Gilberson's World

Karl Gilberson, formerly of Biologos and author of “Saving Darwin” has penned a little testimonial at Frum Forum to plug his new book “The Anointed.”

Michelle Bachman has stated that Francis Schaeffer had an influence on her in days gone by. Karl Gilberson recalls his own similar background and evangelical heritage and proceeds to paint Bachman and pretty much all conservative evangelicals as uneducated dunces. He directly names Schaeffer, James Dobson, Ken Ham and David Barton as “anointed” ones whose status in the evangelical community gives cover to anti-intellectual and dishonest dissemination of an alternate and defective standard of truth.

He takes a mild swipe at Schaeffer’s goatee and knickers. Of Dobson he sarcastically notes that he “had a PhD in child development and thus knew what he was talking about.” Of Ham who does not have a PhD, he snarks “Very few evangelicals grow up without hearing some trusted authority—perhaps even with a PhD—tell them that the age of the earth is an “open question.” It all boils down to the charge that conservative Evangelicals are trapped in an alternative “parallel culture” with its own standards of truth, where the statements of “anointed” leaders - whose only claim to authority is that the unsuspecting sheep think they have a special gift - trump rational analysis of truth claims.