RE: What do I mean by the word "won?"

Glenn Morton wrote:
> I don't care what meaning Burgy puts on 'won' and I don't care whether
> or not anyone takes his posts seriously. He is right. The ASA can crow
> all they want about their position and their influence. Frankly on the
> issue of evolution, we are losing the churches. Like it or not, the
> churches which teach YEC are growing. Those that don't are shrinking in
> attendance. That means the the next generation belongs to the YECs.
> ...

and Jim Armstrong wrote:
> I would suggest that a big contributor to this situation and trend is
> the hesitancy by many pastors to define a position from the pulpit.
>
> One reason is simply a matter of being sufficiently personally informed
> so as to be able to state and defend an ancient world view with a
> measure of confidence.
>
> But there is also the issue of divisiveness. There is little pastoral
> hesitancy if one has a strong YEC position. You just follow the literal
> word with no acknowledgement of scholarship on the matter.
>
> But in many churches, were the pastor (or other leadership) to suddenly
> embrace publically an ancient creation, there will likely be a mixed
> response from the congregation with uncertain results. Some notables
> throughout history have spoken to the ultimate cost of this type of
> abdication of truth-speaking, but it happens nonetheless, choosing
> instead to fry other fish.
>
> This sort of volitional apathy is a strong and constant ally of the YEC
> cause, which is more organized and vocal.
> ...

Bruce Milne, in "The Message of Heaven and Hell - Grace and Destiny"
(ISBN 0-8308-2406-5, cf. my other post of today), emphasizes that Adam
must be taken as a historical person, rather than as a myth.

He writes: "... The idea of human solidarity and the resulting spread of
the effects of the fall to all humanity expressed in the genealogies of
Scripture are further extrapolations from the historical figures of Adam
and Eve and their primal act of disobedience. Yet it is on the
assumption of that human solidarity in sin that the glorious, benign and
universal counter-effect of Jesus' atonement is proclaimed in the New
Testament. He is the Second or Last Adam, undoing /for the entire race/
the malignant influence /upon the race/ of the first Adam (Rom. 5:12ff.;
1 Cor. 15:22f.). Introduce a differential in the degree of historicity
involved in the two figures, and the force of these basic New Testament
categories evaporates." (p.57, emphasis his).

As one who is convinced both of the fact of evolutionary common descent,
including humans, and of the historicity of Adam, I am having
difficulties with this argument of Milne's.

But is he a YEC? I doubt it, although he says that "The claimed
scientific difficulties are inconclusive. Blocher observes, ''The data
are fragmentary and the gaps enormous. [Even] supposing one nevertheless
accepts the current evolutionary sketch, nothing is easier than slipping
in a 'miraculous parenthesis'...'' ..." (p.56). Here, he is quoting
Henry Blocher, "In the Beginning" (IVP, 1984), pp.158-159. Blocher
published his French original, "Révélation des origines", in 1979. He
may be excused for not having been up-to-date - Milne, in 2002, cannot
be so easily excused! Is he exhibiting "volitional apathy" about today's
scientific difficulties? Is he afraid of the growing YEC power in the
evangelical churches?

Peter

-- 
Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
<pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution
"..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)