Ours is a time in which it is depressingly easy to make this or that issue a test of Christian orthodoxy in such a way as to make wholly suspect the theology of anyone disagreeing on the issue in question; in other words, the possibility is neglected that Christians beginning from the same premises and convictions may yet come to different conclusions about particular matters without thereby completely voiding the commonness of their starting-point. It is really a matter of having a language in which to disagree rather than speaking two incompatible or mutually exclusive tongues. Of late, attitudes toward sexuality have come to be seen as a clear marker of orthodoxy or unorthodoxy in many circles; and it is true that there are plenty of people for whom the casting of ‘traditional’ or even scriptural norms to do with certain kinds of sexual behavior is part of a general program of emancipation from the constraints of what they conceive to be orthodoxy, part of a package that might include a wide-ranging relativism, pluralism in respect of other faiths, agnosticism about various aspects of doctrine or biblical narrative, and so on. However, it seems to me that the St Andrew’s Day Statement, beginning as it does with proposed principles for theological discussion, recognizes that the assumption that revisionism on one questions entails wholesale doctrinal or ethical relativism is dangerous for the future of reasoned Christian disagreement of a properly theological character.

• Genesis 1-11 “frame the more concrete ‘historical’ materials of the Old Testament in a cosmic perspective and, in sum, they constitute a brief theological ‘history of the world.’”

• The narrative materials in Genesis 1-11 were “appropriated by Israel from older, well-developed cultures. In some cases, we have available parallel texts that are older and which evidence the antecedents to the biblical texts. These texts, moreover, have been formed, used, and transmitted in the great cultic centers of major political powers. They functioned in those contexts, surely liturgically, as founding statements for society, authorizing, legitimating, and ordering certain modes of social relationships and certain forms of social power.”

• The narrative materials are “myths,” the usage of which “does not imply ‘falsehood’ as the term might be taken popularly. Rather…. the term refers to founding poetic narratives that provide the basic self-understanding of a society and its raison d’être, a foundational formulations of elemental reality that are to be regularly reiterated in liturgical form in order to reinforce claims of legitimacy for the ordering of society. The poetic narratives characteristically portray great founding events in which ‘the gods’ are the key actors and the actions undertaken are primordial in that they precede any concrete historical data. The Old Testament clearly emerged in a cultural world where founding myths were commonly shared from one society to another. It is evident that Israel readily participated in that common cultural heritage and made use of the same narrative materials as were used in other parts of that common culture. . . . Biblical literature did not exit in a cultural vacuum, but in lively conversation with its context.”

• “Primary accent in theological interpretation has been placed especially upon the creation texts of Genesis 1:1-2:4a and Genesis 2:4b-25 with its related narrative in 3:24, the narrative of Cain and Abel (4:1-16), the great flood narrative (6:5-9:17), and the account of the Tower of Babel (11:1-9). Each of these narratives reflects older Near Eastern traditions, so that it is impossible to ask questions about ‘historicity.’ Rather, these materials may better be understood as complex, artistic attempts to articulate the most elemental presuppositions of life and faith in Israel, attempts that understood the world in a Yahwistic way. The end result of the interpretative process is a text that provided an imaginative context for the emergence of Israel in the midst of older cultural claims, visions, and affirmations.“

• “The key issue in reading these texts according to the central traditions of church interpretation is to see the canonizing process of editing and traditioning has taken old materials and transposed them by their arrangement into something of a theological coherence that is able to state theological affirmations and claims that were not intrinsic to the antecedent materials themselves.”

• “The two creation narratives, in very different modes, articulate that the (“heaven and earth”) belongs to God, is formed and willed by God, is blessed by God with abundance, is to be cared for by the human creatures who are deeply empowered by God, but who are seriously restrained by God. The creation narratives are an affirmation of the goodness of the world intended by God.“

• “While Genesis 1-2 draw a lot of interpretative attention because they stand first in the biblical text, in fact they need to be understood in terms of an older, already extant liturgical tradition on creation. The primary and proper context in which Israel articulated its creation faith is in doxology, the public, liturgical practice of lyrical, poetic utterance whereby Israel sings its awe and wonder about the glory and goodness of God’s creation. Our term “creation stories” is to be understood in the context of that exuberant liturgical tradition. “

• Genesis 1:1-2:4a: “This text is a solemn, stately, ordered symmetrical text that is more like a liturgical antiphon that it is a narrative. It has close affinities to the well-known Enuma Elish, an older Mesopotamian account of creation. As indicated, however, the creation text with which the Bible begins has been shaped and reshaped as a vehicle for Israel’s faith.”

• “The sustained affirmation of this liturgy of creation is that the world (all of heaven, all of earth) is willed and seen by God to be ‘good,’ that is, lovely, beautiful, pleasing (1:10, 12, 18, 21). This reiterated affirmation that we imagine to be a congregational response to a priestly litany, culminates in verse 31 with the intensified phrase ‘very good.’ This affirmation of the goodness of creation has been decisive for the Jewish and Christian traditions as a foundation for a life-affirming, world-affirming horizon with a determined appreciation of the good of the material world in all its dimensions . . . including sexuality and economics. This tradition will have nothing to do with world-denying, world-denigrating, or world-escaping religious impulses that characterize too much popular faith in U.S. culture.”
  

• “The creation narratives appeal to a common stock of cultural myths and liturgies, with particular reference to Babylonian materials. The use of these materials, however, is an act of powerful subversion whereby the narratives of dominant culture are utilized to voice a claim alternative to the claims of dominant cultural materials.“

• “It is a widely held assumption of scholarship that this text––along with the Pentateuch––reached its final form during the sixth-century exile. In that context, the claim that the world belongs to the God of Israel is a mighty and daring alternative to the dominant, easily visible claim that the world is governed by Babylonian gods. Thus the liturgy of YHWH’s goodness connects the character of the world to a particularly Jewish vision of God, articulated through the various interpreted points noted above. The text makes these large theological claims to be sure, but it functions in and through these cosmic claims to sustain the specific community that relies on this imaginative tradition. That is, its purpose is concretely existential. Given that canonical reality about the final form of the text, it is self-evident that the text is not about ‘the origin of the world’ as that phrase is usually employed, and thus it has no particular connection to the ‘creation versus evolution’ debate or, more broadly, to the issue of ‘science and religion.’ Such expectations of the text, in my judgment, completely miss the point and function of the text in its original setting or in its durable canonical articulation.”

