Sermon Video: In the beginning God - Genesis 1:1-2

Why did Moses write Genesis 1-3, and why did the Holy Spirit inspire him to do so?  The answer to that question isn't to satisfy modern Western reader's desires to know how and when God created, but rather to speak to the Ancient Near Eastern culture's thirst for the answer to the questions of who and why.  In the end, that's what Genesis will give us because it is about the relationship between God and humanity, and ultimately between God and his chosen people.  For them, the who was the same God who had led them up out of Egypt to Sinai, and the why they already were experiencing as God laid forth his covenant with them, building on the covenant with Abraham.

Is the earth 6,000 years old or 6 billion?  That's not a question Genesis is trying to answer.  Did God use evolutionary processes or not?  That's not on its radar either.  What we do find in Genesis 1-3 is the foundation to answer the most important questions of life: Who am I?  Why am I here?

The Climate Change denialism of Evangelicals will be damaging global Gospel witness for generations to come

 

It was painful, personally and professionally, to watch so many of my fellow Evangelicals (as well as Fundamentalists) in America deny the reality of COVID-19 in the face of ever increasing evidence.  It was also disheartening to hear fake 'cures' touted by some of these same voices while the readily available vaccine was rejected (as part of some global, even Satanic, conspiracy).  Having spent time in our area hospital praying with and for exhausted nurses, and having presided over the funeral of a fellow pastor and his wife who died on the same day of COVID, this lack of acceptance of basic facts and the nasty hostility toward doctors and scientists, has left a mark.  I won't soon forget it.  However, when it comes to the grand sweep of history, as traumatic and disruptive as COVID-19 was to the world for two plus years, it will one day be relegated to the history books along with such momentous moments as the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11.  Future generations will be unlikely to continue to hold the mostly politically motivated, fact denying, COVID-19 related actions of millions of American Christians against them.  Climate change is a different sort of beast.  Why?

The affects of COVID-19 are fast fading, wounds of this sort to the human psyche heal when the harms fade away, but the mounting affects of climate change are increasingly being felt.  If the predictive models are true, the ongoing cost will be upon the shoulders of billions of people throughout the world, and not just once, but over and over again with each successive drought, wildfire, flash flood, and hurricane.  COVID-19's impact lasted 2+ years, and we were all so tired of dealing with it, climate change won't have an expiration date, it will build and remain, year after year.  With widespread suffering, and the pain (as it always is with such things) felt more by the poor and powerless, the world will look to blame those who stood in the way of mitigating the worst of climate change's affects in the early decades of humanity's grapple with it, when decisive action might have made a big difference.  There will be plenty of blame to go around, China will receive some of it, but most will fall upon the West, America in particular, in part because only in America has there been widespread denialism and opposition to mitigating steps, even by private businesses. {In Europe, conservative parties disagree with liberal ones about how to mitigate climate change, not about the reality of it.}

To those on the outside looking in, it may seem curious that American Evangelicals/Fundamentalists have been so deeply and vehemently opposed to the scientific consensus regarding climate change {As if, by force of will, you can change facts}.  Four reasons for this stance stand out among others: 

(1) An anti-science attitude that dates back to the Scopes Trial {Young Earth Creationism paved the way for anti-science / anti-vaccine Evangelicals}

How exactly does one witness to those with a degree in science if your theology demands that they abandon generally accepted scientific conclusions on a whole host of topics in order to become a Christian?  This is a long standing issue, but one that has grown in recent years into outright hostility toward not only scientific facts, but those whose work revolves around science.

(2) An embrace of conspiracy theories, especially when they involve the U.N. {For example: An analysis of Rev. Danny Jones, "Is this Coronavirus a Sign of the End of the World?"}

When #'s 1 & 2 combine, we have the increasingly common acceptance of the notion that any scientific consensus is itself evidence of a conspiracy theory, something we saw manifested during COVID-19.  If 99% of global climate scientists agree that our current era's climate change is largely affected by human activity, that fact becomes a primary reason to oppose said consensus.  One of the reasons why is #4.

(3) A political viewpoint that declares that whatever 'they' support we must oppose, to the death. {The proper counter-point: Afraid of being called 'woke' or 'conservative'? Preach the Whole Counsel of God - Wisdom on this issue from John Piper}

We know this to be true: If the Republican party supported policies to combat climate change, and the Democrats (for whatever reason) opposed them, Evangelicals and Fundamentalists would be shouting their support of these policies to combat climate change from the rooftop, and thumping their chests about how important this is to God.  This is certainly not the only issue where we see the Church in America acting as if it has a Red wing and a Blue one, often to our shame.

