FROM ONE NEWS NOW/AFA

'Evolutionary evangelist' gives heresy bad name
Russ Jones - OneNewsNow - 7/19/2010 7:00:00 AMA former evangelical preacher, who now calls himself an "evolutionary evangelist," maintains that Christians need to embrace atheism to fully understand God.

Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution, has released a new work that critics say strays even further from biblical Christianity.

"I applaud what the New Atheists are doing, which is they point out all the horrific terrorist-like passages, where if you interpret it literally, the only conclusion you can possibly come to is that the God of the Bible is a cosmic terrorist by the definition of our own government's definition of terrorism," he notes.

The assertion that God is somehow a "cosmic terrorist" is just the beginning of Dowd's thesis in his latest article, "Thank God for the New Atheists." The former evangelical preacher concludes the New Atheists, an outspoken group of both atheists and agnostics, are not enemies of religion, but they are rather "modern-day prophets."

Dr. Al Mohler, Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) in Louisville, Kentucky, warns believers to be cautious of those who call themselves Christians and promote such ideology.

"What we have here is just an abject overthrow of the Christian faith with one who poses as a Christian minister, claiming that we should celebrate these atheists as prophets," Mohler explains.

Dowd and his wife, science writer Connie Barlow, spend much of their time traveling across the U.S. challenging believers to reassess their understanding of evolution. But the SBTS president thinks there is no confusion over the team's motives.

"So rather than trying to tweak this or that doctrine or subvert this or that teaching, what we have now from the New Atheists, and now from Michael Dowd serving as their publicist, in one sense, full-frontal attack upon Christianity," he laments.

Dowd writes in one section of his article: "Let the story of evolution be told in ways that engender familial love and gratitude, that we are related to everything -- not just monkeys, but jellyfish and zucchini, too."

Mohler concludes that this comment "almost gives heresy a bad name, because most heretics tried to retain at least some connection to orthodox Christianity in order to persuade the church to move in their direction."