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Mainstream
“Theologian” argues for support of evolution
According to a news report about an April 8, 2002 panel discussion
hosted by the University of Oklahoma Zoological Society, the panel
“was to promoted, mainly among students, the idea that only a minority
of religions find conflict between evolution and religion.”
The panel included Dr. Bruce Prescott, executive director of
Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists and a former member of the national CBF
Coordinating Council and Rick McClatchy, coordinator of the Oklahoma
CBF.
Both Prescott’s and McClatchy’s written presentations, titled
“Evolution and Religion: Do
They Conflict?,” are posted on the National Mainstream Network’s
website. According to
Prescott, “the conflict is not necessary nor is it inevitable.”
According to the news report, which is also posted on the
Mainstream website, “the heart of the [evolution] problem lies in bad
biblical and bad scientific interpretation.”
According to Prescott, who was identified by National Mainstream
Network leader David Currie as the “theologican of the Mainstream
group:”
“I grew up in an Independent,
Fundamental Baptist church… I
grew up believing what I was told about evolution by people that I
trusted --
and they told me that evolution was an attack upon God, the Bible
and everything holy. They
indoctrinated me in creation science and taught me all the standard
arguments for proving the existence of God.
I have since grown out of that kind of faith…”
Prescott further writes: “Science
indicates that we share most of our genetic structure with primates.
What violence does that do to the Christian understanding of man?
… Theologically,
it makes no difference whether God decided to form our physical bodies
through long stages of biological development or by a special creative
act.”
McClatchy was more to the point in his written presentation.
Stating that “there is no real conflict between evolution and
religion,” he quickly goes to the heart of the issue:
“Genesis 1 - 11 should be read as Old Testament parables.”
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