believes in intelligent design (the concept, not the movement) I say start by  stopping the slander of scientists.  The mis-appraisal of the state of science has caused a huge mutual misconception between scientists and Evangelicals. Evangelicals say they only want the science taught. If that was so, then it would be neo-Darwinism, because the science taught by Intelligent Design is utter, complete garbage. The scientists try to figure us out and only can figure that this is just re-packaged creationism, not realizing that we really think a sow's ear is a silk purse. We really believe that in a fair fight we would win. If we don't do a brutally honest self-appraisal and fast, good men like Lee Strobel will lose their hard-fought reputation and the good they have done will be tainted.

Teaching the Controversy: A Proposal

A constant refrain from intelligent design proponents is that we need to teach the controversy. On the other side we have science educators who say, no we don't. I say use the controversy to teach good science. My proposal is a result of a challenge by Henry Gee in Nature.

What we really need is a cadre of religious scientists who can both stand up for their beliefs, and realize that they don't need intelligent design to stick their faith and work together.

These brave scientists should be prepared to expose intelligent design for the nonsense it is.

Fair enough. This Evangelical scientist will attempt to fill the gap. Here is what is needed in science education:

1. Have a clear definition of both science and methodological naturalism. Science is a natural tool seeking natural answers. There may exist supernatural answers but this is beyond the ken of science. Methodological naturalism assumes there exists a natural answer to a natural problem. If such an answer does not exist you are attempting to prove a negative and thus it cannot be done in science.
   
2. Distinguish metaphysical inferences about nature from science. I believe both in evolution and a designer. I look at the order of the Universe and the beauty of how evolution elegantly searches a solution space and I see a Designer behind it. Non-religious scientists see a self-existent Universe run by Natural Law. Science cannot tell us which metaphysical inference is true. Good grief, there's a reason why Aristotle called called this discipline "above physics". Let science be science and answer the "what" question and leave the "why" question to other disciplines. If the reason why certain topics are not brought up is because of the intentional self-limitation of the scientific method, then the conflict can be resolved without  crushing  students' faiths. The way many religious people view science is a bunch of elitists looking down and judging their faith. By stressing the deliberate limitations of science here, the misconception can be diffused.
3. Acknowledge the controversy but teach the science. This is the core of my proposal. Some of Intelligent Design theory is scientifically testable. Use these to show how science advances and what characterizes good and bad science.
   
   Behe had a number of concerns about Evolution in that Irreducible Complexity was something that Evolution couldn't overcome. Since Behe originally came up with his thesis the genomic revolution in Biology occurred. Biology students need to know how much progress has been made in Evolutionary Biology in the last decade. If you listen to the ID proponents you would think it was going the other way. By not addressing the concerns it gives science students the wrong impression that ID is simply being silenced.
   
   Here's how it would work in practice. Take some of his specific concerns about the blood clotting cascade, whale transitional forms, the vertebrate immune system etc. and show how they were addressed. These are actually good case studies of how Evolutionary Biology is done in the 21st Century and how it is different from the 19th. When you are done, stress that proving IC does not prove ID and disproving IC does not disprove ID. Science cannot answer that question.
   
   Address why ID does not show up in peer-reviewed journals. Namely, it is because of bad methodology. Americans think science is "democratic" and simply don't understand how real science is done. Here the controversy can be used to teach them. Pick up an issue of Science or Nature and go to the section on methods. Explain how a peer reviewer examines and critiques the methods to make sure that they are valid. Show how a peer reviewer looks for transparency and lack of conflicts of interest in order for the experiment to be replicated by others. A good case study can be found here. In this case study Randy Isaac plays a peer reviewer for an  allegedly censored paper by John Baumgartner. Randy Isaac is Executive Director of the ASA, a group of working scientists who are also Christians.

In conclusion, I believe that reasonable science educators and reasonable Christians can get together to improve the quality of the science education in our country. The level of ignorance of science in this country is quite high and it is not limited to just Conservative Christians. The current controversy can be taken from a huge distraction to an occasion to really teach Americans how science really works and how it is not a threat to people of faith.