I don't know who's still reading this thing, but I have a problem that I thought I'd address here (as fewer people know about this site). At one of my places of employment, someone has set up a chapel on the topic of Creation, actually it's called "Creation/Evolution: What's it all about" or something like that. Seeing something like that, my back goes immeadiately up. I get nervous and I have visions of sweaty, oily-haired men calling science "mumbo-jumbo" and making ridiculous claims about atheistic conspiracies.
I looked a little closer at the poster and, to my deep embarrassment, I have the distinct impression that that's what this is going to be. The speaker is from an agency called Creation something or other. Already that's a problem in my books. Only one speaker means only one point of view presented. That's irresponsible in my opinion and strikes me as anti-intellectual. In Christian circles the idea of a literal 7 day creation is not universally held. I think such an event makes our Christian institutions look closed minded and reactionary - like those who continued, after the Copernican revolution, to insist that the sun revolved around the earth. Yes, there are problems with the theory of evolution. Yes, those problems should be pointed out. But are there any fewer problems with the idea of a God making everything in 6 24 hour days (despite the sun not being created until day 3 or 4) and then taking a nap?
Probably my main problems with such presentations is, firstly, that they misappropriate the book of Genesis and try to make it something it's not meant to be: a science textbook or a modern history. You might as well try to diagnose heart failure using a romance novel. Genesis was written to give a group of illiterate farmers and sheepherders security that there was a God who thought about them, who cared for them, that they mattered. It was never intended to be a blow-by-blow chronicle or a documentary on the exact way the earth came into being; it was a story to make sense of the world to those people.
My second problem is the underlying (sometimes not so underlying) assertion that evolution is the reason for fewer people believing in God. Actually, I think that Christians insisting that their version of reality is correct, despite the face of scientific evidence and continual reworking needed to make that story make sense might have something to do with it. I don't think convincing people of 7 day creation is akin to sharing the gospel and sharing the love of Christ.
I looked a little closer at the poster and, to my deep embarrassment, I have the distinct impression that that's what this is going to be. The speaker is from an agency called Creation something or other. Already that's a problem in my books. Only one speaker means only one point of view presented. That's irresponsible in my opinion and strikes me as anti-intellectual. In Christian circles the idea of a literal 7 day creation is not universally held. I think such an event makes our Christian institutions look closed minded and reactionary - like those who continued, after the Copernican revolution, to insist that the sun revolved around the earth. Yes, there are problems with the theory of evolution. Yes, those problems should be pointed out. But are there any fewer problems with the idea of a God making everything in 6 24 hour days (despite the sun not being created until day 3 or 4) and then taking a nap?
Probably my main problems with such presentations is, firstly, that they misappropriate the book of Genesis and try to make it something it's not meant to be: a science textbook or a modern history. You might as well try to diagnose heart failure using a romance novel. Genesis was written to give a group of illiterate farmers and sheepherders security that there was a God who thought about them, who cared for them, that they mattered. It was never intended to be a blow-by-blow chronicle or a documentary on the exact way the earth came into being; it was a story to make sense of the world to those people.
My second problem is the underlying (sometimes not so underlying) assertion that evolution is the reason for fewer people believing in God. Actually, I think that Christians insisting that their version of reality is correct, despite the face of scientific evidence and continual reworking needed to make that story make sense might have something to do with it. I don't think convincing people of 7 day creation is akin to sharing the gospel and sharing the love of Christ.
posted by Michael | 8:29 p.m.
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