Evolution and Christianity: 2. Mike Aus on their incompatibility
“I wanted to post this the other day as a response to the appearance of new homeschool textbooks on evolution that, while conveying modern evolutionary theory, also try to harmonize it with religion. (Many American children are homeschooled by religious parents who don’t want them exposed to godless science). My first post on this issue was here.
But those who claim that Christianity and evolution are compatible will have a hard time meeting the challenge of Mike Aus, a former pastor who stunned his Texas congregation by announcing, suddenly and publicly, that he was an atheist (see the video, from NBC’s Chris Hayes show, here). Aus was, as far as I know, one of the first public “successes” of Dan Dennett and Linda LaScola’s “Clergy Project,” a sort of electronic halfway house to help nonbelieving clerics leave their faith behind.
Aus, while never a creationist, has seen evangelical Christianity from the inside, and realizes that comporting evolution with that kind of faith is a losing proposition. That is why, by the way, accommodationist organizations like BioLogos and the Templeton Foundation are ultimately doomed to failure. Christian opponents of evolution aren’t dumb, and are in fact forcing those organizations to move more and more toward fundamentalist Christianity while the creationists themselves never waver in their views. That’s why, for example, BioLogos—and now Templeton—are tying themselves in knots trying to show how Adam and Eve, while not the literal progenitors of all modern humans, could nevertheless be seen as some kind of metaphor. BioLogos, in fact, refuses to take any stand on the historical existence of Adam and Eve”
more below . .