Should BioLogos Be Called “ContraLogos” Instead?

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

In this verse, the Greek word logos is translated “word.” There is much that could be said about the word’s deep meaning in regard to Jesus being the Word, the Creator who spoke the universe and life into existence (Colossians 1).

So why do I propose that BioLogos might be better called “ContraLogos”? Because this organization, which heavily promotes theistic evolution, is dangerous to Christianity.  Currently headed by Calvin College professor Deb Haarsma (on a leave of absence from the school), BioLogos (which has received major grants from the Templeton Foundation) is devoted to trying to get as much of the church as possible to compromise God’s Word in Genesis with evolution/millions of years.

Now, I am not claiming that such compromising people can’t be Christians. Salvation is conditioned upon faith in Christ, not what a person believes about millions of years and evolution.

Such compromise, however, undermines the authority of the Word and is dangerous to the health of the church. In reality, an attack on the Word of God is an attack on Jesus Christ, who is the Word. Those academics involved with BioLogos will certainly stand before God one day (as we all will) to give an account of how they handled the Word. And those people who used their influence to teach others many false ideas are warned in Scripture: “My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment” (James 3:1).

Sadly, and even though the scholars at BioLogos might reject the assertion, such blatant compromise (which permeates the church) is resulting in many young people walking away from the Christian faith.

This week, Dr. Haarsma added her thoughts about the upcoming debate between TV’s Bill Nye “The Science Guy” and me. Unsurprisingly, Dr. Haarsma agrees with Bill Nye’s evolutionary views. But the title of her article—“Ken Ham vs. Bill Nye—the same old false choice”—reveals what BioLogos is really after as it relates to Genesis.

You see, many professing Christians who have compromised with evolution and millions of years have accused me of promoting a “false choice.” They say that I’m asking people to give up “science” (they really mean “evolutionary ideas”) and replace it with “religion” (meaning a literal Genesis). Dr. Haarsma explains this clearly:

We at BioLogos maintain that you don’t have to choose. You don’t have to give up Christian faith in order to accept the best, most compelling science. We expect that we’ll agree with most of what Bill Nye will say about the science of evolution. Fossils, genetics, and other disciplines give compelling evidence that all life on earth is related and developed over a very long time through natural processes. But we’re also brothers and sisters in Christ with Ken Ham. We believe . . . that the Bible is the authoritative word of God.

But what a contradiction. It’s impossible to maintain that the whole Bible is the authoritative Word of God and at the same time say that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are incorrect because man’s fallible ideas about origins must override what Genesis clearly teaches. In fact, for secularists, evolution is really man’s fallible ideas to explain the universe without God. Molecules-to-man evolution and millions of years are really the pagan religion of our day. Christians who compromise with such pagan ideas are no different than the Israelites who compromised God’s Word with the pagan religions of their day (like the Canaanites).

At Answers in Genesis, we agree that the Christians at BioLogos are our brothers and sisters in Christ. And as such, we believe it’s our biblical duty to draw their attention to their error about God’s Word in Genesis and challenge them to return to the authority of God’s Word.

Really, Dr. Haarsma doesn’t like the idea of a debate over whether biblical creation is correct, because it doesn’t fit with her belief in evolutionary creation (just another name for theistic evolution—that God used evolution). Christians who believe in evolution are ultimately accepting secular evolutionary beliefs and are just adding God to them—but then also rejecting Genesis as literal history.

By the way, what does Dr. Haarsma and her evolution-believing colleagues do with the first woman, Eve? If God used evolution, then Adam presumably evolved from an ape-like ancestor—and so did Eve. Many theistic evolutionists reject a literal Adam and Eve anyway. But what do they do with references to Eve in the New Testament—including the verses that teach that Eve came from Adam, as was first outlined in Genesis 2 (Eve was created from Adam’s side)?

Consider this: the Apostle Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 11:3 that Satan is going to use the same method of creating doubt in our minds about the words of God as he did with Eve; obviously, then, he accepted that she was a literal woman. Satan’s method has been used to lead people to doubt God’s Word and put them on a slippery slide of unbelief. In this era (beginning in the late 18th and early 19th centuries), there has been a very specific attack on the history of the first eleven chapters of the Bible—compromising with the beliefs of millions of years and evolution.

Can Dr. Haarsma explain how evolutionary teaching can be reconciled with Genesis 2:7 (which clearly says Adam was made from dust, not a preexisting living creature), plus Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:4–5 (where Jesus references Adam and Eve, as He taught the basis of marriage as being one man and one woman), and other verses?

“For man is not from woman, but woman from man” (1 Corinthians 11:8).

“For as woman came from man, even so man also comes through woman; but all things are from God”  (1 Corinthians 11:12).

“For Adam was formed first, then Eve” (1 Timothy 2:13).

If Adam was made from dust before Eve, and if Eve came from Adam’s side (as God’s Word clearly teaches), and as Jesus and Paul affirmed that truth in the New Testament, then what Dr. Haarsma and her colleagues are proposing requires readers to reinterpret the clear words of Scripture—and in a hermeneutically inconsistent way.  How is this not a clear example of the undermining of biblical authority? That’s why I came up with the term “ContraLogos”—what these compromisers are teaching is contrary to what the Word clearly states.

Dr. Haarsma continues with her comment on my upcoming debate with Bill Nye: “Debates like this perpetuate the misconception that you have two choices: an atheistic view of evolutionary science, or a young earth interpretation of the Bible.”

In reality, evolutionary ideas are a result of a belief in naturalism—they are attempts to explain the world without God. They are atheistic by nature. On the other hand, the Bible offers only one explanation for the creation of the world and everything in it: it happened in six literal days just over 6,000 years ago. What’s more, the scientific evidence confirms the Bible’s account, as we have illustrated over and over again in thousands of articles at this AnswersInGenesis.org website.

We at AiG are not teaching anything more than what Scripture plainly teaches and what observational science confirms.

Debates like the one I will have with Bill Nye next month will help people to think critically about the issue of origins. I pray that the people attending the debate—including Bill Nye—and those who will be viewing the debate through live web streaming (including the BioLogos staff) will be challenged to examine the assumptions that underlie evolutionary beliefs and will decide to embrace the full authority of God’s Word when it comes to the issue of our origin.

In all we do at AiG, our motivation is to stand uncompromisingly, boldly, and unashamedly on the authority of God’s Word and proclaim the gospel.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken