UNTIL a week or so ago, Bruce K Waltke, a prominent evangelical Old Testament scholar in the US, was a highly respected professor at America’s Reformed Theological Seminary, which has campuses across the country.
Professor Bruce K Waltke
But then he blew his position by featuring in a video posted on the BioLogos Foundation website. In a talk about scholarship, faith and evolution, he not only endorsed evolution, but said that evangelical Christianity could face a crisis if it did not accept scientific evidence:
If the data is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution, to deny that reality will make us a cult … some odd group that is not really interacting with the world. And rightly so, because we are not using our gifts and trusting God’s Providence that brought us to this point of our awareness.
His words so enraged officials at the seminary that Waltke had to ask the BioLogos Foundation, a group that promotes the idea that science and faith need not be incompatible, to remove it from its website (which the foundation did) and to post a clarification.
The video was shot during a BioLogos workshop. But even those steps weren’t enough for the seminary, which announced that it had accepted his resignation.
According to this report, the fact that his seminary dismissed him is:
A sign of just how difficult it may be for scholars at some institutions to raise issues involving science that are not 100 percent consistent with a literal interpretation of the Bible.
Said Michael Murray, Vice President for philosophy and theology at the John Templeton Foundation, which supports BioLogos and other bodies which seek to bridge science and religion.
I think it’s a really sad situation, even if this isn’t the first time a scholar at a religious institution has been released for unorthodox views.
Michael Milton, president of the seminary’s Charlotte campus and interim president of its Orlando campus, where Waltke taught, confirmed that the scholar had lost his job over the video. Milton said that Waltke would “undoubtedly” be considered one of the world’s great Christian scholars of the Old Testament and that he was “much beloved here,” with his departure causing “heartache.” But he said that there was no choice.
While the seminary allows “a diversity” of views, some, like Darwinian views, are not permitted, and any suggestions that humans didn’t arrive on earth directly from being created by God (as opposed to having evolved from other forms of life) are not allowed. He said faculty members were perfectly aware of this.
After reluctantly pulling the popular video, BioLogos commented:
The fact that Dr Waltke felt he was unable to leave the video in place, despite the fact that he still agrees with its contents, is an extremely important statement about the culture of fear within evangelicalism in today’s world.
Leading evangelicals who support evolution are rightly fearful of personal attacks on the integrity of their faith and character. Even when they believe that scientific data must be taken seriously, and that science has revealed the ways in which God created the world, they are more willing to be associated with those who are clearly wrong about God’s truth as revealed within His World, and who are thereby also wrong about how they understand His Word.
How will the Church ever come to discern truth and falsehood if academic discourse is neutered for fears of public perception? This situation, before us, more than any that we are familiar with in the one year history of biologos.org, poignantly demonstrates the importance of the task we all have.
In a nine-point “statement of clarification” issued after the furore, Waltke kicked off by stating:
- Adam and Eve are historical figures from whom all humans are descended; they are uniquely created in the image of God and as such are not in continuum with animals.
- Adam is the federal and historical head of the fallen human race just as Jesus Christ is the federal and historical head of the Church.
We were unable to find the offending video, but here is Waltke speaking about the importance of the Old Testament to Christianity … zzzzzzzzz
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBoswQ9WhW8[/youtube]
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
April 12th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
I love the idea that he was “released for unorthodox views”!
(PS Charlotte, N. Carolina, “The City of Churches”, is Billy Graham’s home town and base.)
April 12th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Waltke’s nine points are listed in full here, and are very interesting, but you really need to read the comments on the thread. Oh, dear!
http://www.historiasalutis.com.....evolution/
“Where are we to find faithful Old Testament specialists? How can anyone consider Waltke even remotely reformed?”
“Good point, brothers. This is very sad indeed. Where are the Reformed OT scholars in the tradition of E.J. Young and O.T Allis?!?!?!”
“Jim asks, ‘Where are the Reformed OT scholars in the tradition of E.J. Young and O.T Allis?!?!?!’