(4) An in-our-lifetime eschatology that is convinced the End Times are upon us, thus negating any serious commitment to environmental conservation or protection.  If it is all going to be destroyed in the next few years, who cares? {This attitude disastrously applied to COVID-19: The Mark of the Beast isn't what you think.}

Yesterday I saw, for the first time, a meme from a pastor that proclaimed that climate change MUST be false because it violates the sovereignty of God.  A small amount of knowledge about world history will debunk this foolishness.  Humanity has been affecting the environment in which we live for thousands of years, mostly in a negative capacity.  North Africa during the time of the Roman Empire was a productive province, responsible for much agricultural production, things have changed.  God's power and control has not been diminished by this human impact on our world in the past, nor is it in the present.  

In the end, what is sorely lacking in much of the 'Christian' vitriol against the scientific consensus regarding climate change is a proper orthodox understanding of stewardship.  The Biblical narrative begins with stewardship in the Garden of Eden, but somewhere along the way segments of the Church in America decided that environmental stewardship was not our responsibility.  A biblical understanding of stewardship would also act as a check on the rampant consumerism, and disregard for the poort, that affects so much of the American Church, but alas it is a neglected theological imperative.

One hundred years from now, when communities the world over are grappling with the negative affects of climate change, those hoping to share the Gospel in them will have to respond to accusations such as this: "We are in this mess because of American Christians, why should we listen to what you have to say about Jesus?"

Young Earth Creationism paved the way for anti-science / anti-vaccine Evangelicals

Political tribalism is the foremost reason why millions of Evangelical Republicans are avoiding or refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, given our hyper-partisan cultural moment, it isn't hard to see why.  However, this particular manifestation of an anti-science attitude was made possible because for generations many of America's Evangelicals have been taught that the vast majority of the world's scientists, including medical doctors, geologists, astronomers, biologists, chemists, archaelogists, sociologists, and more are involved (whether or not they are aware of it) in a global Satan inspired (and/or led) conspiracy to hide the truth about the how and when of Creation.  It is assumed, and often boldly stated, that most scientists are atheists who hate God.  These scientists, as the conspiracy theory goes, falsify data, publish things they know to be lies, and seek to destroy the courageous few that try to get the truth out to the public.  I've heard this tale, many times, from many people, since my childhood.

There was no need to offer proof that Science was so corrupted, this was a theological conclusion, not one built upon indepentent facts.  This global cabal of Satan aiding scientists believe that the universe is old, far older than 6,000 years, and that life as we know it is the result of evolutionary processes.  In opposition, Young Earth Creationists, led by Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis, offer a starkly different viewpoint, one framed not primarily as a scientific debate (although they do offer a vast array of explanations and attemtped rebutals) but as a spiritual battle between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil.  Wether stated explicitly or not, there is a very strong implicit understanding that Science, and the vast majority of scientists, are evil.

If you begin with the premise that the vast majority of scientists are either evil, or beholden to evil, it won't be long before that attitude bleads out into other realms and has real world consequences.  In other words, Pandora doesn't stay in the box arguing about Creation, it spills out.

Previously to COVID-19, one of the most visible areas where, "they're all lying to you" anti-science beliefs came to the forefront was in denial of human caused Climate Change.  For example: The Globe Is Warming, But It’s Not Your Fault! by Dr. Alan White or Climate Change Hysteria—Is It Justified? by Ken Ham among many others from Answers in Genesis.  

Regarding COVID-19, like Climate Change in years previously, politicians are not causing an anti-science attitude (to make one from scratch would be no small task), they're merely riding the wave of one that has been building since the Scopes Trial in 1925.  

In the end, many American Christians, particularly Evangelicals, have been led to believe that they must make a binary choice.  Either the Bible is true, God is real, the universe is 6,000 years old, OR the Bible is a lie, God is dead, the universe is billions of years old.  Everything hinges on the age of the universe, the proposition is an All or Nothing, Either/Or.

But this forced choice is false, and dangerous, as we are now witnessing regarding COVID vaccination anger and outright hostility among a group of people who've been raised on the notion that Science is full of liars.  

There is a third, less traveled, choice: The Bible is true (but doesn't claim to be a science book), God is real as a matter of faith (for Science can neither prove or disprove God's existence), and the universe is billions of years old as far as we can tell from the evidnece at hand.  Science, in this middle position, although fallible and in need of correction when it is wrong, is a tool given to humanity by God when he made us in his image.

The binary choice is necessary when only ONE way of understanding Genesis, while taking it seriously as God's Word, is allowed.  This isn't a question of inerrancy, but of interpretation.  Those who see other possibilities, ones compatible with modern scientific understanding, are not negating or denying God as Creator, nor doubting his Word, rather they are open to the idea that our own certainty about how these ancient words were understood then, what their ultimate purpose was, and what they should mean to us today, may be misplaced.  What if Y.E.C. is not what Genesis is supposed to convey?  What if Genesis wasn't intended by God to give nearly as many answers as we've tried to find there?  What if we've been reading Genesis like history/science when in fact it is primarily a book of relationship (God to his Creation, God to people)?  

