Ken, no need to begin insulting me. It will not help your case. "I have not been paying attention."? While its true that it takes some time to digest another person's comments, I am indeed paying attention, and my comment was made quite light-heartedly, just as yours was earlier about my supposed propensity for assuming everything happened quickly. Nor do I claim that the laws of nature have ever changed; only our perception of them, and how they apply.
Have you ever read Walt Brown's book, "In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood." He looks only(almost only) at scientific principles, mathematics, physics in terms of evaluating his hypothesis. Even supposing he was not entirely accurate in every aspect, since after all he is pieceing together something by extrapolation, he provides a new way of looking at the geologic evidence.
About plate motion, as I said before, (were you paying attention...:o) ) present rates of something are not indisputable indicators of what happened in the distant past. We cannot do this with automobiles, with technological advancement, and probably not with plate tectonics. If we only used present rates of observation, we would not come up with theories of hundreds of belts of ancient volcanoes consisting of hundreds of individual volcanoes and vents each, in the Canadian Shield area.
You said: [quote] We know what temperatures and pressures are required to produce various minerals, and therefore at what depth they formed, which in turn determines the thousands of feet of rock that would have to be eroded away to expose them. [/quote] You are merely assuming that there is only one way to form the temperatures and pressures to produce various minerals; this is your blind spot. Even the fact that you produced them in a lab would indicate that there are other ways of doing this, but you cannot conceive of other circumstances, so you assume they do not exist. Your uniformitarian paradigm is worn like a pair of blinders, methinks.
You said, [quote]formation of metamorphic rocks and huge igneous rock bodies does not occur at the surface, [/quote]
You said: [quote]We know that there is no radiogenic daughter product in a mineral or rock at the time it forms from magma, and when one half-lfe has elapsed, the ratio will be 1:1 [/quote]
If this were as simple as it sounds, then using the K-Ar method to detect age of basalt formed by a recent volano would not be a problem. However, as you earlier admitted, some non-radiogenic product (presumably the same isotope indistinguishable from the radiogenic) was also trapped in the basalt (igneous). So your statement is misleading. Its presumption appears to be incorrect.
From Roger Wiens(Los Alamos, NM), "Although potassium-argon is one of the simplest dating methods, there are still some cases where it does not agree with other methods. When this does happen, it is usually because the gas within bubbles in the rock is from deep underground rather than from the air. This gas can have a higher concentration of argon-40 escaping from the melting of older rocks. This is called parentless argon-40 because its parent potassium is not in the rock being dated, and is also not from the air. In these slightly unusual cases, the date given by the normal potassium-argon method is too old". "
Allen, "that's silly" you say. I think you need a better justification than that. God's foolishness is greater than the wisdom of men... did I get that right? Does silly include people who restore old automobiles to look like new? Or young actors who play old people? What's the definition of silly? Maybe the apparent age of the universe is old to us because we are not using the right glasses. But, besides that, even if the universe was old, does that prove evolution? In the theory of evolution, they are tied together. But an old universe could exist without biological evolution.
Faith in God is the first thing that many people call silly. Are they right?
The ark apparently was big enough for those animals that needed to be on it, plus the feed they needed, particularly if most animals were in the form of baby animals. One example of an ancient fossil was the coelanth fish. Ancient in the fossil record. And it still exists today, ocassionally caught in fishing boats in Asia. So perhaps you could also say it is a modern animal. Question, why would you find mammal fossils in the same location as reptile dinosaurs? Or why would you find swimming reptiles such as alligators or snakes in the same place as land reptiles?
Allen, I'm antagonistic towards the use of the word "silly". I just think it is important to keep in mind the fact that many people would claim that for Jesus to feed 5000 men (plus women and children) with five loaves and two fish, would just be plain silly.
When we measure two distant objects by the angle of difference, and calculate their distance and thus the age of the light we are observing, it would seem to be silly to say that they are younger than 10,000 years. Perhaps so, but perhaps also there is a reason we do not yet know. This reason may be "miraculous", or it may be a phenomena not yet known or understood. There are some aspects apparently about the expansion of the universe for example which are difficult to measure in terms of estimating events of the past.
I don't think God threw in dinosaur bones to throw us off. But it is possible that the assumption about the age of these dinosaur bones is way off.
Bottom line is that dinosaur bones do not prove maco-evolution.
Laughing at the idea of separate creation of species is an emotional reaction rather than a scientific reaction. It's like laughing at the theory of evolution. Blind tolerance is not the opposite of laughing; that is the non-sequitor.
