It’s time for evangelicals to come out for evolution

ABP News ^ | 06/17/2014 | Chuck Queen

[Bulwyf]

Look on the bright side. When my wife calls me a knuckle dragging neandrathal, at least she’ll be accurate.

[ealgeone]

If he’d read the Word he would understand the truth.

[ealgeone]

Either the entire Book of Genesis is true, or Christ is a liar and a charlitan! Take your pick!

Amen to that!

[hecticskeptic]

“I am a Baptist minister, but I am not a science-denying Baptist minister who thinks that dinosaurs lived alongside humans a few thousand years ago.”

Surely he wouldn't be so dogmatic as to totally discount the side by side footprints at the Paluxy River, would he? What foolishness... I actually saw some of them when they were fresh.

[Mr Rogers]

Here we go - from his church’s website:

“We are a diverse congregation open and affirming of all persons...We are an inclusive fellowship committed to the equality of all the children of God, welcoming and affirming of all persons without regard to race, gender, class, or sexual orientation...Chuck loves helping Christians stuck in old paradigms embrace a more inclusive, credible, compassionate, and transformative faith. “

From his blog:

“Progressive Christianity offers a kind of faith that is not only credible (it is NOT science denying or narrowly exclusive or judgmental of our LGBT sisters and brothers)...

...This means, on one hand, that Christians are free to treat with acceptance and respect adherents and participants of non-Christian religious (and secular) traditions without feeling obligated to impose Christian beliefs on them.”

[reasonisfaith]

Evolutions seems to be losing ground. Not a very convincing time to “come out for evolution.”

[cripplecreek]

I have no intent of engaging this argument.

[Star Traveler]

Let’s start with this historic Christian document and statement, which is now archived at Dallas Theological Semimary.

Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy
http://www.bible-researcher.com/chicago1.html

The “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy” was produced at an international Summit Conference of evangelical leaders, held at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in Chicago in the fall of 1978. This congress was sponsored by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. The Chicago Statement was signed by nearly 300 noted evangelical scholars, including James Boice, Norman L. Geisler, John Gerstner, Carl F. H. Henry, Kenneth Kantzer, Harold Lindsell, John Warwick Montgomery, Roger Nicole, J. I. Packer, Robert Preus, Earl Radmacher, Francis Schaeffer, R. C. Sproul, and John Wenham.

The ICBI disbanded in 1988 after producing three major statements: one on biblical inerrancy in 1978, one on biblical hermeneutics in 1982, and one on biblical application in 1986. The following text, containing the “Preface” by the ICBI draft committee, plus the “Short Statement,” “Articles of Affirmation and Denial,” and an accompanying “Exposition,” was published in toto by Carl F. H. Henry in God, Revelation And Authority, vol. 4 (Waco, Tx.: Word Books, 1979), on pp. 211-219. The nineteen Articles of Affirmation and Denial, with a brief introduction, also appear in A General Introduction to the Bible, by Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix (Chicago: Moody Press, rev. 1986), at pp. 181-185. An official commentary on these articles was written by R. C. Sproul in Explaining Inerrancy: A Commentary (Oakland, Calif.: ICBI, 1980), and Norman Geisler edited the major addresses from the 1978 conference, in Inerrancy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980).

[ ... click the link for the actual document ...]

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The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is our creator God, who made all things - seen and unseen. He has revealed himself to us and what he did, through his inerrant and infallible word.

He spoke all things into existence, and from absolutely nothing with the mere speaking of his Word.

These people who want to deny God and deny his Word weren’t there when it was all done. God was, and he has revealed his creative power to us through his Word.

[varmintman]

“I am a Baptist minister, but I am not a science-denying Baptist minister who thinks that dinosaurs lived alongside humans a few thousand years ago.”

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In other words, somebody here isn't keeping up with the news...

Soft tissue is increasingly being found in dinosaur remains That sort of tissue could not plausibly last even one million years.

Good radiocarbon dates are turning up for dinosaur remains. Most of those dates are coming in as 20K - 40K years.

Good images of known dinosaur types are turning up in native American petroglyphs, e.g. the stegosaur glyph at Agawa Rock, Lake Superior:

And before you try to tell me that stegosaurs did not have horns... Indians were in the habit of touching those glyphs up every couple of decades which is why they survive; the horns were added long after the creature itself went extinct by an artist who simply figured a creature that size needed them. Indian oral traditions note that the stegosaur ('Mishipishu' in Ojibway language) had a sawblade back (dorsal spikes as per the image), red fur, a cat-like face, and a "great spiked tail" which he used as a weapon. That description fits the stegosaur and nothing else which has ever walked in North America. Such glyphs apparently were common in 1800, Lewis and Clark said that their native guides were in mortal terror of them.

[LukeL]

I also love how he says the Bible is not a history book. If it is not a history book than we can conclude that none of the people depicted in the Bible lived and therefore Christianity is false.

[varmintman]

I have no intent of engaging this argument.

Like Clint Eastwood said, a man has to know his limitations....

[DManA]

It’s a theory. It’s not something to “come out for” or “come out against”.

[PAR35]

Two of the three ‘pastors’ there are women.

They are Cooperative Baptists (Jimmy Carter Baptists) not Southern Baptists.

They welcome homosexuals.

[Mr Rogers]

A minister who rejects scripture for theology can hardly be expected to accept it for history!

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

Evangelicals know, as do other educated people, that there isn’t any evidence that one species can evolve into another. The PROCESS of evolution by natural selection happens every day - it’s why you can’t kill the cockroaches in New York City with Raid. Man can also force evolution to occur - it’s why we have so many different breeds of dog.

So it is incorrect to say that evolution does not occur. It is a process that God allows to occur (obviously since it happens). To say that species have evolved from other species (such as man evolving from ape) is incorrect as well - it sounds good to those who want to deny creation, but there’s no evidence of it.

[metmom]

ping......

[metmom]

If the evidence for the ToE warranted accepting the theory, I’d give it far more serious consideration.

But it doesn’t so I don’t.

[cripplecreek]

Just not wasting my time.

BTW I agreed that the church should stick with traditional teachings.

[ravenwolf]

The big bang theory 13.8 billion years ago is just that, a theory.

I don`t know how old the universe is and I don`t know how old the earth is but by reading the creation story I get the idea God did have a plan for evolution which Adam was not a part of.

Adam came along much later in a special creation, that is why we know about how old he would be.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!