Evolution: "Choose you this day whom you will serve..."

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. - Joshua 24:15

Astronomer John Byl has posted his review of Rev. Paulin Bedard's new book, In Six Days God Created: Refuting the Framework and Figurative Views of the Days of Creation, and here's a teaser..

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Bedard gives examples of several adherents of the Figurative View, such as... Timothy Keller and Bruce Waltke, who have gone on to embrace theistic evolution. 

(But) the discussion has moved beyond the creation days. Questions are now being raised about whether God created by means of evolution, whether Adam had animal ancestors, whether Adam and Eve were the only humans alive when they fell, whether all humans today stem from Adam, etc. This in turn raises theological questions about original sin, redemption, and Biblical inspiration, authority and interpretation.

Tim Keller has bad doctrine and practice related to Creation, evolution, feminism, ecclesiology, anthropology, Hell, abortion, and sodomy, but here we're talking Creation and evolution.

Those who make a living or reputation within the Academy or its Reformed seminary colonies, hit the groupthink as soon as they arrive...

on campus: "You don't use the male inclusive, do you? Your wife works, doesn't she? You only have two children, right?"

And of course: "You don't believe in a literal six-day creation, do you? Because if you do, you're a rube and won't last long..."

After twenty-five years living in the shadow of two major research institutions, UW-Madison and Indiana University, I say without hesitation that you can chart almost every academic's spiritual maturity and fruitfulness for the Lord by examining these issues, looking to see whether he fears God or man (used inclusively, of course). If his wife works—or rather, I should say has a career because my wife has almost always worked—and they have no more than two children and he tips his hat to evolution, look out because spiritual danger is on the horizon.

So I've adopted the habit of warning academics that they cannot choose science over God. They will be weighed in the balance over that choice and their choice must always, always be God. Which means when they hit what seems to them a true incompatibility between the authority of Scripture and the authority of science, the Christian always takes Scripture because God is true though all men are liars and man's wisdom is as foolishness to God.

Knowing I'm writing to pomos (postmoderns) just now, I could now spend twenty minutes sacrificing the normal on the altar of the abnormal. I could qualify what I've said by explaining that many places where men think there is a conflict between Scripture and science, there really isn't a conflict as long as you have a smart man with the terminal degree to explain what Scripture actually means there; I could try to reassure readers that some of my best friends are intellectuals; I could tell you I know the Priests tell us the universe is expanding and they figure it's around 90,000,000,000 light years from one end to the other; but what's the use? Pomos don't stop being pomos because you dialog with them.

Interestingly, the best academics listen to my warning and tell me they agree with a story or two demonstrating how God already taught them that. And usually it's the mediocre academics who try to explain to me the difficulty of interpreting Genesis 1-3. Not always, but usually.