Re: concordance & genesis (edited)

I don't think Jim E. ever related any conflict with
those within his church.

I think the list provided the agitation to rejected OE
position and that he found nothing to replace it with.

I am sure that scenarios that Michael outlines happen,
but Jim E. has never said that anything like that
happened to him.

--- Michael Roberts <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>
wrote:
> If I remember right Jim's transition from YEC to
> atheist took some six months. He firstly devised a
> rather inadequate OE position as if to stem the tide
> but still the slide went on.
> He may correct me but I guess that what happened is
> that as he delved into YEC he found the flaws and
> possibly (like me at L'Abri with ole F Schaeffer)
> was a bit abrasive - understandably. Members of his
> church and possibly his pastor accused him of being
> unspiritual or whatever spiritual language they used
> to cover up their bigotry and this accelerated the
> process. With little spiritual support and being
> unable tofind an alternative of YEC or atheism he
> chose the latter. Perhaps all members of his church
> deserve millstones round their necks.

I guess that would be all of us on the listserve --
including you and I -- since our discussions did not
provide him anything to replace his OEC position with.
 
> After all if as YECs like Ham, Mackay and Morris
> love to say if you are not YEC you dont believe in
> the biblical God then it is not surprising that some
> people reject what they see as the biblical God.

I guess we are guilty too of tearing down YEC in our
discussions and not replacing it with an alternative.
What do you suggest that WE do about it so we don't
push OECers who are committed to that "biblical" God
into atheism, or is that okay if we do it since we are
doing a positive thing by disabusing them of their YEC
views?
 
> Perhaps we would be better off in the diocese of New
> Hampshire than having a YEC pastor.

I don't think Jim ever had a YEC pastor. But would he
be better off with a YEC pastor and still a believer
than here, where he became an atheist because list
members told him in exquisite detail that his position
was untenable, without generally replacing it with
anything positive?

Of course, that probably depends on the state of Jim
E's relationship to God in his OE position. I tend to
think Wally's speculation about that is right. I
think to the extent one wants to rant about YEC, one
has to rant at one's self on this list, since this
list did nothing to help Jim see another point of
view. It apparently tore apart his current view and
replaced it with nothing. Sort of a like a number of
theology profs I have seen at various schools who
attack naive faith in the freshman classes, but don't
really offer anything else on instead.
 
> I now wait for the fallout from theright side of the
> pond!!

Having tried to discuss some of these issues with JimE
at the time off list and hearing nothing of the sort
of gratuitous tendentiousness in this post, I think
the rant against mythical YEC pastors in this
particular instance reminds me a lot of the log in my
own eye.

> Michael
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: wallyshoes
> To: Sheila Wilson
> Cc: asa@calvin.edu
> Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 4:21 PM
> Subject: Re: concordance & genesis (edited)
>
>
> Hi Sheila.
> I am posting at the top because my system does not
> allow me to interject in the middle of some posts.
> It has to be at the very beginning or the very end.
>
> Perhaps you did not see all of Jim Eisele's posts
> in the past. He is an excellent example of what
> Glenn Morton points out. The transition from YEC to
> atheist is one that happens a lot. Since the YEC
> focus is on certain interpretations of the old
> testament, many of them never really knew what
> Christianity was all about (i.e. the relationship
> with Jesus Christ). Jim strikes me as such a person.
> His faith had to be based upon some distorted view
> of the OT in order for that faith to survive.
>
> At present, Jim is just an atheist. As such, he
> sees only the shadow world of mind and body and has
> zero understanding of the spiritual nature of men
> and women. There is no chance that he can understand
> many of the wise observations that you make (IMO).
>
> Though there are such atheists in the world, I
> often recall my mother's wisdom:. "nobody is
> completely worthless. A person can always be a bad
> example." ;)
>
> From YEC to atheist is not unusual and often is
> the path that God chooses to replace a "house of
> cards" religion with that of a better relationship
> with God ---- per C, S. Lewis in "A Grief Observed."
>
>
> Walt
>
>
>
>
>

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing.
http://photos.yahoo.com/
Received on Mon Dec 15 13:22:19 2003