DISCLAIMER #1: I acknowledge there are other scholarly readings of the creation story that should be weighed. Like all readings, this one has its strengths and shortcomings. Nevertheless, I am fascinated by Bruggemann’s reading because if the Book of Genesis was finalized during the sixth-century exile, a historic or scientific account about the origin of the universe would not bring solidarity to the exiled people of Israel like a liturgical poem (or hymn) that proclaims the supremacy and creativity of Yahweh in the pagan pantheon.

DISCLAIMER #2: The conversation on Evangel has motivated me to do further research. I think a Christian layperson should have a few references in their personal library for precisely this kind of inquiry. I turned to the entry on Genesis in the highly acclaimed Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, edited by Kevin Vanhoozer. This entry is written by OT scholar Gordon Wenham (King’s College London). Here are the two most important things I learned:

• AUTHORSHIP: Scholars do not know who wrote Genesis. Tradition assumes it was Moses. The “documentary hypothesis” emerged in the mid-nineteenth century and came to be widely accepted by biblical scholars until the last quarter of the twentieth century when there were multiple assaults “so that it is now widely agreed that a better explanation of the growth of the Pentateuch ought to be found” (see R. N. Whybray, Making of the Pentateuch). The main figure behind the documentary hypothesis was Julius Wellhausen, author of Prolegomena to the History of Israel (1878). “This appraoch distributes Genesis into three main sources, J (Yahwist, 950 BCE), E (Elohist, 850 BCE), and P (Priestly, 500 BCE). These three sources were combined successfully, so that Genesis reached its final form in the fifth century BCE, abut 800 years after Moses.”

• INTERPRETATION: “Symbolism was important in early Christian interpretation of Genesis, but that is not to say that they took the stories allegorically. They accepted as literal accounts of the origin of the cosmos, just the the patriarchal narratives that followed them were understood historically. The problems posed by modern science did not trouble Christian interpreters till the nineteenth century. The Reformers and their immediate successors continued the same essentially literal approach to Genesis, with less emphasis on the symbolic dimensions of the book.”

Based on the above, I realize that Walter Brueggemann is probably sympathetic to the documentary hypothesis because an adequate alternative has not been developed yet.

I also realize that tradition provides a compelling reason to adopt a literal interpretation of Genesis. That said, tradition alone should not guide the hermeneutics of the church. Reason and experience also have significant roles. We simply cannot read our Bibles like Christians did before the modern scientific revolution because, as Herbert Butterfield says in The Origins of Modern Science, “that revolution overturned the authority in science not only of the middle ages but of the ancient world—since it ended not only in the eclipse of scholastic philosophy but in the destruction of Aristotelian physics—it outshines everything since the rise of Christianity and reduces the Renaissance and Reformation to the rank of mere episodes, mere internal displacements, within the system of medieval Christendom.”

I propose that we greet the challenge of reading our Bibles after the scientific revolution with faith, hope and love: faith that no discovery will undermine our belief, hope that the tensions will be adequately resolved, and love for the majesty and artistry of the Creator. Science is not the enemy – it never has been and never will be. God is sovereign over an enterprise that studies the natural world. All the glory to God alone!

To account for evolution we must see at least Genesis 1 as non-literal. The questions come along these lines: what does that mean for the idea that the Bible has final authority? If we refuse to take one part of the Bible literally, why take any parts of it literally? Aren’t we really allowing science to sit in judgment on our understanding of the Bible rather than vica versa?

Question: If God used evolution to create, then we can’t take Genesis 1 literally, and if we can’t do that, why take any other part of the Bible literally?

Answer: The way to respect the authority of the Biblical writers is to take them as they want to be taken. Sometimes they want to be taken literally, sometimes they don’t. We must listen to them, not impose our thinking and agenda on them.

Genre and authorial intent.
The way to take the Biblical authors seriously is to ask ‘how does this author want to be understood?’ This is common courtesy as well as good reading. Indeed it is a way to practice the Golden Rule. We all want people to take time to consider whether we want to be taken literally or not. If you write a letter to someone saying, “I just wanted to strangle him!” you will hope your reader understands you to be speaking metaphorically. If she calls the police to arrest you, you can rightly complain that she should have made the effort to ascertain whether you meant to be taken literally or not.

The way to discern how an author wants to be read is to distinguish what genre the writer is using. In Judges 5:20, we are told that the stars in the heavens came down and fought against the Syrians on behalf of the Israelites, but in Judges 4, which recounts the battle, no such supernatural occurrence is mentioned. Is there a contradiction? No, because Judges 5 has all the signs of the genre of Hebrew poetry, while Judges 4 is historical prose narrative. Judges 4 is an account of what happened, while Judges 5 is Deborah’s Song about the theological meaning of what happened. When you get to Luke 1:1ff., we read the author insisting that everything in the text is an historical account checked against the testimony of eyewitnesses. That again is an unmistakable sign that the author wants to be taken ‘literally’ as describing actual events.

This does not mean that the Biblical author’s intent and the genre are always clear. Genesis 1 and the book of Ecclesiastes are two examples of places in the Bible where there will always be debate, because the signs are not crystal clear. But the principle is this–to assert that one part of Scripture shouldn’t be taken literally does not at all mean that no other parts should be either.

Genre and Genesis 1.
So what genre is Genesis 1? Is it prose or poetry? In this case, that is a false choice. Edward J. Young, the conservative Hebrew expert who reads the six-days of Genesis 1 as historical, admits that Genesis 1 is written in ”exalted, semi-poetical language”.4    On the one hand, it is a narrative that describes a succession of events, using the wayyigtol expression characteristic of prose, and it does not have the key mark of Hebrew poetry, namely parallelism. So for example, in Miriam’s Song of Exodus 15 we clearly see the signs of poetic recapitulation or restatement that is poetic parallelism:

“Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea;

The best of Pharaoh’s officers are drowned in the Red Sea.

