Baptists finally coming around?

Your link is infected, according to my virus software.

Very odd, seems like a legitimate NPR site.

Reminds me of Inherit the Wind.

Curses, you have foiled my plot to infect the entire A2K community!!

Yeah, it's a direct link to NPR.

Sent your virus software to stun rather than vaporize and try again.

There are hundreds of different types of Baptists...having some things in common and many things not so much...same as every other religion.

Church Authority - Each Baptist church is autonomous, with no bishop or hierarchical body telling the local church how to conduct its business. Local churches themselves select their pastors and staff. They own their own building; the denomination cannot take it away.
Because of the congregational style of church governance on doctrine, Baptist churches often vary significantly, especially in the following areas:
Calvinism vs. Arminianism
The Nature of Law and Gospel
Ordination of Women
Homosexuality
Eschatology (End Times)

http://christianity.about.com/od/denominations/a/baptistdenom.htm

It's why you can go to a Southern Baptist Church in Mississippi and find that they are ultra conservative and then go to another Southern Baptist Church in Missouri and find they are less so. Just one of those things...it's why it's hard to lump all religion into one big pile. There is a church for every belief - in this case even in the Southern Baptist Convention - they have many interesting Conventions...can be quite the brouhaha (sp?)

Below is the text for those that care to read.

I have to be honest. It wasn't until I was more than 30 years old that I realized that anyone really believed what was said in the bible was literally true.

I was raised Cat'lik, and no one I knew really thought God came along and poof! made racoons, people and sequioas all from dust, and exactly the way they are today.

When I moved away from where I was born, same thing. I knew people from different religions, who felt their faith was very important to them, but they certainly didn't realize that between the big bag and now all sorts of variations of living things had come and gone.

It wasn't until I had to live in some backwater community that I saw that some people honestly read this story and believed it happened just like that. I don't want to say all small town are like this. I've lived in small places and mostly people are just like everywhere, just fewer of them. But this place was geographically isolated by being many miles from even suburban areas, and folks there just had little interest in spending time anywhere else. I just chalked it up to that.

Now I live in a larger urban area in Texas. Austin, which is the one blue spot in a red field. Because of this there is more diversity in belief. However, it really does floor me how many people who are otherwise very intelligent can possibly not understand it is just a story that was written with the intent of teaching that it was their belief God created all things.


Henry Green is a rarity among Southern Baptists. The pastor of Heritage Baptist church in Annapolis, Md., is openly skeptical that the Bible is the literal word of God, that the Earth was created in a few thousand years, and that Adam and Eve were created from dirt.

He says that for too long, conservatives have tried to reconcile faith and science by throwing out science.

This weekend, nearly 1,000 clerics worldwide will proclaim their belief that science and religion can coexist as they celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin during events on what has become known as Evolution Weekend.

Believing In God And Science

"Fundamentalists want to take people away from real science and put on some sort of bogus discussion about intelligent design or creationism," Green says. "Well, guess what? I believe God created. But I just happen to believe that the scientists have it right in understanding that creation."

His views haven't made him popular among his fellow ministers. He recalls that when one colleague heard about his views, he began to "witness" to Green.

"He felt like maybe I wasn't a Christian," Green says, laughing. "And he said, 'Well, Henry, if you change your mind, you'd have a lot of friends.' And I looked at him and said, 'Jim, I don't need your friendship that bad.'"

Green says he views Genesis as truth " about God as creator " but not as historical fact.

Jewish Participation

Green is the kind of clergyman Michael Zimmerman has been seeking. The biologist and dean at Butler University in Indiana organized Evolution Weekend four years ago to show that many clergy embrace science.

"With clergy weighing in, it should become clear that the issue is not a fight between religion and science," Zimmerman says, "but that most religious leaders were on the same side as the scientists. And the fight was between different religious groups."

This year, Jews have joined the Evolution Weekend mission. David Oler, the rabbi at Congregation Beth Or, a reform synagogue in Illinois, wrote a letter in July inviting rabbis to oppose creationism in schools. Oler says there is the same kind of split over Darwin within Judaism, though he says because Judaism has a tradition of interpreting stories in a variety of ways, Orthodox Jews have an easier time reconciling Genesis with evolution than do Evangelical Christians.

"It's interesting to note that the creation story goes in a progression," says Oler, who was until 2000 a Conservative rabbi. "It doesn't have human beings created first and animals later. There's water, there's light, then there's plants, then there's animals, and then there's human beings. Those who wrote the Torah, those who wrote the Bible, were genius to be able to anticipate the progression from the simple to the complex."

The Bible Belt

Tim Bagwell, pastor of Centenary United Methodist Church in Macon, Ga., says that even in the Bible Belt there's a quiet shift away from literalism. When he preaches about the compatibility of science and faith, he says, members of his congregation often come to him with this question: "Why didn't you tell me about this before? I've had all of these questions for all of these years and no one's ever talked with me, no one's ever given me permission to ask the questions that have been deep down inside of my soul."

It's not liberal theology, but daily life that has changed the views of some congregants at the First United Methodist Church in Jacksboro, Texas. Pastor David Weber looks out from his church at the oil fields where many of his members work.

"These people have been sitting on top of oil and fossils and the evidence of the carboniferous period all of their lives," Weber says. "They know it. They kick over fossils daily. They see ocean water that is 200 million years old coming out of the ground daily as new wells are drilled.

"They've had a hard time all their lives of putting all of that all of that many, many million-years-old evidence into 4,000-year-old stories."

Weber's sermons are broadcast on the local cable TV station, and they have attracted the attention of people who attend more conservative churches.

"Oftentimes, I notice in grocery stores or the gas station they kind of look around to see who's watching before they come to me and tell me that, 'David, really like what you say. We kind of think that, too.' So it's backward compliments not to me, but to the message of rationality."

And that's the message Weber will deliver when he steps up to the pulpit this Evolution Weekend.

Each one absolutely convinced they are right.

aren't we all?

seriously, as far as it comes to who/what God is, I don't know what I don't know.

but I do find it unlikely that who/what set the ball rolling in creating the vastness of the universe changed horses in mid stream and decided to do something completely different on the insignificant speak that we call Earth.

I mean, unless we are some kind of pilot project.

Maybe somewhere else in the cosmos unicycles spontaneously formed out of glacial melt.

Perhaps God is deciding if creating stuff out of dirt is better than that idea, but he's still debating about the 4 planets that send radiation in a counter clockwise pattern to each other, thus forming an intelligent being that worships God by making sure they get to bed by 9 every night.

I wonder if this won't make the literalists dig in their heels all the more, make them even more pig-headed.

What does it matter? I know that Conservative Christians especially have made a bad name for themselves in their staunch stand for Creationism. But Evolutionist feel the same way. Apparently live and let live is hard for everybody! Or am I wrong? I am willing to listen to why it matters.

I found this link:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm
Thought it was interesting. I wonder if it is true?

There is a problem right there, Miss Mi. There is not really an organized body of "evolutionists." Certainly, there is a fanatical fringe of people who accept a theory of evolution as the best explanation for the diversity of life on this planet, just as the creationists can be seen as not necessarily the mainstream. But there is a big difference. Ranting "evolutionists" are a handful of people--most people who insist upon the teaching of evolutionary theory in schools do so because it represents good science, and not because they are engaged in some culture war. But there are millions of creationists, perhaps tens of millions, just in the United States alone. Certainly, the vast majority are not ranting fanatics--but they still represent a powerful potential constituency for those who do have an agenda, or who are willing to cynically exploit them for private political ends.

There is no such constituency of "evolutionists" who can be exploited electorally. The most political action you'll get out of people who accept a theory of evolution as the best scientific explanation is an angry rejection of "stealth" school board members who stand for election with the sole purpose of introducing a creationist agenda, and thereby exposing the school district to the potential of financially crippling litigation.

Yeah, it might. But I'm hoping their numbers will be cut.

I see your point. But, are you discrediting the tens of millions who believe in creationism? I hate politics Set - I hate agendas. I do believe in live and let live. But there is a fine line there too...if you don't stand firm in what you believe - then I don't think you can really say you believe it. Which is why majority rules right? Or is that wrong?

how?

More people will begin to question creationism if it's now being questioned by their pastors. And less people will toe the creationist line if they know that it's not rquired in order to get entree to Heaven. Religious nuts rely a lot on authority, on what their clergy tell them is okay to believe.

Your use of the term "discrediting" is somewhat political itself, although i suspect that was not your intent. I am discrediting their world view insofar as it relates to the reason for the diversity of life forms on this planet. That doesn't mean that i think they are bad people, or dangerous to our society. However, standing by what one believes to the extent that one insists on imposing that belief on others is not acceptable. Furthermore, the practice of science is intended to move from the realm of belief into the realm of knowledge. We don't abandon ourselves to the ravages of an influenza epidemic because millions believe it is a judgment of god. We get vaccinations, and we do so because science, properly done, shows that influenza has a natural cause, and can be made much less dangerous through a vaccination program.

We live in a secular democracy, which means that any idea which is a matter of belief rather than certain knowledge, and which has a religious provenance ought not to be imposed on those who do not subscribe the religious system from which it originates. Would you give up pork because Jews and Muslims told you you're going to Hell if you don't? Now compare that idea to giving up pork because your doctor tells you it is endangering your health, and you trust her skill and knowledge, and you have established a relationship of trust with her based on her performance.

Most people who really listen in Church should know that believing in creationism is not a requirement to get into heaven. I am not sure your theory will come to fruition Merry Andrew.

heavens to betsy, no. I am going to read your post a few more times...think on it some more and will answer. I have a tendency to be a bit slow at times I want to frame my words correctly.