Apprising Ministries &#187; Creationism

KEEPING YOU APPRISED OF: EVOLUTION

SIX LITERAL DAYS–REALLY?

Ken Silva pastor-teacher — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:57:02 +0000

It has become fashionable amongst Christians to see the Genesis account of creation as not literal. The reason is mainly an attempt to find common ground between so-called “science” and the Bible.

The problem with “science”

There is a proper way and an improper way of “doing” science. There are a few good, and many more bad scientists in the world today. (By science I mean all the major branches of science that study one aspect or the other of the physical world – what Christians call creation.)

The right way to practice science is to look at all the evidence with an open mind and to come to conclusions in the light if the evidence. If science is practiced on that basis it will inevitably lead to the conclusions that there has to be a creator (God) and that the earth and everything in it was Created by God. “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.” (Psalms 19:1). “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,” (Romans 1:20).

The problem is that the vast majority of scientists today begin with the assumption that there is no God. Based on that pre-conceived conclusion, they examine the evidence. Any evidence that points to God is rejected and any evidence that denies that there is a God is retained. This evidence is then manipulated into a theory and in time the theory becomes fact. (Lenin said a lie told often enough becomes the truth.) Evolution, for example, is a theory which has never been proven, because there are a bunch of holes (or missing links) in the theory. But over the years the “theory” has been dropped and everyone now speaks about Evolution as a “fact”. This “fact” is then used as a base for further speculation and more theories. The reality is that these “scientists” do not practice science, but practice theology – because they begin with a theological premise – that there is no God.

The truth is that science has not been able to prove evolution, the “big bang” or that the earth is millions of years old. Every one of these theories can be disproved scientifically – without any reference to the Bible. Scientists who are truly objective must become believers as a result of their studies because there is overwhelming evidence for God and creation on both the macro level (the universe) and the micro level (molecules). But most scientists are unbelievers because they are more interested in proving their atheistic theories than the truth.

The Conflict

The problem for many Christians lies in the claims of the Bible that the earth was created in six days and the “evidence” from science that the earth is billions of years old.

Reconciling Science and the Bible

Atheistic scientists are a real problem. But, there is a bigger problem than scientists who do not believe in God. It is Christians who believe science, rather than the Bible. As a result they try to reconcile science’s theories with the Bible and come up with many new ideas such as:

·   Theistic evolution: God used the “big bang” and evolution to create. They thus are able to “reconcile” the Bible with “science”.

·   The gap theory: There was a previous creation which was destroyed and the present creation is a re-creation. This is an effort to explain the “oldness” of the earth, dinosaurs etc.

·   Seven long days: This theory speculates that the earth was not created in six 24-hour days but seven periods of millions of years. This is also an effort to reconcile the age of the earth, according to science, with the Bible.

The fact is that all these theories are based on the premise that science is 100% correct and the Bible is flawed, limited or incomplete. Those Christians who teach these theories argue that they do not reject God as the Creator but are simply offering an alternative explanation as to the method God used in the process of creation.

It is not the purpose of this article to discuss the age of the earth. God may have created the earth mature just as he created man mature but there are also many real problems with the techniques employed to date the age of the earth. But we are dealing with a far more fundamental issue here.

The fact

The fact is that no man or scientist witnessed the world coming into existence. There is no movie or any other record that shows how it happened. But there is one witness who was present – God. We must therefore accept God’s testimony since He was the only One present when it all happened.

“Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar.” (Romans 3:4).

“Stupid fundamentalists”

People like to mock those who believe that the Bible is literal as “stupid fundamentalists” and love to portray them as ignorant and uneducated.

The fact is that it is the one who says there is no God who is the fool (Psalm 14:1) and it is the fool who ignores the clear evidence that God exists and that He created all things. Only the fool rejects the testimony of an omniscient, omnipotent God for the theories and weak arguments of foolish men.

We do not believe blindly, we can prove our faith by clear and irrefutable evidence. We can also disprove every other theory with clear, logical arguments and scientific evidence, apart from the Bible. But at the end of the day it is a matter of faith – either believe the testimony of a God who was not only present at the beginning, but is the Creator, or the witness of men who have very limited insight.

“If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.” (1 John 5:9).

The danger of reading in a non-literal way

There are many preachers, teachers and pastors who feel that it does not matter whether we read the six days of creation as six literal, 24-hour days or as six periods of time of millions of years. But it does matter.

It matters because if Genesis chapter 1 is not literal, then the rest of the Bible is not literal either. If your theology allows you to take liberties with how you interpret Genesis 1 then you will also take liberties with the rest of Scripture. Then maybe Jesus was not literally born of a virgin, did not literally die, or literally rise from the dead! No, the Bible says God created in six 24-hour days and the same Bible says that Jesus was born of a virgin, died for our sins, was buried and rose again on the third day. And it is all literal, real, and the undeniable, and the infallible testimony of a God who cannot lie.