The deep waters covered them;

They sank to the depths like a stone.” (Exodus 15:4-5)

On the other hand, as many have noted, Genesis 1’s prose is extremely unusual. It has refrains, repeated statements that continually return as they do in a hymn or song. There are many examples, including the seven-time refrain, “and God saw that it was good” as well as ten repetitions of “God said”, ten of “let there be”, seven repetitions of “and it was so,” as well as others. Obviously, this is not the way someone writes in response to a simple request to tell what happened.5    In addition, the terms for the sun (“greater light”) and moon (“lesser light”) are highly unusual and poetic, never being used anywhere else in the Bible, and “beast of the field” is a term for animal that is ordinarily confined to poetic discourse.6 All this leads Collins to conclude that the genre is:

“…what we may call exalted prose narrative. This name for the genre will serve us in several ways. First, it acknowledges that we are dealing with prose narrative…which will include the making of truth claims about the world in which we live. Second, by calling it exalted, we are recognizing that…we must not impose a ‘literalistic’ hermeneutic on the text.”7

Perhaps the strongest argument for the view that the author of Genesis 1 did not want to be taken literally is a comparison of the order of creative acts in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Genesis 1 shows us an order of creation that does not follow a ‘natural order’ at all. For example, there is light (Day 1) before there are any sources of light–the sun, moon, and stars (Day 4). There is vegetation (Day 3) before there was any atmosphere (Day 4 when the sun was made) and therefore there was vegetation before rain was possible. Of course, this is not a problem per se for an omnipotent God. But Genesis 2:5 says: “When the Lord God made the earth and heavens–and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, because the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to work the ground.” Although God did not have to follow what we would call a ‘natural order’ in creation, Genesis 2:5 teaches that he did. It is stated categorically: God did not put vegetation on the earth before there was an atmosphere and rain. But in Genesis 1 we do have vegetation before there is any rain possible or any man to till the earth. In Genesis 1 natural order means nothing–there are three ‘evenings and mornings’ before there is a sun to set! But in Genesis 2 natural order is the norm.8

The conclusion—we may read the order of events as literal in Genesis 2 but not in Genesis 1, or (much, much more unlikely) we may read them as literal in Genesis 1 but not in Genesis 2. But in any case, you can’t read them both as straightforward accounts of historical events. Indeed, if they are both to be read literalistically, why would the author have combined the accounts, since they are (on that reading) incompatible? The best answer is that we are not supposed to understand them that way. In Exodus 14-15 (the Red Sea crossing) and Judges 4-5 (Israel’s defeat of Syria under Sisera) there is an historical account joined to a more poetical ‘song’ that proclaims the meaning of the event. Something like that may be what the author of Genesis has in mind here.

So what does this mean? It means Genesis 1 does not teach that God made the world in six twenty-four hour days. Of course, it doesn’t teach evolution either, because it doesn’t address the actual processes by which God created human life. However, it does not preclude the possibility of the earth being extremely old.9    We arrive at this conclusion not because we want to make room for any particular scientific view of things, but because we are trying to be true to the text, listening as carefully as we can to the meaning of the inspired author.

End Notes

4.    Edward J. Young, Studies in Genesis One (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1964) p.82
5.    Henri Blocher, In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis (IVP, 1984) p.33.
6.    Blocher, p.32.
7.    C.John Collins Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary (Presbyterian and Reformed, 2006.) p.44.
8.    Meredith G. Kline, “Because it had not rained”, Westminster Theological Journal 20 (1957-58), pp. 146-157.
9.    There have been numerous convincing arguments put forth by evangelical Biblical scholars to demonstrate that the genealogies of the Bible, leading back to Adam, are incomplete. The term ‘was the father of’ may mean ‘was the ancestor of’. For just one account of this, see K.A.Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, pp.439-443.

Which constituency best describes your view, and why?

The BioLogos position on origins sits partway between two fundamentalisms: on the “left” end of the spectrum is the fundamentalism of people like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett who are committed to the belief that the only reliable form of knowledge comes from science, and that alternate ways of knowing must be either rejected entirely or completely subordinated to science. On the “right” end of the spectrum is the fundamentalism of those who insist that reliable knowledge can only be found in an ultraliteral interpretation of the Bible, and that alternate ways of knowing must be completely subordinated to this way of reading the Bible.

BioLogos takes both the Bible and science seriously and believes that since God authored both, they must complement each other and be in harmony. We reject the two fundamentalisms mentioned above. Science is not the only way of knowing, but an ultraliteral interpretation of the Bible must also be rejected. To understand how BioLogos relates to other positions “in play” in our cultural conversation on origins, we have created the following categorical scheme into which most participants can be readily placed.

We have produced labels for the groups that help to show how they span the range of possible viewpoints. Our labels indicate what we think are the critical and defining characteristics of the group, rather than the name that the group has chosen for itself.

• YOUNG EARTH CREATIONISTS: Young earth creationists believe that a “natural” or “plain” reading of the English text of the Bible provides a completely accurate account of science. Any scientific ideas incompatible with this – no matter how well-established – must be rejected. BioLogos rejects this position because it denies the revelation of God in nature and the gift of science. Leading figures: Carl Baugh, Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, Henry M. Morris, Paul A. Nelson, Kurt Wise.

• STRONG CONCORDISTS (OLD EARTH): Strong concordists, of which old-earth creationists are the best example, believe that God placed modern scientific ideas in the Bible, sometimes using secret language that could not be understood by the original audience and even the actual writers of the texts. BioLogos rejects this viewpoint because we believe that God worked within the worldview, culture and language of the Biblical authors and since they would not have known, for example, about heliocentricity or the Big Bang, we do not think that God encoded those ideas in the scripture. Leading figures: Hugh Ross, Gerald Schroeder.

• INTELLIGENT DESIGN: Intelligent design (ID) proponents believe that much of modern science is wrong and must be rejected because of its naturalism. The term Intelligent Design, although appropriated by these science critics, is used in many ways and is embraced by the first 5 groups on this list. ID proponents highlight mysteries within science, arguing that science will never explain mysteries like what caused the Big Bang, or how life originated. They then argue that we must use non-scientific explanations like “Intelligent Design.” Favorite topics include the Cambrian explosion, complex structures, and the origin of biological information. BioLogos rejects such “god of the gaps” reasoning. Leading figures: Michael Behe, William A. Dembski, Phillip A. Johnson, Stephen C. Meyer.

• BIOLOGOS: BioLogos takes both the Bible and science seriously, and seeks a harmony between them that respects the truth of each. By using appropriate biblical and theological scholarship BioLogos believes that the apparent conflicts that lead some to reject science and others to reject the Bible can be avoided. Leading figures: Francis Collins, Alister McGrath, Kenneth Miller, John Polkinghorne, Denis Alexander, John D. Barrow, Simon Conway-Morris, Ted Davis, Rodney Holder, Howard Van Till, Timothy Keller, Denis Lamoureaux, Ernest Lucas, John Schloss.

• LIBERAL CHRISTIANS: Liberal Christians encompass a diversity of thinkers who have reinterpreted many of the traditional Christian ideas in ways that sometimes disconnect them from their history. Some in this category attach little to no significance to belief in the authority of the Bible, the divinity of Christ, or the reality of miracles. Others have simply found ways to interpret those beliefs that may not be entirely appealing to evangelicals. BioLogos is more firmly rooted in the Bible than most that hold this position. Leading figures: Ian Barbour, Francisco Ayala, Phil Hefner, Arthur Peacock.