You are right that the issue is not really about whether people are nice about other ideas; its about whether the ideas are true. But if your identity is wrapped up in an emotional attachment to the theory of evolution, then it will be difficult to retain perspective about whether any opposing ideas may have any merit.
Quote: "Yes. We have big brains and a desire to explain things - features that many people believe came from God. We use our brains to investigate the world around us, but, in so doing, we cannot assume a God.
This is because God is not controllable. You cannot do an experiment with God's involvement and without. But, by assuming no divine influence, we have been really quite successful in figuring things out. ie. Medicine, clean water, the nature of the solar system. We're good at this. Assuming a god did not work out - when we did that, people thought a chariot pulled the sun across the sky."
This is an interesting quote because it reveals what you believe. Why exactly is it that we cannot assume a God when we investigate the world around us? Based on what assumptions?
Maybe the fact that God is not controllable is the whole point. By not seeing that, it causes all kinds of problems for us. It causes us to assume that we can "control" the past. Generally that is not good experimental science (it tends to be called statistical survey, which gathers information, but always guesses at cause and effect) , and is the opposite of what most experiments require, which is to control or establish controls for the future of the experiment.
I do not see how assuming a God, stopped NASA from making it to the moon.
Evolution says nothing about God? I think it does. It disallows God's intervention. It relegates God to the blind watchmaker. And because it does not allow God's intervention, it is forced to conclude that God is really just a human invention, an idea, another natural outcome of the evolution of the human race, which atheist evolutionists are quite convinced we will eventually evolve out of the need for.
I work in science all the time. Soil Science, agronomy, plants, animals, environmental, research. I read abstracts of research from eight or nine professional journals regularly, and sometimes full length papers. I attend scientific conferences. Science is great! It is a great tool for learning and discovery. While my eyes glaze sometimes at advanced statistical analysis, I recognize it also as a great tool for making decisions about whether to accept a research conclusion or not.
I love nature too! We live on over four hundred acres of mixed vegetation land with several species of native trees, various grasses, reeds, cattails, deer, moose, mice, coyotes, numerous birds including a red-tailed hawk, dogs, cows, (no cats), garden, greenhouse, squirrels, woodpeckers, etc., etc. I enjoy nature and sometimes have to fight nature, snow, weeds, mosquitos.
So I understand natural explanations. But I do not understand how one can explain nature, and not understand God better.
Questions: We have membership numbers; do we also have attendance numbers? What if we have a bunch of members who are not Christians or do not attend, or Christians who attend, but are not members?
There are churches which are growing. Most of them have many more attenders than members.
In north America the crc has grown in the past on large families and immigration. Church has often been our social and cultural gathering. But it never should have been that primarily. It should have been the body of Christ first.
We should realize that sometimes the reasons people give for leaving the church, are not actually the real reasons they leave. Often the immediate reason at the time of leaving, is only the final straw, and the real underlying reasons almost become forgotten. However, here is a list of causes of decline as I see it, mostly put under the general category of not putting Christ first.
Potential Causes of decline:
Traditionalism.
Lack of spiritual purity.
Lack of personal prayer.
Lack of commitment to God, too much commitment to the organization.
Lack of sacrificial attitude.
Increasing worldliness of members. Cultural relativity. Worldly conformity.
Becoming wimpy; being lovey dovey without speaking the entire God’s truth.
Limiting the Kuyperian vision of “every square inch belongs to God”, to only institutions, instead of to our daily life… who we date or who our children date and marry, what kind of entertainment we tolerate, how we celebrate Sabbath days, how we spend our money, not tithing first fruits, what type of work we do, how we speak to one another, and what we spend our spare time doing.
Lack of daily devotional reading and prayer.
Lack of communal prayer.
Lack of difference in living between so-called Christians and the world.
Using “being all things to all men” as the apostle Paul said, as an excuse for not putting on the robe of righteousness that is given by Christ at the banquet of life.
Lack of encouragement to witness.
Using “being good” as an excuse for not wearing Christ on our sleeve.
Lack of courage in sermons and bible studies.
Lack of bible studies. Lack of knowledge of scripture.
Forgiveness translated as “tolerance”.
Not understanding or remembering how God punished Annanias and Sapphira in the new testament church for not speaking truth.
Not understanding that our desire to protect Christ and to protect Christians might be only giving in to temptation just like Peter did when he said that He would not allow Christ to be hurt or killed, and Jesus said to him, “Get behind me Satan.”