Thus men change “the evening and the morning were the first day” (Genesis 1:5) into “it was a period of millions of years”. It is this same mindset which then denies a literal seven years of Great Tribulation, a literal thousand years of peace and a literal heaven and a literal hell. If you allow the devil to drive a wedge between the Word and truth in Genesis, he will drive that wedge home until nothing means what God intended it to mean. But the Bible says what it means and means what it says.

Anton Bosch

KEEPING YOU APPRISED OF: EVOLUTION

ADAM AND EVE DID EXIST: EVOLUTIONISTS GET OVER IT

Ken Silva pastor-teacher — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 23:58:04 +0000

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? (1 Corinthians 5:6)

Slowly Imbibing Theological Poison

A main focus of this particular online apologetics and discernment work here at Apprising Ministries, has been monitoring and exposing the Emerging Church, now upgraded to version 2.0 with its newer, more clearly delineated, postmodern Progressive Christian theology.

This new, and not improved, version of liberal theology—a Liberalism 2.0—is what this sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church will often refer to as “big tent” Emergence Christianity. Sadly, it all part and parcel of an unnoticed New Downgrade No-Controversy currently going on within evangelicalism at large.

It’s as if in its pursuit to be accepted by the world a new creed has been adopted and stated thusly: *sniff sniff* We the one hole-y and basically Roman Catholic Church now very quietly, and ever so politely, confess: “Can’t we all just get along?” In days to come you’ll see terrible consequences of allowing such as these Emergent mutants to teach your young.

As I pointed out in The Emerging Church On A Wild Goose Chase these are neo-Gnostic fools who’ve unbuckled themselves from the Word of God and have embarked upon their wild goose chase of subjective experience; but what you may not have realized is that they’ve convinced much of the younger sectors of evangelicalism to do likewise.

However, without the gravity of the proper Christian spirituality of sola Scriptura they will all only drift deeper into spiritual outer space. Against this veracious background I remind you again of Christianity Today On The Search For The Historical Adam. If you don’t lnow, this happens to be a dangerous new series on the search for the so-called historical Adam.

Not surprisingly CT tries to straddle the fence but does seemingly fall toward the side of the unbiblical position of old earth creationists:

some have suggested—as does John Collins in Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? (Crossway, 2011)—that if both biblical and scientific clues suggest a larger population contemporary with Adam and Eve (Whom did Cain marry? Whom did God protect him from?), we can still conceive of Adam and Eve as leaders of that original population. That suggestion has the virtue of embracing both a prehistoric couple and a prehistoric population. (Online source)

The problem for CT is that the Bible makes no such suggestion; however, their deconstructing questions do appear to make their own suggestion…of compromise. Now I first discussed something called the Massachusetts Bible Society and its Exective Director “Rev.” Anne Robinson (see video below) in Indeed, Did God Really Say? MBS informs us:

(Online source)

As you can see, it’s the pretty typical talk of the postmodern liberal; although you need to know that we are now hearing this more and more within evangelical circles as well. How this shakes out in practice is a denial of the clear teaching of God’s Word on hot button issues, e.g. homosexuality, by obfuscating the texts of Scripture that confront their false views/teachings. They then replace them with murky mystic myths, and tired old arguments originally advanced by the original Cult of Liberal Theology, which were already answered long ago.

Bottom line: They just don’t like what the Bible says. Today MBS wanted to make sure we saw something and tweets:

(Online source)

By following the link we end up at the HuffPost piece Adam and Eve Didn’t Exist. Get Over It! by Michael Ruse, Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University. Entering into the mental off-roading of Humpty Dumpty language Ruse also gives us further important information about himself:

Raised a Quaker, I lost my faith in my early twenties and it has never returned. I think of myself as an agnostic on deities and ultimate meanings and that sort of thing. With respect to the main claims of Christianity – loving god, fallen nature, Jesus and atonement and salvation – I am pretty atheistic, although some doctrines like original sin seem to me to be accurate psychologically. I often refer to myself as a very conservative non-believer, meaning that I take seriously my non-belief and I think others should do (and often don’t)…

Had I married a fellow Quaker, I might still be going to Quaker meetings. But I have little time for someone who denies the central dogmas of Christianity and still claims to be a Christian, except in a social sense. No God, no Jesus as His son, no resurrection, no eternal life – no Christianity. As it happens, I prefer the term “skeptic” to describe my position rather than “agnostic,” because so often the latter means “not really interested” and I am very interested. Like Thomas Henry Huxley, I am deeply religious in a total absence of theology.
(Online source)

Okay; now you know what you’re in for as we look at his definitive declaration: Adam and Eve didn’t exist. But how does Michael Ruse know this? Answer: He doesn’t. Ruse first reminds us that:

The cover article of this month’s Christianity Today is on the subject of Adam and Eve. Could humans be descended from one single pair or not? Really, Christians should be over this one by now. They should have been over it by Christmas of 1859, a month after Charles Darwin published his “Origin of Species.” As he said there, “light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.”