• NON-RELIGIOUS ACCOMMODATIONISTS: Non-religious accommodationists do not necessarily have conventional religious beliefs of their own but do believe that personal religious beliefs—variations of Christianity in particular— are compatible with belief in scientific explanations of origins. Leading figures: Stephen Jay Gould, Michael Schermer, Ron Numbers, Michael Ruse, Eugenie Scott.

• ANTI-RELIGIOUS NON-ACCOMMODATIONISTS: Anti-religious non- accommodationists believe  that religious and scientific beliefs compete with each other in such a way that only one can be true, which they believe is science. An important part of their agenda is to show that there are scientific explanations for religious phenomena. Leading figures: Carl Sagan, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Vic Stenger, Steven Weinberg, Edward O. Wilson.

BIG QUESTION #1: Does the U. S. Constitution grant a “fundamental right” to marriage: yes or no? If yes, show evidence.

BIG QUESTION #2: In his most radical statement, California Judge Vaughn Walker said that “gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage; marriage under law is a union of equals.” Is there a legal–not sociological, political, ethical, biblical, or theological–defense for the gender complementarity of marriage? If so, provide details.

Further Reading:

• Ted Olson, The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage (Newsweek, January 9, 2010)
• Jo Becker, A Conservative’s Road to Same-Sex Marriage Advocacy (New York Times, April 18, 2009)

From Natural History magazine. “Intelligent Design?” Three proponents of Intelligent Design (ID) present their views of design in the natural world. Each view is immediately followed by a response from a proponent of evolution (EO).

From Timothy Keller (Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, author of many books including The Reason for God: Belief in God in an Age of Skepticism)

• “Creation, Evolution, and Christian Laypeople”
  

From BioLogos

• How is BioLogos different from Theistic Evolution, Intelligent Design and Creationism?
• What is the proper relationship between science and religion?
• Can scientific truth and scriptural truth be reconciled?
  
• What factors should be considered in determining how to approach a passage of Scripture?
• How was the story of Genesis interpreted before Darwin?
• What were the Christian responses to Darwin?
• What is evolution?
  
• What role could God have in evolution?
• Did evolution have to result in human beings?
  
• At what point in the evolutionary process did humans attain the “Image of God”?
• How does the Fall fit into evolutionary history? Were Adam and Eve historical figures?
• Is there room in BioLogos to believe in miracles?
  

Books

• Harold Attridge (ed.), The Religion and Science Debate: Why Does it Continue?
• Ronald Numbers (ed.), Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion; Darwinism Comes to America; The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design
  
• John Mark Reynolds (ed.), Three Views on Creation and Evolution: Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth (Progressive) Creationism, and Theistic Evolution
• Ian Barbour, Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues (Gifford Lectures); When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners?
  
• John Polkinghorne, Belief in God in an Age of Science; Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion
  
• Francis Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
• Kenneth Miller, Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution
• Conor Cunningham, Darwin’s Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get It Wrong
• Richard Carlson & Tremper Longman, Science, Creation and the Bible: Reconciling Rival Theories of Origins
  
• Alister McGrath, Science & Religion: A New Introduction; The Science of God: An Introduction to Scientific Theology; A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology (Gifford Lectures)
• Michael Ruse, Can a Darwinian Be a Christian?; Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in an Age of Science;  The Evolution-Creation Struggle; Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have a Purpose?; Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA (c0-editor William Dembski),
  
• Anthony O’Hear, Beyond Evolution: Human Nature and the Limits of Evolutionary Explanation
  

Countless judicial decisions and legislative enactments have relied on the ancient proposition that a governing majority’s belief that certain sexual behavior is “immoral and unacceptable” constitutes a rational basis for regulation. . . . State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today’s decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding. . . The impossibility of distinguishing homosexuality from other traditional “morals” offenses is precisely why Bowers rejected the rational-basis challenge. “The law,” it said, “is constantly based on notions of morality, and if all laws representing essentially moral choices are to be invalidated under the Due Process Clause, the courts will be very busy indeed.”

What a massive disruption of the current social order, therefore, the overruling of Bowers entails. Not so the overruling of Roe, which would simply have restored the regime that existed for centuries before 1973, in which the permissibility of and restrictions upon abortion were determined legislatively State-by-State. Casey, however, chose to base its stare decisis determination on a different “sort” of reliance. “[P]eople,” it said, “have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail.” . . . This falsely assumes that the consequence of overruling Roe would have been to make abortion unlawful. It would not; it would merely have permitted the States to do so. Many States would unquestionably have declined to prohibit abortion, and others would not have prohibited it within six months (after which the most significant reliance interests would have expired). Even for persons in States other than these, the choice would not have been between abortion and childbirth, but between abortion nearby and abortion in a neighboring State.

The Court . . . says: “[W]e think that our laws and traditions in the past half century are of most relevance here. These references show an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex.” Apart from the fact that such an “emerging awareness” does not establish a “fundamental right,” the statement is factually false. States continue to prosecute all sorts of crimes by adults “in matters pertaining to sex”: prostitution, adult incest, adultery, obscenity, and child pornography. Sodomy laws, too, have been enforced “in the past half century,” in which there have been 134 reported cases involving prosecutions for consensual, adult, homosexual sodomy.

An “emerging awareness” is by definition not “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition[s],” as we have said “fundamental right” status requires. Constitutional entitlements do not spring into existence because some States choose to lessen or eliminate criminal sanctions on certain behavior. Much less do they spring into existence, as the Court seems to believe, because foreign nations decriminalize conduct. The Bowers majority opinion never relied on “values we share with a wider civilization,” but rather rejected the claimed right to sodomy on the ground that such a right was not “ ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.’ ” Bowers’ rational-basis holding is likewise devoid of any reliance on the views of a “wider civilization” . . . .

The Texas statute undeniably seeks to further the belief of its citizens that certain forms of sexual behavior are “immoral and unacceptable” – the same interest furthered by criminal laws against fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality, and obscenity. Bowers held that this was a legitimate state interest. The Court today reaches the opposite conclusion. The Texas statute, it says, “furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual.” The Court embraces instead Justice Stevens’ declaration in his Bowers dissent, that “the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice.” This effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation. If, as the Court asserts, the promotion of majoritarian sexual morality is not even a legitimate state interest, none of the above-mentioned laws can survive rational-basis review.

Today’s opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.