In the end, this fight isn't going anywhere, and the anti-science attitudes, now fueld by partisan politics, are likely to only grow more hardened and more violent.  Why did I back away from the Y.E.C I was taught in my youth?  I saw this trend coming, didn't believe that God intended his Church to be anti-science, nor beholden to conspiracy theories, so I sought more perspectives on Genesis that both honored God as Creator and Science as his gift to the human mind.

For some additional perspective on these issues: 

Christian Worldview self-destruction: A culture without Facts is a culture without Truth

Faith, Science, and Creation, is there a way forward?

And some helpful videos from Phil Vischer and the Holy Post:

Phil Vischer: A Brief History of Young Earth Creatinoism

Phil Vischer: Science vs. the Bible with John Walton

Phil Vischer: The Lost World of Adam and Eve, with John Walton

Phil Vischer: The Lost World of Adan and Eve, with John Walton, part 2

Christian Worldview self-destruction: A culture without Facts is a culture without Truth

 The trend away from general acceptance of the idea of universal Truth, with a capital "T", has been centuries in the making.  It was helped along by the individualism of the Enlightenment, even inadvertently by the stand against collective authority taken by Martin Luther.  While Truth was losing ground in the realms of ethics, philosophy, and religion, Fact (again with the capital letter) was gaining ground in a host of scientific endeavors through the Industrial, Agricultural, and Modern Medicine revolutions.  We, as humanity, knew with certainty more facts about the universe we inhabited than our ancestors could have imagined possible.  Their senses were limited to their own eyes, we could examine the world through both microscopes and telescopes.  Even if we were losing firm ground in the spiritual realm with the breakup of Christendom into competing Catholic and Protestant camps, and the splintering of Protestantism into still further groups, we were gaining a common understanding of objective reality that led, not without bumps along the way, away from Thomas Hobbes' description of life outside of society's embrace as 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.'  Life expectancy was on the rise, starvation and childhood death rates were plummeting, work was less back breaking, leisure was invented.  In short, aside from the rude wake-up calls of war and genocide, optimism was a warranted conclusion.

In this world of increasing scientific fact, there was an opportunity for religion, Christianity in particular, to trumpet God's proclamation that lying is beyond his nature.  In other words, Christianity should have embraced scientific discovery as a further revelation of God's nature.  The relation between science and religion, which could have been harmonious, was instead rocky.

Hebrews 6:17-18 (NIV) 17 Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. 18 God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged.

The Church made the mistake of viewing Scripture as a scientific journal rather than simply observational reporting.  The prime example is the way in which the heavens are described, the 'firmament' of Genesis 1, as it was observed by the ancients.  This was not a scientific description of what lay beyond earth's atmosphere, but only how it looked from where they stood.  Without telescopes, what more could they have known, and why would God have explained it to them in ways they could not have understood?  Thus when Copernicus and Galileo revealed through observation that the earth revolves around the sun, the Church should have welcomed this new insight, but instead insisted that Scripture declared that the geocentric model was correct.  Thus began a long and fruitless fight against scientific discovery that later encompassed numerous fields beyond astronomy, all fought misguidedly in the effort to defend things that holy scripture had not asserted.

Fast forward to 21st century American Evangelicalism (and to a lesser extent American Christianity in general).  The cause of objective spiritual Truth is seemingly at a nadir, long held moral beliefs are challenged forcefully by the culture at large, and what is the response of the Church?  A seemingly all-out assault on Fact.  Rather than defend Truth, American Evangelicalism has largely embraced a no-holds barred war against science.  It began, in earnest in 1925 with the Scopes Trial pitting an interpretation of the Creation account in Genesis against the theories of biology, but quickly expanding to hold that interpretation also against discoveries in archaeology, astronomy, geology, physics, and more as the defense of an earth that could be no more than 6,000 years old was seen as the Rubicon of scriptural inerrancy.  If Science is allowed to explain the origin of the universe and of life on earth, the war would be lost and religion would be discarded, so we have been warned with increasing fervor.

With what end result?  A significant portion of evangelicals now believe that the scientific community is engaged in a massive demonic conspiracy to discredit the Bible.  It is now common belief among many that your average paleontologist or astronomer is an atheist that hates God.   On the flip side, many of the West's most educated people have grown cynical about spiritual things in general, and Christianity in particular, in part because of this anti-science stance.  What we are left with is never ending trench warfare with evangelicals touting attempts to refute science through organizations like Answers in Genesis, a process that has inevitably become more and more political, less and less theological.

In recent decades this war over the Facts of Creation has expanded to touch upon other scientific discoveries.  Because millions of evangelicals look at science with disdain once reserved for Voodoo witch doctors, there is little wonder that an anti-vaccine movement has developed, that Climate Change is one of the most divisive political issues in America today, or that we now live in an era when a phrase like 'alternative facts' can be uttered with a straight face.