It sure was! Organisms evolved from simple forms by natural selection. This includes humans. We are the end result of a long, slow, natural process of development. (Online source)

The Theory Of Evolution Is Fact Because…Well…Scientists Just Assume That It Is

Really; mankind developed from “a long, slow, natural process”? No, I don’t think so, as it’s written — then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed (Genesis 2:7-8). Note man, singular; no developing, because he was created instantly by God Himself. Therefore, Ruse is wrong about the origin of human beings and the truth is he’s in error concerning Darwin as well.

For you see, you should also know that there are even unbelieving secular scientists who disagree with Ruse’s mythology of Charles Darwin as plainly evidenced by Dissent From Darwinism:

(Online source)

As a Bible-believing Christian you needn’t worry about abandoning what Scripture teaches us because there simply isn’t any compelling argument to the contrary; those who take that position do so because they want to, which is their right. So when Ruse dreams that “science tells us that Adam and Eve are fictions” he’s merely using circular reasoning. He then tries to tell us that, “St. Paul thought we are descended from Adam and Eve. He was wrong.” No, sorry about that because — All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16).

God ought to know; after-all, He was there, and neither Ruse nor his scientific pals were. He continues:

Not everyone is happy with this conclusion. At Calvin College in Michigan, two very eminent professors — deeply sincere Christians — are in very hot water with their president for doubting the historical veracity of the early chapters of Genesis. But whatever the outcome of the president’s bullying, apart from the fact that already he is making one of the best liberal arts colleges in America seem ludicrously out of step with science, it is they who are on the side of the angels not he. (Online source)

Good; I’m glad to hear that, at least for now, professors at Calvin College have to hold a proper Biblical position. Here Ruse hits the root source why more and more Christians, particularly in the academic arena, bow before the sacred cow of science; they don’t want the offense of the Cross or to be considered “out of step with science.” We’re only going to see this more and more now that the Emergent neo-liberal cult has successfully blown up the pillar of sola Scriptura in favor of “mystical or self-transcendent experiences.”[1] As I said before, prepare for dueling revelations from people suffering increasing liver shivers attributed to God.

Ruse wonders, “What should be the attitude of the Christian faced with clear evidence that some part of the Bible cannot be taken literally and that this must have consequences for hitherto-accepted theology?” The problem he has in this case is the clear evidence for a literal reading of the Bible as it concerns Adam; and there is no evidence to the contrary. Gene Veith is correct in his 10,000 Adam and Eves when he says:

Christianity Today, is raising new questions and opening up a new level of controversy. According to recent genetic evidence, the human race did not begin with two people. Rather, it must have begun with a population of around 10,000… It’s hard to imagine how 10,000 creatures could, at the same, evolve into the same species. I can’t help but wonder where they came from. Who were their parents? (Can anyone explain how the geneticists answer that?) (Online source)

And what of that “recent genetic evidence?” Over at AnswersInGenesis.org Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell correctly observes what’s really going on here when she postulates “we are being put on notice that the science is demanding a paradigm shift in our understanding of God’s Word. We’d better have a look at the assumptions underlying that bold conclusion.” Mitchell then brings out some important information:

Search the Christianity Today article much as you will, it never explains how the conclusion that there had to be 10,000 original people was reached. Oddly enough, neither does the BioLogos website. The latter does tell where to find the information. According to a footnote in one of its articles, “The genetic evidence [of a population of several thousand people from whom all humans have descended, not just two] is explained in: Francis Collins, “Deciphering God’s Instruction Book: The Lessons of the Human Genome,” in The Language of God (New York, NY: Free Press, 2006).”

So what evidence for this starter population does Dr. Collins provide in his book? None…the “troublesome” science we are told to accept over a natural reading of Scripture claims only to prove what it assumed to be true in the first place… [CT] insists o[n] finding a middle ground, not even acknowledging the fact that false assumptions could undermine the reliability of the science. Bottom line: the science cannot possibly be wrong, so we must re-interpret the Bible. (Online source)

Her bottom line is dead-on-target with too many professing Christians today; however since Scripture originated with God, and He created this universe ex nihilo, actually science must be interpreted in light of the Bible no matter where whining to the contrary comes from. In his HuffPost Michael Ruse offers:

Augustine thought that we are all tainted (original sin) because of actual act of disobedience by a real Adam. This cannot be so. (Online source)

Why is it this “cannot be so”; because Ruse says so, merely assuming the truth of his own statement. It doesn’t really matter what Augustine, or any other Church Father thought; it matters what Scripture itself teaches. Here Augutine is right, not because of his own intellect, but because the Bible teaches the doctrine of original sin. Ruse then shows us he doesn’t understand the doctrine as he says, “The Augustinian scenario always leaves the bad taste about why we should be blamed for the sin of someone else.” No, the Christian Church has always taught that we are responsible for our own sin, which due to our fallen nature, we are unable to prevent.

