Peter Enns, a Senior Fellow of Biblical Studies at The BioLogos Foundation, has a new essay up at their site on what evolution means to some Christians:

Passions run high because evolution is threatening. Some Christians feel threatened because evolution challenges something meaningful and non-negotiable—their understanding of God, of ultimate reality, of how the parts of their existence fit together and make sense.

The Christian faith provides stability and assurance that our lives have meaning, that the world is in God’s hands, that our existence is not a cosmic joke. Our lives and the universe around us have a purpose.

Our faith provides us with a sense of coherence.

When people feel that their sense of coherence is threatened, conflict is not far behind. We do not move to dialogue but protectionism. We stop asking whether something is true and rather react out of fear. The more credible the threat, the more we circle the wagons and maintain at all costs our sense of coherence.

When I put my Jacoby hat on, I think Enns is a little too lax on the evolution-deniers. Fact is fact and the evolutionary theory (a scientific term for proof, unfortunately identical to the common term for a hypothesis) is proven beyond doubt.  It, not what Enns calls one’s understanding of God, is non-negotiable.  I want to squawk that denial of scientific facts is damaging to the country, the future of science, individual rights, American progress and liberty. In her 2008 book, The Age of American Unreason, Jacoby quotes Bill Moyers as saying:

One of the biggest challenges in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seats of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. The offspring of ideology and theology are not always bad but they are always blind. And that is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

And yet, and yet, the squawking tactic hasn’t gotten us very far, if the Texas Board of Education, Sarah Palin, the homeschooling movement, and the Medical, Religious, and Legal Right are any indication.  We can’t deny that the fear of evolution, and in a broader sense, of social and scientific change, upends those who ascribe to particular ideas of tradition.  The fear is real. Enns notes that the opposing stances — evolution is scientific fact; God created the world and evolution is heresy — stymy meaningful conversation. Conversation that taxes everyone’s patience and yet, obviously, still needs to be had.

Where do we start?

(h/t Science and Religion Today)