Confession time: I am a theist evolutionist. When I was young, I devoured books arguing against evolution with great zeal. Repeated (and often unhappy) exposure to the other side of the debate has caused me to change my mind, however. I now think that God most likely created the biological species through macro-evolutionary processes, quite possibly without the use of any miracles until Adam. Now I don’t expect to convince many people who disbelieve evolution to change their minds here. This is as it should be; it’s a big issue, and deserves more careful thought than a Bagpipe article affords. Here, I’d just like to touch on a few arguments against evolution that seem to me to be as wrong as they are popular. (I’m indebted to Denis Alexander’s Creation and Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? for much of what follows, and I wholeheartedly recommend this book.)

1. The only reason biologists believe in evolution is because it supports their naturalistic worldview.

Well, no. For one thing, scientists are not as biased as we think, and they usually love people who can find holes in prevailing theories. In any case, the issue is not whether naturalistic biologists have good reasons for believing in evolution, but whether there actually are good reasons.

And according to Alexander (an evangelical and a professional biologist), there are: most compellingly, thousands of our genes, currently ‘turned off’ and inactive, that precisely match those of our evolutionary ancestors. Why would God create unneeded, unused genes that match those of long-dead species?

Believing there is no good scientific evidence for evolution requires dismissing Christian evolutionary biologists, who have spent years studying the subject, as just foolish—which is surely an insult to their profession. For those of us who haven’t studied evolutionary biology in detail, simply making this accusation against brothers and sisters who have requires incredible pride.

2. Scripture clearly teaches that the world was made in seven 24-hour days.

This amounts to saying that it is clear God wants us to read Genesis 1 literally. Why should we assume this when, as we learned in Old Testament, the argumentative points the passage was written to teach have nothing to do with evolution? Some texts (like the resurrection narrative) have to be literal to support what the author is trying to say, but that isn’t the case for Genesis 1. As far as I can tell, we assume that Genesis 1 is literal because we are children of the West, and prize the literal and empirical over the poetic and metaphysical. But I don’t know of evidence that Moses or Jesus (or the broader historical Church, for that matter) share our bias.

3. Evolution has no room for the Imago Dei or a historical Fall.

This objection rests on a failure to distinguish between homo sapiens as a biological species and the spiritual man. Just because we think that evolution produced homo sapiens from the dust over a period of time, doesn’t mean that God did not choose to breath his spirit on one particular man, Adam, and make him the first spiritual man (homo spiritus, maybe?), imbued with God’s image, able to commune with God, and our representative head. This man and his wife were to rule the whole earth (including the homo sapiens that had not yet been blessed with new life), but they sinned. Now, I know that raises questions I can’t answer here, and I don’t know whether that’s the best way to interpret Genesis 2 and on, but it seems possible.

Of course, there may be good theological reasons to reject biological evolution that I simply have not come across. There might even be intractable scientific problems with it—although given the speed of scientific progression, we should be slow to label problems ‘intractable.’ There does not seem to be any reason to simply reject evolution outright as obviously deficient.

Theistic evolution is possible. More important, it seems faithful. And we can all agree that that’s what counts.

I recently read Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck’s book Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be. This book should not only make us smile, but should kick us in the shins, too! After reading it, I couldn’t help but think, “Is Covenant becoming ‘emergent’?”

According to Kevin DeYoung, you might be emergent if you “drink lattes in the afternoon and Guinness in the evenings, and always use a Mac…if your reading list consists of Stanley Hauerwas, N.T. Wright, Jim Wallis [ring a bell any Comm Dev majors?], and Lesslie Newbigin…if your idea of quintessential Christian discipleship is Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, or Desmond Tutu…if you don’t like George W. Bush or institutions or big business or capitalism…if your political concerns are poverty, AIDS, imperialism, war-mongering, CEO salaries, consumerism, global warming, racism, and oppression, and not so much abortion and gay marriage…if you grew up in a very conservative Christian home that in retrospect seems legalistic, naive, and rigid…if you support women in all levels of ministry, prioritize urban over suburban, and like your theology narrative instead of systematic…if you want to be the church and not just go to church…if you believe doctrine gets in the way of an interactive relationship with Jesus…if you believe salvation has a little to do with atoning for guilt and a lot to do with bringing the whole creation back into shalom with its Maker—if all or most of this tortuously long sentence describes you, then you might be an emergent Christian” [Selections from Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck’s even longer sentence].