Not taking Christ seriously when He said that we would suffer for His sake.
Rewriting many scripture passages to suit us: Eg. The parable of the wedding feast. Matthew 22. The re-write: “The king invites a big bunch of people to come to the wedding feast which he prepared. They give excuses, and the king understands and commiserates with them, and asks for suggestions for a better date. He changes the date, but they still can’t come because it is too far, they have business, and birthdays, and the king understands, and sends them gifts and flowers. Then he invites others to come, who have nothing else to do. They come and enjoy the food and wine and new clothes he provides, except for one who prefers his old rags. The king says to him, “I understand that your old clothes are more comfortable, and I wouldn’t want to offend you by suggesting you put on these new more pretentious new wedding clothes. So don’t worry about it, just enjoy yourself, eat drink and celebrate with us, just however you want.” For many are called and all are chosen.”
Asking less of ourselves and others in service to Christ.
Putting family ahead of Christ, instead of Christ at the head of the family.
Substituting worldly cares such as environmentalism and altruism for celebration and worship and pure unadulterated adoration.
Advocating for belief without obedience.
Advocating for faith without works.
Advocating for works without faith.
Conforming to the world.
Not providing true spiritual leadership. Superficiality.
Condemning without judging, and judging without discernment.
Misinterpreting I John 4:18 and II Timothy 1:7.
Using the phrase, “We are all sinners.” as an excuse for disobedience.
Letting Satan work in our lives through half-truths.
Religiousity at the expense of true obedience. There are many who will say, “Did we not cast out demons, and heal the sick and preach in your name?” to whom Jesus will say, “I never knew you.”
I John 5:2…” by this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments…. And his commandments are not burdensome.”
In addition to the above potential causes, several things that might help, is to take the role of elder much more seriously. Elders should be spiritual, not administrative leaders, because if they are not, then how can one ever expect spiritually mature members? And if there are not spiritually mature members, how can they witness to their children or to others? Elders should practice their witness during worship, and model it to others. They should be spiritually strong before being chosen, and should be trained to be stronger after they are ordained. Weak elders make for a weak church.
The separation of a profession of faith from membership should be considered, so that a faith witness can take place without the stringent conditions required for a membership profession. The actual individual profession of faith, not just saying yes or no to some questions, is absolutely necessary for growing in faith and mutual accountability.
While a membership profession needs to agree to standards and confessions and scripture, mere agreement is not the essential revealing characteristic of faith. Faith transcends mere written statements, and goes directly to acknowledging a sincere relationship with God, with Jesus who died and rose, and with the spirit who lives in your heart. A simple “yes” to a written statement should not be asked for nor permitted (except maybe in exceptional circumstances). In my opinion, this is religiousity at the expense of faith, protocol at the expense of spiritual maturity.
Extreme caution should be exercised in having the church becoming “established”. Churches grow best when they are not too established, when they are not too cosy with government or with societal norms. Established churches, whether mainline or evangelical, seem to tend to decline or not grow when their missional focus becomes subject to societal standards or norms. For example, could we document in our church the number of hours and articles and paper we dedicate to making “safe churches” for children and handicapped or elderly, which is highly lauded by society, compared to the hours and articles dedicated to keeping our youth pure and protecting them from one another’s sexual advances. (which is not necessarily so highly praised by society, and yet sexual impurity is a greater cause of decline of faith and church, and eventually leads to unsafe churches as well).
Always ask, are we with scripture transforming the world, or are we being transformed by the world? The more we are transformed by the world, the less and less need or purpose there will be for the church. Christ is the head of the church; put Him first! And He will bless it!!
Don't worry too much about the insults. I can handle them (dish them out too, if necessary), but be gentle.... I just pointed out the effect of your comment.
Norman, you do not indicate whether the Presbyterian church was PCUSA or PCA. I have heard of big differences between them. That aside, calling a church vacant, when presumably there are several elders likely present, and there is a congregation present, seems presumptuous. Precisecly because the church is not vacant, but merely has a pastoral vacancy, is why each church needs to determine its own need for a counselor or advisor. The assumption that the only relationship or significance is between a pastor and a congregation is harmful, and does not recognize that there are significant relationships between various parts of the congregation, as well as between members and elders, and deacons, etc. It is not as simple as you make it sound. An overbearing counselor or interim moderator leads to an immature body of believers, never able to take on the tasks God has given them.
