Read this first. I am an evangelical Christian who believes that God created the heavens and the earth, ex nihilo, and specifically created Adam and Eve to have souls. I do not believe the creation of Adam and Eve occurred by a series of random, naturalistic events. I believe that one can believe in an old earth, young earth, and theistic evolution and still be a Christian. It is sad that I must say this up front but I am trying to preempt any attacks on my core beliefs.
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Today is a day of reminiscing for me. Sometimes I feel that this all must have been a bad dream. But it wasn’t. God allows all things to happen for a purpose and perhaps telling this story is part of His divine intention. Tomorrow we will deal with the various Christian beliefs on creation that fit within the pale of orthodoxy. We plan to tell you what some of the better-known Christian leaders personally believe about this issue, and some of you may be a bit surprised. The issues will cover young earth creationism, old earth creationism, theistic evolution, intelligent design, and some of their proponents. We believe that some of you may feel a bit uncomfortable or challenged. We understand. So were we.
We start this mini memoir with a quote from Wayne Grudem’s Biblical Doctrines. I chose his book specifically since he is well regarded by even the most conservative literalists in our audience. On the subject of creationism Grudem states, “The possibility must be left open that God has chosen not to give us enough information to come to a clear decision on this question, and the real test of faithfulness to Him may be the degree to which we can act charitably towards those who in good conscience and full belief in God’s Word hold to a different position on this matter”. He continues, “It would seem best to encourage evangelical scientists and theologians who fall in both the young earth and old earth camps to begin to work together with much less arrogance, much more humility, and a much greater sense of cooperation in a larger common purpose” (p.139).
I (Dee) became a Christian, oddly enough, during an episode of “Star Trek” at the age of 17. I began to devour books by CS Lewis, Francis Schaeffer and others. I went to solidly evangelical churches and was involved with various campus ministries. All were located in the Northeast. One such church, Park Street Church in Boston, is known for its solid evangelical heritage. During these years when I read the account of Genesis, I would imagine these events occurring over eons. The literary devices that God inspired gave credence to my thoughts. I never once thought that it meant a literal 6-day creation. Nor was I ever taught that it was a literal 6 days. It is important that the reader understand this because it will help to illuminate a number of events that transpired.
I first began to realize that people believed in a literal 6-day creation and a 6,000 year old earth at a church in Dallas. This was during an adult class that I was co-teaching on Chuck Colson’s excellent book How Now Shall We Live. Colson is an old earth creationist, and someone in the class disagreed with his thoughts because this person adhered to a 6-day viewpoint. However, said person was most gracious, and we all agreed to disagree and that was the end of the matter. I thought that was how most churches would deal with this issue. Talk about naïve!
Approximately two years ago, I was once again co-teaching a class in which we went through Wayne Grudem’s entire Systematic Theology. (Most of us in the class were a bit on the nerdy side.) By this time, I was aware that there was a group at our church that taught a Creationism class for both adults and high school students; however, they only taught young earth creationism. We also began to be aware of a community based “young earth” group, which was run by an individual in our Sunday school class. We thought little of it, believing in an “agree to disagree” relationship. We even let this group use our beach house for a retreat.
Then some curious events began to occur. The high school aged son of a class member was thrown out of his Sunday School class when he began to question some of the “scientific” evidence being used as “proof” of a young earth. This young man is a particularly brilliant student. He arrived, beaten down, in our adult class. There was also another man who was thrown out of the adult creation class for raising questions about the “scientific” evidence. He, too, arrived in our class. My own son told me that the teacher in his creation class told the members that they could believe in an old earth, but they “would be wrong.” We began to hear of other kids being treated poorly for their views on this issue.
Surely, we thought, this is just some misunderstanding. Little did we know that the young earth leader in our class had sanctioned throwing the adult out of the creation class and had never apologized. So, trying to be of assistance in bringing understanding, we decided to show a debate between young earth creationists Ken Ham and Jason Lisle versus old earth creationists Hugh Ross and Walt Kaiser called A Question of Age which first aired on the John Ankerberg show. Be cautious… If you watch this through Ken Ham’s group, he has added to this debate because he feels he was “discriminated” against. (I loathe whiners.)
So, we set up a class debate that would have folks on both sides of the issue moderating and presenting as well as showing the debate. We even had materials equally available from both sides.
Now, things begin to heat up. We asked for it to be advertised within the church but were turned down with some lame excuse that the church never advertises special Sunday school classes although they always advertise the meetings of the community “young earth only” group.
Surely, we thought, the pastors don’t mean for this bias to exist. So, silly us, we wrote a letter to our pastors, explaining these strange classroom expulsions and our desire to bring understanding. The first pastor met my husband and me in a community restaurant during a busy lunch hour, importantly telling us that he had about 50 minutes to spare (this is a church with @2300 people, 91 employees and 17 full time pastors – just where are these guys?).
After pompously telling us he has four degrees, all religious, which included an associates degree, he proceeded to tell us how wrong we were. We obviously didn’t understand the science. My husband had won the Young Investigator of the Year for the American College of Cardiology and is a published author in major scientific journals. Not only that, but, by this time, we had studied the young earth position carefully and had read many books and most of the Answers in Genesis website.
After a 30-minute lecture, my hubby jumped in to ask a question. The pastor told him that he wasn’t finished. Hubby said that he most definitely was and that we hadn’t come for a lecture and there were now less than 20 minutes left in this pastor’s timetable. Said pastor slammed his head down on a table, covered it with his arms while rocking it back and forth. Weird, weird, weird!!! We realized that the conversation was going nowhere.