We are in the classrooms of RTS in Orlando, Jackson, Charlotte, Atlanta and Washington DC teaching out of the books of Young, Allis and others.”
April 12th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
If he resigned already, they should just put the video back up. Backwards hicks. I always thought the A&E story was more of an excuse for permitting inbreeding than anything else.
April 12th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
It was Dr Waltke who wanted the video removed, Janstince. The reaction was so hostile that he has been forced to recant. Who says the Church has moved on since Galileo’s day?
April 12th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Read this load of bollocks from the RTS website. It’s unbelievable!
04/11/2010 – Statement from Chancellor Ric Cannada to the RTS community and beyond
The RTS community and I want to readily and sincerely confirm our deep and abiding affection for Bruce Waltke. We are brothers in Christ seeking to serve the Lord with all of our hearts and minds. We will continue to pray for one another and serve each other as the Lord gives us the opportunities to do so.
In recent national news articles and blogs some incorrect statements have been made and wrong motives applied to RTS, such as the idea that RTS forced Bruce to resign as a professor at RTS. Bruce initiated the offer to resign after a certain video became public which was bringing harm to RTS. Bruce and I dealt with the issues of the video for over a week, seeking to understand the situation, praying and waiting on the Lord’s guidance. As I came to understand the situation better, I ultimately accepted Bruce’s resignation believing it best for RTS and also best for Bruce.
Please continue to pray for Bruce as well as for RTS that we will be faithful to our Savior and His Word and that we will use our minds and hearts for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ and for His church.
These Christians are so compassionate and forgiving!!
April 12th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
I’m sure this has been said before – to my eyes, “moderate” religion is disappearing rapidly. Soon all that will be left are those who fit the academic definition of “cult.” I hope forward thinking lawmakers are cognizant of the way the religious landscape is changing – they will be coping with new challenges where religion is concerned.
April 12th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
I’m not having any luck editing again this evening, as the text won’t stay still long enough, but this is the web address for RTS:
http://www.rts.edu/
April 12th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
I’ve been looking a little further into the RTS (motto – “A mind for truth, A heart for God”, I kid you not!), and I find that they award academic qualifications in the following subjects (prepare to be gobsmacked):
Master of Arts (M.A.) in Religion, Biblical Studies, Theological Studies, Missions, Marriage and Family Therapy (Counseling), Counseling Christian Thought, and Christian Education.
Master of Divinity (M.Div., professional degree).
Master of Theology (Th.M., research degree, prior M.A. or M.Div. required).
Doctor of Ministry (D.Min., terminal professional degree).
Doctor of Philosophy in Intercultural Studies (Ph.D., terminal research degree).
No BSc in Making-it-up-as-you-go-along, I see!
April 12th, 2010 at 8:25 pm
Adam and Eve are historical figures from whom we are all descended! There’s an interesting rebuttal on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZJ-_OTvsqo You have to be patient until Jim Jeffries gets to this bit, but the rest is quite informative for atheists.
April 12th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
Dr Waltke obviously doesn’t take the bibble literally.
Once he’d admitted that, he had to go.
I managed to watch the promotional vid on the RTS website (ta barriejohn) but could only manage to get halfway. Going on about xian “education” and how you can still join them even if you’ve long hair or tattoos.
This link shows for me what xian education has done to our race:
http://img.chan4chan.com/img/2.....365101.gif
April 12th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
But how can they take the bible literally when it contradicts itself? The contradictions are often specific: the numbers killed in the same battle are different; the ancestor given for the same biblical person is different. And that is before we proceed to how Noah got to Australia to capture a breeding pair or koalas and South America to catch panthers: neither country was known, never mind the freight problems. How can even these idiots say the bible is always the literal truth. And which bible?
Has anyone heard them respond to this?
April 12th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
Har Davids: It’s amazing how many people think that logic tells us that the human race must be descended from an original pair!
April 12th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Waltke’s opinion, I believe, is the wave of the near future for Evangelicals. Easily within the lifetimes of many here the average Evangelical will accept some form of descent with modification. Grit their teeth and strain against it though they might, many of them are much to intelligent not to see the evident truth.
April 13th, 2010 at 1:00 am
Broga – The book “Biblical Nonsense” has a great chapter on Noah’s Ark and all the problems associated with the story.
April 13th, 2010 at 4:25 am
Error by its very nature must be maintained by dogma and force. What an honor to get kicked out by these idiots. Christians complain when secular education will not discuss Intelligent Design. And now, as we suspected, they are no better. Visit my blog to find out about my new book that deals with some of this attitude at http://www.sosnomore.com .
April 13th, 2010 at 4:46 am
I apologize for misunderstanding when I made my last comment. If he recanted and pulled it himself, he’ll probably pat himself on the back for being a peace maker and keep his job. I can see how it feels to have to recant, here I am pulling back part of my comment, it doesn’t feel good.
April 13th, 2010 at 8:30 am
Broga: You answered you own question only a few days ago on this very site. Don’t say you’ve forgotten already!
Last time I tried some of these on a USA fundie he had a sweeping answer, breathtaking in its comprehensiveness which was, “To God all things are possible and faith in the face of what appears impossible is no more than a test of faith. The harder it is to believe, the greater the faith.â€
If God wanted Noah to take the animals to safety, then how he did it is no concern of ours.
I knew people whose response to this sort of problem was: “God said it: I believe it; and that settles it”!
April 13th, 2010 at 10:02 am
HAAAAAAAAAAA!!! Can we say ‘Expelled’?
April 13th, 2010 at 10:23 am
Bjohn said:
“If God wanted Noah to take the animals to safety, then how he did it is no concern of ours.”
I disagree. How Noah gathered land animals from all the continents in the days leading up to the flood is a HUGE question. He got polar bears?, penguins? lemurs? gorillas? koalas? tunnel spiders? jack jumpers? army ants? etc. The job of collecting every land species on the planet is a job that modern scientists have not yet accomplished. While the idea that every land species that currently exists crawled off the ark, is so absurd that any open minded person can see the impossibility, yet there remain those who live it as truth. Who can reach them???
NeoWolfe
April 13th, 2010 at 10:42 am
Well – that was my point, NeoWolfe! The whole idea is so absolutely preposterous that you are NEVER going to be able to reason with people who take such stories literally!!
April 13th, 2010 at 11:01 am
@barriejohn. My trouble is that “hope springs eternal even in my breast” and I keep thinking they must have something better. I suppose they do not. Amazing that they persist in believing that the world was created in 4004 BCE.
@Pete H. Many thanks, Pete, I will read that chapter on the Ark.
I happened to be reading a description last night about the debate between T.H. Huxley and Bishop “Soapy Sam” Wilberforce. Wilberforce, as is well known, asked Huxley if he was descended from a monkey of his mother or his father’s side. Huxley, and I was reading a contemporary account by a man who was present, said he would rather be descended from a monkey than be related to a man who abused his great intellectual gifts to obscure and distort the truth.
However, what really had me delighted was the description that a woman, hearing this and knowing that the barb was directed at a bishop who was present, fainted and had to be helped from the building. I just find the idea that a criticism of a bishop could cause anyone to faint. Maybe we have made some progress.
April 13th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
“While the idea that every land species that currently exists crawled off the ark, is so absurd that any open minded person can see the impossibility, yet there remain those who live it as truth. Who can reach them???”
We’re gonna need a bigger boat.
April 13th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
The funniest thing about this to me is how closely it resembles ‘The Velvet Prison’, a classic Hungarian samizdat text by Miklos Harazti. It was a spoof calling on all good Commie Party artists to censor everything, and probably only caught on in English language translations ultimately sponsored by slightly dodgy folk who wanted to bring the free market to East Europe.
Doubly hilarious because these days it’s the godbothering middle managers of US corporations who are causing evangelical churches to sprout up over there, usually full of scared employees who need the boss to see them on their knees every Sunday if they’re to have a job on Monday.
April 13th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Even taking your basic animals, you have such wonderful examples as:
termites
wood ants
grubs
woodpeckers
bears
And a whole host of other animals that either eat wood or rip it apart to look for food, scratching implements, etc. 40 days on a giant wooden boat with those, you’d be lucky to have a plank left.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
What about the breeding problems? With only one of each sex there is going to be a hell of a lot of inbreeding. Bit like the Royal Family and the result there is less than wholly encouraging.
Huxley was asked what he had learned about god after a lifetime studying nature. “He has an inordinate love of beetles,” he said. There are thousands of different insects. I wonder who Cain and Able married? Either they were shagging their mum or, horror!,they were homosexuals. That still leaves the breeding problem. Maybe there is something here not yet revealed. Did that serpent have a role yet to be revealed?
April 13th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
Like that young upstart Michael Palin having a go at the old queen Mervyn Stockwood, Broga – hahaha!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqAHHhr7vmU
April 13th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
As I have already said, these literalists don’t need to explain how these tricks were done, as they just accept it all “by faith”. I know highly intelligent people – one a professor of medicine – who sincerely believe “God did it” is sufficient explanation for all these things. Of course, sixteen-year-old schoolchildren need a better explanation than that, and one that was quite popular in my youth involves a particular interpretation of the passage in II Pet. 3 which deals with the Flood, where it is unbelievers who erroneously state that “all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation”. The fundamentalists take this to mean that things like erosion do NOT progress at a constant rate, so features like The Grand Canyon have all been formed in the past three thousand years! You must know that they do not accept carbon dating either, so they have come up with the bizarre idea that it was not necessary for Noah to take examples of ALL modern species into the Ark, as one pair of cats could have produced all the different cats that exist today. I know that this flies in the face of their denial of evolution, but what the heck – it’s a brilliant argument to them!!
April 13th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
PS Many of them also hold that dinosaurs went into the Ark as well, and died out AFTER the Flood. The fossil evidence means nothing to them, as they refuse to accept carbon-dating evidence, and, as I said above, do not believe that rates of deposition are constant, so reject extrapolations made from recent observations. Jesus was spot on when he said “All things are possible to him that believeth” – hahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!
April 13th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
Jen, you are right. The ‘moderate religious’ are deconverting, leaving atheists, ‘don’t cares’, and fruit loops. Unfortunately, the fruit loops breed faster than the rest of us, leaving a fairly bleak future.
April 13th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
@barriejohn I love the idea of all those dinosaurs being in the Ark. There were some really big dinos: stegosaurus and there is now some debate that Tyranosaurus Rex may have been a vegetarian but he was big. I remember, long time ago, looking with my children at that dinosaur in the main hall at the Natural History Museum. That boy must have taken some loading.
On this basis the Flintstones are fairly accurate. Dinos and humans all together.
Difficult not to laugh but it is no joke when they start siphoning money off serious science and into faith schools who support this nonsense.
April 13th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
“What about the breeding problems?”
Not to mention feeding them all.
April 13th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Well, Broga, I’m sure you have seen all those pics of human footprints and dinosaur footprints together! (Didn’t we cover that here before?) But Noah didn’t need to get them all into the Ark. Using the same warped reasoning as before, he would have only required a few small specimen creatures of each type, and after the Flood these could have magically developed into the enormous brutes which very quickly became extinct and whose fossils we now find in the earth. Quite logical really!!
April 13th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
None of you are really getting your heads around the way that these fundamentalists think, are you? I’m failing miserably here!
April 13th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Barriejohn,
I think we do understand: when you have an entire philosophy/mode of thinking to protect, you wave away inconsistencies, or use the time-honored “LA LA LA! I CAN’T HEAR YOU” approach. In general, we just like to rant.
