This won't be an ordinary book review, because I personally know or am acquainted with at least half of the people involved in this book and both of its editors, as a result of my involvement with this question for the past decade-plus, and of my participation in the BioLogos Voices team. So this was less "let's find out what other people think" than "let's find out WHY these particular people agree on this thing." As such, I can't really assess its persuasiveness, being already persuaded! However, I did pick up on some interesting parallels as I read through the books, taking each as a letter written in a human heart.
If I had to pick a favorite chapter, it's probably NT Wright's, even though it's the least personal of them all. Wright looks on this phenomenon from the outside and ties it to American history. As a country, we're trying to talk about race and the past, and I personally am finding more ways in which the past lives on today. It actually never occurred to me that both the Scopes Trial and the Creation Museum are in the South, and that evolution is connected to the great American sin, chattel slavery -- and also to the red-state--blue-state cynicism and mutual antagonism. Wright puts all that together in a mere page, much like he puts together ancient history with theology in his other work.
The other stories are much more personal, and each one is kept short enough that the ultimate cumulative effect is all the stronger for it. Most (but not all) start as Christians and then come to evolution. Most (but not all) focus on the personal rather than the data, leaving the actual arguments to other books. What I think would be interesting at this point would be another book about "How I Changed My Mind About Science," in which Christians talk about the positive influence faith has on their scientific work. But this book is a necessary first step to remove the barriers, before we can talk about the synergistic boost that both faith and science can experience when they are put together.
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As a non-American, I found your comments on NT Wright's thoughts very interesting. I am reminded of Bob Dylan's Blind Willie McTell, one of his best songs, which links slavery to the land being condemned and to "power and greed, and corruptible seed".
My own observation from a distance is that American culture is deeply independent and selfish, so that almost anything (including slavery) can be justified somehow if it suits the individual. What this says about American christianity, granted it has been a highly christianised nation, is interesting.
I should add I don't thereby think Australian culture is necessarily any better, just different.
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