Recovering Evangelicals

Many people think that the church burned scientists and their books during the Dark Ages; they would be wrong …. and here’s why We’re still discussing the book Of Popes and Unicorns: Science, Christianity, and how the Conflict Thesis fooled the world.   Last week, we spoke to one of the authors of that book — an academic historian (James C. Ungureanu) — about what this Conflict Thesis is (“the church and science are inherently at war … always have been, always will be”) and who it was that originated the idea (two 19th century American scholars: John William Draper and Andrew Dixon White).  This week, we’re talking to his co-author (David Hutchings) about how and why the Conflict Thesis is so embedded in the 21st century Western zeitgeist.  As a testament to how embedded that is, Luke talked to a dozen non-experts (friends, family, neighbors) and asked them straightforward questions that give glimpses of this underlying Conflict Thesis thinking. In particular, we talked about Galileo’s story, Bruno’s story, stories of the Church burning science books and even whole libraries, and the period in human history commonly referred to as the Dark Ages when the church is said to have suppressed science forcefully and brutally.  In each case, we explored: what my polling group have heard and seem to remember about those stories how they’ve received those versions of the stories through science textbooks (high school, college, university), documentaries, TV shows (Family Guy), popular books and movies (Dan Brown’s series of books — Da Vinci Code; Angels & Demons; Origin; Inferno — have sold over 250 million copies worldwide and are published in 56 languages), and popular influencers (Carl Sagan; Neil DeGrasse Tyson; Richard Dawkins; the late Christopher Hitchens; Sam Harris; Joe Rogan; and others) and how the version of those stories held by academic historians does not at all involve martyrdom, book burning, or suppression of science for theological reasons, and that the period of time which non-experts label “the Dark Ages” were actually a period of prolific scientific discovery, development of technology, and the active pursuit of such knowledge through logic, reason and wide-spread publication …. all largely at the hands of monks, priests, Christian thinkers, and the Church! As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Click here for more information about David Hutchings’ books, including the one we discussed today: Of Popes and Unicorns. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like our mini-series of episodes on: a Christian response to Evolution (11 episodes) Young Earth Creationism (9 episodes) Intelligent Design (8 episodes) To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Almost everyone in the 21st century Western world have bought into this unfounded myth (very possibly YOU too!?) A few days ago, it was the 1st of April …. April Fool’s Day!  Instead of playing some kind of prank on our listeners, we thought we’d look at a great book about a hoax — on the level of a conspiracy theory — that has hoodwinked the world for almost two centuries!  This con-job has most people today believing in “the Dark Ages,” and that the church in the past often tortured and even killed scientists, and burned down the ancient library of Alexandria (containing thousands of books, the collective knowledge of the world at that time). When you, the listener, hear about the whole “Galileo Affair,” does your mind immediately jump to religion vs science, or do you imagine two different groups of philosophers/scholars disputing cosmology using Greek philosophical arguments? The book we’ll be bringing to our listeners this week is Of Popes and Unicorns: Science, Christianity, and how the Conflict Thesis Fooled the World, by David Hutchings and James C. Ungureanu.  This week we’ll hear from James (a PhD historian), and next week from David (degree in physics; popular speaker and apologist). James did his entire PhD thesis on the Conflict Thesis and who first proposed the idea.  He and David dug through historical archives, chasing down footnotes in textbooks, newspaper clippings, and letters between scholars, and the trail converged on two 19th century American scholars: John William Draper and Andrew Dixon White.  And their idea — the Conflict Thesis — claims that “the church and science are at war … fundamentally at odds … always have been, always will be.” Draper and White were both brilliant polymaths, energetic intellectuals, and recognized scholars in a scholar’s world.  Draper was a scientist, White a literary scholar who had been on a path toward preaching, but was enticed away by intellectual influences into more secular pursuits.  Both wrote books which became the foundation for the Conflict Thesis.  Draper’s (History of the Conflict between Religion and Science) was dense and only readable to professional egg-heads, while White’s (A history of the warfare of science with theology in Christendom) was aimed at a more popular level.  And both were Christians!  In fact, Draper was not attacking religion itself, but advocating for a return to a pure, rational form of Christianity; he saw the Protestant Reformation as a turning point not just for religion but for science as well.  Nonetheless, both held, developed and passed on a distorted view of history of the relationship between church and science, which was then picked up and promoted by later scholars over the ensuing decades, and then more recently popularized by influencers like Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Joe Rogan, to name just a few.  The Conflict thesis can be found in textbooks used in high schools, colleges, and universities … in the introductions to scholarly papers published in scientific and medical journals … in magazine articles and documentaries … popular TV shows (Family Guy) and movies like Dan Brown’s blockbuster the Da Vinci Code.  