Recent BioLogos Content

So, don’t know if you’ve noticed but N.T Wright wrote another topic on Biologos.

https://biologos.org/blogs/archive/n-t-wright-on-scripture-and-the-authority-of-god-part-1

2 Likes

Ah, wait, this was originally published in 2014.

Should have read it to the end before posting here.

1 Like

They don’t have much new content any more. Forum is a ghost town.

2 Likes

It was originally published by N. T Wright in 1991.

2 Likes

It is really boring over there. I check the forum every now and then. Really, really slow. Biologos looks like the mainline Protestant church in my area on Sunday mornings - nearly empty, no vitality.

They reap what they sow. they ban intellectual discussions if they don’t like the conclusions. they act like left wing liberal types. They don’t shpw me they are like the vast majority of evangelical christians of normal people in North America. You can’t persuade people by censorship. it discredits your side EVEN if your right!

Vast majority of NORMAL people. Now that is funny. :rofl: I didn’t know that the majority of normal people were Evangelical Christians. :rofl: I once knew an Evangelical Christian named Abby. As in abby-normal. :rofl:

1 Like

Most people in North America are Catholics.

1 Like

Only 21% of the US population identify as Catholic in 2018. That is not most as they are outnumbered by Nones.

North America, meaning USA, Canada and Mexico.

1 Like

oh, Canada and Mexico don’t count. :sunglasses:

They just hosted a discussion on Adam and Eve that conflicted with their position. So yeah, I don’t see them banning discussions if they don’t like the conclusion

2 Likes

As soon as they were shown wrong, they banned me from the forum. I am still not allowed back. I’m fairly certain nothing like the Venema-Buggs exchange will happen there ever again.

2 Likes

What happened over there anyway?

1 Like

Why you and not the others that showed they were mistaken?

1 Like

A debate played out in the comments (summarized here: Heliocentric Certainty Against a Bottleneck of Two? and story 1 here: Three Stories on Adam).

Very good question. I can’t be sure exactly why it played out the way it did. Maybe you can help me figure it out.

Those that showed Denis Venema (and BioLogos) was mistaken was Richard Buggs, Ann Gauger, and myself. This is not to diminish @glipsnort role. He was and always has been an honest voice in these conversations.

Buggs and Gauger disagreed with Venema from the get go. I started out agreeing with Venema, but then I changed my position. I acknowledged where I had mistakes. For me, retracting errors is a fundamental requirement of honest science. It appears that view was not shared. I expected the same from Venema and BioLogos, but did not see that happen. There was no reason to ban Gauger and Buggs, as both have always been outside “BioLogos”. I suppose I make them more uncomfortable.

This was also coming on the heals of the Genealogical Adam work, which they rejected for theological reasons (against the evidence, they insisted it was polygenesis/racist). On Oct 1, 2017, I published a blog post asking them to be honest with Tim Keller, and acknowledge there was no evidence against his position (In Defense of Tim Keller). They refused to be honest about it. That is when I made public I had left BioLogos (The Confessing Scientist). To be clear, they had already kicked me off the speakers bureau because of the Genealogical Adam (which they argued at the time was racist theology). The Keller exchange, however, took place immediately before the exchange with Venema-Buggs took place.

So there ended up being two things in a row where BioLogos was (and remains) unwilling to publicly acknowledge where they made large scientific errors. They did (once as an aside, and once directly) post that I was correct on the science (kudos to Schloss, Falk, Hardin, and @Kathryn_Applegate ), but they never acknowledged that they misrepresented the science to Keller or that Venema’s book was in error. I won’t get into the details, because this was all hashed out in conversations directly with them. It appears that they knew they were wrong, but wanted to save face by not admitting they were wrong, at least not publicly.

It should not have been a big deal. A simple clarification that they made a mistake and want to set it right was all that was needed. That, however, seems beyond their ability. We just passed the 1 year mark of their exchange with Keller. They overstated what science ruled out, creating an immense amount of unnecessary conflict, and they remain unwilling to retract. Give it a few months, and we will cross the anniversary of the Venema-Buggs exchange too. No retractions in sight. I think they just want to pick up and move on like nothing important happened. At this point, I understand why others will not trust them going forward. It might be too late to fix their reputation.

Any how, I suppose they banned me because I ended up accidentally at the center of two major errors they made, not just one. I was honest about these errors, and this honesty was inconvenient for them.

Do you have a better theory?

I still seek reconciliation with them. The official word, it seems, is that I am not worth their time, and they do not want me on their forum. It does not appear they want to reconcile.

2 Likes

Also, for the record, they frequently ban discussions where they do not like the conclusions. I can show you several examples. The Buggs-Venema exchange was just too high profile for them to shut down.

It is also interesting how Adam and the Genome was handled. It was published early 2017 to much fanfare, and a keystone part of the 2017 conference. Not one critique of it has been published on the BioLogos website. Not one. That communicates what their official position is.

To be clear, I have no specific problem with the theological view that Adam and Eve was a fable. There are people that hold this view here, and we are not constantly trying to change their mind. However, the scientific argument against Adam and Eve in Adam and the Genome is fallacious. That scientific error is the real issue for me. At the moment, BioLogos does not acknowledge those errors publicly in any way. No critiques of Adam and the Genome have been allowed on their blog.

At this point, it seems the strategy is to just try and change the topic. That strategy is not going to work so well.


@T.j_Runyon, I understand that Denis was a part of your journey to faith. I’m really thankful for that. I have no personal animosity to Venema or those at BioLogos. It think they do good work, and I honestly wish them well. This is merely a professional disagreement that I think is of very high importance.

I’m going to reach out to them about all of this. I like Biologos. They played a big part in bringing me back to faith. I like their overall mission, but if they are doing these types of things that surely needs to change quick.

1 Like

Just please do not say I put you up to it. I did not. I think it is good you are reaching out, but that is your own initiative, not mine.

I like BioLogos too. They have done and continue to do a lot of very good things.