Re: [asa] Fw: (aliens) November Newsletter from Reasonable Faith

Good one. You forgot Michael Roberts and Don Nield. But down South, we have an even more restrictive definition of alien, we consider anyone further North than Kentucky and Virginia and further West than Texas to be suspect. CA and NY and MA are definitely extraplanetary. To be honest, I am surprised that this is such a discussion point. I think gets to a much deeper distinction than just the age of the earth. YEC is just the symptom of a concordist, literalist theology usually associated with very conservative politics and a deep distrust of anything liberal (i.e. alien). Growing up, I never even heard of any other distinction of the age of the earth that anyone considered to be a true Christian faith. You were either Christian and believed the Bible or you were an evolutionist and never the twain shall meet. There existed some gray areas in between (Presbyterians) but most people just felt sorry for them. The first time I ever heard the terms YEC and OEC, I was 36 years old and living in New Zealand and that was when I read my first Hugh Ross book. My first thought was how scandalous this was that he believed the earth was old but still believed in the inerrancy of the scriptures. I had never imagined that such a position could even remotely be seriously considered. It really did change my life. By force of reason, it is one thing to have your literalist and concordist views of the scripture pried away from your cold dead fingers (nearly) but that doesn't necessarily mean that all the rest of their worldviews will automatically go along with it. In fact I have personally witnessed the conversions from YEC to OEC of hundreds of people with stories similar to mine above here through our RTB chapter and I think I would be hard pressed to find more than just a few who would seriously entertain the prospect of alien existence. It is just not in the evangelical and conservative Christian narrative. I don't know what planet you guys are from. In fact Hugh Ross has a book out about UFO's and he basically takes this position that all UFO sightings are either bunk or spiritual deceptions. I don't recall how he deals with the question of the existence of alien life specifically but I am sure he would load up the possibility with plenty of caveats of them all being subject to sin and the gospel constraints on earth which is almost the same as saying they don't exist. And he hails from Canada too which is Dave and Cameron's neck of the galaxy. Finally, from another thread it is humorous to hear Cameron finally understanding what many have told him along. YEC is the default Christian belief in the US. Many if not most on this list came from that although only a few will admit it. He acts surprised when he finds a former one. He should be surprised instead to find someone who grew up in a church in the US that was not YEC,. To my knowledge, I don't even know of any one like that. Most non-YEC testimonies are from people who grew up in secular non-religious homes like Hugh Ross for instance. To be totally honest I don't know of any church anywhere that openly teaches the universe was created at the Big Bang 14BYA still today. The best you can find is one that is open to it but they still keep it secret like talking about politics. John   ________________________________ From: Dave Wallace <wmdavid.wallace@gmail.com> Cc: ASA <asa@calvin.edu> Sent: Wed, November 18, 2009 8:01:52 AM Subject: Re: [asa] Fw: (aliens) November Newsletter from Reasonable Faith David Campbell wrote: I have heard of rejection of the possibility of aliens by non-YEC, but not with direct evidence on details. C. S. Lewis has discussion on the possibility of aliens; unfortunately I think the essays have received different titles. At any rate, he quite thoroughly refutes the claim that the gospel doesn't make sense in light of aliens. For that matter, Mark Twain recognized the error of that claim. To be pedantic, I assume you mean extraterrestrials as the USofA government considers Cameron, Murray, Gregory, Iain S, Steve Martin  and myself all to be aliens and we all do need Christ at least I do.  Appologies if I got anybodies nationality wrong.  Dave W :) To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.

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Received on Wed Nov 18 08:51:27 2009