Is Science, if something so nebulous can be taken as a whole, blameless in all this?  Certainly not, one need not be a fan of Michael Crichton (I am) to recognize that human genetic engineering requires significant safeguard and raises massive ethical questions, nor to agree that recreating carnivorous dinosaurs would be a bad idea, if it were possible.  In virtually every field Science has ethical questions to answer.  As Crichton's character Ian Malcolm says in Jurassic Park, “Scientists are actually preoccupied with accomplishment. So they are focused on whether they can do something. They never stop to ask if they should do something.”  Here's the irony in all this, Science can't answer questions about what whether or not they should do something.  Those questions are ethical questions, and ethics lies in the realm of philosophy and religion.  Science NEEDS the spiritual realm to answers questions that go beyond the test tube, that are not answered by a peer reviewed study, but rather than act as a counselor and guide, much of American Christianity has treated Science as the enemy.

No matter what you believe about HOW God Created the World, the war on Science has already begun to boomerang. 

I know that many Christians are firmly convinced that only a literal 6 Day Creation occurring approximately 6,000 years ago can possibly do justice to Genesis.  {I've written about this issue previously: Faith, Science, and Creation, is there a way forward?}  If this is the only option, we are at an impasse, for scientific discoveries have not invalidated previously put forth theories about the age of the universe.  To continue in this stalemate is a lose-lose situation.  The more Facts are eroded by religion, and especially by the politics of the religious, the less and less trust will be placed upon Truth by the culture at large.  Facts and Truth are inextricably linked, you can't have one without the other.  Faith and Science NEED each other, whether either side is willing to admit it or not.

If there are no objective Facts that can be agreed upon, there is no Truth either.  On what basis will you build the case that the Bible is True while at the same time you preach that human beings cannot trust their own senses?  Radical empirical-ism, that each of us can only trust what we sense and no objective reality lies beyond our senses, is a death knell not only for any hope of a democratic republic, but of organized religion as well.  But that radical individualism is the foreseeable end result of a constant dismissal of Facts.  If Facts and Truth do not exist independent of us, but are rather subject to our will to believe or disbelieve them, they cease to have any useful meaning.

2020 has shown us the acceleration of this process.  Recently highly influential evangelical pastor John MacArthur has declared against a mountain of scientific evidence, "there is no pandemic", a statement that was met with thunderous applause by the 3,000 non mask wearing people in the sanctuary of his church.  Here's the problem, the virus doesn't care if you believe in it or not.  Science denial is now a political badge of courage, but this is not surprising, it was the next step in the ongoing assault on Fact by many Christians.

{John MacArthur fails to distinguish between necessary and unnecessary risk, plus End Times anti-government speculation}

{John MacArthur jumps the shark with COVID-19 response}

It doesn't have to be this way, we don't need to sow the seeds of our own destruction.  We can't have Truth without Facts.  When you assault one, you attack them both.  If Christians want to be people of Truth, they need to be people of Facts too.

For more on the topic of Truth and its relationship with Fact: 

The apparent blasphemy of My Pillow founder Michael Lindell regarding a COVID-19 'cure'.

2020 has taken the measure of the Church, and found us wanting

Why is the Truth treated like a second rate commodity? Life lessons from an ESPN article: Happy 59th! Or is it 58th? Cracking the mystery of Don Mattingly's birthday - by Sam Miller

Faith is not anti-fact, at least it's not supposed to be.

The ungodly growth of Holocaust Denial

Those are just the last two years, when you minor in philosophy the idea of Truth is never far from your mind. List of 37 posts on my blog about Truth

When Protestants and Catholics agreed: the sun revolves around the earth

Despite the mathematical proofs of the Greek mathematicians Pythagoras (580-500 BC) and Eratosthenes (276-194 BC), the later of whom calculated the earth's circumference within 2% by comparing the angles of shadows at different locations on the earth, it was still possible to find Early Church leaders hundreds of years later who rejected the notion of a spherical earth based upon references in the Scriptures to the "foundations of the earth, "corners of the earth", pillars of heaven", and the "waters above the firmament".  While the prevalence of those believing in a "flat earth" prior to Columbus is often over-stated by prideful modern people disdainful of the wisdom of the ancients, it is clearly true that some within the Church had theological reasons for doing so that had nothing to do with scientific observations.

Eventually the Church embraced the Ptolemaic system (Ptolemaeus AD 83-161) which continued to place the spherical earth at the center of the universe and posited ten concentric spheres which rotated around it containing the heavenly bodies.