Shaun Doyle has written an interesting article on how christian evolutionists are sometimes simply erring brothers, rather than raging heretics or Christ deniers. The article is found on creation.com. Some others disagree with him, but he makes the point well, especially in his responses to some outside commenters. Following is one quote: "Shaun Doyle responds http://creation.com/genesis-gospel
Please also see Common ground with old-earth creationists?, which provides a counterbalancing perspective to the one offered in this article. I agree that the secular view of origins is the opposite of what the Bible says, but this does not mean that everyone who believes it has rejected the gospel. Please also see the related articles section, which expands on the issues briefly discussed in this article.
Let me also add that I empathize with you. I came from a non-Christian home, and the major stumbling block stopping me from becoming a Christian was Genesis 1–11. Basically, I thought that the Bible was so obviously wrong on basic history that anything else it had to say was utterly irrelevant. So, God made me a biblical creationist before He made me a Christian because that's the way it had to be for me. As such, I have always been perplexed at why Christians would bother trying to marry the Bible with deep time; it seems so obviously fruitless to me that it would be a waste of time. Nevertheless, I can see that many genuine Christians do just that."
Posted in: Genesis - Again!
Ken, no need to begin insulting me. It will not help your case. "I have not been paying attention."? While its true that it takes some time to digest another person's comments, I am indeed paying attention, and my comment was made quite light-heartedly, just as yours was earlier about my supposed propensity for assuming everything happened quickly. Nor do I claim that the laws of nature have ever changed; only our perception of them, and how they apply.
Have you ever read Walt Brown's book, "In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood." He looks only(almost only) at scientific principles, mathematics, physics in terms of evaluating his hypothesis. Even supposing he was not entirely accurate in every aspect, since after all he is pieceing together something by extrapolation, he provides a new way of looking at the geologic evidence.
About plate motion, as I said before, (were you paying attention...:o) ) present rates of something are not indisputable indicators of what happened in the distant past. We cannot do this with automobiles, with technological advancement, and probably not with plate tectonics. If we only used present rates of observation, we would not come up with theories of hundreds of belts of ancient volcanoes consisting of hundreds of individual volcanoes and vents each, in the Canadian Shield area.
You said: [quote] We know what temperatures and pressures are required to produce various minerals, and therefore at what depth they formed, which in turn determines the thousands of feet of rock that would have to be eroded away to expose them. [/quote] You are merely assuming that there is only one way to form the temperatures and pressures to produce various minerals; this is your blind spot. Even the fact that you produced them in a lab would indicate that there are other ways of doing this, but you cannot conceive of other circumstances, so you assume they do not exist. Your uniformitarian paradigm is worn like a pair of blinders, methinks.
You said, [quote]formation of metamorphic rocks and huge igneous rock bodies does not occur at the surface, [/quote]
but, wikipedia and others disagree, "Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava. Igneous rock may form with or without crystallization, either below the surface as intrusive (plutonic) rocks or on the surface as extrusive (volcanic) rocks " wikipedia
You said: [quote]We know that there is no radiogenic daughter product in a mineral or rock at the time it forms from magma, and when one half-lfe has elapsed, the ratio will be 1:1 [/quote]
If this were as simple as it sounds, then using the K-Ar method to detect age of basalt formed by a recent volano would not be a problem. However, as you earlier admitted, some non-radiogenic product (presumably the same isotope indistinguishable from the radiogenic) was also trapped in the basalt (igneous). So your statement is misleading. Its presumption appears to be incorrect.
From Roger Wiens(Los Alamos, NM), "Although potassium-argon is one of the simplest dating methods, there are still some cases where it does not agree with other methods. When this does happen, it is usually because the gas within bubbles in the rock is from deep underground rather than from the air. This gas can have a higher concentration of argon-40 escaping from the melting of older rocks. This is called parentless argon-40 because its parent potassium is not in the rock being dated, and is also not from the air. In these slightly unusual cases, the date given by the normal potassium-argon method is too old". "
The assumption is that these cases are unusual.
Posted in: Genesis - Again!
Allen, "that's silly" you say. I think you need a better justification than that. God's foolishness is greater than the wisdom of men... did I get that right? Does silly include people who restore old automobiles to look like new? Or young actors who play old people? What's the definition of silly? Maybe the apparent age of the universe is old to us because we are not using the right glasses. But, besides that, even if the universe was old, does that prove evolution? In the theory of evolution, they are tied together. But an old universe could exist without biological evolution.
Faith in God is the first thing that many people call silly. Are they right?
Posted in: Genesis - Again!
