Rich McGee is Director of International Expansion for Christian Leadership Ministries. His responsibility is to help mobilize Christian professors on the CLM network for world evangelism, connecting them with a variety of international ministry opportunities. He directed CLM's ministry at Southern Methodist University from 1982 until 1989. Rich earned a Th.M. in Old Testament from Dallas Theological Seminary in 1981. He is a member of the American Scientific Affiliation. Rich and his wife have three children, and live in Garland, TX.
This and the next two editions of The Real Issue are devoted to the theme of faith and science. Guest editing these special editions is Rich McGee. McGee joined the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ in 1971, and he has served with Christian Leadership Ministries the last 12 years. Future editions will feature other guest editors addressing topics such as ethics, communications, and other issues in the humanities and social sciences.
As a professor who is a Christian, I am sure you desire to serve and glorify God in your teaching and research. In my contact with faculty around the country, I sense that a growing number of those who are believers have an increased desire to integrate their faith and their discipline. They have an intensifying burden to speak for Christ and to use their gifts and training for Him.
My purpose in editing these three special Real Issues is twofold. First, we in CLM want to provide what we believe will be helpful information on the complex interface between faith and science. Second, I hope to motivate you to develop your own evangelistic lecture(s) from your field. I firmly believe every Christian professor should have at least one evangelistic talk integrating faith with academics. May God use the enclosed articles to give you a vision for scientific apologetics and to provide you with some examples to help you get started.
Dr. Walter Bradley has pioneered in this area. His article (p. 3) summarizes a lecture which he has given 87 times to over 17,000 university students and professors in the last five years. Lectures like his, where the science is understandable to general audiences and yet ratified by the professor's credibility as a scientist, are easy for local campus ministries to promote. Even in Siberia, on one of our faculty ministry trips at Novosibirsk State University in March 1993, the local Campus Crusade staff publicized Walter's lecture on campus and were amazed when over 700 attended and stayed for two hours afterwards asking questions.
Hugh and Kathy Ross' article (p. 10) is based on Hugh's third book, Creation and Time. Hugh has also pioneered in presenting outstanding information on faith and science through his first two books (recommended in Walter Bradley's article) on the many exciting recent cosmological discoveries which support theism.
The subject of the Ross' article, the creation date controversy, has traditionally been a volatile issue among Christians. But the ancient universe view cannot be dismissed as simply a compromise to modern science and evolution. No less than Dr. Francis Schaeffer, known for his Biblical orthodoxy, stated, "If anyone wonders what my own position is, I really am not sure whether the days in Genesis One should be taken as 24 hours or as periods. It seems to me that from a study of the Bible itself one could hold either position" (No Final Conflict, p. 30).
Phil Johnson provides the lead article for this issue. His penetrating analysis of the established philosophy of naturalism will give you perspective and encouragement as you fight the good fight and stand (alone, if necessary) for Jesus Christ. Phil has been greatly used by God as he has spoken to faculty and student groups around the country.
All the articles in this issue are offered in a spirit of inquiry, in the ongoing process of discovery of God's Word and God's world. May they nourish and encourage your faith and give you ideas and motivation for developing your own evangelistic lectures. When you have developed a presentation, seek opportunities through the ministries at your university to present the lecture. Ask God what He would have you to do in this harvest field, a field which is ripe both here and around the world.