One of the most revealing statements in today’s opinion is the Court’s grim warning that the criminalization of homosexual conduct is “an invitation to subject homosexual persons to discrimination both in the public and in the private spheres.” It is clear from this that the Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed. Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive. The Court views it as “discrimination” which it is the function of our judgments to deter. So imbued is the Court with the law profession’s anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously “mainstream”; that in most States what the Court calls “discrimination” against those who engage in homosexual acts is perfectly legal; that proposals to ban such “discrimination” under Title VII have repeatedly been rejected by Congress, see Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 1994, S. 2238, 103d Cong., 2d Sess. (1994); Civil Rights Amendments, H. R. 5452, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. (1975); that in some cases such “discrimination” is mandated by federal statute, see 10 U.S.C. § 654(b)(1) (mandating discharge from the armed forces of any service member who engages in or intends to engage in homosexual acts); and that in some cases such “discrimination” is a constitutional right, see Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (2000).

Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means. Social perceptions of sexual and other morality change over time, and every group has the right to persuade its fellow citizens that its view of such matters is the best. That homosexuals have achieved some success in that enterprise is attested to by the fact that Texas is one of the few remaining States that criminalize private, consensual homosexual acts. But persuading one’s fellow citizens is one thing, and imposing one’s views in absence of democratic majority will is something else. I would no more require a State to criminalize homosexual acts–or, for that matter, display any moral disapprobation of them–than I would forbid it to do so. What Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the invention of a brand-new “constitutional right” by a Court that is impatient of democratic change. It is indeed true that “later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress”; and when that happens, later generations can repeal those laws. But it is the premise of our system that those judgments are to be made by the people, and not imposed by a governing caste that knows best.

One of the benefits of leaving regulation of this matter to the people rather than to the courts is that the people, unlike judges, need not carry things to their logical conclusion. The people may feel that their disapprobation of homosexual conduct is strong enough to disallow homosexual marriage, but not strong enough to criminalize private homosexual acts–and may legislate accordingly. The Court today pretends that it possesses a similar freedom of action, so that that we need not fear judicial imposition of homosexual marriage, as has recently occurred in Canada (in a decision that the Canadian Government has chosen not to appeal). . . At the end of its opinion–after having laid waste the foundations of our rational-basis jurisprudence–the Court says that the present case “does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter.” Do not believe it. More illuminating than this bald, unreasoned disclaimer is the progression of thought displayed by an earlier passage in the Court’s opinion, which notes the constitutional protections afforded to “personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education,” and then declares that “[p]ersons in a homosexual relationship may seek autonomy for these purposes, just as heterosexual persons do.” Today’s opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned. If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is “no legitimate state interest” for purposes of proscribing that conduct; and if, as the Court coos (casting aside all pretense of neutrality), “[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring”; what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising “[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution”? Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry. This case “does not involve” the issue of homosexual marriage only if one entertains the belief that principle and logic have nothing to do with the decisions of this Court. Many will hope that, as the Court comfortingly assures us, this is so.

THE BIG QUESTION: Is moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct “a legitimate state interest”?

Further Reading: Mark Galli, “Is the Gay Marriage Debate Over?” (Christianity Today, July 2009)

In his introduction to the book, Keith Thomson provides a concise and cogent answer to why the debate continues:

What matters in the public debate is not what philosophers and historians write but the simplified, and sometimes simply wrong, version that the general populace “knows.” There is a continuing debate, not because of esoteric philosophical discussion in the groves of academe where, as here, mutual respect is required and conciliation is to be sought, but because of the hopes and fears expressed in pulpits and school board meetings across the country. The debate continues not just because science and religion are both immensely powerful, in the sense of having a history of changing the lives of billions. It is because they are perceived to be based on entirely different principles that are relentlessly leading us in different (potentially opposing) cultural directions. It has to do with the ways, and the extent, to which humans have the power to control and shape their own world. And with who gets to exercise those powers. Because power is involved––institutional power and individual empowerment––inevitably so is fear. And fears can be exploited by the unscrupulous.

To demonstrate Thomson’s observation that science and religion are “perceived to be based on entirely different principles that are relentlessly leading us in different (potentially opposing) cultural directions,” consider the following two quotations. From the side of atheist fundamentalism, there is Richard Dawkins:

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence . . . . Faith, being belief that isn’t based on evidence, is the principal vice of any religion.

From the side of Christian fundamentalism, there is Henry Morris (a leader of the creationist movement):

Evolution’s lie permeates and dominates modern thought in every field. That being the case, it follows inevitably that evolutionary thought is basically responsible for the lethally ominous political developments, and the chaotic moral and social disintegrations that have been accelerating everywhere . . . . When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.

From Peter Enns, Senior Fellow in Biblical Studies at the BioLogos Foundation:

You cannot expect the Bible — written in ancient times for ancient eyes — to enter a modern scientific discussion, and you cannot fault the Bible when it fails to answer our questions.

This is not a new insight. Augustine said famously 1600 years ago that Christians embarrass themselves when they appeal to the Bible to settle scientific matters (cosmology was the issue he was dealing with). Even if many Christians throughout history did assume that the Bible is scientifically accurate, the problems with that position have been understood for a very long time, long before the modern era.

The problems with thinking of the Bible as a science book have been made clearer in recent generations. Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, archaeologists unearthed other creations stories from the ancient Mesopotamian world, the same environment that produced the Bible. These discoveries have helped us understand a lot about how creation stories worked in the ancient world.

Ancient peoples did not investigate how things came to be; they assumed that there was a “beginning” when the gods formed the earth, people, animals, trees, etc., as you see them now. You can hardly blame them for making this assumption. The “how” question of creation was settled. They were interested in the “who” question: which of the gods is responsible for all of this? Each society had its own answer to this question, which they told in story form. The biblical story cannot claim a scientific higher ground. It, too, works with ancient themes and categories to tell Israel’s distinct story (qtd. from “Does God Talk to Us Through Fiction? Unpacking a Non-Literal Interpretation of the Bible”).

From St. Augustine:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of the world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion [quoting 1 Tim 1:7] (qtd. from The Literal Meaning of Genesis).

Creationists are more entrenched than ever, building a $27 million Creation Museum and media outreach, circulating a magazine to almost 70,000 readers, and insisting on a young earth because, according to Al Mohler (president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), the “theological price” of alternative views is too costly. A Pew Forum poll conducted in 2007 showed that only 25% of evangelicals believe in evolution and 10% in evolution through natural selection––a statistic that puts them at odds with the scientific consensus, reinforcing the cultural perception of Christian anti-intellectualism. The New Atheists have emerged, defining the terms of engagement in the debate on science and religion. And the Intelligent Design crowd has lost its stamina, becoming a scientific embarrassment.