The ark apparently was big enough for those animals that needed to be on it, plus the feed they needed, particularly if most animals were in the form of baby animals. One example of an ancient fossil was the coelanth fish. Ancient in the fossil record. And it still exists today, ocassionally caught in fishing boats in Asia. So perhaps you could also say it is a modern animal. Question, why would you find mammal fossils in the same location as reptile dinosaurs? Or why would you find swimming reptiles such as alligators or snakes in the same place as land reptiles?
Posted in: Genesis - Again!
Allen, I'm antagonistic towards the use of the word "silly". I just think it is important to keep in mind the fact that many people would claim that for Jesus to feed 5000 men (plus women and children) with five loaves and two fish, would just be plain silly.
When we measure two distant objects by the angle of difference, and calculate their distance and thus the age of the light we are observing, it would seem to be silly to say that they are younger than 10,000 years. Perhaps so, but perhaps also there is a reason we do not yet know. This reason may be "miraculous", or it may be a phenomena not yet known or understood. There are some aspects apparently about the expansion of the universe for example which are difficult to measure in terms of estimating events of the past.
I don't think God threw in dinosaur bones to throw us off. But it is possible that the assumption about the age of these dinosaur bones is way off.
Bottom line is that dinosaur bones do not prove maco-evolution.
Posted in: Genesis - Again!
Laughing at the idea of separate creation of species is an emotional reaction rather than a scientific reaction. It's like laughing at the theory of evolution. Blind tolerance is not the opposite of laughing; that is the non-sequitor.
You are right that the issue is not really about whether people are nice about other ideas; its about whether the ideas are true. But if your identity is wrapped up in an emotional attachment to the theory of evolution, then it will be difficult to retain perspective about whether any opposing ideas may have any merit.
Quote: "Yes. We have big brains and a desire to explain things - features that many people believe came from God. We use our brains to investigate the world around us, but, in so doing, we cannot assume a God.
This is because God is not controllable. You cannot do an experiment with God's involvement and without. But, by assuming no divine influence, we have been really quite successful in figuring things out. ie. Medicine, clean water, the nature of the solar system. We're good at this. Assuming a god did not work out - when we did that, people thought a chariot pulled the sun across the sky."
This is an interesting quote because it reveals what you believe. Why exactly is it that we cannot assume a God when we investigate the world around us? Based on what assumptions?
Maybe the fact that God is not controllable is the whole point. By not seeing that, it causes all kinds of problems for us. It causes us to assume that we can "control" the past. Generally that is not good experimental science (it tends to be called statistical survey, which gathers information, but always guesses at cause and effect) , and is the opposite of what most experiments require, which is to control or establish controls for the future of the experiment.
I do not see how assuming a God, stopped NASA from making it to the moon.
Evolution says nothing about God? I think it does. It disallows God's intervention. It relegates God to the blind watchmaker. And because it does not allow God's intervention, it is forced to conclude that God is really just a human invention, an idea, another natural outcome of the evolution of the human race, which atheist evolutionists are quite convinced we will eventually evolve out of the need for.
I work in science all the time. Soil Science, agronomy, plants, animals, environmental, research. I read abstracts of research from eight or nine professional journals regularly, and sometimes full length papers. I attend scientific conferences. Science is great! It is a great tool for learning and discovery. While my eyes glaze sometimes at advanced statistical analysis, I recognize it also as a great tool for making decisions about whether to accept a research conclusion or not.
I love nature too! We live on over four hundred acres of mixed vegetation land with several species of native trees, various grasses, reeds, cattails, deer, moose, mice, coyotes, numerous birds including a red-tailed hawk, dogs, cows, (no cats), garden, greenhouse, squirrels, woodpeckers, etc., etc. I enjoy nature and sometimes have to fight nature, snow, weeds, mosquitos.
So I understand natural explanations. But I do not understand how one can explain nature, and not understand God better.
Posted in: When Churches Lose Members
Causes for Decline in CRC membership.
Questions: We have membership numbers; do we also have attendance numbers? What if we have a bunch of members who are not Christians or do not attend, or Christians who attend, but are not members?
There are churches which are growing. Most of them have many more attenders than members.
In north America the crc has grown in the past on large families and immigration. Church has often been our social and cultural gathering. But it never should have been that primarily. It should have been the body of Christ first.
We should realize that sometimes the reasons people give for leaving the church, are not actually the real reasons they leave. Often the immediate reason at the time of leaving, is only the final straw, and the real underlying reasons almost become forgotten. However, here is a list of causes of decline as I see it, mostly put under the general category of not putting Christ first.