"The geocentric model represented the best that science had to offer during the time when it was firmly held.  It was entirely consistent with both naked-eye observation and philosophy.  It was equally accepted and endorsed by both science and religion.  The problem is that while scientific conclusions are always tentative, the Christian Church - just as some did with the ancient cosmogony - decided to build an elaborate theological and scriptural defense of the geocentric model.  By failing to apply the lessons of the past, the church once again foolishly committed itself to a popular scientific theory supposedly based on the testimony of the Scriptures." (Gordon Glover, Beyond the Firmament: Understanding Science and the Theology of Creation)

In the 16th century, when Copernicus proposed that the earth and all the planetary bodies revolved around the sun, a theory which would soon be confirmed by observation's made by Galileo Galilei with the newly invented telescope, it became a theological issue rather than merely an astronomical one because the Church had previously decided that the Ptolemaic system had the support of Scripture.  Thus Copernicus and Galileo would eventually be condemned as heretics by the inquisition; a stain upon the reputation of the Church that remains to this day {Galileo was not officially rehabilitated by the Catholic Church until Pope John Paul II did so in 1992}.

Protestants might want to snicker at the following words of Pope Paul V in response to Galileo, but they might want to hold that thought.  "The first proposition, that the sun is the centre and does not revolve about the earth, is foolish, absurd, false in theology, and heretical, because expressly contrary to Holy Scripture.  The second proposition, that the earth is not the centre but revolves about the sun, is absurd, false in philosophy, and from a theological point of view at least, opposed to the true faith."

There were few issues of agreement between the leaders of Catholicism and Protestantism during the 16th and 17th centuries, the two sides couldn't even agree to present a united front against the ongoing threat of Ottoman invasions.  And yet, both sides had chosen to elevate the language of Scripture into the scientific realm, turning any contrary scientific observations and theories into challenges to Church authority and potentially heresy.

Martin Luther (1483-1546): "People give ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon.  Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best.  This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth." (Martin Luther, Table Talk)

Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560): "The eyes are witnesses that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours.  But certain men, either from the love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither the eighth sphere nor the sun revolves...Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious.  It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God and to acquiesce in it." (Philipp Melanchthon, Elements of Physics)

John Calvin: "We indeed are not ignorant, that the circuit of the heavens is finite, and that the earth, like a little globe, is placed in the center." (John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis)

With hind-sight, the words of these respected and often brilliant theologians seem both appallingly arrogant and exceedingly foolish, and yet they are a symptom of a larger problem that even those gifted by God to lead his Church can fall victim to: The Pride of Certainty.  I'm all for certainty in its proper place, without it we have only shifting sands and chaos.  We, as a Church, must be certain about the core tenants of our faith and the essence of the Gospel.  But what happens when we elevate other issues, other ideas and interpretations to the level of dogma and with disdain dismiss those who disagree with us as heretics?  In that case, not only does the Church suffer a lack of humility and grace, not only does it foster anger and divisions, but it also appears foolish to the Lost, to those with whom we are called to share the Gospel.

Consider, then, how the lesson of these futile attempts to deny that the earth revolves around the sun might be applied to the Church in our world today.  Let us take great care to distinguish between the Truth revealed to us by God's Word, a Truth that never changes and has no fear of knowledge and fact, and the interpretations and theories of men, however brilliant we might think them to be.

Faith, Science, and Creation, is there a way forward?

Something isn’t right in the modern western world in the interactions between Faith and Science.  We may not understand what the problem is, how it started, or how to solve it, but the tension is palpable, we can feel it.  Antagonism is the most visible interaction on the part of Christians (and/or those claiming to be Christians) with science, treating the two as mortal enemies, but we also see accommodation, a long-shot hope of wedding the two peacefully, and finally we see rejection, an attempt to pretend that science doesn’t exist or at least have anything useful to say.  This can’t be the way things are supposed to be, but are they the way they have to be?  Is there an option other than being enemies, part of a one-sided arranged marriage, or strangers?

                To trace the history of the relationship between science and faith is a massive undertaking, but one area in particular is a microcosm of the strange interactions between the two: Creation.  How did we get here, when, and why are universal and fundamental questions of humanity.  They have been asked and answered all over the globe since the beginning of recorded history in innumerable ways.  The people of Israel were given a definitive answer to the question of why in the book of Genesis: to fulfill the good pleasure and further the glory of God.  God created because God wanted to create, and beyond that, God created beings capable of interacting with him because he desired both love and worship from them.  As Christians, heirs to the philosophy/worldview of Judaism, we know why we are here.  We have a purpose and a direction given to us by faith.  Do we also know, from Holy Scripture, how and when?

                It was assumed that we did, that such questions had easy answers related to divine fiat in the not too distant past.  And then science came into its maturity and threw those assumptions into confusion.  Astronomy, archaeology, biology, chemistry, physics, and more have each taken a chunk out of the assumption that God created the universe, as we see it today, a few thousand years before the time of Abraham.  What then ought to be the response of faith to these assertions by science?