So, we decided to go to the big cheese pastor. Surely, he is a bit more rational. After greeting us, seating me in a wing chair and handing me the largest cup of tea I had ever seen, he asked why we were there. Huh? He knew but wanted us to jump through his hoops. So, while holding onto the tea with both hands, I read the above quote from Wayne Grudem from the book on the coffee table. As soon as I had finished, said “aw shucks” pastor leaned forward, wagging his finger at me and angrily said that I was arrogant. Shocked, I asked, “What did I say?”
“It's your body language,” he retorted. How strange. I was seated in a wing chair, holding a huge cup of tea with both feet planted firmly on the ground. What body language??!!!! I would later learn that this pastor is a good buddy of C.J. Mahaney and was utilizing a “demotivational management” technique in order to shut up dissent. I backtracked and got him to settle down.
Here are the points we learned from him:
He believes only in the young earth position and uses the “no death before the fall” argument. He refused to listen to a potential answer to that issue.
2. He told us the elders exist to carry out his wishes and they have only disagreed with him twice in 28 years!
3. He had instructed the Sunday schools to teach the kids only the YE position every year for a few weeks from kindergarten throughout high school.
4. He claimed he had never heard of “A” and “B” issues and theatrically raised his eyebrows and said, “Surely you don’t think creationism is a secondary issue?” Hoo boy, were we taken by surprise!
5. He refused to put this adamant adherence to this principle in a statement of beliefs because he didn’t want people not to choose to come to the church, thereby exhibiting that numbers matter more than certain important Biblical issues. He didn’t seem to be concerned that this is deceptive and could cause problems like this meeting we were having.
6. He denied that anyone had been thrown out of a class.
7. He denied that any student had lost his faith over Young Earth Creationism and refused to discuss an article that I had downloaded by a student making that claim. He wouldn’t even discuss a student I knew from the church that had lost his faith due to a science professor.
8. He said he believed we were saved but were wrong in this issue.
9. He said we could continue with the debate, but he refused to advertise it.
My husband wanted to leave the church immediately, angry at the abusive tactics flung at us. Silly me, I convinced him to carry on because of the wonderful people in our Sunday School class.
The first day of the debate, I arrived to find the class filled to overflow with angry faces that I had never seen before. As the class began, one woman raised her hand and made some comment about why YE was the only way to view the Bible. I knew then that the YE Calvary had arrived.
To top it off, the man who threw our classmate out of his “one view only of creation” class was also present. The rude interruptions became so frequent that I declared a moratorium on comments. We then told them to write down their questions, and we would answer them in writing each week. After the first class, these discourteous people continued to make boorish comments to the nice people in our class. I begged our class member who was the “leader of the troops” to cool things down, but he was not helpful. He even told me that he would not agree to allow any other view to be taught at the church. I wrote the pastors, asking them if they condoned this sort of thing. The answer: they didn’t appreciate my letter, they denied such a position, and refused to get involved.
As things continued to go south by the third meeting, I became angry and lectured the extremists on their insolent behavior and stepped down from leading the rest of the debate. I didn’t even come to the final classes. One man in our class was so angry about another viewpoint being discussed that he threatened to “leave the class!” Thankfully, he went to a seminarian who assured him that there was a valid point of view.
The YE leader made a point that one should take the Scripture at face value. He misused William Tyndale’s statement and said that the Scriptures are simple enough for a “plowboy” to understand and that we must take the simplest reading of the Scripture. This “plow girl” had done just that many years before and believed that Genesis was talking about eons not days. So, in my case, this didn’t work.
I also said that the simplest “plowboy” would have a hard time arriving at the Trinity from a “simple” reading of the text. Oh, and by the way, if it is so gosh darn simple, why haven’t the Calvinists closed the deal! God’s plan for salvation is remarkably simple, yet His ways are mysterious. To think that a simple “plowboy” could understand all the nuances of Scripture puts God into a pretty, tiny box!
Another man, who I shall call Bob, got quite angry with me for my expression of frustration. I asked him if he had ever read any other view. He said he never had and seemed to indicate that a YE perspective was vital to his belief in the Bible. I was shocked and urged him to read Answers in Creation, a web site that presents evidence that disagrees with the science on Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis. This man, college educated, went to the site and told me he “couldn’t deal with it.”
Bob is the face of the continuing scandal of the evangelical mind. No wonder the “New Atheists” are gaining ground….
Many Christians are trapped into believing that issues such as these are “salvation” issues.
Others fear the subject material because, for them, science is confusing or hard.
Still others are afraid that if they open their minds to the evidence, it might cause them to question their faith because their faith is built on manmade decrees, not Jesus Christ.
Perhaps they fear that they will need to question other things as well.
This is understandable for new Christians or folks who have legitimate mental handicaps. This is inexcusable for solid, long time Christians whose children are going off to universities and having their faith devastated by arrogant professors. But, perhaps the Bobs of the world contribute to this “loss of faith” as well. If dad shows his kids that he can’t handle it, what does he expect his kids to do when confronted by these issues?
Folks, we need to understand one another and sometimes that takes work. We at The Wartburg Watch have read books on all sides of this issue. We have even read books by the atheists so that we might better understand them. The Apostle (a real one; not a Mahaney one) Paul made an appeal at Mars Hill to the philosophical intellects of his day. He understood them. He knew what they believed and stood in the midst of them (as opposed to building huge buildings and staying safe inside of them) and faced their philosophies head on.
Acts 17: 22: “Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; 23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: 24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.
http://www.letusreason.org/Current56.htm
Let’s stop viewing each other as the enemy and focus on the real problem — the New Atheists and purposely stupid Christians.