What does this mean for Covenant? We value so many of the things in DeYoung’s list of what it means to be “emergent.” But, DeYoung encourages us, “You can be young, passionate about Jesus Christ, surrounded by diversity, engaged in a postmodern world, reared in evangelicalism, and not be an emergent Christian. In fact, I want to argue that it would be better if you weren’t.” The emergent church is a strong voice in today’s Christian community. Tomorrow they are the slippery slope of broken postmodern evangelicalism.

They are talking about good things: caring for the poor, shalom in our communities, and the embodiment of the local church. However, the emergent church seeks to live out their faith in a postmodern society by adapting and copying culture, rather than being creators of culture as is given in the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:27 [For more see Andy Crouch’s Culture Making]. Simply put, the emergent church is trendy. It is not a sin to be trendy, but it is a sin to make those trends fit our God. The emergent church is about decentralizing authority in the church. The consensus of those involved in the emergent church dialogue like Mark Driscoll and Kevin DeYoung are that the emergent church is about the deconstruction of traditions such as the institutional church, evangelism, and worship.

The emergent church is hard to define because part of what it means to be “emergent” is to not have a statement of faith. It is a wishy-washy reactionary movement to the mega-seeker-self-centered-commercial-plastic-church in America. So, in that respect only, it is good. However, the emergent church says, “throw away the doctrine and negativity that puts an emphasis on objective truth because it alienates people from the church.”

Is there anything good in the emergent church? The simple objective truth is no, because it is a church that is built on sand. However, some people like Mark Driscoll use the word emerging to describe a proper reaction to the mega-seeker-self-centered-commercial-plastic church in America. A proper reaction to the emergent church is to emerge vigilantly biblical when it comes to what we ought to believe. It comes from having a high view of God that puts a premium on biblical faithfulness, truth, and doctrine in “word and deed” (Thanks Chalmers Center and the Community Development Major that gets it right). That is why Covenant is not emergent. We must however remain vigilant in daily reminding ourselves of the gospel truth in our school’s motto, “In all things Christ Pre-eminent.” Christ must emerge pre-eminent in all things.

When the Night Comes Confronts America with the Malaria Pandemic

by Rachel Jones & Kayla Underwood

Two weeks ago, sophomores Jones and Underwood caught one of the first screenings of When the Night Comes in Washington D.C.  They’ve organized a screening at Covenant for Wednesday, March 24 at 8 p.m. in Brock 118. The filmmaker, Bobby Bailey (co-founder of Invisible Children), will be joining via Skype to answer any questions about the film.

“Malaria, malaria, where do you come from?”

Here in the States, it is hard to imagine the danger of a single mosquito bite, but for thousands everyday, one bite could mean their life.

When the Night Comes tells the story of real people facing a battle of survival due to malaria.

When looking at numbers, it’s shocking to compare the swine flu outbreak to the malaria pandemic. In just 13 days, 31 people died of swine flu. In the same 13 days, 62,500 people died of malaria. Yet during that time there were 250,000 news reports about swine flu and only 6,000 about malaria. Doing some math, that means that it takes 10 deaths to generate one news report on malaria.

Why is something of this magnitude so little spoken of? The film addresses the fact that our natural tendency is to “turn away and block it out as a means to cope.”  But it also addresses the fact that avoiding the problem, because it is uncomfortable, is not a viable option.

What many people don’t realize is that malaria is entirely preventable and can easily be eradicated, just as it was 50 years ago in the US.

Kayla: Malaria became more personal last summer when I contracted it in Uganda. Even then it wasn’t a threat because I had the money for drugs and proper treatment. But for many others that I met this is not the case, including one little boy that came to the clinic and passed away in front of me. For me, the film brought the reality that this does not have to be the case.

Rachael: I loved that this was not just another movie to burden us with statistics. The numbers are definitely shocking and powerful, but it’s the faces and names behind those numbers that make the issue personal. Scovia, Angel and Nancy reminded me of my girl friends, and suddenly it became impossible to ignore them, and, rather than being weighed down with guilt, my heart broke for my new friends that I have come to love.

Are not our brothers and sisters in Africa made in the image of God? Are their lives any less precious that ours in the sight of our Savior? It should not be acceptable to live with an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality.

If malaria was so easily eradicated in the US, why would we think that it cannot also end in Africa and around the world? As Bobby Bailey, filmmaker/director, reminds us in his film, “It would be naïve to think that together we can’t end [malaria], and an injustice not to try.”

When the Night Comes is beautiful, discomforting, inspiring and hopeful. But don’t take our word for it. Come next Wednesday and see for yourself.