It’s no wonder that anyone growing up in 21st century Western society just absorbs this idea (the Conflict Thesis) by osmosis, takes it as a historical fact, and makes it a part of their worldview.  Luke was curious about how Draper and White got their grossly distorted understanding of history: “Were they just honestly stupid, or deceitfully biased, or perhaps misinformed?”  We also talked about members of a mysterious “X Club” who met in lounges over cigars and drinks and discussed big ideas.  About the Free Religious Association: radical Unitarians, Universalists, spiritualists, transcendentalists, and other religious minorities who promoted free thought and more philosophy without the constraints of institutional Christianity, and promoting a new religion of Humanity.  About Stephen Jay Gould and “non-overlapping magisteria.”  And about why this Conflict Thesis just doesn’t want to go away.  Luke asked if historians have given up debunking the distorted history. James replied historians are growing tired of trying; that the public just prefer to have a simple good guy / bad guy story, rather than the highly nuanced but much more accurate understanding. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Click here for more information about Dr. James Ungureanu and the book we discussed. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like our mini-series of episodes on: a Christian response to Evolution (11 episodes) Young Earth Creationism (9 episodes) Intelligent Design (8 episodes) To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Scott shares his transformative faith journey from rigid evangelical beliefs to a more open-minded perspective. He discusses the struggle between foundational teachings and personal convictions, emphasizing the need for critical thinking. The conversation delves into the complexities of Jesus' identity and the implications of his teachings while exploring themes of love and forgiveness. They also challenge traditional views on heaven and hell, advocating for creating a 'heaven on earth' through our actions. Embracing doubt and flexibility in beliefs is highlighted as key to spiritual growth.

Douglas F. Ottati, a leading liberal Christian theologian, dives deep into the essence of liberal theology and its historical roots, emphasizing the interplay between modernity and religious thought. He challenges the rigid definitions of ‘orthodoxy,’ advocating for a more fluid understanding shaped by time and context. The conversation spans biblical interpretation, the evolving nature of Christian beliefs, and diverse perspectives on God’s nature, fostering a rich dialogue that bridges traditional and progressive theological views.

This is the conversation that motivated me to start Season Six: the book that got me questioning whether “my [liberal] faith was in vain” Folks, this interview is the one that rebooted the podcast!  The previous three episodes that started Season Six were all a lead-up to this conversation.  It was an article written by our guest today — Dr. Roger Olson, Professor Emeritus of Theology at Baylor University, one of the biggest religious universities in the United States, and the biggest Baptist University in the world — that got me seriously questioning whether I was allowed to still call myself a Christian. That article  — Why I wrote Against Liberal Theology — caught me at a time when I was getting very comfortable in my liberal/Progressive Christian skin, and very disillusioned with the Christianity of my Fundamentalist Evangelical past.  It prompted a deep introspective dive into what DO I really believe (or not believe) … and why? In this conversation — a very calm, collegial, and respectful one by the way! — we asked Dr. Olson to define liberal Christian theology and explain why he sees it as “heresy.” We also asked him to define orthodox Christian theology (essentially, the Nicene Creed), the gospel message, and the label “Christian.”  We talked about whether Christianity truly has an unchanging core tradition set over a millennium ago by the church fathers, or whether it has always been evolving.  Other stopping points in our conversation included: miracles, the resurrection of Jesus, the Wesleyan quadrilateral, naturalism, and Carl Sagan.  And in the last part of our conversation, I asked for his comments about my very liberal Christian view on the human condition and our need for salvation — a view that, I’ll admit, looks very different from the traditional, “orthodox” view — and about my insistence on using the label “Christian.”  Truth be told, it was a great conversation, and I highly recommend Dr. Olson’s book — Against Liberal Theology: putting the brakes on Progressive Christianity — to any listeners who “want to hear both sides of the story” on the conservative/liberal Christian spectrum. Next week, we’ll talk to an equally prominent theologian from the liberal end of the theological spectrum. In fact, one whom Dr. Olson frequently mentions in his book and in our conversation as perhaps the absolute best representative since Friedrich Schleiermacher of the Liberal Christian Theological movement that he was targeting in his book!  As always, tell us your thoughts … Find more information about Dr. Roger Olson at the Patheos web-site that now hosts his blog posts, and find his many books at Amazon, including the one we discuss in this episode: Against Liberal Theology: putting the brakes on Progressive Christianity. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Using the modified Wesleyan quadrilateral to summarize my current understanding of the Bible, God, Jesus and the human condition. In this episode, I explain how my Christian understanding on several key theological ideas has changed. I came from a very Fundamentalist Evangelical upbringing, and all our listeners know that I’ve completely left behind the Young Earth Creationism and superficially literal readings of the Bible that characterized the Christianity of my first three decades. And they’ll also know that I’ve been developing some rather creative transformations of a variety of aspects of my Christian faith. But what about the very basic core elements of Christianity? Where have I landed on those? Before we get into that, let’s be clear how I’ve modified and used a centuries-old theological tool for clarifying true, meaningful and practical beliefs: the four pillars of the Wesleyan quadrilateral. Many others emphasize the load-bearing capacity of two of those pillars: scripture and church tradition. How many times haven’t we heard Fundamentalist phrases like: “if the Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it” and “we’ve always thought that way”? But I’ve given full flexibility and load-bearing capacity to all four corners so that, in some cases, reason and experience can bear most of the load, sometimes even eclipsing the explanatory power of scripture and church tradition. In response to those two well-worn Fundamentalist phrases I just quoted, I’m not hesitant to ask whether certain difficult Biblical passages are “just ancient Jews talking” (Psalm 137:8,9), and to suggest that “Christianity has ALWAYS been evolving in response to science, philosophy, culture, and politics.” And I’ve added in that ramp of reason that focuses and re-directs the leap of faith. Using this tool, I explain where I now stand on four central Christian ideas … the Bible, God, Jesus, and the human condition? For this episode blurb, I tried many times to summarize these deeply nuanced shibboleths into just a few pithy sentences. But I kept finding myself adding more and more paragraphs to each. So …. instead of reading it here, you’re going to have to listen to me unpacking those in the conversation recorded with Scott. Next week, we’re going to talk to Dr. Roger Olson, a very prominent Conservative theologian and scholar. We’ll ask him to comment on my new found theology, and to explain why I can’t call it “orthodox” … in the literal sense of that word (“true teaching”) rather than the traditional one (adhering to a literal reading of Scripture or a long church tradition). And the week after that, we’ll do the same with an equally prominent scholar on the other side of the theological spectrum, Dr. Douglas F. Ottati. As always, listen and then tell us your thoughts on this discussion … If you enjoyed this episode and want to dig deeper, you might want to go to our previous episodes on: the deconstruction and reconstruction of Luke’s faith how humans gave us the Old Testament how humans gave us the New Testament how humans re-wrote the Biblical texts Divine inspiration a personal relationship with the Divine prayer as a cognitive exercise human consciousness and the evolution of our mind and soul Jesus as a human Jewish Messiah and a cosmic divine being Atonement theology and what science has to say about it a new meaning of Easter the evolution of human religion and human morality Episode image by Andrew … thanks Andrew! To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Discover the intriguing journey of individuals transitioning from traditional beliefs to a reformed Christian worldview. Explore the art of deconstruction, understanding it as a thoughtful re-evaluation of theology rather than mere destruction. Delve into historical influences on belief systems, from ancient philosophy to modern complexities. The nuanced interpretations of scripture and the historical tensions of authority within the church take center stage. Engage with evolving thought on faith, particularly regarding women's roles, and the dynamic relationship between Scripture and contemporary understanding.

This season kicks off with a deep dive into the relationship between original sin and Darwinian evolution, suggesting a rich dialogue between science and theology. The hosts scrutinize various theories of atonement, revealing their historical evolution and implications on God's nature. They explore the Day of Atonement's symbolism and discuss the intricate bond between God and creation. Throughout, the conversation challenges traditional interpretations, inviting a blend of faith and scientific thought that promises both intrigue and reflection.

A retrospective that spotlights a provocative thread with huge theological and existential implications: the primordial cosmic ‘egg’ was fine-tuned, preprogrammed, and front-end loaded! In this Season Finale, we look back at an incredible series of episodes — most of them in the past few months, but many others from as far back as four years ago — and tease out a thread that’s central to the re-building of our Christian faith.  In contrast to the traditional Young Earth Creationist version of the origin of the universe and life, we look at a narrative that has grown out of on-going work done by scientists.  Millions of scientists, working over many centuries, many of them self-identifying as Christian, pursuing a divinely-inspired search for truth. The primordial cosmic egg that ‘exploded’ in the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago — estimated to be “the size of a grapefruit” — was packed with an amazing array of ingredients.  Over the past couple months, several world-class astrophysicists, mathematicians, and philosophers talked about those ingredients including quantum mechanics, relativity, string theory, atomic properties, and a couple dozen physical constants (such as the cosmological constant, gravitational constant, speed of light, weight of an electron, and many more).  But we also heard in Season One about other ingredients: thermodynamics, entropy, randomness, probability, order, predictability, determinism, massively large numbers, dynamic complexity, chaos theory, and biological evolution. Those conversations had us repeatedly using three provocative descriptors of that primordial cosmic ‘egg’, descriptors that have huge theological and existential implications. (1) that ‘egg’ was fine-tuned.  