Rachel Evans thinks doubt is a part of faith. In fact she thinks doubt can save your faith–provided you have the faith to doubt and the courage to learn from it what God may be showing you.

I agree with Rachel, and I wish I could say it as well as she does in her just-published memoir Evolving in Monkey Town.

Like a lot of people out there, I picked up the book (actually, Rachel gave me a copy at a conference –yeah me), and I couldn’t put it down. It struck a cord with me (here and here), but more importantly, it became quickly clear to me that there are a LOT of people who will benefit from Rachel’s honesty and insights.

Rachel connects with Christians who believe the Gospel, or think they do, or want to, but whose inner-theological gatekeeper collides with their life experience. Evangelicalism and fundamentalism are losing steam for many young people–not because they are rebellious or naive or unlearned–but because the ecclesiastical and theological paradigms with which they are familiar have lost their explanatory power.

Critics will say that subjective experience does not determine theological truth. This is false, since any articulation of theological truth involves an inescapable subjective dimension. My proof for this is the theological diversity that has existed throughout the history of the church and continues today throughout the world.

Subjective experience, such as Rachel’s, actually exposes the inadequacies of any theological tradition when it holds itself in too high regard. It reminds us, sometimes painfully, that these traditions are not the Gospel itself but impermanent ways of understanding it. They are provisional, always in need of refinement, adjustment, augmentation, deletion–and when and where need be, abandonment.

Rachel’s critics will likely mistake her criticism of the paradigms with criticism of the Gospel itself–which precisely misses the point of the book.  Rachel’s crisis of faith was fueled by her religious education, which failed to distinguish between the two--to question one is to question the other.

In a word, this book is about how Rachel learned to stop doing that. Such a journey is risky, because it involves moving away from all that is familiar and comforting. But for Rachel and many like her, staying put is not an option.

He mentioned in his presentation the BioLogos Foundation as a being on the wrong side of this culture war, a since we are not biblical literalists and we feel science affects how we read the biblical account of creation. Along the way, Mohler made numerous statments about Darwin, science, and biblical interpretation that are simply wrong, ungenerous, and potentially misleading to his listeners, so we thought we would respond.

My response follows that of Darrel Falk’s and Karl Giberson’s (here and here). A transcript of Mohler’s presentation can be found here and the video here.

Genesis 2-9 is an ancient story asking addressing ancient issues. Understanding that ancient context will keep us from asking this story to deliver more than it is prepared to. And it will also help us mine the theological depths of what this story said to ancient Israelites nearly three millennia ago.