If Ruse was speaking simply as a philosopher I wouldn’t be so hard on him; that said, Ruse is attempting to teach us about Christianity, and it’s obvious at best he only understands the progressive/liberal variety. I’ve said before, it’s neither progressive nor Christian. Finally, Ruse wonders:

is there not the uncomfortable worry that religion — theology — is always going to play second fiddle, having to give way in the face of science? And never the other way around. When did a Nobel Prize winner ever change his or her mind in the face of a reinterpretation of the Trinity? (Online source)

The genuine Christian faith is one of power; we don’t do the convincing, God does. I have news for Michael Ruse, the Lord plays second fiddle to no one. Science hasn’t come close to proving evolution and it also hasn’t even proven that the universe is billions of years old. As far as the first couple of human beings that God created is concerned, Adam and Eve did exist: Evolutionists get over it. We have the infallible and inerrant eyewitness deposition of the Apostle Matthew from His Gospel; and he tells us that Christ Jesus of Nazareth—God Himself in human flesh—our Creator spoke of a literal Adam:

And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
(Matthew 19:3-6)

Even though the issue the Pharisees placed before Jesus was divorce, His answer is quite revealing as to Christ’s high view of Scripture and His taking this section of it literally. In fact, we see an example of the proper implication of sola Scriptura as Jesus uses God’s Word as the final authority on the matter of marriage and divorce. Citing Genesis 1:27 and taking it for what it literally means Jesus says, “he who created them from the beginning made them male and female.” And further the Master takes Genesis 2:24 for what it means literally, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

As was pointed out elsewhere, there wasn’t any equivocation on Jesus’ part and no hint that He secretly believed that these sections of Genesis were not meant as literal history because it was merely a poetic myth. In fact, the final statement on the matter by Christ Jesus makes it perfectly clear that the Master quite literally believes that it is God who brings together a man and woman and makes them one flesh. Keep in mind here that this is all predicated on Jesus’ personal knowledge that Adam and Eve were literally and historically the first two humans that Jesus created. And no one has any business calling themselves a Christian and not holding the same view of Scripture as Jesus Christ.

If you’ve ever wondered what Satan sounded like when he seduced Eve into questioning what God said, as you watch this video below…now you’ll know…

_________________________________________________________________________
End Notes:

[1] http://tiny.cc/1i16m, 6/13/11.

MENTAL OFF-ROADING RADIO WITH DOUG PAGITT AND MICHAEL DOWD

MICHAEL DOWD & SPENCER BURKE—INTEGRITY AND EVOLUTIONARY CHRISTIANITY (PART 2)

JUST HOW WELL PROVEN IS EVOLUTION?

THERE IS NO SPIRITUAL SWITZERLAND

DOES WHAT YOU BELIEVE REALLY MATTER?

Ken Silva pastor-teacher — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 02:23:11 +0000

Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.

So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.

And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. (Acts 17:16-23)

Some Important Questions

Does it really matter what someone believes about God? That is an extremely important question, and what I’ll do now is to give you a sound answer by turning to the Bible to see what the Lord has to say the subject. Another vital question we should be asking today is: When is the church visible going to stop letting the world tell it how to live? Sure the Willow Creeks and the Lakewoods and the Saddlebacks have many people in them; but the truly discerning Christian should rather be concerned about whether or not these people have actually found the Christ of the Bible and have been born again amidst all the worldly practices of these sinner-friendly Purpose Driven/Seeker Driven and postmodern Emerging/Emergent churches?

And so we must also ask: Why is it that the Christian is even attempting to walk in ways of harmony with this evil world system as does the sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church? It’s now gone so far as to design a quasi-universalism in their new version of Progressive Christian theology under the spiritual circus “big tent” of the Liberalism 2.0 often referred to by these rebels against sola Scriptura as Emergence Christianity. So at this point we will do well to keep in mind that the Bible does emphatically state:

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:4-5)

Let’s turn to Acts 17 as we mull over the above questions, and focus specifically now on our main question in this article—Does What You Believe Really Matter? The events described here in our opening text from God’s Word above took place historically during Paul’s second missionary journey about 49 to 52 AD. At one time Greece was a mighty empire and Athens a great city known for its art, philosophy, and literature. However by the time of Paul’s arrival Athens had faded considerably; though it did still maintain a leading university, and was still well known for being the center of classic philosophical discussion.

