I've got to proofread better! For "geocentrists" read
""heliocentrists" in the 1st sentence here.
George
george murphy wrote:
> 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
>>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Apr 05 2002 - 16:40:09 EST