Letters

November/December 1999

Miscaptioned

I'm sorry to be writing a "negative" note, but I was struck by the photograph in the article "John Donne Meets The Runaway Bunny" [September/October]—it incorrectly identifies Walter Charles as Dr. Jason Posner.

The male figure in the photograph is indeed Walter Charles, but he played Harvey Kelekian in Wit, and he is definitely not Vivian Bearing's former student (he is 50 years old, as is Bearing). Jason Posner was played by Alec Phoenix (not shown in the photograph), and he is Bearing's former student. The man in the photograph is not 28 years old!

And now a minor thing—Wit played "off Broadway," not "on Broadway," as the reviewer writes. It played at Union Square Theatre. I wish the reviewer had seen it there: it brought tears to the eyes of many in the audience, and no one was ashamed.

Charlotte F. Otten
Calvin College
Grand Rapids, Mich.

Theistic science?

In the September/October issue [Letters, "Young-Earth Creationism"] Paul Nelson and John Mark Reynolds take me to task for endorsing the methodology accepted by the great majority of scientists in the world today—methodological naturalism. But what is the nature of the "theistic science" with which we are urged to replace it?

In brief, "theistic science" asks scientists to reintroduce God's activity as at least a partial explanatory force in science. But is there one Christian view of when and in what manner God intervenes in the natural world? There's the rub. In my view, "theistic science" is a completely unworkable view for the simple reason that it is impossible, on purely empirical grounds, for Christians or people of any other faith to know where and in what manner God is acting within the natural realm. That is not to say that God does not act in the natural world (indeed, we take it as an article of faith that he does). But how do we identify those cases where we should end our search for a natural explanation for a natural event and instead postulate some sort of divine activity as the cause?

Rather than suffocating science, as Nelson and Reynolds allege, methodological naturalism has instead produced a tremendous flowering of scientific discoveries. Because science seeks natural understandings of natural phenomena, it asks the tough questions and doesn't fall back on all-too-easy supernatural explanations, which in the past have frequently stifled investigation by labeling phenomena as inherently "mysterious."

If Nelson and Reynolds expect us to discard methodological naturalism, they are obligated to show us—as they have not done thus far—that "theistic science" offers science more explanatory power and a superior research program with which to go forward. Until such time, scientists, Christian and non-Christian, are entitled to stick with methodological naturalism.

Matt Donnelly
Carol Stream, Ill.

In his review of Three Views on Creation and Evolution (In Brief, July/August 1999), Matt Donnelly appears to agree with Howard Van Till that "God does indeed create through the Darwinian mechanism of descent with modification." What Donnelly, Van Till, and others apparently misunderstand is that "descent with modification" is the "process" (not the mechanism) of evolution and, as such, is compatible with intelligent design as well as with their positions. The Darwinian explanatory mechanism is natural selection operating on mutation. In the words of 1994 American Association for the Advancement of Science President Francisco J. Ayala, "Darwin's theory encountered opposition in religious circles, not so much because he proposed the evolutionary origin of living things (which had been proposed many times before, even by Christian theologians), but because his mechanism, natural selection, excluded God as the explanation accounting for the obvious design of organisms."

Is this undirected, unplanned Darwinian mechanism truly capable of creating the major innovations evidenced in life's history? Phrasing the question correctly is the first step in our search for truth.

John Wiester, Chairman
Science Education Commission
American Scientific Affiliation

Rob Pennock's misquote of me ["Tower of Babel," September/October] alters but a few letters in what I wrote but vastly changes its significance. He quotes me as writing that design theorists "are no friends of theistic evolutionists." What I in fact wrote is: "Design theorists are no friends of theistic evolution." (He got the quote right in his book, Tower of Babel, but not in his article for BOOKS & CULTURE).

It makes a huge difference whether one refuses friendship with an idea or with a group of people. To refuse the former is a matter of personal conscience and opinion. To refuse the latter signifies bigotry and ill will. As a design theorist, I disagree with theistic evolution but value theistic evolutionists not only as persons but also as dialogue partners.

William A. Dembski
Discovery Institute
Seattle, Wash.

Philosopher Robert Pennock complains that the Intelligent Design movement is "top-heavy with philosophers" though he acknowledges with seeming amazement that it includes "even some scientists, like Michael Behe, Walter Bradley, and Jonathan Wells."

Pennock is correct that the design movement has attracted a number of first-rate philosophers of science who have done their graduate studies at such places as Cambridge University and the University of Chicago. Given that Darwinists like Richard Dawkins routinely make metaphysical claims in the name of science, there is a pressing need for philosophers of science to sort out the assumptions that have guided science since the mid—nineteenth century. But Pennock is wrong to imply that there are only a few token scientists involved in the design movement. In fact, the movement is largely driven by scientists from across the range of scientific disciplines who have discovered the bankruptcy of the Darwinian paradigm for their own fields of inquiry.

