My proposal amounts to having "the evolutionists" take over the
churches" in the same sense that the geocentrists "took over the
churches" a few centuries ago.
I reiterate what I said below: Evolution is not to be the
central message that the church proclaims, to be raised to the level of
an unchallengeable meta-principle, or anything of the sort. But when
creation and related topics are dealt with in sermons, parish education,
&c, there are appropriate ways in which our scientific knowledge of the
world should be brought in.
If churches continue to picture evolution as an adversary of
Christianity then those who are opposed to Christianity will be only too
happy to take the proferred weapon and clobber the church with it.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
Woodward Norm Civ WRALC/TIEDM wrote:
> Methinks that the evolutionists are getting a little greedy.
>
>
>
>
> First they have taken over the public schools;now they want to take
> over the churches.
>
> Doesn’t the Separation Clause swing both ways?
>
> Norm
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Shuan Rose [mailto:shuanr@boo.net]
> Sent: Friday, April 05, 2002 2:43 PM
> To: glenn.morton@btinternet.com; Walter Hicks; gmurphy@raex.com
> Cc: Asa
> Subject: How to teach about evolution in the church. Was" Utley v
> Dawkins"
>
> Glenn Morton wrote:
>
>
> I am not sure that is why people become YECs. I knew the arguments for
> an
> old earth before I became a YEC. I became a YEC because my religious
> beliefs required it. The reasoning is that if God's word says this
> happened, and if we trust God, then we should believe what is written.
> Same
> reasoning goes to many other parts of the Bible such as, God's word
> says
> that Jesus arose, If I trust God, then I should believe that. The
> parallelism of this type of argument is why YEC arguments have force
> in
> Christianity. It is not merely a matter of knowledge. I know lots of
> YECs
> who know the arguments for an ancient earth--indeed, Allen knows them
> also--e.g. light from distant stars.
> And I might add that this misunderstanding is why so often our
> arguments
> fail to reach their target.
>
> Glenn, you are on target. The main reason people become YECs is not
> because they believe that creation science is superior, but because
> they believe that if Genesis is not literally true, then the entire
> Bible is a lie. Often they hear this from the their pastor, or some
> other chuch leader. Which leads to George's point:
>
>
> The best way to "deny others the tools" is for churches to incorporate
>
> evolution into thei theology, teaching, proclamation, & worship. By
> this of
> course I do not mean that evolution should be the heart of the
> church's message,
> that it should be considered an ultimate truth, or anything like that.
> But if
> people heard evolution being discussed in positive ways in the church,
> and if the
> doctrine of creation were presented with evolution in view, then
> children would
> learn to see it as part of a Christian understanding of the world.
> Then when
> they got to high school and some atheist biology teacher said (as was
> the
> experience of one of my parishoners) "Forget what you've learned in
> Sunday School
> - now we're going to learn how it really happened", their reaction
> would be,
> "What are you talking about? Evolution is how we learned it in Sunday
> School."
> In contrast, the way too many churches have dealt with this issue
> amounts
> to painting a target on their chests and then handing atheists a gun.
>
>
> I agree with George that the best way to counter what Walter Hicks
> described as "flagrant atheism, liberalism $ humanism taught in many
> public schools in my state" is to do a better job of teaching about
> evolution in church. Church leadersare often the problem here ,
> however. Quite a few are YECs or YEC sympathizers.Even if they might
> be inclined to teach positively about evolution, the issue is so
> controversial that leaders do not want to go into it. I know some YECs
> who are so committed on the issue that they are quite capable of
> instigating a church split over the issue.Not too many church leaders
> want to be accused of introducing " liberal, godless, apostate,
> evolutionistic" doctrine into the church.Those of us who are from a
> conservative evangelical background know what I am talking about.
>
>
> Shuan Rose
> 2632 N Charles Street,Baltimore MD 21218
> [410]467-2655
>
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