ESN is currently creating a Faith/Science curriculum for young adult small groups. We’ve partnered with InterVarsity graduate student discussion groups to identify faith/science questions that are important to emerging scholars, and we’re commissioning thoughtful Christians in science or theology/philosophy to explore those questions in this series at the ESN blog. We will publish these posts as a booklet curriculum for campus groups.
Debates over evolution and origins are a challenging area for many Christians as they engage with modern science. To discern how to address these issues in this curriculum, we talked with graduate students, InterVarsity grad staffers, and professors. Based on their feedback, we commissioned two pieces from InterVarsity Press and ESN author Gerald Rau that articulate the major views held by Christians on evolution generally and human evolution in particular. These particular pieces are not designed to argue for a specific position, but to help readers explore the range of positions fellow believers hold on an issue and to increase the ability of Christians to build thoughtful conversations about the theology and science of origins. These posts include discussion questions to help believers better understand each other’s positions on both theology and science. Check out last week’s post on Christian views of origins here, or read on for today’s post on different Christian views of Adam. For more on origins, take a look at Gerald Rau’s other work as author of Mapping the Origins Debate (InterVarsity Press 2013). Gerry has also written for Scholar’s Compass as an ESN contributor.
This project was made possible through the support of an award from the Science and Theology for Emerging Adult Ministries project at Fuller Theological Seminary. The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Fuller or the STEAM project.
Adam is important to Christians, not only as the first human in the Bible, but more so because Christ is called the second Adam, so our understanding of creation is inextricably linked with our Christology. As with models of origins in general there are different evangelical perspectives on Adam[1], and our interpretation of the scientific evidence on human origins will either reflect or affect our theology. [Read more…] about Adam, Where are You? (STEAM Grant Series)