In addition, by changing Sunday Schools -- which usually involves changing
churches -- you teach your daughter that that's the way to handle disputes
among Christians. We Christians need to learn to disagree civilly, and to
balance benefits against risks. If your church generally has sound teaching
and good fellowship, it's not going to benefit you and your family to walk out
-- and more importantly, it's probably not what the Lord wants either. Your
daughter needs to learn that teachers are human and not every teacher is going
to be correct on every point. The same goes for her science teacher of course.
If he's teaching the science of evolution, fine. If he's bundling in
philosophical conclusions ala Richard Dawkins, then it's time to point this out
to the school authorities. I've attended the same Evangelical Presbyterian
(EPC) church for most of 23 years, except for a couple years when I helped
start a new church plant. During most of that time there has been a pretty
strong creationist ontingent in the church. My sons went through the entire
Sunday School program and were subjected to some creationist teaching. But they
went to Calvin and Wheaton Colleges, where any illusions about the validity of
creationism were corrected. Yet they are still on good terms with their Sunday
School teachers, some of whom (probably most of whom) are creationists. It's
important not to let disagreements on peripheral issues poison relationships
with other Christians. Of course if they are hard-core ICR types they will
insist that their version of creation is not a peripheral issue. There's not
much you can do with those folks except to limit the subjects you discuss with
them.
Bill Hamilton
William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
248.652.4148 (home) 248.821.8156 (mobile)
"...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31
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Received on Fri Jan 5 23:45:28 2007
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Fri Jan 05 2007 - 23:45:28 EST