Re: [asa] Youth leaving churches because of old earth

Quoting Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu>:

> Individual congregations in some denominations, including Mennonites,
> will sometimes hold a YE position as semi-official.
>
> If this information is not accurate in any respect, I invite correction.
>
> Ted

Mennonites used to be a lot more rural in their congregational make-up than
they are now. Most urban Mennonite churches today (in this country) would
hasten to distance themselves from YEC views. Some of the old-order or Amish
probably would default to YEC to the extent that anything about "origins" would
be taught at all. Many Amish only educate their children through the 8th
grade -- enough to read the Bible before they give themselves full time to farm
& family. So to paint them as YECs in the same sense as the more extensively
educated anti-evolutionist crusading Christians may be a mis-caricature,
although if Amish were pressed to take a position on such issues, they would
probably default to what amounts to a YE position. But I'm not even certain
about this; liberal views are often found in surprising places.

I too, should qualify all this as possibly in need of correction. Even though
I do get around in Mennonite circles, I don't have any statistics about
anabaptists on this --if any even exist. My own urban (university setting)
Mennonite church would strongly register as "anti-YEC" to the extent that we
even bother to discuss the issue at all. It just isn't high on our radar of
things to be activist about. Even though we are far from alone in this, we may
still be more the exception since many Mennonite churches still retain some
rural conservative flavor. But even those probably also aren't going to make a
big issue of it. Perhaps the common theme for us anabaptists here is: the
quiet in the land. (would rather be seen with a hammer in hand than on a
signatory list for anti- or pro- evolution causes.)

--Merv

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Thu Aug 6 14:24:04 2009