Truth War: Chapters 1 and 2

What a great discussion that we had for Kenneth Millers book: Finding Darwins God. The book The Truth War is intended to be a piggy-back off that discussion in what I feel is a broad issue of looking at the world through a post-modern lens. What I'd like to do is to use this book as a springboard for a discussion that encompasses more than just our spiritual lives but, also, our interactions as a general society. This book does a good job at detailing the effects of a post-modern view on the church but what I'd like to see us do is answer this question: What effects do the post-modern view have on our society and what are the ramifications of these effects. Here are a few of my thoughts from Chapters 1 and 2 Basically, if you viewed the world through a lens with a post-modern view essentially you'd be saying that there is no absolute truth as every truth is changed from individual to individual; What is true for me may not be truth for you. What I find interesting about the post-modern (PM) view is how you answer the question: Is anything truly wrong. With this viewpoint, one could justify just about anything in the name of their moral code. I see a stark difference between those who view the world through the PM lens vs. using the bible as their standard. Many of those who do not profess to be christian, use the bible as the "measuring stick" of truth. Why? I believe that we have a innate desire for truth that is immovable and unwavering. Theoretically speaking, if everyone had a PM view, the world would be in total chaos as everyone would be "justified" in their actions. Everyone would feel that they were right. John MacAuthur gives several scriptures to justify his view of using the bible as the standard. Which I will not go into detail here but, one thought that I found interesting was Orthodoxy Vs. Orthopraxy. Orthodoxy (right thinking and opinion of the bible) and Orthopraxy (right practice of the bible) are, many times, separated in our churches. We've seen the Emergent Church focus more on the Orthopraxy and shy away from the Orthodoxy. Why?.... Just like society, it makes our churches feel better to fill a need in the world than to share the truth that comes from scripture. This is why we see churches stepping up efforts to help with things like world hunger, AIDS, inner-city health care, Habitat for Humanity, etc. but not spending time teaching sound doctrine. But if these churches would live out scripture, they'd see that they have to do both. Otherwise, you'd have a lot of poor folks in the inner-city with heath care but without salvation. What's the point in that? Anyway... just a couple of random thoughts..... what are yours?

Darwin's God Conversation: Follow up and Resources

We had a great time discussing the book this morning, a lot of interesting insights and comments. I wanted to follow up the discussion (and each future discussion) with a list of possible resources for further investigating the ideas discussed each month. Below is a list of some books/pamphlets/videos that I think could provide interesting further investigation into ideas surrounding evolution and faith. I'll try to include a variety of perspectives and ideas in these suggestions, but could use help from anyone with further suggestions too. Please add any of your own suggestions in the comments section.

Books

1. "Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul" by Kenneth Miller. His newest book that was released just last month.
2. "Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution" by Karl Giberson is a new release written by a professor at Eastern Nazarene University, sounds like it has a similar premise and purpose as Miller's book. An interview with the author can be viewed here.
3. "The Edge of Evolution" and "Darwin's Black Box" by the notable ID proponent Michael Behe.
4. "Reclaiming Science from Darwinism" by Kenneth Poppe, another proponent of ID.
5. "Thank God for Evolution" by Michael Dowd popped up as a suggestion for me from Amazon, it also has a website that looks interesting (and a little hokey).
6. "God After Darwin" and "Science and Religion" by John F. Haught a Catholic theologian at Georgetown University.
7. "Random Designer" by Richard Colling another professor at a Nazarene school, this book has stirred up a little bit of controversy in the Nazarene church.
8. "Evolution: What the fossils say and why it matters" by Donald Prothero looks at the fossil record and other evidence for evolution. I have an extra copy of this one if anyone is interested in borrowing it.
9. "Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin is another recent book looking at a variety of paleontological, anatomical, and embryological discoveries in an attempt to understand several human medical issues through the lens of evolution. This book also provides a fantastic description of the method used for predicting the location and discovering fossils of intermediary species.

Videos

1. "Judgment Day - Intelligent Design on Trial" is a PBS video describing the trial in Dover PA a few years ago. I own this one and am happy to loan it out.
2. "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" the recent movie featuring Ben Stein in which he presents the argument that alternatives to evolution are unfairly discriminated against in academia and elsewhere.
3. "Evolution: Fossils, Genes, and Mousetraps" and "Evolution: Constant Change and Common Threads" both available for free from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, or for loan from me, the first one features Kenneth Miller.

Pamphlet

Templeton foundation recently released a pamphlet discussing the question of "Does Science make belief in God obsolete?" in which a variety of public intellectuals have written essays to deal with the question, one of which was written by Ken Miller, I'd also recommend the essay by William D. Phillips. You can order a bound copy of all the essays for free or read PDF versions of each online at this link.

Hopefully you'll find some of these resources interesting and insightful, and hopefully you'll add other suggestions of items you've either read or saw and thought they'd look interesting.