Thanks Josh for setting this up. I’ll provide a few brief comments on your particular questions and let others pick up on threads they want to further discuss. I know Joel will be coming in soon and providing his own thoughts on a few of the questions.
Broadly speaking, I like to introduce Crosswise to people as the liberal arts meets Sunday morning youth group. It is a project that is housed at a university, so we treat the summer program as such. We are attempting to show high school students that conversations surrounding Christ and culture generally and science and theology specifically are often much more complex than first thought. We do this in a resurrection centered assurance that no matter how messy the details of the conversation may get, our identity is baptized into Christ . We have confidence to engage the culture in, as our website says, “risky, but rewarding” fashion. We can do this, I believe, because we have the backing of our various departments on campus to help us with providing excellent Lutheran professors who are professionals in their various fields. This last time around, we had professors from communication/rhetoric, biology, anthropology, and psychology leading break out sessions. The hope is that we are modeling and cultivating a better conversation for the youth as they become masks of Christ to others in the lives they live and the vocations with which they find themselves.
Your role, as I saw it, was to come in and illustrate how one can navigate the waters of undergraduate and graduate scientific education (practical MD and theoretical PhD) while remaining a confessing Christian. I learned about you through the article you wrote for Concordia Journal (Summer 2017). Your introduction was spot on as to why you practice science due to your identity in Christ. I knew you were also a practicing evolutionary biologist, so I figured that would spark plenty of conversations with our students as they processed your confident faith in Christ alongside your evolutionary commitments. The aftermath was positive. I distinctly remember one student commenting to me that your talk was the most challenging in that they expected an evolutionary biologist NOT to be Christian. Your clear pronouncement in Jesus and the non-wavering evolutionary views clearly got many of the students thinking through a position they have never encountered. This, coupled with the small group time the students had with resident theologians, really marked a high point in cognitive tension and resolution with out students. They grew.
As @J.E.S pointed out below, our Brief Statement on Creation is pretty clear that the LCMS is in tension with evolutionary theory. I would point out that the language in the Brief Statement is a little unclear as to the nature of evolution:
The statement seems to be thinking of evolution as a grand materialistic cosmic evolution in its reference to the “world” coming into existence and “developing more or less of itself.” This has been further clarified in Resolution-2-08A on teaching of evolution in our synodical schools:
WHEREAS, The hypotheses of macro, organic, and Darwinian evolution, including theistic evolution or any other model denying special, immediate, and miraculous creation, undercut this support for the honoring of life as a gift of God; and
WHEREAS, Any teaching that advocates the transition from one species to another, as opposed to maintaining the distinction of species “according to their kinds” (Genesis, Chapter 1), rejects the clear teaching of Scripture; and
Resolved , That all educational agencies and institutions of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod including early childhood programs, elementary schools, high schools, colleges, universities, and seminaries continue to teach creation from the biblical perspective; and be it further
Resolved , That no educational agency or institution of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod tolerate any teaching that contradicts the special, immediate, and miraculous creation by God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as an explanation for the origin of the universe; and be it further
Resolved , That the Synod’s educational agencies and institutions properly distinguish between micro and macro evolution and affirm the scriptural revelation that God has created all species “according to their kinds”; and be it finally
Note that there is no mention of age of earth in this resolution. However, going by our popular literature, radio interviews, and conference speakers, young earth creationism (YEC) is the going position that is promoted through official synodical channels. Which, makes that statistic of LCMS views of human evolution found by Pew research all the more disconcerting!
This is an interesting question and I think drives at the heart of what we at Crosswise and Concordia University, Irvine (as well as PeacefulScience) are driving at – better conversations. I’ll let the new readers here explore PeacefulScience a bit to see the sorts of conversations are happening. However, at Crosswise, we are trying to break a trend in high school textbook thinking about science as well as deepen the naïve youth group thinking about faith and reason/science often perpetuated in youth ministry. Concordia is a Liberal Arts University within the Lutheran tradition, thus we adopt Luther’s own words as our aim in education, “wise, honorable, and cultivated citizens” – the liberal arts is about producing liberal minds (not necessarily politically liberal!), but a mind that is open and flexible to discovering one’s God-given talents to better serve their neighbors. The Lutheran tradition aspect is to anchor securely students in the forgiveness of Christ. Hence, the play on words in our title, Crosswise. When one fears the Lord, becoming wise in the ways of the cross, then one is truly free to engage in science, philosophy, and theology in previously unimaginable ways. It is an identity thing. If your identity is bound to Christ, then nothing can separate you from His love and one is called to venture into any area required to serve our neighbors (including infiltrating brothels, money laundering tax organizations, and cleaning out the temple if we are to ask the question WWJD?). This is the essence of Luther’s notion of the “Freedom of a Christian.” It puts us in a paradoxical bind to be utterly free while completely bound to service to our neighbors, even when our neighbors are evolutionary biologists!
In my opinion, you were not a risk but the exact sort of person we at Crosswise are looking for to challenge our students. You provided a voice in a conversation that has not been present in a lot of our student’s past conversations. The dissonance you brought required a changing of gears for our students to grow intellectually and spiritually. I liked the way you challenged them to be better thinkers.
Seeing as this is already a long post, I’m going to “send it” and then reflect a little further on your question four, let Joel get something posted and see what people want to talk about!
Cheers all and I look forward to some conversation!