Potential Causes of decline:
In addition to the above potential causes, several things that might help, is to take the role of elder much more seriously. Elders should be spiritual, not administrative leaders, because if they are not, then how can one ever expect spiritually mature members? And if there are not spiritually mature members, how can they witness to their children or to others? Elders should practice their witness during worship, and model it to others. They should be spiritually strong before being chosen, and should be trained to be stronger after they are ordained. Weak elders make for a weak church.
The separation of a profession of faith from membership should be considered, so that a faith witness can take place without the stringent conditions required for a membership profession. The actual individual profession of faith, not just saying yes or no to some questions, is absolutely necessary for growing in faith and mutual accountability.
While a membership profession needs to agree to standards and confessions and scripture, mere agreement is not the essential revealing characteristic of faith. Faith transcends mere written statements, and goes directly to acknowledging a sincere relationship with God, with Jesus who died and rose, and with the spirit who lives in your heart. A simple “yes” to a written statement should not be asked for nor permitted (except maybe in exceptional circumstances). In my opinion, this is religiousity at the expense of faith, protocol at the expense of spiritual maturity.
Extreme caution should be exercised in having the church becoming “established”. Churches grow best when they are not too established, when they are not too cosy with government or with societal norms. Established churches, whether mainline or evangelical, seem to tend to decline or not grow when their missional focus becomes subject to societal standards or norms. For example, could we document in our church the number of hours and articles and paper we dedicate to making “safe churches” for children and handicapped or elderly, which is highly lauded by society, compared to the hours and articles dedicated to keeping our youth pure and protecting them from one another’s sexual advances. (which is not necessarily so highly praised by society, and yet sexual impurity is a greater cause of decline of faith and church, and eventually leads to unsafe churches as well).
Always ask, are we with scripture transforming the world, or are we being transformed by the world? The more we are transformed by the world, the less and less need or purpose there will be for the church. Christ is the head of the church; put Him first! And He will bless it!!
Posted in: Genesis - Again!
Don't worry too much about the insults. I can handle them (dish them out too, if necessary), but be gentle.... I just pointed out the effect of your comment.
Posted in: Classical Counsellors
Norman, you do not indicate whether the Presbyterian church was PCUSA or PCA. I have heard of big differences between them. That aside, calling a church vacant, when presumably there are several elders likely present, and there is a congregation present, seems presumptuous. Precisecly because the church is not vacant, but merely has a pastoral vacancy, is why each church needs to determine its own need for a counselor or advisor. The assumption that the only relationship or significance is between a pastor and a congregation is harmful, and does not recognize that there are significant relationships between various parts of the congregation, as well as between members and elders, and deacons, etc. It is not as simple as you make it sound. An overbearing counselor or interim moderator leads to an immature body of believers, never able to take on the tasks God has given them.
Posted in: Genesis - Again!
Thanks for your comment, George. It is appreciated.
Posted in: Genesis - Again!
For information on supposed "out of place" fossils, you can check out :
youtube.com/watch?v=lTWZJBXAZJA
This will give you an understanding of these fossils from an alternative perspective.
Posted in: Genesis - Again!
I find it very sad that the one who started this discussion thread is still missing. I hope he will be found, and pray that he may find hope again.
Posted in: Genesis - Again!
Shaun Doyle has written an interesting article on how christian evolutionists are sometimes simply erring brothers, rather than raging heretics or Christ deniers. The article is found on creation.com. Some others disagree with him, but he makes the point well, especially in his responses to some outside commenters. Following is one quote: "Shaun Doyle responds http://creation.com/genesis-gospel
Please also see Common ground with old-earth creationists?, which provides a counterbalancing perspective to the one offered in this article. I agree that the secular view of origins is the opposite of what the Bible says, but this does not mean that everyone who believes it has rejected the gospel. Please also see the related articles section, which expands on the issues briefly discussed in this article.
Let me also add that I empathize with you. I came from a non-Christian home, and the major stumbling block stopping me from becoming a Christian was Genesis 1–11. Basically, I thought that the Bible was so obviously wrong on basic history that anything else it had to say was utterly irrelevant. So, God made me a biblical creationist before He made me a Christian because that's the way it had to be for me. As such, I have always been perplexed at why Christians would bother trying to marry the Bible with deep time; it seems so obviously fruitless to me that it would be a waste of time. Nevertheless, I can see that many genuine Christians do just that."