Salad bar Christianity! Pick what you want?

You can’t just pick and choose what you want.    by Gary Bates

Sometimes Christians treat the Bible’s doctrines like a ‘salad  bar’, where they can choose the nice doctrines, like loving one another,  but avoiding controversial or tough issues like Genesis creation. One of the  major reasons CMI exists is to overcome objections raised by the world that  the Bible is not trustworthy in its historical account. And not just in the  area of origins and Genesis creation, but even whether the miracles recorded  by the Old Testament writers, and those attributed to the Lord Jesus Christ,  could actually have occurred. All of this history was recording the fact that  God was separating a nation for Himself, from which, ultimately, the Savior  of the world would come.

And this skepticism of the Bible’s history is on the increase. The skeptics  try to find holes wherever they can. But if we can demonstrate that the foundation  for their skepticism—their interpretations of facts and data—are wrong,  what does that do to their ‘faith’?

Alarmingly, it is not just the skeptics. An increasing number of militant  professing Christians are aligning themselves with the atheists. When we receive  their emails they are often citing ‘evidence’ produced on the specifically  anticreationist sites like Talk Origins etc. A major and growing compromised  view is that of theistic evolution. That is, actually believing that God used  evolution over billions of years. This is worrying because this view accepts  virtually all of the interpretations of secular science including the view  that the geologic column is not only a record of slow gradual deposition of  sediments on the earth, but that it represents a record of the biological evolution  of organisms from a common ancestor (turning bacteria into biologists). It’s  odd that this view is growing, despite this being a time when believers have  more access to good solid creation teaching than ever before. It would be fair  to say we now have a wealth of resources in virtually every scientific discipline  and theology.

One wonders why any Christian would want to take part in, and glean from,  an openly atheistic website. It’s because so many people have simply  never heard a decent, clear explanation of a biblical interpretation of the  facts all around us. Thus, they have been misled into thinking that there is  more overwhelming evidence for evolution and millions of years than for biblical  creation.

It doesn’t help

Yes, we would agree that the origins issue is a potentially divisive one,  but biblical creationists are not the ones being divisive. We simply believe  what the Bible says, and anyone who can read (if being honest) would have to  confess that a plain understanding of Genesis 1 indicates six 24 hour days  of creation. To do otherwise, is to defer to a secular (read: ‘non-Christian’)   interpretation if one adds millions of years, which does violence to Gospel  doctrine in the process. Taking advantage of the old adage “The squeaky  wheel gets the grease”, these often militant Christians deliberately  burn the pastors’ ears in churches, so much so that the pastor might  become reluctant to host a creation event for fear of dealing with any aftermath  of dissent. But is this the reality?

We can speak from experience that, overwhelmingly, the answer is NO. Very  little opposition is ever raised at events, and if so, it is actually  dealt with (graciously and appropriately) by the visiting speaker anyway. Also,  the ensuing ‘feeding frenzies’ at the book tables is proof that confused  people are in need of answers, and have been switched on by the powerful biblical  presentation of the evidence. No doubt, this creates angst for the theistic  evolutionist sitting in the pews; after all, they think that creation ‘is  antiscience’ (as our detractors often claim). Again, NO; it’s anti  secular ‘science’, really secular worldviews and philosophies.  Dianne D. confirmed her realization of this when she wrote:

“I was a theistic evolutionist because evolution was the only thing  taught in school. I never thought too deeply about whether it was logical because  the church taught me it was a matter of faith. When I found CMI and began reading  their wonderful articles, a weight was lifted from my heart. Now, at last,  I can embrace God’s Word without reservation and know that science doesn’t  contradict the Bible, but supports it. I thank God for CMI in my prayers daily.  May God continue to bless this ministry.”

A victim of our own success?

Now here’s the ironic problem. Because pastors are somewhat cautious  or at best uninformed about raising the creation/evolution issue in church,  they avoid the subject altogether. So, people in church never get to hear the  evidence for creation. Then, because most are raised in the public education  system, they only get to hear the secular view. So, the idea that it might  be a contentious issue actually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy!

