To take the Cof E and the Scottish Presbyterians churches from 1800 to 1900
no OFFICIAL statement was made on the age of the earth but the vast majority
accepted geology from 1810 (if not before), up to 1855 less than 155 of Cof
E clergy were YEC. No Bishop was YEC.
However I suspect but have no evidence that sunday School teachers naively
were YEC without knowing they were and thus fixed yec sympathies at grass
root level
Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Clarke" <jdac@alphalink.com.au>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2001 11:31 PM
Subject: Re: Why?/Re: Answersingenesis
> 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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