In the light of the growing scientific evidence for our evolutionary history, does Genesis 1-3 still have any credibility today? If so, where is it to be found? Our new book From Evolution to Eden explores these questions and paves the way ahead.
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Eden-Making-Sense-Genesis/dp/1938367197/
The persistent voice telling us that we’re out of sync, not doing enough, not doing enough, all too easily slips into a mantra, whose continuity is hard to break. Being obsessed with false shame and guilt is a corrosive enterprise. These feelings, however, should not go unchecked. In calling them into question it is important to consider a trust and suspicion dialogue that will help us discern a truer picture of who we really are. The goal then is not to recover, but to embrace a new identity and new practices related to the gift of a gracious portrayal of ourselves from the Divine One.
Believing we’re required to find the key to measure up to standards we set and then taking every means to make sure we do so, is not loving to either ourselves or others.
If all is subsumed under God in the here and now, the integrity of a risky, yet functional natural world that God made is in danger of becoming irrelevant. This proposed creational orientation does not set out to under signify the Divine, but rather it sets out to embrace the credibility of the created as given, which allows it a mysterious degree of independence.
The living Messiah has inaugurated redemption; something so new and dramatic burst on the scene through his life, death, and resurrection that we can hardly imagine what it fully entails. Resurrection though does remind us of how to be and do in hope that the planetary mess we face will be resolved. One of the striking features of this is embodied in the Messianic life. God in Christ, through the power of the Spirit, explosively constrains the present and creatively directs it into the future. We are, as Christ’s followers therefore, not restricted to the status quo of the cycle of the same, but engaged in and by a transformation of grace that leads us towards our destiny of imaging the Crucified and Risen One in this life and the next.
Our question marks ??? in life will probably never entirely disappear. The persistent battles within ourselves about what is “real” are unlikely to diminish. Don’t worry. That’s ok. There is bound to be “more” to our stories and experiences than a concept of “proof” can bear. Demanding either a “yes” or a “no,” a complete resolution, tends to lead us astray from the crucial reality of trust. But, of course, what and who to trust has to have some criteria – lines of appeal – to merit our trust, otherwise it would be downright foolishness. None of us should buy into folly, yet we do want to admit that life is complex and therefore escapes our being able to put it into a neat and tidy little box that we slip into our pockets and call a done deal.
In Genesis 1, God made “the larger and the smaller light.” Why not sun and moon? 
Bizarre? Strategy? Should you read Genesis 1-3 literally? Pick up our new book From Evolution to Eden to find out our responses.
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Eden-Making-Sense-Genesis/dp/1938367197/
Interesting interview with John Walton on his book The Lost World of Adam & Eve. We propose, perhaps, the Possible World of Adam & Eve is even better? What is Genesis 1-3 really about? Find out more in our new book From Evolution to Eden.
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Eden-Making-Sense-Genesis/dp/1938367197/
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/march/lost-world-of-adam-and-eve.html
When there is victimization and no repentance, our cultures will deteriorate. That is, the oppression and ill-treatment of people leads to their poverty, which destroys dignity, and not asking for forgiveness, which closes the door to transformation, leads to the denial of a hope for flourishing.
John Walton titles his book The Lost World of Adam & Eve. Perhaps, the Possible World of Adam & Eve is even better? What is Genesis 1-3 really telling us? Find out more in our new book From Evolution to Eden.
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Eden-Making-Sense-Genesis/dp/1938367197/
Lamentably, few churches are teaching Christians how to read the book of nature and the book of God, so that we can understand what kinds of worlds we’re dwelling in. Creative, insightful, imaginative, and wise could be four dimensions of serious Christian engagement with both texts, but we face severe impoverishment as the book of God and the book of nature pale into individualistic monologues. When this happens, Christian mission crashes and begins to fade, while our spirituality descends into flames of insignificance.
When bogus views of the end times get over 13,000 likes on fb, things are considerably worse than I thought.
