Saturday, July 05, 2008
Dumbing Down
Uh, oh!I'm one of those non-believers who thinks it is false to say that religion makes you stupid. I consider people such as Ken Miller, George Coyne, Theodosius Dobzhansky, and the like, as data points in favor of my view. Thus, I'm saddened to note a counterexample, as reported by The Banner of Truth, a British Christian site:
A noted evangelical, R C Sproul, has announced a conversion from having previously accepted the theory of evolution as valid science. He now accepts both the Biblical and scientific evidence that the world was created in 6 literal 24-hour days and possibly as recently as around 6,000 years ago.
According to the Reformation hermeneutic, the first option is to follow the plain sense of the text. One must do a great deal of hermeneutical gymnastics to escape the plain meaning of Genesis 1 to 2. The confession makes it a point of faith that God created the world in the space of six days.
We have seen the disastrous effect of such timidity and compromise [in defending the literalness of Genesis 1 and 2] as the church has lost much support in the West. Why should people listen when they think the church has no answers in this scientific age? So it is particularly encouraging to see a scholar of the stature of R C Sproul prepared to take a stand on the Word of God as written - and defend it.
Do you suppose that, if Christians start to insist the proper treatment of disease dictates burnt offerings, it might have some "disastrous effects?"
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