It’s the UNITED Church of Christ and it’s far more liberal, in general, than Presbyterians.
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Hilarious!
I had to explain to my 5 students and postdocs moving to the US that when an American uses the term “Asian,” it rarely includes Indians.
Clearly, Daniel has adopted the typical American ignorance of basic geography…
I think people (of any camp) actually tend to respond positively to Josh’s message of “Jesus, not evolution or creationism”.
No, I actually meant Asian in general - Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, and so on.
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@Mercer ( my gift to you today, @swamidass ):
How exactly does having a clear understanding of what “unites with BioLogos” vs. what “divides from BioLogos” could possibly interfere with your understanding?
Your understanding of what?
Very frequently, we get Creationist questions about what exactly makes us different from BioLogos. And the implication is pretty clear: if we are just like BioLogos, they have no further need to discuss anything.
Half a year ago, whenever I discussed any possibility of BioLogos adjusting their mission statement to accommodate a “Genealogical Adam” scenario … I got a whole freight-load of reasons why BioLogos wasn’t interested in that.
To me … it sounds like the first cannon shot in the war of “Evolutionist Tribalism” was fired by BioLogos.
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The average American certainly does flinch if someone includes Indians (dot-not-feather) within the general category of Asians! I find it ironic that the challenges of correctly categorizing the indigenous peoples of the Indian sub-continent goes all the way back to when Columbus called the tribes of the Caribbean as “Indians”!
Mine? It doesn’t. I’m talking about a much larger audience, George.
Sure, but that doesn’t make it productive for Josh to engage in it, does it?
In fairness to @swamidass, at least in the conversations I’ve been in, it’s rarely been him that starts talking about BioLogos. I’ve often poked him about it, because I was curious and confused. I had assumed that Josh would happily take on the EC label, and was surprised when he rejected it so strongly. The problem is, something that is relatively non-confrontational and non-controversial to me - “so you’re a Christian who affirms evolution? so you’re an EC then?”, carries a whole lot of history and hurt to Josh. I wish it wasn’t so, but of course that’s his experience and I have to respect that he has the right to reject a label he finds antithetical to what he’s about.
The thing I keep coming back to, is why am I here and not at BioLogos? I was somewhat active on the BioLogos blog around 2009/2010 but frankly I lost interest and got busy with other things. I liked the “slickness” of their resources, and that they pulled in big names from the more intellectual side of Evangelicalism or at least people Evangelicals like (Tim Keller, John Walton, N. T. Wright, etc.). But they never seemed to really “do” science and their resources seemed more about providing a particular answer to question “how does one ensure that Christianity and evolutionary science are in harmony?”. In short, it seemed often to be more about advocating a particular position rather than open dialog about the “big questions”.
On the other hand, Discourse kindly tells me I’ve been on here 204 days … and I signed up less than a year ago. I’ve read 29k posts in almost 1k topics and written almost 500 posts. The reason is, I’ve had conversations with amazing people who have expertise in their field and actually seem to want to have a discussion. Sometimes it’s messy, and sometimes I get annoyed, but I’ve also learned so much more about what it means to be human here in the last year than any other time in my life. That’s a major difference between BioLogos and Peaceful Science, in my opinion.
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That’s all very nice, but it’s not even slightly relevant to my point…on second thought, it only emphasizes an apparently desperate, unproductive need to label people and groups.
To summarize:
Me: It’s not productive to label people and groups in such a tribal way.
Jordan: PS is better than BL!
George: BL started it!
I think that Joshua sees my point more clearly than you and George do!
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I’m not buying what you are selling. Eventually, if a Creationist hasn’t heard about BioLogos yet, inevitably they will (assuming it doesn’t get dissolved). By providing some simple tools to recognize distinctions, the person will be able to quickly avoid lumping 2 or more groups together.
Labeling is more than half of all human knowledge. No doubt this is part of the instinctual legacy (for good and bad) of all humans.
In a realm like Creationism vs. Evolution, where millions of people differentiate themselves by investing their entire fortunes on differences in a word or phrase, what you call “tribalism” seems to be an overly dismissive way of recognizing what is inescapable: words matter.
Examples where History changed because of a word or two:
West vs. East: “et filioque”
Collapse of East Roman Frontier: Jesus - 1 Nature vs. 3 Natures
Pagan vs. True Faith: Icons: Hate 'em, Love 'em
and so on and so on…
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You are probably correct … because @jordan probably thinks you are making a point that is half correct.
I can’t agree with that position … because I think your point is completely wrong-headed for discussions of religion … and the stakes involved in getting religious ideas incorrectly sorted!
Well, I do think @Mercer has a point but I also see value in what @gbrooks9 is saying. I guess you were right :
Does that make me doubly wrong? 
