The Sacred Day
the invasion of God into the ordinary day
Losing faith: evolution vs. creationism
One of my concerns with teaching creationism in Sunday School is the impact this has when the children grow up to become college students and then realize how full the data set is supporting evolution. If a child is repeatedly told that evolution and Christianity are mutually exclusive, then Christianity itself is often discarded when intellectual assent is given to evolution. Ironically, both creationists and materialist evolutionists insist on mutual exclusivity. It’s an odd cat and mouse game they play.
What worries me is an acceptance of the World with an acceptance of evolution. Over and over in the Old and New Testaments we are told to reject the World. However, when college students reject creationism, sometimes it seems to be a propitious time to reject other things that make them seem out of step with the World. Just looking at the electronic media and the people around us, there are several high moral stances that are advanced in the Scriptures that could be dropped in order to make life a whole lot easier. A whole lot more “acceptable.” The most important thing seems to be the need to fit in. But it has always been that way. It was only 170 years ago in the southern USA that the “need to fit in” would mean that one would need to accept slavery and find ways to twist Scripture so that it matched the current behavior. If you didn’t make this social/intellectual move, you were tarred and feathered. Literally.
On this site I argue that when one accepts the cruelty implicit in the nature of Nature and evolutionary mechanisms, one must turn elsewhere for what the soul longs for. The acceptance of evolution and Nature red in tooth and claw is a powerful inducement for the acceptance of Christianity. Where else can we go? How untenable is life under the secular worldview, even with the artificial bubble of advanced society that covers over the brevity and brutality that underlies Life. We are all on a path to destruction. We will all end up in a hospital, nursing home or hospice bed, struggling for breath as our internal organs fail. Unless we have a terrible accident. Why worry about what others think as we live out our days? Life is too short. I want to read the Scripture and follow it implicitly. I want to create as much Heaven now on this Earth in anticipation of the real Heaven and Earth that I will enter into. There is nothing in this present World to hold on to.
//One of my concerns with teaching creationism in Sunday School is the impact this has when the children grow up to become college students and then realize how full the data set is supporting evolution.//
The reason is that children are usually not being equipped to understand and defend the truth of Genesis. That, in turn, is because most Sunday School teachers are not equipped. There are two parts to this. One is that the teachers don’t know the facts. Second is that we have developed this culture in most of our churches that says we need to teach Genesis (and most of the OT) as a set of fantastic stories, like fables, no more than moral lessons dumbed down to kindi-garten level.
I read through your site, Lance, and enjoyed it. I especially liked your heavy dependence on the Scripture backing up your points in many of your posts. I think that Genesis 1-2 was not necessarily considered as an exact physical description of the process of the development of life on earth, because I don’t think that the people of that time were looking for this. We live in a data-driven society and we do look for this sort of documentation and we devalue “mere narrative”. But the Jews were smart people. They wrote brilliant documents, expertly argued. So why would they leave open gaps in the Genesis text like where Cain’s wife came from or why Gen 1 and Gen 2 are so different from each other? I think this reveals smart writers who weren’t concerned about details that way we are but were focused on putting across major points through the narrative. The points God wanted to make, because His Spirit moved through them in the writing. When we move to Isaiah, Mark, Romans and the rest, we move to a different genre. They are read in a different way. Please see my summary of the Harlow article under my book summaries tab.
Well, that’s my take on it. In the end, I want to see as many people as possible accept the call of Christ as deeply as possible, with no hanging back or entanglements. This end goal is shared between the two of us I think.
Chris, yes, we share the same end goal. Although creation science is a passion of mine, for me it is more a personal passion than the first thing I bring up in evangelizing. I look forward to hearing your comments on my blog, if you’re inclined to share your thoughts. I do not mind dissent or constructive criticism. In fact, I publish my blog in hopes of obtain just such interchanges. I do not give much credence to unsupported remarks and vitriol is not tolerated, but otherwise if I put it out there then its fair game. God bless you.
What a great response. If everyone spoke in such respectful tones, I think we could get into some deep discussions. I’ll drop by your site soon.