Back again!

My apologies to all my loyal readers who have got fed up linking to my blog and finding no new entries. We had a week away at Spring Harvest and then time just seemed to disappear ... The picture, by the way, is the big top at Spring Harvest (a Christian festival held at Butlins) where the Bible studies and evening celebrations took place. The worship and speakers were great, but the weather was freezing.

Next, an addition to my previous blog below. The second book I mentioned was reviewed in the Baptist Times last week (I got there before they did!). They reviewed two books, one in favour of the case for theistic evolution and one against (the one I read). The BT reviewer was not terribly complimentary about Should Christians Embrace Evolution and said both sides in the debate have "further work ahead". To that last phrase I would certainly agree.

Creation or Evolution

Last Christmas twelve-month I was given (because I'd asked for it) a book entitled Creation or Evolution - Do we have to Choose? by Denis Alexander. It seemed a positive response to the problem Christians have about this subject. I blogged that I would let you know how I got on reading it. But I didn't! That was because I was disappointed. It answered questions I wasn't asking and didn't answer the questions I was asking!

Another book, Rescuing Darwin, subtitled God and evolution in Britain today, co-written by Denis Alexander and Nick Spencer was widely distributed - I received two free copies! But again, I was disappointed. For instance, they charicatured and then dismissed Intelligent Design, without really justifying their position.

Then, last year, another book came out, Should Christians Embrace Evolution? and subtitled, Biblical and scientific responses, edited by Norman C. Nevin. First of all, I don't think it's that well written. It consists of different people writing each chapter and I get the impression they scraped around a little to find people and articles to fill the book.

However, having said that, I found it much more satisfying than the earlier two books I mentioned. In fact, they hammer Denis Alexander's book from both scientific AND theological perspectives.

My favourite chapter is by RT Kendall, a study of the debate from the perspective of Hebrews 11:3, which says, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things that do appear." (NIV)

The answer Should Christians Embrace Evolution? gives to its title question is, 'No!' If you do, you compromise your theology and you put your 'faith' in a theory that has many unanswered questions to it. The book concludes, "No coherent, cohesive theology has yet been offered that would allow Christians to embrace evolution with integrity. Science has uncovered a great deal of empirical evidence that is challenging the Darwinian paradigm."

Put simply, if you don't want to accept evolution as the answer to the way we came to be here, then you are not necessarily putting yourself into an extreme fundamentalist camp which ignores or derides science. Rather, you are sitting alongside many scientists who are also Christians, and even some scientists who do not profess any faith!

Bang goes another theory!

I watched BBC's Bang Goes the Theory last night. Liz Bonnin was very excited because she had been investigating one of the problems with Darwin's theory of evolution. It was one that he openly admitted in his book, The Origin of Species, that the fossil record was very patchy in places.

In particular, there is a lack of early fossils before what has become known as the "Cambrian explosion". The Cambrian era is where the fossil record suddenly appears. Not finding fossils before then is a big problem.

But Liz is on the case! And she showed us a fossil that had been found in pre-Cambrian rock, which proved the point that there were fossils before the "explosion". It's a charnia, so named, I assume, because it was found in Charnwood Forest in England.

But it looks like a leaf! However, it isn't, so she says, because it lived too deep under water to live like one. Hang on a minute, how deep under water could a fossil found in a forest have been? She didn't explain that. She DID say it had no mouth, but absorbed nutrients "in some way". She added that it remains a bit of an enigma!

So, unconvinced, I go onto the internet. The University of California Museum of Paleontology says of charnia and similar fossils, "Exactly what these fossils are is still not settled to the satisfaction of all."

So, hardly a great victory for Darwin, then!

Creating about creation

On Christmas Eve eve (i.e. Tuesday), there was an article in the paper reporting on a survey that said 73% of science teachers agreed creationism should be discussed alongside evolution in science classes. Of course we immediately got some arrogant blustering from dear old Richard Dawkins, who is reported to have said it is a "national disgrace" and that we are "failing to in our duty to children if we staff our schools with teachers who are this ignorant - or this stupid."

First of all it is shades of emperor's new clothes, in that anyone who disagrees with Prof. Dawkins is either ignorant or stupid. Secondly, it really does illustrate that people like him are running scared of those who actually believe in a God who created the universe. If this notion is so ridiculous, as he would have us believe, then let it fade away by itself,as surely it must.

But then again, maybe there is something in it. And that's why he's so against open discussion in schools - people might realise there is a reasonable alternative worldview to his.

I got for Christmas the book Creation or Evolution - Do we have to choose? by Denis Alexander, a senior scientist. I'll let you know what he says.