If any of you haven’t seen it, I’d recommend the scifi series Firefly. It’s only a few episodes and one feature film. River Tam gives a great line in one about Noah’s Ark being an early record of very strange quantum behavior in order to fit over 5000 species of animal on one boat.
Also, Eddie Izzard would be right about all the evil ducks in the world.
April 13th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
@barriejohn. No, no, we have got the message but we are just having a bit of fun kicking the madness around. There is another element to this and that is how people with these absurd ideas manage to function in normal life. They seem to be able to split off the crazy ideas of their Sunday thinking from much of the rest of their life. They do not escape, of course, as they tend to be vicious scum and very much into the spare the rod etc. The also have appalling records of wife beating.
You could, of course, say the same about Ratzi and the the Ratzingers. There they are, claiming to be seen by the Great Overseer in the Sky (the GOS) who sees every sparrow that falls. You might wonder how they square this with their most diabolical sexual and physical child abuse. The GOS must see this; he is a punitive GOS and yet they are ignoring his most basic commandments. Either they do not believe what they claim to believe and insist their followers believe. Or they don’t give a toss. As for the head honcho Ratzi, his deceits and cover ups must also be known.
April 13th, 2010 at 8:19 pm
Good: I am pleased that I have now convinced you all of the, as it were, watertight arguments in favour of the historical story of Noah and his ark. There are no possible objections that you can now raise that would in any way cast doubt on the veracity of the Biblical account. There is further fascinating and detailed information here:
http://www.gotquestions.org/Noahs-ark-animals.html
I can also ascertain that a great many evangelical Christians do NOT believe all this gibberish, as many of them reject it all when in their late teens, but, as a result of the earnest prayers and supplications of their parents, do “return to the Lord” later in life. The reason for this is not some Damascene revelation from on high, but the fact that they are now married with young families, and do not want to continue their family life being, at worst, treated as dead by their parents, and at best being treated as heretics who have thrown in their lot with the Devil! Many, therefore, are merely going through the motions of Christian life, and realize in their heart of hearts that there is nothing in it at all. It’s all very sad.
April 13th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
These articles will also take your breath away!
http://www.answersingenesis.or.....the-animal
http://www.christiananswers.ne.....-c013.html
http://www.answersingenesis.or...../noahs-ark
http://creation.com/how-could-.....on-the-ark
All bases covered!!
April 14th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
I’m sure its all lies, after all Sternburg, Gonzalez, Crocker et al were all lying and there was far more to the story once you dug deeper. Wait. What am I saying? This is the Christians we’re talking about, its black and white, they sacked someone for endorsing the scientific milieu yet lied and lied to cover their tracks when they themselves were sacked for speaking out against naturalism.
Come on, what WAS I thinking?
Christofascists.
April 15th, 2010 at 12:56 am
Bjohn is always scooping me on bible quotes,
so let me add this point to the discussion. Matt 24:38 and Luke 17:27:
“For just as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, [men] marrying and [women] being given in marriage, until the [very] day when Noah went into the ark,”
“[People] ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, right up to the day when Noah went into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.”
My point is that the “evil” that humans had committed that warranted the genocide of the entire planet was not murder, homosexuality, incest, thievery, pillaging, or pedophilia. It was that they had forgotten about god. They had gone about their lives and failed to tell him how great he was. Following his perfect example, if a father comes home from work, and his family doesn’t gather round adoring him, that is cause to murder the family and start over. A fine example to set one’s moral compass by.
NeoWolfe
April 15th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Steve,
If they weren’t firing him over the video, why did they insist he take it down? Why did they issue the statement that he was fired for precisely that? His “unorthodox views” that the world is more than 6,000 years old. His insistence that the Old Testament should be read as allegory, not fact. Please, I’m just drooling to hear your conspiracy theories about how we’re all manufacturing these cases and none of these people exist, how there is such hate-mongering towards you and your christians when you’re the ones who have, past and present, been the most violent and bloodthirsty group to date. I’m all ears.