I am not aware of any SBC seminary faculty who advocates theistic evolution or evolutionary creationism (EC). Many (including me) are involved with or express sympathy to the intelligent design movement (ID).

(Biologos Editor’s Comments)
“The BioLogos Forum” is pleased to feature essays from various guest voices in the science-and-religion dialogue. Please note the views expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here.

Today’s entry was written by Kenneth Keathley. Kenneth Keathley is Professor of Theology and Senior Vice President for Academic Administration of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

This essay is the first in the series Southern Baptist Voices, a dialogue between Southern Baptist seminarians and representatives of the BioLogos perspective on science and Christian faith. In this post, Part 1 of Dr. Keathley’s two-part paper, he outlines the first three of six areas of concern he has with BioLogos positions. The remainder of his paper and a two-part BioLogos response will be posted beginning tomorrow. For a more complete description of the project’s history and aims, please see our introduction here.

(Dr. Keathley’s Comments)
I thank Darrel Falk for the opportunity to write this brief essay for the BioLogos website. When Dr. Falk extended the invitation to me and other SBC seminary professors like me to write a series of essays, he knew full well that we would mostly express our concerns and disagreements with a number of BioLogos positions. I commend Dr. Falk for his graciousness and bravery. I intend at this time merely to introduce the topics about which my colleagues will write more extensively.

Professors at the six Southern Baptist seminaries subscribe to the Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M), the statement of faith adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention.

The BF&M provides a summary of Christian beliefs from a Baptist perspective, but it is conspicuously silent on three subjects: Calvinism, the nature of the millennial kingdom, and the age of the earth. Because Southern Baptists hold to a spectrum of views on each of these hot-button items, no specific position is taken.

It is the third matter—creation, the age of the earth, and all the attendant matters, that concern us now. The BF&M declares God to be the Creator of the Universe and describes humans as the special creation of God, but the confession has no section that deals specifically with the doctrine of Creation.

I think it would be safe to say that most (but not all) Southern Baptists hold to young-earth creationism (YEC). Among the faculty of our six seminaries one would find a mix of YEC proponents and OEC (old-earth creationism) adherents. I sometimes describe myself as a “disappointed young-earther.” By that I mean I started out holding to the young-earth position but the shortcomings of most YEC arguments and the shenanigans of certain YEC advocates forced me to move to the OEC position. I am not aware of any SBC seminary faculty who advocates theistic evolution or evolutionary creationism (EC). Many (including me) are involved with or express sympathy to the intelligent design movement (ID).

So what are some of the concerns we have with evolutionary creationism as typically presented by the BioLogos Foundation? Briefly, they are:

· Concerns about theological method: Christians cannot do theology in a vacuum……

· Genesis has only so much hermeneutical elasticity: Genre and hermeneutics (the science of interpretation) have always been difficult topics……

· The connection between natural history and salvation history: This seems to be a (maybe, the) major area of concern……

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