In fact the great Bible commentator Matthew Henry informs us:

A scholar that is in love with the learning of the ancients would think he should be very happy if he were where Paul now was, at Athens, but Paul though bred a scholar, does not make this any of his business at Athens. He has other work to mind: his business is, in God’s name, to turn them from the service of idols to the service of the true and living God in Christ.”[1]

The Reactions Of A Wise Man

Our Lord in His infinite wisdom sent a scholar of His own, the Apostle Paul, right into the very seat of contemporary scholarship in the ancient world, the city of Athens. A common misconception today is that in Paul’s time man was really not all that intellectual; but this was actually a time of great learning. It is interesting note here that so-called “modern” man fancies himself as so much wiser than these poor ignorant people in the first century. I wonder then, why is it that our western world is still so heavily influenced by these ancient Greek philosophers like Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle? And why is it that our leading intellectuals still bow down to them in worship before their sacred cow of philosophy?

As all this relates to the text in Acts 17, here’s how the New American Standard reads in verse 16 — Now while Paul was waiting for [Silas and Timothy] at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. The NIV says that [Paul] was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. The Greek word translated here as “greatly distressed” is paroxuno and carries with it the meaning of “provoked, pained, to stir to anger.” The theological term itself comes down to us from the Latin: really-ticked-off-i-cus. In other words, Paul was angry over the rampant idolatry and the prevailing philosophy of the day — “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may die.”

Does that sound familiar? Well now, maybe you’ve heard it expressed this way: You only go around once in life—so go for the gusto! Or, how about: Just Do It; No Fear, Go For It. Or maybe you’re familiar with this one: Life Is Short-Play Hard, and other like phrases in so many of our contemporary ad campaigns from our would-be postmodern philosophers on Madison Avenue. E.H. Trenchard informs us that the ancient city of Athens was “a city notorious for its liking for ‘intellectual chat’… The Epicureans formed a philosophical school which thought of pleasure as the greatest good,…”[2]; and then there’s this further bit of wisdom from Dr. Henry Morris, whose numerous writings about the creation/evolution debate earned him the title, “The Father of Modern Creationism.” Dr. Morris insightfully points out that, “In Paul’s day, the dominant humanistic philosophies were Gnosticism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and others—all based on evolution.”[3]

Remember, it’s a common misconception that modern man, and now postmodern man, thinks he is somehow superior to the allegedly ignorant people who lived in the first century. So I find myself wondering if we really are so much more intelligent and sophisticated now, then how is it we are raising a whole generation of television junkies addicted to “Reality TV,” and our society has now become enslaved by the pursuit of the very same things that caused the great civilization of Greece itself to implode? Do you seriously think that the inevitable “success” of the powerful homosexual lobby is not going to bring devastating consequences upon our countries; and even more so our churches?

The truly wise person would be prudent to give this subject some very serious prayerful consideration. As the words of this classic adage have never rung truer than for this sorry generation: Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. One final key comment on Acts 17:16 by Matthew Henry — “[Paul] was filled with concern for the glory of God, which he saw given to idols, and with compassion to the souls of men, which he saw thus enslaved to Satan.”[4] A few pertinent questions spring to mind: Why don’t we seem to be as concerned for the glory of God today? Where is our compassion for the lost? And why is it that now we can see so many so obviously following the “idols” of the theory of evolution and sexual immorality, and yet we ourselves appear not to be greatly distressed or even feeling our spirits being provoked within?

Who Speaks For Our Creator?

Yet while in the throes of a growing apostasy within the evangelical community, the ever-increasing number of Christians being swallowed up by the seeker-sensitive Church Growth Movement, perhaps too busy with their own Purpose Driven Life, say nothing as posers like Doug Pagitt and his friend Michael Dowd infiltrate the church with evolutionary hogwash. In his book The Battle For The Beginning Dr. John MacArthur begins to expose a major part of the reason why. So many who would claim to be Christian are losing their faith regarding the fact that God has directly created us in the first place. If we can come to understand this problem—then we will then be see how the whole creation/evolution debate has eroded belief in God to such a point that even professing Christians are losing their courage to be willing to stand for what the Bible actually says.