                Denial was the first response of the Church, beginning with Galileo and Copernicus, and denial still has a prominent role in various Christian responses.  These responses range from saying that the evidence proposed by scientists is wrong (either a claim of ignorance on the part of scientists who don’t understand their own fields, or a conspiracy theory by them to falsify their findings), to saying that the evidence is indeed what it is, but that the interpretation is wrong because the evidence itself is a ruse, a type of red herring, placed there by either God or the devil to lead non-believers astray.  In other words, the evidence is real that the universe is billions of years old, but it should be ignored.  In the discussion of Creation, a denial/aggression against science stance typically involves an attempt to take the text of Genesis “literally” (a word to be used with great caution in Biblical interpretation as it means different things to different people and is often abused as a cudgel against those who interpret a text differently), as in “literally six twenty-four-hour days”.  It also involves viewing the description of the six days of creation as a how-to guide explaining what God did and the order/time frame he did it in.  In this view there is no room for an old universe, no room for a Big Bang, and certainly no room for any type of evolutionary processes.  As Gordon Glover wrote in Beyond the Firmament, Understanding Science and the Theology of Creation, “If we raise our children to believe that supernatural explanations are in competition with natural ones, we are basically entrusting their salvation to ignorance and incredulity.” (P. 32) If Glover’s characterization of the various forms of denial offends you, keep reading and keep thinking.

                The second response of portions of the Church to the advancements of science in relation to Creation was accommodation.  If science says that the universe is billions of years old, the response is to find collaboration for that finding in the text of Genesis.  Thus Gap Theory and Day-Age Theory attempt to postulate an alliance between science and faith by molding the interpretation of Genesis to fit scientific theory.  So, rather than insisting upon a Young Earth like those antagonistic to science, accommodation allows for an old one, viewing either time gaps between various points in the story, or the “days” of Creation as the equivalent of eons.  Coupled with this interpretation are things like Intelligent Design and Theistic Evolution which preserve a role for God, behind the scenes as the architect, of the natural processes described by science.  Thus accommodation of Genesis with science no longer takes the text “literally”, but allows for both a Big Bang and Evolutionary processes, provided that God is the unseen force behind it all.  This might seem like a win-win scenario, one in which the text of Scripture still has something to contribute while science is not viewed as an enemy, provided that either Gap Theory or Day-Age Theory is a viable interpretation of the text of Genesis, an important caveat.

                The third response, ignoring what science has to say about the origins of the cosmos and humanity, is a self-defeating retreat that will be, at best, a Pyrrhic victory, like that of the Church over Galileo in 1633, a short-sighted decision whose negative consequences the Church continues to reap.

                But what if there is another option, one that retains a faithful commitment to the text of Holy Scripture and works within the framework of the plain meaning of the text, that treats it as God’s Word given to mankind according to his purposes (not ours), but that at the same time doesn’t promote an attitude of hostility to science, nor attempt to force them to exist in the same space, and also doesn’t resort to burying one’s head in the sand or yelling, “Not listening!  Not listening!”  For that to be the way forward, we would need to consider what the purpose of Genesis 1-3 was when it was written, how it was received by its original audience, and which questions it was intended to answer among our most common: How, when, and why.  In the end, it is possible that we can be more faithful to the text of Scripture by admitting that it answers everything we need to know about why (and who), but much less than we had assumed about how and when.

                Perhaps Genesis 1-3 is the story of how God gave the world its functions, taking it from formlessness to usefulness, and setting it up for humanity with God as its sovereign.  Instead of a how-to guide, the text of Genesis 1-3 can be viewed as a Cosmic Temple Inauguration (see John Walton’s The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate), one in which God assigns functions to things he had already created, assigns names to them, and then on the Seventh Day takes his “rest” with the Cosmos as his temple and mankind as his steward.  This viewpoint has the very positive aspect of being compatible with the viewpoints of those living in the Near East in the Ancient World, as most of the ancient accounts which still exist from that area/period involve the ordering of chaos into purpose by a god(s).  In that vein, the Genesis account is not different from them except in its understood assumption that only one God, the true God, is involved, and the clear lack of effort required by that God to make the Cosmos orderly, mere commands suffice to accomplish it.  To the people of Israel being led by Moses out of bondage, then, the story of Genesis would not be odd when compared to those told by the Egyptians or Babylonians except for its monotheism and the universal sovereignty claimed by God (as opposed to the typical local/shared sovereignty of the pantheon of gods).  In other words, perhaps God utilized a format for explaining humanity’s role/purpose that made sense to the ancient people he was telling it to rather than a format that would answer all of the questions asked of it by a naturalistic/materialistic society 3,500 years later.  That might seem like an easy point to arrive at, but human beings have a hard time setting aside their own worldviews in order to see things from the perspective of another culture or time period.  Modern human beings are so immersed in the post-Enlightenment naturalistic worldview of an ascendant science that we by default view ancient documents through our interpretive lens without even knowing it.

