Good question Graham. I wonder if HM and JW have navels?
My reading of writers on the pre HM period (Numbers, Moore, Ramm and
Livingstone) is that there was no institutional awareness that the age of the
earth was a fundamental issue amongst anyone except SDAs and Missouri
Lutherans. Most books on the subject would have argued either a "day age" or
"gap" perspective. Organic evolution was more widely seen to be an issue,
however. There was a lot of grass roots support for YEC though, possibly
because of the influence of the Scofield Bible, something that Numbers does
not really take into account, dealing with the more formal writings of church
leaders and thinkers. The grass roots support or sympathy for young earth,
flood geology, and anti-evolutionary ideas prepared the ground for Whitcomb
and Morris.
As to why evangelicals (in the broad sense) have become so prone to
irrelevancies as the KJV debate or YEC, I think the answer lies in the fact
they as individuals and as groups have become largely unable to distinguish
between the essential and the trivial. I shudder to think what the next issue
to plague us will be. The rise of support for "Christian Restorationalism" is
a matter for concern.
Jon
Graham Richard Pointer wrote:
> Another thing I was wondering- why has the YEC issue grown to become a
> major doctrinal matter? Before Henry Morris was specially created, were
> there many evangelicals who saw it as a fundamental issue of the faith on
> a par with the Virgin Birth and the Trinity?
>
> I wonder whether the Answers In Genesis site is linked to from many church
> sites.
>
> I wonder what will become the next big thing- until a couple of years ago
> I wasn't even aware of Christians who saw the KJV as the only valid
> translation......
>
> Graham
>
> ------------------------------------
> Graham Richard Pointer
> Dept of Physics and Astronomy
> North Haugh
> St Andrews
> Fife
> KY16 9SS
> Scotland
>
> http://star-www.st-and.ac.uk/~grp1
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