It seems ridiculous to say what I’m about to say, but it rings true in the Spirit; and in our hearts, so we dare to admit it: The church visible of our Lord—and not just here in America—has now become afraid of the world. MacArthur reveals a terrifying outlook for the future of this nation, and Christ’s church within it:

As humanity enters the twenty-first century, an even more frightening prospect looms. Now even the church seems to be losing the will to defend what Scripture teaches about human origins.[5]

Now we would expect this denial of the Word of God from those who are nonbelievers. We really aren’t even all that surprised when professing Christians in dying mainline denominations like the Congregational Church; the Episcopal Church; and the United Methodist Church, all of which apostatized long ago, deny the clear text of the Bible. Because, as MacArthur tells us, the sinister Cult of Liberal Theology has:

long espoused theistic evolution. They have never been reluctant to deny the literal truth of Scripture on any issue. [But a destructive] new trend has also influenced some evangelicals who contend that it is possible to harmonize Genesis 1-3 with the theories of [evolution and] modern naturalism without doing violence to any essential doctrine of Christianity.”[6]

However, did you know that even most Bible colleges and seminaries in this country have already compromised the Scriptures they say they believe in just to be compatible with the theory of evolution? And what a grave mistake we are making! To paraphrase Tertullian, a second century Church Father and polemicist: There will never be; there can never be; any agreement between Athens and Jerusalem. Tertullian uses Athens here as representing the zenith of man’s wisdom, contrasting it with Jerusalem, which represents the wisdom of Almighty God. MacArthur then states a sad fact when he says, “More and more [evangelicals] are embracing the view known as ‘old-earth creationism,’ which blends some of the principles of biblical creationism with naturalistic and evolutionary theories, seeking to reconcile two opposing world-views.”[7]

It has now gotten even worse; consider the aforementioned Michael Dowd, who’s receieving a boost from EC luminaries like Pagitt and fellow universalist Spencer Burke, as well as Living Spiritual Teacher and EC grand guru Brian McLaren. In fact, on one of his recent radio programs Pagitt gushed of Dowd, “I like what he’s up to…he’s written a book called, Thank God for Evolution.”[8] Actually I have both books Michael Dowd has written and here’s a sampling of the lunacy in the Lord’s Name that he spews, and these EC leaders help him promote. In a sermon called Evolutionize Your Life: Heaven Is Coming Home to Reality, which he “preached” at a spiritual blackhole called C3 Exchange Dowd tells us our sinful nature is actually a good, and quite necessary, thing:

[F]rankly, I don’t know of any Christian, Muslim, or Jew, that is genuinely appreciative of their sinful nature; and yet, that’s what an evolutionary understanding gives us. Is we can have appreciation [of it].

Obviously, we don’t need a crucified, and risen, Savior for that. And Dowd also shares the following evolutionary revelation concerning “God” in his article Evolutionize Your Life: Heaven Is Coming Home to Reality:

God is not a person; God is a sacred personification of one or more deeply significant dimensions of reality. If we miss this we miss everything! (Online source)

Thinking Isn’t Illegal—Yet

So you can see, if we were ever in it, we’ve now left the Christian building completely. The question you need to be asking is: Why would professing Christians wish to work with someone teaching this spiritual skubalon, which obliterates the need for the Gospel, and that has absolutely nothing to do with the one true and living God of the Bible? What are we saying; bottom line: Any way you slice it this is a horrid compromise of what God clearly said in the Bible. Now I ask you to carefully consider this: Can you think of one time in the history of His dealings with mankind—just one time that the LORD Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; the God of Biblical revelation ever—ever blessed men when they compromised His Word? And do we seriously think that He’s about to start now?

A couple of very significant questions to which men who have been aligned with this centered on the self (cf. 2 Timothy 3:2) Church Growth Movement such as C. Peter Wagner and Rick Warren, as well those in the Emerging Church section e.g. EC rock star pastor Rob Bell and Dan Kimball had best give much prayerful thought. In closing this out, for now, let me share one last thing from The Battle For The Beginning. MacArthur hits the issue dead on target when he writes:

It is therefore a serious mistake to imagine that modern scientists can speak more authoritatively than Scripture on the subject of origins… Scripture is God’s own eyewitness account of what happened in the beginning.”[9]

Can you see why this gross compromise and acquiescence to our fickle postmodern culture has had such a profound impact upon the historic orthodox Christian faith in this nation? The fact is that the average person today who visits one of these pragmatic people-pleasing churches in the various branches of the Church Growth Movement has already been affected, in varying degrees, that the profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called (cf. 1 Timothy 6:20, KJV) has somehow proven that the Bible is an unreliable source upon which to base one’s faith. And, if the visible church of Jesus Christ no longer has the intestinal fortitude that’s required to defend Holy Scripture against these eternally fatal and erroneous beliefs, then people are never going to find the Jesus Christ of Biblical rvelation in these user-friendly social clubs no matter how “missional” and seeker-sensitive they may be.

________________________________________________________________________________
Endnotes:

[1] Dr. Leslie Church, Ed., Matthew Henry’s Commentary [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999], 1705, emphasis his.