In addition to the three scientists Pennock mentioned, notable scientists espousing design include Dean Ken yon, professor of biology at San Francisco State University; Paul Chien, chairman of the Department of Biology at the University of San Francisco; Jeffrey Schloss, chairman of the Department of Biology at Westmont College; Scott Minnich, associate professor of microbiology at the University of Idaho; Pattle Pak-Toe Pun, professor of biology at Wheaton College; Henry Schaefer III, Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia; and Robert Kaita, principal research physicist and head of the Plasma Diagnostics Group at Princeton University.

Information about these and other scientists who adopt a design approach can be found at the Web site of Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (www.crsc.org).

John G. West, Jr.
Discovery Institute
Seattle, Wash.

History Wars

Mark Noll's recent series on "History Wars" [May/June–November/December] raises important questions, but I've had a feeling that he has missed a crucial element—namely, the impact of sin on learning and the human desire for know l edge and truth. Here, the so-called postmodern relativists—from their godfather, Nietzsche, through Foucault, Derrida, et al.—have something to say.

Postmoderns, it seems to me, implicitly recognize with Paul that we see through a glass darkly; they recognize human finitude and corruption. I've often thought that people like Nietzsche and Foucault are like Calvinists who recognize depravity but have little or no hope of redemption. Many expressions of postmodern relativism and skepticism thus can be linked to a properly Christian recognition of human sin and finitude—without embracing complete relativism.

Noll's essays have constructed a postmodernist, radical straw figure, and overlook the variety of postmodern positions. With many postmodernists, I deeply value the relativity of human culture, norms, morals, and piety. In part, this follows from a simple but radical recognition of historical change. It also involves a recognition of sin and a call for humility, especially for those who believe they are redeemed. Truth claims are dangerous, and sometimes have deadly consequences. Yet, if everything is relative, by God's grace nothing is completely relative.

From this viewpoint, Noll's choices—certainty or relativism—are a false dichotomy. What is properly Christian, it seems to me, is confidence and humility, rooted in faith and a relationship with God, other people, and the creation. This confidence is a matter of faith, not certainty—a desire which is antithetical to faith and confidence.

In classical terms, Noll is trying to ally Jerusalem with Athens in order to attack Babylon. I don't want to underestimate the dangers of a postmodern Babylon. Nonetheless, postmodernity is no more dangerous and no more oppressive than modern ideals and insititutions (which had their holocausts, gulags, and wars for democracy). If anything, postmodern fragmentation provides open spaces. To use another metaphor, mixing things badly—if postmodern relativism is like a desert, a place where you can lose your way and starve or die of thirst, it also is the biblical place in which people fled to find God.

William Katerberg
Calvin College
Grand Rapids, Mich.

Abolitionism

I was deeply distressed by Tim Stafford's review of Paul Goodman's Of One Blood ["Abolition's Hidden History", September/October]. Mr. Stafford's paean to abolitionism may work in his soon-to-be-published novel on the abolitionist movement, but it failed to plumb the historical complexity of the slavery/race issue in nineteenth-century America and certainly failed to meet the high standards of scholarship that BOOKS & CULTURE is known for. I point to five particulars.

First, Mr. Stafford blithely assumes that abolitionists were orthodox evangelicals who were following "the conclusions of Christian faith rigorously." While Mr. Stafford may be willing to classify abolitionists as a whole as evangelicals, many were not orthodox in terms of the historic confessions and creeds of the church. On doctrines ranging from the authority of Scripture to original sin to the Atonement, abolitionists typically embraced formulations of the New England Theology, formulations that most evangelicals today would repudiate. As Eugene Genovese argued cogently in A Consuming Fire, it was the proslavery advocates who were commonly theologically conservative and wedded to a literal interpretation of Scripture. Abolitionists were ordinarily theologically liberal and willing to forsake the authority of Scripture to follow the dictates of intuition and conscience (e.g., the Higher Law doctrine) divorced from a literal reading of Scripture.

Second, Mr. Stafford sets up abolitionism as a moral issue divorced from economic or political history in his second paragraph. However, by the last paragraph, he is unable to maintain this unreasonable dichotomy. This is fortunate—because it is impossible to understand abolitionism's rise and failure without setting it in a larger cultural context, a context that must embrace economic and political history. Mr. Stafford would do well to consider abolitionists' political activity as an indication why their moral crusade failed. By uniting themselves with the Whig party, subsuming their moral concerns to those of the national party, abolitionists lost much of their moral fervor, particularly when other issues arose to distract the nation (most notably, the Depression of 1837 and the Mexican-American War). Mr. Stafford also would do well to consider the vast differences in northern and southern economic systems. Could it be that northern commitment to an industrial, free labor system made the equality of African Americans an economically important issue? Could it be that the southern commitment to agrarianism forced them to fight against abolitionism as destructive to their economic order?

This leads to a third point. Mr. Stafford fails to recognize that while abolitionists were solicitous for African American racial equality, many moved toward a nativist position (symbolized institutionally in the American "Know Nothing" party) and denied political and religious equality to immigrating Irish and Western Europeans who were Roman Catholic. Although abolitionism was a crusade for black equality and for Protestant values, most abolitionists did not take their egalitarian logic to its natural conclusions when it came to Roman Catholic immigrants.

