THIRD REASON IT'S IMPORTANT
In the previous two posts I've offered two reasons why it's important for Christians either to accept or embrace Charles Darwin and the Big Bang Theory OR come up with a viable and coherent alternative scientific theory that most everyone, including non-Christians, can also embrace. So far, the only alternative raised - Intelligent Design – is neither a fleshed out scientific theory nor something that an be embraced by most conventional scientists.
In this post I offer a third reason why this is important: Christians need to be perceived by non-Christians as both intelligent in general, as well as intelligent about science. In an earlier post, I pointed out that both Christians and non-Christians seem to agree on the stereotype that Christians are not good at science. Here's a link to that study: http://www.npr.org/2016/01/14/463010075/researchers-probe-stereotype-christians-and-science-dont-get-a-long. Here's a link to the actual research paper cited in the NPR story: http://sharifflab.com/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2015/08/Rios-Cheng-Trotton-Shariff-2015.pdf.
Christians, of course, are not trying to win a popularity contest. From the earliest days of the church, Christians have been more than willing to go against the grain to stand up for their beliefs, sometimes to the point of martyrdom. We admire and praise these Christians for doing that. So why am I suggesting that Christians re-examine some of their beliefs, particularly so those beliefs might be more acceptable to non-Christians?
Recall in my earlier post that for the better part of 1500 years Christians claimed that the Bible was saying the Sun and the other planets revolved around the Earth, Ptolemy's theory of geo-centrism. Turns out, while we Christians were absolutely sincere in our beliefs, we were flat wrong – the Earth and the other planets revolve around the Sun – what's referred to as heliocentrism. Further, while we made that mistake for 1500 years, we came to realize the mistake, but also realized that the Bible wasn't wrong, merely our interpretation of the Bible had been wrong. As in that case, I still don't think the Bible is wrong, but how we may be interpreting the Bible may be wrong.
Thus, I think Christians need to re-examine what they think the Bible is, or isn't, saying about science. More than that, given that we live in a world that is increasingly focused on science and technology, Christians need to be respected leaders at the forefront of science and technology. Non-Christians may not agree with us on matters of faith, but there is no reason they should dis-respect us in matters of science and technology.
But here's the bigger reason, possibly the biggest reason of all, why Christians need to resolve this issue: Jesus commanded Christians to spread the good news to all of the world. Evangelism is truly important, and we're expected to evangelize people of all backgrounds and places. But if we're perceived as anti-science, even anti-intellectual, how do we ever hope to reach either the scientifically inclined or even the well-educated in general? If well-educated people perceive that Christians are "stupid about science", do we really expect they're going to listen to us when we talk about faith and religion? Here's what I think that means:
- For young people who grow up as believers, we want them to be able to off to study science and not feel that because they are embracing science and technology (or other intellectual pursuits, for that matter) that they can't continue to be believers;
- For those who didn't grow up as believers, but who are scientifically inclined or otherwise well educated, do we want to prevent them from considering Christianity simply because in their minds they perceive Christianity as anti-intellectual in general and anti-science in particular?
I think the average Christian would say, no, I want non-believers to be open to the Christian message, and I don't want to do anything that will prematurely drive people away. At the same time, that average Christian will say, I also don't want to compromise the Christian message just to make it more palatable to non-believers.
I absolutely agree with that sentiment: don't compromise beliefs. At the same time, however, I think we have created a false choice here, between belief and science.
So I've presented three very good reasons why Christians need to come up with a resolution to this problem: 1) to help reduce the exodus of young people from the church; 2) to make sure that Christians are "heard" in matters where science and ethics collide; and 3) to avoid the problem of unnecessarily driving away the scientifically inclined and otherwise well-educated from belief.
