Mystical Seeker has drawn attention to the e-mail which a pastor received after announcing his participation in Evolution Weekend. The gist of it is “If evolution is true then these various beliefs of mine and other Christians are wrong; therefore, evolution cannot be true”. This is doubly problematic. First, just because something else being true would have the implication that you are wrong does not mean that that other thing is not in fact true. Any time we cease to be willing to entertain the possibility that we are wrong, then the possibility of learning is entirely brought to a halt, and no one, not even God, can teach us anything. Presumably that is not where Christians should be.
Second, to assume that a new piece of information is incompatible with one’s whole belief system is too far a leap. Certainly evolution means that there was death as a natural part of the created order. But guess what. Genesis teaches that too. The presence of the tree of life makes no sense if human beings are naturally immortal.
If Christians spent more time actually studying the Bible in something more than the superficial way that is typical in our time, a lot of the time and effort wasted on unnecessary conflicts and debates could be devoted to things the Bible actually focuses on.
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