I recall speaking at a large church recently. My itinerary had a note from the pastor: “Be sensitive to those in the church who might hold a different view about Genesis.” Good! That’s no problem, as our aim is to win people over with a logical presentation—not to beat them to death from the pulpit! The response from congregants was overwhelming, and so many people just thanked me for attending the church and for helping them clear up the confusion and doubts they had. This is consistently and overwhelmingly the feedback from the majority of folks in the church. But on occasions (like this one) there will be some detractor who will comment to the leadership after the speaker has left the church, when he can continue the ‘termite’ process.

Silence is not ‘golden!’

Quite simply, if the church avoids dealing with Genesis, then the world will  fill the void, and respond to the doubts, with its information. And  when they do, it can and often does lead to a crisis of faith. We have testimony  after testimony of people who have come back to the Lord or have been strengthened  in their faith by realizing there is no conflict between the Bible and real  science. But how many of those ‘lost’ will we never hear from again  (the statistics say up to 88% of our youth)? When we link people to our resources  during our presentations, it fills that void. For instance Philip B.’s  case was symptomatic of this issue not being addressed properly:

“I was a young science student who was challenged in my faith while  attending university. Though I would have considered myself a strong Christian,  I had probably drifted along in my faith for two to three years and was certainly  not a particularly effective Christian by the time I reached Uni. … I  had so many questions that no one had ever addressed, particularly  about origins. A Christian youth leader put me onto your organization; I began  subscribing to Creation magazine and reading as many of the books  in your catalogue as I could get. It was only after this that the Bible suddenly  became alive, all because I could see its trustworthiness not only regarding  creation, but in all other aspects as well. It was your material that turned  me into an effective Christian. Not surprisingly I have used many of CMI’s  materials when teaching young adults in Bible study groups over the last few  years, with great effect. Your ministry truly was a blessing to me … .   Keep up the amazing work.”

Note that it did not just help his faith, but also turned him into an “effective  Christian” and increased his desire to reach others. Now what  pastor doesn’t want that from his congregation?

Why the doubts?

Many think (including the theistic evolutionists) that we simply don’t  have to deal with Genesis. “Just preach   the Gospel”, or “It   doesn’t   really matter what one thinks about Genesis”, or    “The Gospel starts in the New Testament   anyway”, are all common statements we hear.

But the biggest problem is that the very Gospel itself emanates from the events  in the Garden of Eden, so if Genesis does not mean what it says, then where  does the truth begin? According to evolutionists (and of course theistic evolutionists)  the fossil record puts millions of years of death before the first appearance  of man (which some theistic evolutionists say could be some pre-human hominid,  not Adam and Eve). If death was on the earth before the first man, then what  does the rebellion of man mean (sin), and the subsequent comment from God to  Adam, “You shall surely die”?

Because the idea of millions of years is an interpretation of the geologic  record, a naturalistic acceptance of that record destroys the very reason that  God established the nation of Israel from which the Messiah came. Or that death  will be eliminated in the future Restoration due to the removal of the Genesis  Curse. Like falling dominoes the rest of the Bible’s historical narrative  comes tumbling down, and everything in Scripture is fair game! 

If naturalism  is really one’s ‘Bible’ then one is also likely to attribute  miraculous events like the parting of the Red Sea as some unseasonal high winds  over a shallow sand bank. Or Jesus’ turning water into wine as a cheap  party trick with some food coloring. If a materialistic view of the world eliminates  miracles then it cannot be possible for someone to rise from the dead!

This is why we cannot cherry-pick the Bible and leave out passages that we  don’t like or feel we cannot explain. Even our understanding of miracles  comes from the straightforward belief that God is the Creator of the universe,  and therefore he is not bound by the physical laws that govern our universe.  As our own Dr Jonathan Sarfati often points out, part of the usefulness of  science is that it can demonstrate when a miracle has actually occurred.

Related Articles

• Did God create over billions of years?
• Genesis—the seedbed of all Christian doctrine
• What would life be like without creation ministries?

Illustration by Keaton Halley

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