Evangelicals coming out for Darwin

Venema, who started out as a supporter of intelligent design, actively hostile to evolution, recounts how he simply grew out of ID as it failed to make sense of the science he was learning in graduate school and how poorly the books put out by ID supporters tried to argue against evolution. He has since gone on to become one of BioLogos’ most detailed critics of intelligent design and his posts are always worth reading and re-reading.

Not everyone’s transition from creationism was painless. J.B. Stump, a director at BioLogos and also one of the book’s editors, recounts being forced to leave* his teaching job at a Christian college for promoting the acceptance of evolution.

“This is a real public relations challenge for Christian colleges. So many conservative Christian parents have been persuaded to make a college’s stance on origins a major criterion for where they’ll send their kids to school. In the end, even though I had a long and positive standing in the college and denomination, the tide turned against me and the college’s board adopted the denominations narrow origins statement. I could have stayed if I’d agreed not to publicly contradict the new statement, but I felt it was best to resign my position and invest my talents for the kingdom elsewhere. [p. 122]”