Fourth, while Mr. Stafford appears to applaud the egalitarian logic that propelled many abolitionists into a crusade for women's rights, I wonder if many evangelicals would follow egalitarianism to its natural conclusion. For example, some modern-day feminist theologians argue that conservative arguments against women serving as senior pastors follow the same line as nineteenth-century proslavery advocates. These feminists would argue that just as evangelicals have set aside scriptural justification for slavery as a cultural matter that no longer applies, so evangelicals should set aside scriptural justification for male pastor-teachers as a cultural matter that no longer applies. Egalitarianism is a sharp knife that cuts both ways; Mr. Stafford and other evangelicals need to recognize this fact. This does not mean that we should argue for the reinstatement of master-slave relations. It does mean that we need to consider carefully what egalitarianism might imply in modern-day circumstances.

Finally, Mr. Stafford does not realize that southern theologians also made the argument that all humankind is "of one blood." They argued for monogenesis using the same biblical logic that they used to justify slavery. Thus, southern theologians parted ways with northern and southern scientific racists who argued for polygenesis in order to justify racial inequity. Where abolitionists and southerners differed was whether or not monogenesis argued for full social equality and social interaction. Genovese, in A Consuming Fire, covers this point thoroughly.

While I would certainly agree with Mr. Stafford that American slavery was an enormity and that we should breathe a sigh of relief that the slave system was abolished, I would urge him to pursue an understanding of the antebellum period that recognizes the full complexity of the times and the slavery issue. Human beings are embedded in cultural factors that help to explain our successes and our failures as individuals and as corporate entities. People are also a complex of motives that make it very difficult as historians to live in a Manichaean universe where good and evil are easily separated. Better to de scribe that historical complexity with full sympathy to all the actors and leave it to our Lord to separate the sheep from the goats.

Sean Michael Lucas
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Louisville, Ky.

Tim Stafford replies:

Mr. Lucas is right if he is saying that the complexity of abolition and slavery cannot be plumbed in a short review. I suspect, however, that he is more troubled by my undiluted admiration for abolitionists than by the space B&C gives to book reviews. Perhaps I can explain why the complexity of the subject does not lessen my admiration but actually increases it.

A great many antebellum Americans North and South would have agreed with Mr. Lucas that slavery was a complex "enormity" whose end (sometime in the indefinite future) might be greeted with "a sigh of relief." They did nothing to end it, or even reform it. Abolitionists believed very differently: that slavery was a sin demanding repentance before God. This fundamentally evangelical way of thinking, energetically applied by a tiny minority, had a great deal to do with the end of slavery. If I have learned anything from the abolitionists, it is that complexity can be an excuse for moral indecisiveness; and further, that the Christian understanding of sin, while acknowledging complexity, cuts through it. A moral analysis can be misused, but in my view, the abolitionists' use of it stands the test of time extraordinarily well, bringing shame on those whose view of slavery was subtler and more nuanced.

Jesus and Moral Order

Roy Anker's review of Paul Schrader's films ["Deliver Us from Evil," July/ August] melted my heart. It is written out of such a palpable love both for Schrader and his work, exhibiting such a tenderness toward the driven, wounded humanity embodied in each of them, that reading it became a kind of rebaptism, an extended meditation on the meaning of a God who lives and dies in human flesh, a demonstration of the "power" (as another Paul put it) of a thing so foolish as a cross. So that when the last paragraph turned my attention so unerringly to the implications of Jesus' humanity, I saw that Anker had been exploring those implications all along, beginning in the very first paragraph. A stunning and beautiful wedding of medium and message. Film review as spiritual nurture. Goodness.

Michael Cromartie's interview with Francis Fukuyama in the same issue ["Recovering Moral Order"] might have benefited by such a tearful baptism. When Fukuyama suggests that the recent revival of religion is driven not so much by deep spiritual transformations as by the hope that religion will offer people rules for orderly living and relationships deeper than those they experience in the marketplace or workplace, Cromartie's knee-jerk response betrays the anxiety of the nervous evangelical rationalist: "But once people get involved, they may begin to consider religion's truth claims, as well." How much better had he wondered whether, once people get involved, they may actually encounter a person—the crucified Jesus—who, in the freedom of his compassion, broke the rules established by the denizens of religious order and disturbed those who were most settled; and who, as a Sorrowful One, suggested that the deepest human relationships will occur among people who suffer their own humanity and find in that suffering the freedom to stand in solidarity with every human being.

Schrader and Cromartie represent the two paths open to evangelicals in our transitional time. With Schrader, we can "lift up the rock and look at those things inside [us]." Or with Cromartie, we can hold the rock firmly in place by prattling on about truth claims. One of these will put us firmly in the company of the Sorrowful One. I suspect the other will not.

Doug Frank
The Oregon Extension of Houghton College
Ashland, Oreg.