Re: A case for Christianity that does use ID or YEC arguments

When involved with dialogues regarding creation theology, I attempt to paint the perspective that the primary theological viewpoint is "God is responsible for creation" and the secondary is "how God created." I further point out that the secondary does not impact one's salvation experience (with one exception: I did not utter these words to a co-worker who believes that humans were initiated by extra-terrestrial beings).

Some literary YEC works seem to equate creation belief with salvation--a tactic similarly used by the KJV-only crowd. Such an approach, combined with character assassinations and societal impact propaganda, appears to be an attempt to frighten people into believing the defended point of view.

-Phil
>
> --- John W Burgeson <jwburgeson@juno.com> wrote:
>
> Indeed, to the extent that character assassination
> occurs at all, by anyone, it is not in concert with
> christian teaching or our Lord's admonitions on the
> subject.
>
> Michael perhaps is too quick with the witticism. At
> least two premises inhere in his binary choice 1) that
> atheists can be at least as ethical to the extent that
> ideally christians can be through the transformation
> of the Holy Spirit as a follower of Jesus (a subject I
> will not touch with a proverbial ten foot pole); and
> 2) that YEC and character assassination (i.e.,
> departing from Jesus' and church teachings on the
> subject) go hand-in-hand. As Burgy points out, they
> do not.
>
> Moreoever, as I am sure everyone can agree, being
> simply mistaken about creation makes no difference as
> to whether one tries to be a (nonetheless unworthy)
> servant of God. Lots of pious saints have been at
> least partially mistaken about the how of creation.
> Moreover, I have no doubt that we all are at least
> *partially* mistaken about the how of creation. That
> fact affects the extent to which we are, inter alia,
> transformed by the Holy Spirit, "saved", or bear
> fruit of the Spirit not one jot, iota, or tittle.
>
> Thankfully, we don't have to think in overly
> simplistic binary categories which mask other *real*
> differences between worldviews and praxis that cannot
> be blithely dismissed.
Received on Thu Feb 5 13:53:00 2004