                Why would God choose to focus upon the functionality of the Cosmos in the account given to Moses rather than an explanation of the material origins of the universe?  Most importantly, it fit his purpose, which was not to share with his people how he created the Cosmos, but why.  When Job asked God for an explanation which his experience of injustice certainly seemed worthy of, he wasn’t given one, in part because God told Job that he did not have the capacity to understand the answers to his questions.  The collective human wisdom of modern science has scratched the surface of answering questions of how and when, and much remains beyond our grasp; in what way would a materialistic/scientific explanation be possible or even useful to those who lived 3,500 years ago?  When God brought his people out of Egypt with signs and wonders, he didn’t bother to explain to them how he turned Nile to blood or where the plagues of locusts or gnats came from.  How was immaterial, why was the key; they were signs of God’s power and warnings to Pharaoh.  The purpose of being told that God is responsible for an event in history (like Creation or the Plagues upon Egypt) is so that humanity can recognize God’s power, submit to his authority, and worship him.  The purpose is not to satisfy our curiosity, to answer all of our questions, or to convince the skeptical, as if God’s revelation of himself to us has to be on our terms; the “gap” between God’s proclamation (revelation) of his activity and our own understanding of it is the place filled by Faith.  If answers to our questions are available, that’s fine, but we don’t need them when we put our trust in the faithfulness of God.  We don’t need to know how and when if we know who and why.

                If Genesis is indeed not an attempt by God to explain how/when he created the Cosmos, including humanity, it leaves Christians free to accept scientific explanations if they prove plausible, and if those explanations are later refined or rejected thanks to new evidence or new theories, to not have that process impact our faith.  Faith is no longer on defense against science, forever trying to fend off its attacks, nor is it endlessly trying to accommodate science, hoping to be able to squeeze the latest developments in numerous scientific fields into the sparse text of Genesis 1-3.  Christians are thus free to focus upon the most important question: Why did God create us, however and whenever he did so, and what does that tell us about the purpose of our lives?  God is still the ultimate cause, God is still the intelligence behind the natural laws set up by his hand and maintained by his will, and God remains the final destination of each human soul.  Science cannot answer questions of why, it never could and it never will.  Philosophy and Religion are not scientific fields, they seek to answer questions beyond the materialistic realm of science, questions that cannot be verified or disproved by experimentation.  These are the questions which have been of the utmost importance to humanity throughout the ages.  Our ancient ancestors in the faith, the children of Abraham, had comparatively little scientific knowledge to work with, but it did not impact their ability to be a people of faith, dependent upon God and in obedience to his will.  Today we know many things about how the natural world works, but the truly important questions remain dependent upon revelation from the spiritual realm.

                Faith and Science are not enemies, nor are they bosom buddies, and they don’t have to be strangers; they answer different questions in different ways.  Science can make our lives better, faith makes our lives meaningful.  Science can fix some of the problems that humanity has brought upon itself, faith can fix humanity itself.   Science can expand what we can do, faith can tell us what we should do.   Science if forever learning and growing, faith rests upon a bedrock of Truth that stretches back beyond Abraham and calls us to live righteous lives by faith just as did our ancestors in the faith. 

Sermon Video: The Foolishness of the Cross - 1 Corinthians 1:18-20

The Message of the Cross, that is the Gospel message about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, has always been foolishness to those who don't believe it.  In the first century, it was the shame of dying upon a cross that Paul had to overcome, and while that connotation has been replaced by the much more positive symbolism of the cross following the triumph of Christianity within the Roman Empire, the message itself still remains hard to accept.  Why is that?  It isn't the message, per se, but what the message requires of us.  To accept the Gospel, we must first admit our own failure and allow God to save us from our sins.  The problem with this step is of course human pride.  It is an act of humility and submission to bow before Jesus Christ, and plenty of the Lost are unwilling to countenance that step.
The difficulty of the Gospel message raises an important question about the relationship between faith and reason.  Do we arrive at faith through reason or do we abandon reason in order to have faith?  While there have been famous Christian philosophers who embrace their God given reasoning ability in service to their faith, there have also been Christian theologians who reject the use of philosophy in connection with theology.  In modern American Christianity, those rejecting the role of reason in faith evidence an anti-intellectualism that in particular tends to despise science.  It is not, however, all wisdom that God thwarts, only that of the world that in opposition to God, his people ought to be using their God given reason to serve his kingdom.  It is true that we do not arrive at faith by reason alone, nor is it true that faith ought to be devoid of reason, when we understand our faith properly it has reason as a partner.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Ancient Words Ever True...