I am sympathetic to Giberson’s proposal for via media:

What seems to be appearing on the horizon is a well-articulated culture war of religious belief. Both the atheists and the creationists/ID supporters are in full agreement that there can be no peace between the religious and scientific views of the world. Neither is interested in any synthetic middle ground where one might simultaneously embrace a science shorn of its over-reaching scientism and a faith freed from a simplistic biblical literalism. As the voices grow louder and more insistent, the perch between them will grow ever more precarious, making it all but impossible to avoid sliding by default down a slippery slope toward one or the other.

Here is the question that I want to briefly explore: What are the issues that need to be addressed in order for Christians to achieve a “synthetic middle ground” in the debate? There are at least two.

The first issue relates to the vocations of science and religion. Alister McGrath and Francis Collins rightly promote what they call “partially overlapping magisteria” (POMA), “reflecting a realization that science and religion offer possibilities of cross-fertilization on account of the interpenetration of their subjects and methods” (qtd. from The Dawkins Delusion?). Where the biblical claim about the universe is primarily concerned with human redemption, the scientific claim is exclusively concerned about the processes of nature. This should be straightforward enough, but I am amazed at how often ultra-Darwinists overreach with metaphysical statements while biblical literalists wrench the Bible out of context, turning it into “primitive science.”

The second issue relates to the doctrine of creation. Where there is an absolute distinction between Creator and creation, there is a relative distinction between human and non-human creatures. Let me begin with the first distinction. If God is an actor in the cosmic drama, errors are bound to occur. Look no further than Isaac Newton’s God-of-the-gaps. But God is the playwright, as Anglican theologian Diogenes Allen writes in his chapter on “The Limits of Science” in Theology for a Troubled Believer:

God is not a member of the universe, and any attempt to have God involved within the processes that science studies is theologically utterly unacceptable. And almost as important, we need to realize that biblical religion does not affirm God’s reality because its writers were trying to explain the working of the natural world. Biblical faith is a response to God’s initiative, rather than the result of an investigation of nature. Thus not only is God not part of the world, but the grounds for belief in God are also quite different from that found in science. Pascal, Kierkegaard, and Karl Barth never tired of stressing both these points.

The next distinction is explained by Reformed theologian Colin Gunton, who has made a significant contribution to the doctrine of creation. His chapter “Establishing: The Doctrine of Creation” in The Christian Faith delineates three ways that God creates through mediation: creation by personal word, creation by craftsmanship, and creation by ministry. What matters for this discussion is the third way, where “worldly agencies are enabled by divine action to achieve their own ‘subcreating,’ not in the absolute way that God creates, but relatively, as creation from what already is” (cf. Gen. 1:11, 20, 24). Focusing too much on “men and women as the chief ministers of creation,” Gunton says, can “‘blind us to the fact that the difference between human and non-human creatures is relative, not absolute.” He continues:

God grants to the lesser creatures their own capacity to generate beauty and truth. The garden needs to be tended, but the gardener does not make the plants grow, merely provides some of the conditions for their growth. If this side of things had not been as neglected as it has in the history of theology, the theory of evolution might not have proved the stumbling block to belief that it has in recent times.

In conclusion, Christians can achieve a “synthetic middle ground” in the debate if they get a better handle on the vocations of science and religion and a more robust doctrine of creation.

To begin, we can only talk about the future of evangelicalism if we have a sense of whose evangelicalism. Scot McKnight offers a very helpful taxonomy in his essay, “The Old Coalition Is Passing.”

If we define “evangelical” as those who faithfully sustain the Reformation’s central impulses, like justification by faith and the solas, I would contend that evangelicalism will be here for a long time. There are plenty who will keep the Reformation’s gospel and theology alive. If we define “evangelical” as those who are faithful to the Great Awakening(s) and revivals of America, who carry on the work of people like Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, and D.L. Moody, along with the missionary movement that flowed from that kind of evangelicalism, I would say that movement is sputtering along but is not likely to go away anytime soon. Yet I would caution that the great drive for the act of evangelism has substantially waned on American soil; the promptings that created missionary work all over the world have fallen on dry days. Finally, if we define “evangelical” as the coalition that gathered in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s around such luminaries as Billy Graham, Carl Henry, John Stott and J.I. Packer – of that evangelicalism, I would say the days are numbered.

I would be cheerful about the future of evangelicalism if it referred to “those who faithfully sustain the Reformation’s central impulses, like justification by faith and the solas,” but this constituency is and should be an outlier to evangelicalism for the reasons that Reformed theologian Michael Horton argues in his Modern Reformation essay, “To Be or Not to Be: The Uneasy Relationship Between Reformed Christianity and American Evangelicalism” (Nov/Dec 2008):

• Today, it is taken for granted by many that those most concerned about doctrine are least interested in reaching the lost (or, as they are now called, the “unchurched”). We are frequently challenged to choose between being traditional or missional, usually with little definition offered for either. Where the earlier evangelical consensus coalesced simultaneously around getting the gospel right and getting it out, increasingly today the coalition is defined by its style (“contemporary” versus “traditional”), its politics (“compassionate conservatism” or the more recent rediscovery of revivalism’s progressivist roots), and its “rock-star” leaders, than for its convictions about God, humanity, sin, salvation, the purpose of history, and the last judgment.

• The Second Great Awakening, especially the ministry of revivalist Charles G. Finney, represented what can only be called America’s Counter-Reformation. Going beyond Rome’s Counter-Reformation in the direction of Pelagianism, Finney denied original sin, the substitutionary atonement, justification, and the supernatural character of the new birth; and he created a system of faith and practice tailor-made for a self-reliant nation. Evangelicalism-which is to say, at least in late eighteenth-century American Protestantism-was the engine for innovations. In doctrine, it served modernity’s preference for faith in human nature and progress. In worship, it transformed Word-and-sacrament ministry into entertainment and social reform, creating the first star-system in the culture of celebrity. In public life, it confused the Kingdom of Christ with the kingdoms of this world and imagined that Christ’s reign could be made visible by the moral, social, and political activity of the saints. There was little room for anything weighty to tie the movement down, to discipline its entrepreneurial celebrities, or to question its “revivals” apart from their often short-lived publicity. . . . Much of contemporary evangelicalism has its roots in Finney’s legacy and behind it, pietism, which for all of its benefits nevertheless already began to shift the weight of Christian witness from the triune God and his saving work in Christ to the self and its inner experience.

