Bill Dembski: Creationist

Billy Dembski is concerned. His latest book, The End of Christianity, was attacked by a Baptist minister as a work of theistic evolution, and Dembski defended his honor by charging that windmill:

Johnny T. Helms' concerns about my book THE END OF CHRISTIANITY as well as his concerns about my role as a seminary professor in the SBC are unfounded. I subscribe to the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as well as the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. I believe Adam and Eve were literal historical persons specially created by God. I am not, as he claims, a theistic evolutionist. Within the Southern Baptist seminaries, both old-earth and young-earth creationism are accepted positions. True, young-earth creationism remains the majority view in the SBC, but it is not a litmus test for Christian orthodoxy within the SBC. I'm an old-earth creationist and the two SBC seminaries at which I've taught (Southern in Louisville and Southwestern in Ft. Worth) both were fully apprised of my views here in hiring me. My book THE END OF CHRISTIANITY is about theodicy, namely, how a good God can coexist with an evil world. Essential to Christian theodicy has been the doctrine of the Fall, which, in my book, I argue is real. Within old-earth creationism, however, the Fall comes after the appearance of natural evil (e.g., animal sickness and suffering). What I argue in THE END OF CHRISTIANITY is that just as the salvation purchased by Christ on the Cross saves not only forwards but also backwards in time (Old Testament saints were saved through Christ and His Cross), so the effects of the Fall operate forwards and backwards in time (thus animal suffering is a result of the sin of Adam even though, temporally, it comes before). Basically, what I'm trying to do is preserve Christian orthodoxy within an old-earth perspective. Johnny Helms suggests that I've embraced evolutionary theory because I've shown how it can be squared with the theodicy I develop. But his charge here is unfounded. To show how the theodicy I outline can be squared with an evolutionary view is NOT to endorse it. I don't endorse evolutionary theory, as all my books on intelligent design demonstrate (search my name on the Internet, and you'll find that I'm often called an "anti-evolutionist"). But because many Christians accept some form of evolution, I show in chapter 21 of my book how the theodicy I describe might apply IF one holds to an evolutionary view (which I don't). BOTTOM LINE: The only way my book THE END OF CHRISTIANITY could be called heterodox is if one makes young-earth creationism a litmus test for Christian orthodoxy. --William A. Dembski

Emphasis added.