I think I gravitate toward categorization, it’s part of what I like about science, but sometimes I can be too focused on distinguishing between ideas that I forget that people are involved. Tribalism is a problem, and I don’t want to contribute to that. I’m sorry if I have.
But to me part of understanding something is distinguishing it from other similar things. What makes a reaction produce one thing and not another? It’s why the discussion of what it means to be human is so interesting. I think we can understand what it means to be human better by understanding what the difference between human and non-human is. Same with the distinguishing between science and pseudoscience. It involves labels as short-hand ways of describing things, and sometimes that breaks down, but it does seem useful. I think that’s some of what @gbrooks9 is getting at (maybe, I never really know with George).
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I think the term “tribalism” is an over-reaction.
WHY oh WHY are there so many denominations? Because for the most part, the human mind is unwilling to fling itself into a mosh pit and eliminate all the differences he or she can imagine.
You have Calvinists who are zealous TULIP types… and you have Calvinists who are not.
You have Catholics who love the pope, and you have Catholics who think the current string of popes have all been technically invalid… and I can’t even remember why.
Ignoring differences for the sake of avoiding tribalism sounds noble… but I don’t see how it can be done in the arena of religion. Religious differences may represent the most energetic realm of human differences! … and ignoring the differences is hardly likely to help you find a path of Union between Creationists and Evolutionists.
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Labels are a useful and necessary evil in communication. Their mere and frequent use does not implicitly denote tribalism, but like any generalization, caveats and clarifications are always in order.
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George, come on. You’re not even addressing my point. Sorting ideas is good. Sorting people instead of ideas (tribalism) is not.
Then use labels for ideas. Using labels for people is a barrier to understanding.
@Mercer (cc: @swamidass)
Hmmm… are you making a distinction without a difference?
When Joshua is discussing “BioLogos” … is that an idea? Or is he going all “Tribal” on the principle officers of BioLogos?
I don’t even know or care who the principles are. I care about what the Mission Statement says… and what it says after it is amended, and what the significance is in the change in wording.
How would I even begin to get “tribal”? Would I have to start discussing where people went to school? What ethnicity they are? Who they married?
I think you are having a hard time “walking this one back” … because I just don’t see Tribalism of any real significance in most of what we’ve been discussing.
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Using labels for people and groups is a necessity. Postdocs, Russians, skydivers, fishermen…
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In what way does it being a necessity negate it being a barrier to understanding?
How can a necessity for communication (and hence, understanding) be a barrier to understanding?
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Have you noticed that labels help you understand how operations differ from category to category?
What kind of mystical brain activity are you imagining that is somehow foiled by the use of labels?
I subscribe to a YEC position. So do you think that i am stupid do you? I attend a church in America that is “YEC” and is bursting at its seams and is planting churches and has many really smart people of faith in attendance.
I have found this whole conversation in this section like chasing the wind. @swamidass is concerned about biologos branding semantics and others concerned about trying to find a balance of “science” and theology when theology consists of a God who confounds science. Then the issue of racism and how this is aplified by GAE vs not etc. I believe both evolution fr apes and GAE amplify the propensity for the evil in human nature towards racism. And i have no doubt in my mind about this.
It almost seems like the mass of confusion and disagreement and even racism could be thwarted by simply subscribing to the most simple model that God seems to put forth in His Word. The reason we humans dont like simplicity sometimes is because we want to give our slant, our own position, our own “brand” for namesake and a book deal and this leads to complicating the terms. I find it ironic that this very real propensity called sin that drives us to impress others about self and a very real issue called racism is EASILY overcome with the simplicity of the Biblical model put forth by God. Notice the simplicity of this model that stills all disunity, disharmony, propensity to sin, propensity towards racism and most importantly does not defame God as one who creates evil out of the nature of His being:
God created the world, plants animals and man in His own image with common grace in their design to adapt and micro evolve and He calls this “very good.”
Man sinned and God in His perfect righteousness and holiness banned the first and only humans from the garden and subjected that “very good” creation in all of the systems on eartg to futility.
God so loved the WORLD of people whom He directly created in His image that He sent His Son to absorb the wrath of God which all people of all colors deserved because we all sin and we are all sinners by nature.
In heaven, people of all races, colors and nationalities will rejoice in their Savior together forever.
In this simple model, there is no room for racism and no room for propensity for “branding” anything and no room for chasing the wind discussions like this one.
And i understand that scientists have a bend toward naturalistic explanations for everything. The Bible however starts with the most unscientific concept imaginable: God created mass energy by His Word from…ready?..nothing! That in itself is far more unscientific than any yec view i have come across. Maybe you, Mr. Burke need to have a chat with God to tell Him that perhaps His written word about how he created the universe needs to go.
Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”