[2] F.F. Bruce, Ed., New International Bible Commentary [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999], 1298.

[3] Henry M. Morris, The Biblical Basis for Modern Science [Green Forest: Master Books, 2002], 114, emphasis mine.

[4] Henry, op. cit., 1705.

[5] John MacArthur, The Battle For The Beginning [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001], 17.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid., 18.

[8] See transcript at http://tiny.cc/nxthx, accessed 2/1/11.

[9] MacArthur, op.cit., 23.

See also:

MICHAEL DOWD AND SCIENCE FICTION CHRISTIANITY

JUST HOW WELL PROVEN IS EVOLUTION?

RECLAIMING THE BIBLE AS THE WORD OF GOD

MENTAL OFF-ROADING RADIO WITH DOUG PAGITT AND MICHAEL DOWD

Ken Silva pastor-teacher — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 02:55:43 +0000

Critics of online apologetics and discernment works such as Apprising Ministries are under the mistaken impression that someone like myself goes “looking for” these issues I’ve been covering these past 5+ years as Jesus has built this ministry of His Gospel. They couldn’t be more wrong. What usually happens is I’ll receive an email or message from the contact forms, ether here or at our sister outreach Christian Research Network, where oftentimes someone is distraught to find these kind of things are being perpetrated within their local church.

Jesus knows I tell the truth when I say that I don’t take pleasure in documenting this growing falling away of the mainstream evangelical community; yet I have warned you that there is a tsunami of apostasy—pushed along by 1 Peter 4:17 judgments—headed toward the church visible. Not a few of these judgments have come through evanjellyfish’s foolish embrace of the sinfully ecumenical Emerging Church, headed by trinity of apostates, Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren, universalist Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt, and his friend Tony Jones, the progressive “theologian in residence” at Solomon’s Porch.

The price is only beginning to be paid from years of mainstream evangelical churches using the warped and toxic teachings of these rebels against the final authority of God’s Word in their own Young Adult and Youth ministries thereby infecting them with this new postmodern form of “big tent” Progressive Christianity—a Liberalism 2.0—sometimes referred to by the Emerging Church as Emergence Christianity. This postmodern neo-liberal cult is incorporating emergence theory of evolutionary science because many in the EC believe that, right now, mankind is evolving upward into a higher state of consciousness; and in their delusions (see—2 Thessalonians 2:9-12) these neo-Gnostics feel their Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism—and particularly the transcendental meditation for the Christian they call Contemplative/Centering Prayer—plays a huge role in this alleged evolution.

You’ll see them refer to this as “transformation, which quite literally means one will see reality in a new way. Earlier in Doug Pagitt Agrees With Evolutionary Evangelist Michael Dowd I explained to you why this CSM was so important to the EC’s evil agenda to penetrate the mainstream as its forebears in the original Cult of Liberal Theology once did the mainline. You see, mysticism is perfectly suited to the philosophy of postmoderism that now dominates much of this caprious culture in which we find ourselves; you see, as with neo-orthodoxy ala Karl Barth postmodernism is “anti-logical” and “embraces Paradox”[1] while its deconstructionists viciously attack rational thought with what’s commonly known as irrational philosophy:

Irrational philosophies accordingly stress the will at the expense of reason, as exemplified in the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre or Karl Jaspers. (Online source)

Roughly put, its influence upon our culture is why you’ll so often hear people say things like: “With all my heart I feel that’s a good thing”; in other words, truth is being decided by how someone feels as opposed to what is objectively known. In fact Dr. John Bohannon points out, in classic centered on the self postmodern existentialism, that for Doug Pagitt:

the Bible is an active and living book that, in his own words, “invites us to step into the stories, not as observers, but as participants in the faith that is alive and well and still being created.” The implication being, the Bible is not a fixed, immutable, infallible Word from above, but rather a piece of God’s ongoing story in humanity; a story that Pagitt, Solomon’s Porch, and other communities of faith, can participate in as they join in the ongoing creative activity of writing their own story for today, just as Paul did for his day.[2]

As you can see, not only is this a repudiation of sola Scriptura, but it’s also a recipe for spiritual disaster because people can make the texts of Bible say whatever they want them to. This is the necessary backdrop for you to see where Pagitt is headed in what you’ll hear him talk about below with “Rev.” Michael Dowd in the two segments of his radio program from 10/31/10 transcribed below:

(Online source)

Believe it or not, Dowd is actually “an ordained Christian minister with a Master of Divinity degree”[3], as well as author of Thank God for Evolution!: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World (TGfE).

And I must warn you to get your mud gear on, because with mystic dreamers like Pagitt and Dowd we’ll be mentally off-roading as we head deep into the postmodern Wonderland of Humpty Dumpty language where they’ll be bending and shaping words into whatever Play-Doh shapes they wish to.

