In my last blog post I described my inspiration for writing the book, beginning with my observation that the 150 year failure of Christians to come up with a generally agreed upon understanding of how Darwin and other modern scientific ideas square with the Bible has led to many problems. Many Christians, particularly the young, have left the church because of this. Further, Christians are increasingly viewed as anti-science and out of touch. Worst of all, Christians are also increasingly perceived as stupid. I believe Christians need to do something about this. I'm not at all suggesting we change our views in order to win a popularity contest, but I think we need to come up with better answers than we have, otherwise another 100 years could quickly pass and our Christian descendants would face even more scorn and less respect.
Pretty much everyone has their heels dug in on the issue, locked into their respective views. Likely, the only way to get some type of change on this is for someone to propose a new way of thinking. Something like that happened about 500 years ago – it was called the Reformation – and it turned into far more than just a battle of ideas. I think there's a solution to this that falls far short of what Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the other great Reformers had to do, and shouldn't create the bloody consequences of the 16th century. In short, my idea is to adopt some "entrepreneurial thinking."
When I say "entrepreneurial thinking", I'm referring to the process that many entrepreneurs go through to create new business opportunities. While I'm not thinking of this issue as a "business opportunity", I seriously think we could apply some of the concepts in order to come up with a good solution.
The first thing to note is something already pretty well known: most great business ideas come from outsiders, meaning from people who aren't already insiders in a particular business or industry. For example, the great personal computer revolution of the past 30 years was started by people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Gates and Jobs were both outsiders. The benefit was that they weren't wedded to the views of the big companies in information technology at the time, companies such as IBM and Digital Equipment. Ken Olson, the head of Digital Equipment at the time, famously asked the question, "why would anyone want to have a computer on his desk?" Unless you live near Route 128 in Boston, or are more than 60 years old, you've likely never heard of Ken Olson and his company, Digital Equipment, once a titan in the mini-computer industry.
The same is true about music. The recorded music industry has been completely upended in recent years by the Ipod, ITunes, and similar technology. Similarly, while the idea for digital photography first emerged at photography titan Kodak, the leadership of the company was too invested in the status quo to see the need to rethink things.
What has that to do with Charles Darwin, the Big Bang Theory, and Christianity? Simply this: I think many prominent scientists and theologians are too "invested" in their respective current "views" about Darwin and Christianity. They're too wedded to familiar assumptions, so any really new thinking on the subject will likely have to come from outside.
Why not from an accountant? Sounds preposterous, but is it any more preposterous than a couple of college dropouts without much, if any, formal education in computer science upending the computer industry, or that Kodak could have been toppled as a photography titan? While I'm a committed Christian, I'm neither a scientist nor a theologian, so I'm not "invested" in 150 years of thinking about Darwin. Instead, I can come along and do what entrepreneurs tend to do well: ask unconventional questions. Just as entrepreneurs can come in from outside an existing industry and develop new solutions to old problems by asking unconventional questions, so I believe that I, or someone like me, can come in and ask some unconventional questions about Darwin, the Big Bang, and Christianity.
I said I'm an accountant. By profession I am a CPA, though I haven't practiced as a CPA for many years. Instead, I'm an entrepreneur, as well as an inventor. As the people who work with me regularly know, I love to ask unconventional questions. Asking unconventional questions has been the basis for starting and building businesses, as well as inventing things. It was also the starting point for my investigation into this whole question. The end product, of course, was the book I've written.
While the book addresses a whole series of unconventional questions, it really begins with two. It's been noted than non-Christian scientists are absolutely astounded that even given all of the evidence that what Darwin postulated is true, only about half of the general American public believes it. But it's also been said that the only people who really should be surprised about that are the scientists themselves; and the reason is the argument that in the minds of those Darwin skeptics, even given all of the science, they've never been given a good reason they should want to believe Darwin. Thus, the first unconventional question is, "what would have to happen for Christians to want to believe in Darwin and the Big Bang Theory?" The second unconventional question follows from that. It is, "might there be reasons Christians would want to believe in Darwin and the Big Bang Theory and, if so, what would be those reasons?"
So far as I know, no one has been asking those questions. In my mind, they're the starting point for taking an "entrepreneurial look" at this entire issue, the place to launch a rethink of the matter. Ken Olson of Digital Equipment couldn't conceive that anyone would want a computer on his desk, much less in his shirt pocket or on his wrist, and the failure to at least pose the question limited his thinking … and cost his shareholders a very fine company. Have the people involved with the "Darwin versus Christianity" debate been thinking too much like Ken Olson? I'm afraid they have.