• Orthodox Protestants in Europe always viewed evangelicalism as a uniquely British and American phenomenon, generally characterized as “Methodist.” Even in the United States, Presbyterian and Reformed churches had an ambivalent relationship to evangelicalism. On one hand, theologians like Warfield and Hodge understood the label “evangelical” as referring to the substance of catholic Christianity reformed and refined in the Reformation. Naturally, this made them closer allies with confessional Lutherans and Anglicans than with heirs of Finney, but the mainline Presbyterian Church itself was divided in the nineteenth century between Old School and New School bodies over revivalism. In many ways, evangelicalism more generally has struggled with this schizophrenic heritage of Reformation and Counter-Reformation influences. Churchmen like Warfield and Hodge regarded themselves as evangelicals in this Reformation sense and struggled to bring American Protestantism into line with this definition. They were also staunchly committed to and personally involved with the vast missionary endeavors of their denomination at home and abroad, bringing them into constant fellowship and cooperation with other evangelicals.

• At the end of his lecture tour in the United States, Dietrich Bonhoeffer characterized American religion as “Protestantism without the Reformation.” Although the influence of the Reformation in American’s religious history has been profound (especially prior to the mid-nineteenth century), and remains a counterweight to the dominance of the revivalist heritage, Bonhoeffer’s diagnosis seems justified: “God has granted American Christianity no Reformation. He has given it strong revivalist preachers, churchmen and theologians, but no Reformation of the church of Jesus Christ by the Word of God….American theology and the American church as a whole have never been able to understand the meaning of ‘criticism’ by the Word of God and all that signifies. Right to the last they do not understand that God’s ‘criticism’ touches even religion, the Christianity of the church and the sanctification of Christians, and that God has founded his church beyond religion and beyond ethics….In American theology, Christianity is still essentially religion and ethics….Because of this the person and work of Christ must, for theology, sink into the background and in the long run remain misunderstood, because it is not recognized as the sole ground of radical judgment and radical forgiveness.”

• Evangelicalism is like a village green, where people, leaving their homes and stores, come to mix and mingle. Or, as C. S. Lewis suggested, it is “mere Christianity”– the hallway where people meet and where non-Christians can hear Christ’s central claims. We were not meant to live on the village green or in the hallway, however, but in the homes and rooms. Evangelicalism is most useful as a meeting place, but disastrous for anyone who tries to make it a home. For a home, we need a church.

• According to the former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, Ted Haggert, evangelicalism includes in its theological spectrum everyone from R. C. Sproul to Benny Hinn. Increasingly, I believe that the real vitality – the long-term progress – of the gospel in our time will not come from broad movements, including an evangelicalism defined more by the hegemony of its politics and sociology than by the unity of its faith and practice. Rather, I expect it to come from many churches, most of them relatively small and unheralded, which consistently confess – in preaching and sacrament, in catechesis and fellowship, in singing and liturgy, in outreach and diaconal care – that gospel that alone remains “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16). After all, it was not to movements, parachurch agencies, and coalitions that Jesus pledged his support. Rather, he promised, “I will build my church and the gates of hell will never prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).

Since the old coalition is falling apart, according to McKnight, we are witnessing the rise of three alternatives:

First, the ancient-future movement spearheaded by Robert Webber; second, the emergent/emerging movement spearheaded by young thinkers and leaders like Brian McLaren who knew that fundamentalism and the neo-evangelical coalition weren’t listening to the youth culture; and third, the revival of Calvinism among the NeoReformed, spearheaded – almost singlehandedly, I think – by John Piper and those who flocked to his side. Within this NeoReformed movement is the massive influx of Southern Baptists, who were formerly neither as vocal in their Calvinism nor as concerned with the older neo-evangelical coalition, but who are now undoubtedly a (if not the) major voice in the NeoReformed and fundamentalist awakening among some evangelicals.

I am glad McKnight suggests that the new Calvinism is an alternative to evangelicalism rather than part and parcel of evangelicalism. I hope the neo-Calvinists will serve as a needful gadfly on the sluggish horse of American evangelicalism, precipitating intellectual depth, ecclesial passion, and doctrinal integrity through holy irritation.

Justin Taylor, Kevin DeYoung, and Collin Hansen encourage me in their essay, “The Evangelical Reformed Movement: A Comeback” (notice how “evangelical” properly functions as an adjective rather than a noun):

Where some Christians fret over the loss of Christian consensus in America and the growing ranks of the religiously unaffiliated, we see great opportunity. The demise of nominal Christianity opens new possibilities for genuine discipleship. If people nowadays are going to follow Christ, they want the strong stuff. They want robust theology, a big Christ, a deep gospel, and they aren’t afraid of serious demands.

It is no coincidence that this movement of evangelical Calvinists thrives in pockets of America where church attendance has eroded. Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Mark Dever at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan have three very different personalities and styles, and they represent three age brackets. But each, in his own way, has inspired many young pastors to pour their lives into dying churches and start new ones in cities considered skeptical toward evangelicals.

The meaty theology of Calvinism has other aspects that bode well for its future. For one, the intellectual nature of the Reformed faith means that it tends to exert a disproportionate influence on Christian thinking and institutions through writing, scholarship, and formal theologizing. Second, the accent on God’s providential care over all encourages Christians to count the cost of discipleship in an increasingly hostile culture and trust God for the outcome.

Throughout the centuries, missionaries such as William Carey and Adoniram Judson have found encouragement to persevere from the promise of God’s sovereignty. If the future holds further erosion of nominal Christianity, evangelical Calvinists are equipped to endure. Finally, a firm commitment to the full trustworthiness and authority of scripture – along with a settled conviction in substitutionary atonement and justification by Christ’s righteousness through faith alone – are historic and essential rail guards to keep evangelicalism on a biblically faithful path.

Read the transcript or listen to the interview here.

This was not a joyful moment for me. It wasn’t an easy moment. It was an admission that I loved and believed in God, and that my old atheism was a façade. I knew it was going to be difficult to return to the Maker, to give over my life to Him, and become a member of a huge quarreling religion that had broken into many denominations and factions and cults worldwide. But I knew that the Lord was going to help me with this return to Him. I trusted that He would help me. And that trust is what under girds my faith to this day.

Within days of my return to Christ, I also became aware of something very important: that the first temptation we face as returning Christians is to criticize another Christian and his or her way of approaching Jesus Christ. I perceived that I had to resist that temptation, that I had to seek in my faith and in my love for God a complete certainty that He knew all about these factions and disputes, and that He knew who was right or who was wrong, and He would handle how and when He approached every single soul.

On July 28, 2010, Anne Rice announced that she is abandoning Christianity on her Facebook page:

For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of …Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

The next she wrote:

My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.

On August 2nd, Anne Rice was interviewed about her decision to abandon Christianity on NPR’s All Things Considered.

