|
The internet is abuzz with calls for the blood of Adventist’s “apostate” teachers.
In April this year David Asscheric sent a letter to SDA Church leaders calling for a purge at Adventist Colleges and Universities, of any lecturers who teach Evolution. Asscheric’s letter found its way onto the Internet and unleashed an avalanche of support from people baying for the blood of all “apostate” educators.
Cliff Goldstein has written a number of missives declaring the impossibility of being a “Sabbath keeping Seventh-day Adventist” and believing in anything other than a literal 7 day creation. Goldstein has gone as far as saying that any SDA who does not fully accept a literal reading of the Genesis account should do the honourable thing and resign his or her membership of the Church.
The arrogance and aggression in the debate saddens me.
I am a born and bred Seventh-day Adventist and despite disagreeing with the biblical interpretations of some of my Church brothers and sisters I love the church. It is because I love the church that I care enough to disagree; instead of just walking away from the Church as so many of my peers have done. Even more than the Church I really love the Sabbath! I believe that the Sabbath is a special gift from God; a gift for which I thank him every week.
Despite my love for the Sabbath, and what it represents, I am not convinced that God created the world in exact accordance with the Genesis account. I believe that even people who claim to believe exactly what the Bible says are willing to accept that some aspects of the Genesis account must be “interpreted”, i.e. that one needs to exercise judgment to understand what the Bible is really saying.
For example:
· Genesis tells us that on the first day God created light but that the sun was only created on the fourth day. Here already we have a need to “interpret” what the bible is saying. What was this light that God created; a light that existed without the sun? When did God un-create this light, because it surely does not exist today? I have heard the explanation that this light was the presence of God but then why did God have to create the light on the first day; as we are told in Genesis? Did the Glory of God’s presence not surround Him before? Is this light of God’s Glory only 6,000 years old? Whichever way we explain this light we are “interpreting” and deviating from a strict reading of the Genesis account.
· Most of the people that I have spoken to who accept a literal interpretation of the Genesis account of creation are prepared to concede that the entire universe is not just 6,000 years old. They are willing to accept that many of the stars and galaxies are much older; their explanation being that Genesis is only referring to our solar system. But that is not what the Genesis account says. Again in coming to the above conclusion one is going beyond a strict reading of the Genesis account.
If we accept that some aspects of the Biblical telling may not be exactly what happened, why is it so difficult to accept that the Genesis account might have been God’s way of explaining to a primitive people the fact that He created; not exactly how he created.
I understand all the challenges that deviating from our traditional teachings brings; the fall being just one example. I don’t pretend to have all the answers to these questions.
My acceptance that creation might not have happened exactly in accordance with the Genesis account is fairly recent. All of my life I fully accepted the Genesis account, then a few years ago in an effort to convince my son-in-law of the fallacy of evolution, I engaged him in a debate.
Having attended Walter Vieth’s lectures I believed that proving the fallacy of evolution would be easy. As I began to honestly investigate the matter I found that there was good evidence supporting deep-time, and of life having existed on this earth for a very long time. Sadly, I found that there seemed to be many more honest scientists than there were honest theologians; I cannot believe that God created the world with an appearance of great age, thereby deliberately setting out to mislead honest scientists. I found that many of the so called holes in the theory of evolution were distractions and easily explained to anyone willing to honestly confront the data.
Today I am happy to accept that I don’t know exactly how God created this world. I have eternity for him to explain this to me. Despite the hysterical outbursts of Cliff Goldstein and his ilk I remain a member of the SDA Church and have no intention of resigning my membership. I thank God that our church was built by those who were willing to question what had “already been settled” and especially the “pillars of truth”. I thank God that at our educational institutions there are teachers who are brave enough to honestly confront the data and are not afraid to honestly present this to their students.
Courtenay
|
Comments
I personally believe in the literal 7 day creation week. This might be because I have never taken the time to properly research it, but regardless of my personal standings on the matter I do believe in tolerance and love. For me that literal references to the sun rising and setting, and the whole seventh day being made a day of rest are enough to support my belief and I do not place enough importance on the finer details of creation to warrant in-depth research. Our academic institutions should however be constantly challenging the renewing our stale beliefs, proving truth and delicately cutting away at any falsehood that has been inadvertently swept up into our traditions. I do however hope that in this transition of theology people like me who believe in “the old” are also not marginalised or victimised.
As Administrator of the site, I will immediately remove any comments that are unloving, or in any way attacking or antagonistic. I am only willing to host this discussion as long as a Christ like, loving, caring, civil, accepting attitude is maintained.
Steven.
Thank you Steven. I believe that people of a great variety of beliefs should be welcome and should be able to express their views without fear.