My Living Spiritual Rhythms books attempt to create community - a sort of mini-project concerned with “people and place,” and an embrace of a redemptive life from God, and then living it towards the other, the self, the land, and home. This multi-faceted purpose carries with it an impulse for love that should flow out from us into the wider world. That is, people in the Rhythms community are not intended to stay there, but to learn to live a certain kind of life and then take something of that with them, wherever they go.
We’d like to say Thank You to all those who have purchased our new book From Evolution to Eden. 
If you haven’t yet bought your copy, we encourage you to get one today. Questions about Genesis 1-3 are numerous and crucial. What about the fall? Were Adam and Eve real people? Answers here:
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Eden-Making-Sense-Genesis/dp/1938367197/
From Evolution to Eden. Making Sense of Early Genesis
Chapter 1 begins:
“In 1954 Bernard Ramm published his challenging and provocative book The Christian View of Science and Scripture. In a world that was increasingly dominated by scientific explanations, he was acutely aware of the need for the Christian community to seriously consider the claims of science.
How was a Christian to formulate the relationship between science and Scripture? Since the writing of Ramm’s book the urgency of this discussion has only been reinforced by the accelerating expansion of our knowledge of the natural world over the last fifty years.”
George and I take this “urgency” on and develop fresh directions in our new book From Evolution to Eden.
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Eden-Making-Sense-Genesis/dp/1938367197/
One of the emblematic notions of being a self is that we are “interpreters ‘of’ - ourselves, others, texts, the world, and God” and “interpreted ‘by’ - ourselves, others, texts, the world, and God.” This significant doubled identity marker is monumental, though it often goes unrecognized and in doing so thereby distorts a deeper understanding of “who” we real-ly are.
Stock replenished at Amazon.
Greg is a theologian and an authority on biblical interpretation.
George is a biologist and a snake expert.
Wow! Put those two together and who knows what might happen. Check out their new book From Evolution to Eden. Making Sense of Early Genesis and see where the story takes you!
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Eden-Making-Sense-Genesis/dp/1938367197/
All these precise lines, detailed crevices, and tantalizing snowflakes, each different from the other, must be embedded in the guts of the Creator.
NOW Available. At last ! Stock has been replenished at Amazon.
For valuable insights on Genesis 1-3 pickup our new book:
From Evolution to Eden. Making Sense of Early Genesis.
Check out the post on the book later today!
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Eden-Making-Sense-Genesis/dp/1938367197/
I often hear people say they want to have complete reliance on God for everything. For me, this seems ridiculous and potentially irresponsible. It doesn’t look like God wants us to be so totally reliant on God that we don’t rely on ourselves at all. I see the double axis of creation and salvation bringing two perspectives into play here.
1) God in creation calls us to “care for” the planet on God’s behalf – take responsibility.
2) God in salvation invites us to recognize our “inability to save” ourselves – accept being reliant.
Then we spend the rest of our lives living the tension of creation care and salvific reliance. Responsibility and dependence flow out through us into the world where totalities, even with God as their referent, are not real options.
Looking for a credible Deconstruction of Scientific Materialism
and an appropriate embrace of Science & Theology as Informers? Check out our new book, From Evolution to Eden. Making Sense of Early Genesis.
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Eden-Making-Sense-Genesis/dp/1938367197/
The paradoxical relation and distinction between guilt and debt plumbs the depths of forgiveness. True guilt is mine and remains mine, but my debt can be paid by another on my behalf, which results in release. Since I’m mired in degrees of inauthenticity and therefore robbed of the capacity to consistently act for the good of self, others, and institutions, I need an Authentic One to “recalibrate” my life, “lighten” my burden, and “open” a vein of trust. When that happens, I can hopefully and more reliably navigate my way through towards fresh expressions of integrity, justice, and love.
In the light of the growing evidence for our evolutionary history, does Genesis 1-3 still have anything to say today? Many would argue no, but check out our new book, From Evolution to Eden, for an alternative, yet controversial account of this story of beginnings.
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Eden-Making-Sense-Genesis/dp/1938367197/