Among scholars who are properly trained to weigh in on this aspect of astrophysics, there is little disagreement that this ‘egg’ was incredibly fine-tuned to produce a universe full of ‘useable stuff’ … stars, planets, and a Periodic Table full of elements (from cell-building blocks like hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon and oxygen … all the way up to biochemically-reactive inorganic metals like iron, nickel, copper, manganese, selenium and zinc).  The delicate balancing of the various physical constants is often compared to balancing a pencil on its sharpened tip. (2) that ‘egg’ was preprogrammed to produce life.  Other scholars who are properly trained to weigh in on biology and biochemistry will agree that “life hit the ground running.”  In the cosmic equivalent of the blink of an eye, almost as soon as Earth formed, thermodynamics, deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and inorganic metals began churning out the building blocks of life, forming ever more complex organic structures, biochemical synthetic pathways and “prebiotic entities” which eventually produced living organisms.  The latter then embarked on a journey of inventing and exchanging newer genetic solutions to physiological and environmental problems, until we see the rich, diverse ecosystems of today. (3) the ‘egg’ was front-end loaded to produce agape-capable beings, and the cognitive machinery in our heads evolved to point us toward something much bigger than ourselves. No one can deny that humans are a religious species.  It’s built into our brains.  Why? This episode had us reminiscing over the many conversations we had with dozens of scientists and philosophers, and we called out the episode numbers that each of them featured in so that you can go back and unpack the claims they made. In the end, we feel that in trying to make sense of how we humans came to this point in space and time, it comes down to a choice …. a leap of faith. One either believes in some kind of a Divinity, or believes that we’re a computer simulation in some multi-dimensional hypercosmic experiment, or believes that we are the product of a mind-breaking stroke of luck, a freak cosmic accident.  What’s at stake in that choice? … meaning, purpose, fulfilment, self-actualization. Once again, this is the end of Season Five.  If you want to be notified when future episodes will start coming out, you’ll need to subscribe.  In the meantime, check out our archive of 170 episodes: they’re listed chronologically, thematically, and by name of our guest experts.  Tell your friends, family, and followers about this rich resource made freely available to anyone who wants to explore aspects of science, theology and philosophy from an exVangelical point of view. Yet another novel creation by Andrew, to whom we give a huge thank you for your many other contributions over the course of this podcast! To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

After life got a foothold on Earth, it immediately set about to filling the various emerging ecosystems with new organisms. If you compressed the 3.7 billion year march of life on this planet down to 24 hours: earth comes into existence at midnight, the first fossils of life appear in the wee hours of the morning, the first multicellular life forms at dinner time, the first fish, land plants and amphibians by 10 pm, dinosaurs by 10:30, birds and mammals by 11:30 at night, and humans at midnight. A lot happened during the last few hours of that day: what was life doing all morning and afternoon? We found out last week, in our conversation with Dr. Stephen Freeland, that it was building things using the complex macromolecules synthesized by non-living minerals around deep ocean hydrothermal vents, integrating together metabolic and genetic networks.  Increasing the levels of complexity.  Building genes, and sharing the information with neighboring bugs.  Writing pages and pages of ideas.  And then, right around the dinner hour on our metaphorical clock above, life hit the ground running.  Combining, consolidating, integrating, experimenting …. producing plants, fish, amphibians, reptiles, insects, birds, mammals … and consciousness. In this episode, we talk to Dr. Simon Conway Morris about that cosmic terraforming experiment, and some of the mechanisms involved.  In particular, we talked quite a bit about convergence: different life forms on parallel evolutionary journeys landing on the same winning strategies again and again.  I used the analogy of “reaching into the freezer” for solutions to physiological, environmental and evolutionary problems.  That ‘freezer’ was the collective biotic genome that had been building up during the first two or three billion years … between “the wees hours of the morning” and the late afternoon on our metaphorical clock.  Dr. Conway Morris wasn’t too comfortable with my ‘freezer’ analogy …. it sounded too much like Intelligent Design, and he is absolutely no fan of that ideology (nor am I or Scott).  His preferred wording was to refer to the genome as being “seeded with inevitabilities”, which I think resonates perfectly with our overall theme of fine-tuning to produce life. We also spent some time talking about Simon’s latest book: From Extraterrestrials to Animal Minds: Six Myths of Evolution.  He clarified some of the myths that have been built up around so-called ‘missing links’, mass extinctions, human exceptionalism (how we’re so different from all the other animals), extraterrestrials and the Fermi Paradox. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more information about Dr. Simon Conway Morris at his university page. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like a couple we did three years ago with Dr. James Shapiro and with Dr. Jeffrey Schloss on the topic of speciation, or the many other episodes we’ve released on the subject of Fine Tuning. Episode image is once again thanks to Andrew. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted... Subscribe Join our private discussion group at Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive