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At the Nature of Nature Conference at Baylor I left a session of the conference during the Q&A, my brain had reached the wall after 2.5 days of this. As I walked to the next talk, I ran into another conference participant who is a home schooler. At first she was suspicious of me and asked me if I was a Christian. I told her I was. She told me that she had been embarrassed by Schaefer's talk on Thursday night--this was the one that followed Weinberg. She couldn't believe that Christians were putting forth such bad arguments. I thought she had also told me that she was an evolutionist and was absolutely appalled at the poor quality of science material being given to home schoolers. However, in talking to her, I had erroneously gathered that she was an evolutionist and wrote so in my first version of this page. She isn't an evolutionist. She just isn't a young-earth creationist. She was afraid of telling her fellow home schoolers about this but that after this conference she thought she would. We talked for a long time about how Christians who home school act scared to let their children be exposed to ideas they don't like. They have a spirit of timidity when Christians are supposed to go out and take the world rather than huddle shivering together. She seemed to agree with much of what I said. I am glad I left the Q&A for this 'divine appointment.
Since then we have e-mailed each other a couple of times. With her permission, here is one of her letters (written 4-21-2000):
Dear Glenn,
Thanks for the info about your web site. I don't have internet access at home, so I had to peruse it at the library. I didn't get to check out everything (you have a lot there), but the part that interested me most was the "testimonies" of people who either lost their faith or came to near to doing so. It seems in most cases the biggest factor was the shock of hearing evidence that contradicted their views--and hearing it for the first time! I think this is an area that churches need to address. Even if they want to hang on to young earth creationist views, they at least need to prepare their youth for the very effective assault by "facts" that they will encounter at college. (I suppose part of their reluctance to do so hinges on the fact that should they themselves examine the facts, they may find their own "faith" shaken. Of course, I believe that basing your whole faith in Jesus Christ upon a presumption about the age of the earth is a poor foundation for faith.
Unfortunately, that is the way this "age of the earth" debate is frequently framed: If you believe in Jesus, it is because you believe in the truthfulness of the Bible (ok so far), and that truthfulness covers our interpretation of the first three chapters of Genesis, and should you ever doubt our interpretation, then you are doubting the truthfulness of the Bible, and thus you are doubting Jesus--in fact everything's in doubt. This is a very unfair position to put young (and old) believers in.
Even churches that don't support one view over another don't bother to address the faith-shaking issues that college kids will face: I can imagine many of those professors we heard at the conference skinning alive the believers in their classes. Churches do a good job of giving kids the spiritual tools they need for a fulfilling relationship with Jesus, helping them to steer their spiritual boat, so to speak, but they don't give them any intellectual tools. Steering the boat becomes moot if the the believer's boat is on the verge of sinking.
I am not sure why youth directors don't perceive this need except that perhaps the kids themselves don't perceive it. In the warm embrace of their youth group, they aren't facing many intellectual challenges and so don't even know about the minefields that await them. Perhaps the majority of youth don't plan to do much thinking at college anyway. I don't know, but from your website and my own anecdotal experience, I think this is an issue that churches need to address.
I would be interested in your thoughts on this matter. By the way, where do you go to church? I think I already confessed that I am Southern Baptist. I also will say that I understand if you find yourself unable, time-wise, to add another e-mail correspondent to your on-going conversation.
Regards,
[name withheld by request]