Perspectives on an Evolving Creation

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Summary: Required Reading for Bible-Believing Christians!
Review: One of Christianity's best-kept secrets is that the vast majority of evangelical scholars and theologians do not see a conflict between creation and evolution, which is why virtually all evangelical liberal arts colleges and universities (not to be confused with Bible colleges) teach evolution. This important and inspiring collection of essays from leading evangelicals should go a long way toward helping those on the conservative end of the theological spectrum value the contributions of mainstream science and interpret cosmic, Earth, life, and human history in God glorifying, Christ edifying, scripture honoring ways. It is consistently insightful, respectful, and gently prophetic. Highly recommended for those who are open to having their faith enriched, deepened, and expanded by a theocentric way of understanding the evolutionary sciences.

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Summary: essay collection on Theistic evolution by orthodoxChristians
Review: The book is a collection of essays (21) with a common theme-theistic evolution(TE), a common allegience-to orthodox Christianity, on the part of the writers. As such it is in a very small category, as TE tends to be beat up by both extremes on the issues- the young earth creationist(YEC) and secular evolutionary materialists, being orthodox complications the matter a lot as no one is happy with what you have to say. It is an introductory book, aimed at a general audience with at least a background on the issues. Its weaknesses are the general weaknesses of the essay collection genre itself, in particular, no sooner do you get into an essay then it is over and you must start the process of familarization and understanding an author all over again. The unevenness of different people's style and form makes going a little hard and continuity even harder. I suspect that the various authors had the other guys outlines in hand as they refer internally to the other essays, but no discussion or 2-way conversations are apparent, this helps a little bit to lighten the essay load but it is still a difficult straight through read. however i have no problem recommending the book, partly because i have little else to offer, partly because the bulk of the essays are above average and any reader can skip and choose what he/she desires to read.

The essays themselves are divided into 3 major groupings: "Providing a Context" "Scientific Evidence and Theory" and "Theological Implications and Insights". For my own appraisal the book reached a peak early with the first two parts and really slumped in the last, with the exception of H. VanTill's essay "Is the Universe Capable of Evolving?". I enjoyed the next essay "Special Providence and Genetic Mutation" but found it a little too choppy, i hope to read the longer essay that it is a summary of in order to see the fuller development. The material covered is the big questions in the field and offered little surprises overall except for chapter 5 "Does Science Exclude God? Natural Law, chance, Miracles, and scientific practice" which is good enough to be the one chapter that i would recommend reading if you wish to get a quick idea of the book and whether you wish to invest the time in reading the whole collection. The authors choosen are certainly the best in the field and their names are known to anyone with a familarity in the field. Conrad Hyers, Howard Van Till, Mark Noll, David Livingston, Keith B. Miller, are joined by Terry Gray who i wish the best in his search for answers in this discussion, as it has carried a very high personal cost to him and i admire how he has risen to this level in the discussion, congratulations.

The book suffers a little from no research notes or reference listing, although most of the footnotes will do for a start. A systematic introductory essay to each section outlining the issues and the past history of positions would have been helpful as well. In general however the authors are very aware of their audience and do a good job communicating their understanding with a minimum of jargon, in a fair and not-argumentative way.