I was listening to the song Ancient Words in the office today, considering the words of Peter in Acts 4, and pondering the book, The Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch.  Where did all of that lead me?  The Reformation (in conjunction with the Renaissance) was a difficult time for those who wished to respect ancient traditions.  If you wanted to revere all the wisdom of the ancients, you had to deny the observations of men like Copernicus and Galileo in favor of men dead for two thousand years like Aristotle and Ptolemy. 
If instead, you opened up the wisdom of the ancients to doubt, even ridicule, how could you hold the line and protect the Orthodox faith from those who would deny the Trinity (for example)?
For us, the answers seem easy: Copernicus was right and that doesn't say anything about Biblical interpretation, it's just an observation from the natural world.  It wasn't so simple at the time.  We, as supposedly enlightened modern thinkers, may scoff at the foolishness of our forefathers, and shake our heads that they ever burned "witches" at the stake; but the question should be, "Are we any better?"
Take a look around the world we live in.  It has become the accepted belief in the Modern West that a human embryo can be disposed of with not a bit of care, and even an ironic moral outrage at those who would seek to "force" a young girl to give birth to the child growing inside of her.  It has also become the accepted belief in much of the Modern West that any and all variations of sexuality, co-habitation, and separation are equally valid.  That nobody has the right to tell anyone else that their choices are wrong.
Does it really seem so funny that men in the 16th Century were troubled that Copernicus was claiming the earth revolved around the sun?  In reality, humanity hasn't "advanced" much at all over the last five centuries.  We may know more stuff, and have a lot more widgets and gizmoes to entertain ourselves, but our moral state is just as deprived as the day Luther became troubled with Paul's insistence on fallen humanity in his letter to the Romans.

"They never stop to ask if they should do something"

Those are the words of Michael Crichton expressed through the character of Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park.  Malcolm is explaining his objection to the creation of dinosaurs by Hammond's scientists by insisting that the only type of questions science can answer are whether or not something is possible; never whether or not something is right.  One of the themes throughout Michael Crichton's writings is that science is a tool like any other.  When put in the hands of people with evil intention, it can cause grave consequences.  In this he is most correct.  The same could be said of politics, economics, psychology, and a host of other disciplines.  The thing that sets science apart is that in the modern world it can clearly lead humanity down paths that endanger us all without 99% of the world even knowing it.  Our latent fear of science, as evidenced in countless science fiction novels, comics, and movies comes to life more and more as new breakthroughs are announced on a regular basis.
I wrote recently that we need both faith and science.  The complete lack of morality within the scientific process is another reason why.  The Christian needs to utilize both science and faith, and the scientist certainly needs to let faith enlighten his/her decisions as well.  Faith certainly can enlighten science on issues related to the sanctity of life; not only life between conception and birth, but also quality of life issues and end of life issues.  There have been recent articles explaining that a "reliable" test to determine if a child will likely have Down Syndrome is now available.  Can science really be expected to see the value in the life of that child and not simply encourage frightened parents to abort? 
Added to the mix of moral ambiguity surrounding science is the pressure that many researchers are under to make their efforts pay off financially.  Science cannot possibly make moral choices when dollar signs are the determining factor.  It may seem naive to try to contain the influence of money in the realm of scientific research, especially when other less scrupulous countries would do research that scientists of conscience balk at, but if we give up and don't even try to instill a Christian morality in the research lab and medical facility, what will prevent us from walking down the paths that the late Michael Crichton's fiction spoke of?

Faith or Science: Choose Both

I saw that statement on a billboard this week.  (It was an advertisement for Calvin College, a Christian Reformed college in Grand Rapids)  The question is, are faith and science at war with each other, indifferent, cooperative, or something else?  There are some who believe that science and faith occupty different spheres so that neither of them has much to say about the other.  Another thought is that faith and science are in a perpetual war with each other, when one gains, the other loses.  The idea that the billboard was striving to promote is that faith and science, when both are functioning properly, are actually partners.  Which is it?

To the Christian, the only real answer is the last one.  If faith and science have nothing to do with each other, both would  be diminished.  Faith wouldn't offer any help in many areas of life, and science would be left hollow and purposeless.  If they are at war with each other, we are doomed to either a faith that is not based in reality or a science that has no knowledge of God.  Neither of these choices is acceptable.

Because God created the world, including us, the study of science is ultimately the study of the handiwork of the Creator.  As such, it is not a threat to faith.  Likewise, faith enables science to answer the "why?" questions that would otherwise elude it.  In the end, both faith and science are enriched when viewed together.  Why then do we have such constant tension between the two?  The answer is simple, there are plenty of people on both sides working to keep it that way.  There are people of faith who shun knowledge, and people of science who belittle belief in anything beyond our senses.  Will it be easy to create harmony between faith and science?  No, but it is necessary.  Christians have nothing to fear from science, our world is God's creation, the laws that govern it are his own.