First Things bloggers Joe Carter, David P. Goldman, Elizabeth Scalia, and Joseph Bottum have already written on this story, and I do not have anything else to add except to ask this question: Where is the Anne Rice of March 21, 2008? Put differently, how can Anne Rice remain committed to Christ while rejecting his Bride and Body – the Church? Let us pray that Anne Rice recovers the better angels of her nature.

Either a natural order exists, or we impose it.  Either the meaning is tied to the structure of things, or we make it up. And if the order exists, our options are conformity or rebellion.  There is no middle ground here, despite the ambiguities and uncertainties that we experience in our confrontation with it.  But if we reject metaphysics, our only resource for ethics is our will, and God’s.

His point reminds me of a former professor of philosophy, who asked his students: Is reality discovered or constructed? For nearly an hour, the classroom engaged in a spirited discussion, students falling into one camp or another. Once the thoughts were fielded, the professor asked a final question: What if reality is both discovered through creation, incarnation, resurrection, and revelation while also constructed through human understanding?

To reflect on this further, here is an excerpt from William Hasker’s Metaphysics: Constructing a World View (Contours of a Christian Philosophy):

Is there a Christian metaphysic? According to [Alfred North] Whitehead, “Christianity has always been a religion seeking a metaphysic.” What he meant by this is that Christianity came into the world as a religion of salvation rather than a metaphysical system; since then Christian thinkers have adopted a number of different systems but have failed to establish one of them as definitive.

If Whitehead is right about this, then in at least two senses there is not and cannot be such a thing as a Christian metaphysic. In the first place, there is no one metaphysical system which is definitively Christian, but rather a number of systems, all of them more or less inconsistent with each other and all of them more or less adequate to the content of Christian faith. But the fact that Christianity is a religion of salvation also suggests that in a sense no philosophical system can be fully Christian, because no philosophical system can express the unique content of Christianity.

Philosophy is a discipline based on human reflection and human intellectual resources. But the message of salvation is not a discovery of human reflection. It comes to us by revelation, and Christians have consistently acknowledged that its central truths – the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, his atoning death for our sins, his resurrection from the dead, salvation by grace through faith – cannot be known by unassisted human thought. No metaphysical system can incorporate these truths without becoming something other than philosophy, and in this sense no metaphysical system can be fully and distinctly Christian.

But if Christianity is not a metaphysical system, it nevertheless implies metaphysical claims. And since very early times Christian thinkers have struggled to formulate these claims in philosophical terminology and to demonstrate their rational acceptability using philosophical methods. If by a Christian metaphysic we mean the result of such reflection, in which a Christian thinker seeks to develop a metaphysical system which is compatible with Christian faith and which is an adequate vehicle for the expression of Christian convictions, then not only is there a Christian metaphysic, but there are quire a few of them . . . .

First, a Christian metaphysic must speak of God. God is the ultimate and supreme reality; he takes first place in our answer to the metaphysical question, “What is there?” And an adequate account of God’s nature – at least, as adequate as possible – must be a high priority for Christian philosophy . . . . A Christian metaphysic must also speak of creation . . . . Finally, a Christian metaphysic must speak of man as the image of God.

This then is metaphysics: a set of questions which press us to the very limits of human understanding, answers to those questions which are passionately held and yet deeply controversial, and in support of those answers seemingly endless arguments and counterarguments, rebuttals and counterrebuttals. The task of seeking understanding is indeed endless. May we all continue in it, as we seek to love God with all our minds.

Alexandra drew her shawl closer about her and stood leaning against the frame of the mill, looking at the stars which glittered so keenly through the frosty autumn air. She always loved to watch them, and to think of their vastness and distance, and of their ordered march. It fortified her to reflect upon the great operations of nature, and when she thought of the law that lay behind them, she felt a sense of personal security. That night she had a new consciousness of the country, felt almost a new relation to it. Even her talk with the boys had not taken away the feeling that had overwhelmed her when she drove back to the Divide that afternoon. She had never known before how much the country meant to her. The chirping of the insects down in the long grass had been like the sweetest music. She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things that crooned or buzzed in the sun. Under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring.

The word “felt” appears four times and “feeling” one time because the author emphasizes that a connection with the land must involve our emotional life. Lest we confuse this orientation with sentimentalism, the narrator links feeling with reflection, thought, and consciousness––a neo-Stoic conception of emotions as cognitive construals of the world. Alexandra interprets the prairie in such a way that her future is bound up with it, much in the way that our future, as Christians, is bound up with the groanings of creation, as the apostle Paul says:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the fruitfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Romans 8:18-25).

When the passage from O Pioneers! is read in concert with this passage from the Book of Romans, we discover something very important: the nexus between creation, creature, and Creator. Too often Christians focus on the nexus between creature and Creator, neglecting creation. Unpacking Paul’s logic, we can see our redemptive narrative in nature’s mirror. Just as creation was “subjected to futility,” our flesh was in bondage to the “law of sin” (7:21-25). Just as creation will be liberated, our bodies will be resurrected. At the center of this redemptive narrative is the Creator, who summons us to wait patiently for the eschatological climax, similar to the Nebraskan farmer who waits patiently for her crops to yield a harvest. The challenge, I propose, is to feel that our hearts are hiding down in creation, where the future is stirring.

How do we do experience this nexus between creation, creature, and Creator? Lisa Graham McMinn and Megan Anna Neff forthcoming book, Walking Gently on the Earth: Making Faithful Choices About Food, Energy, Shelter, and More, offers practical resources. I offer something else: the narrative imagination. This expression is borrowed from philosopher Martha Nussbaum, who defines it as “the ability to think what it might be like to be in the shoes of a person different from oneself, to be an intelligent reader of that person’s story, and to understand the emotions and wishes and desires that someone so placed might have.” Nussbaum limits the narrative imagination to persons. I will follow another philosopher, Martin Buber, who extends sympathetic identification to nature. Where Buber contrasts the “I-It” relation, which exercises a will to power, and the “I-Thou” relation, which exercises a will to love, Cather contrasts two different ecological ethics: the ethic of conquest and the ethic of care. When Alexandra, in the above passage, has “a new consciousness of the country” and feels “a new relation to it,” she no longer shares the view of her father and neighboring pioneers who only see the land as an “It” to be exploited. Instead, she views it as a “Thou” to be cultivated and cherished.

The very act of reading O Pioneers! invites me to undergo this shift. I enter the narrative where the land becomes its own character––alive, mysterious, beautiful, idiosyncratic. So, where does an ecological orientation begin? In the imagination or heart, as Willa Cather famously says in her novel: “The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.”

Cross posted at Mere Orthodoxy