So, get ready for a wild ride, well past anything that could even remotely be considered Christian. Paraphrasing the ol’ classic line: You have to hear it to believe it.

10/31/10 Doug Pagitt Radio with Michael Dowd Pt. 1 of 2

10/31/10 Doug Pagitt Radio with Michael Dowd Pt. 2 of 2

Transcription:

Doug Pagitt: Good morning, welcome back [to] Doug Pagitt Radio, Hour Two…11:06 and starting next week (as a little reminder) when we say 11:06 that’s going to be the beginning of Hour One; we’re moving this radio program an hour later.

John Musick: Yeah.

Pagitt: Apparently the sidekick just can’t sleep it off and get here by ten so we’re moving it an hour later to try and make this a little more convenient for the staff around here.

Musick: (Laughing)

Pagitt: Broadcasting (starting next week) from 11:00am to 1:00pm…covering both am and pm. We kinda’ felt like it was time to branch out.

Musick: That’s right.

Pagitt: Take over the am’s and the pm’s.

Musick: Mm hmm.

Pagitt: This is a program that we call “religious radio that’s not quite right,” and we mean that in a lot of ways; it’s not only politically…it’s not politically right…it’s sometimes, you know…and its tone isn’t very right…sometimes it doesn’t even sound like religious radio to some people. They’re like, “Hey I listened to your show…uh, it didn’t sound very religious to me.”

Musick: Yeah.

Pagitt: Yeah, well…that’s why we just call it “not quite right” and then you get away with a lot, but normally in the second hour, we have a conversation with someone who is doing some very interesting things when it comes to religion and we are fortunate (so fortunate) to have that conversation today with Michael Dowd. Michael is part of a movement, an effort, a book, a website called Thank God for Evolution. Michael thanks for being with us on Doug Pagitt radio.

Michael Dowd: Thank you, Doug.

Pagitt: And we got to tell you, I feel like it’s just an accomplishment hearing your voice on the radio show…

Dowd: (Laughing)

Pagitt: …cause as some of you know.

Dowd: Well, Doug I need to say I listened to your September 19^th program (the one that I stood you up on) and…

Pagitt: I hardly…I hardly remember that.

Dowd: I am honored to have been the second person to stand you up (laughing), but I’m also hugely grateful for your generosity. I mean I deserved a good trouncing and you didn’t do that, so thank you.

Musick: Well, thanks for squeezing us in Michael.

Pagitt: Our rule around here is you never talk badly about people when they’re not on the air; you wait until you get them back on the show and then you really let them have it.

Dowd: Exactly.

Pagitt: So, we’re gonna’ let you have it! No, I really appreciate what you’re doing and I think it’s (I mean I have my own personal reasons why), but the last two weeks I’ve been travelling around doing some public speaking and been involved in some debates and so on…and I was thanking God for Michael Dowd on a regular basis and here’s why:

Dowd: (Laughing)

Pagitt: Because I was…I have for the last five years have been saying to people who use the kind of storyline, “Look, I can’t do this whole Christian thing…it’s just far too conservative, it’s far too anti-science, it’s just far too narrow-minded and I can’t do it” (and I don’t hang around people like that, I hang around very sort of whimsical and informed and thoughtful Christians), and so I had started developing this thought that, “Look, no…no reasonable Christians think that stuff. Most Christians you meet don’t think the earth is less than 10,000 years old, they’re not anti-science, they’re not anti-evolution.” Then the last two weeks, I was properly scolded.

Musick: You met them all.

Pagitt: Right. I met them all and I met them in so many places. And I just thought, “Man, I have been woefully…” And these are not bad people at all…and they’re not even people who believe these things for reasons that…I mean, they’re not trying to do anything harmful, they just…I started asking the questions and almost everyone I was meeting in these environments were very kind and useful people in the world and very passionate Christians and would just say as straight-faced as they can, “Of course I think the earth is less than 10,000 years old because that’s what Jesus says.” And…um…I sat with just…just longing for Michael Dowd to come save me from that conversation.

Dowd: (Laughing)

Pagitt: So you do a number of things. You travel fulltime to give people a picture of this and you really are trying to tell (and I love this language so much) the “bigger story,” the full (I don’t know how you call it) the “fourteen billion year story of what God’s been up to” or something like that?

Dowd: Exactly…exactly.

Pagitt: So tell us a little about what you do and how you do it.

Dowd: Sure…great, thanks Doug…and Hi John!

Musick: Hello!

Dowd: So my wife Connie Barlow is a science writer. She’s written four science books and they’re all published by major science publishers…MIT press…Copernicus Books (basic books); so she’s well known internationally as a science writer. I pastored three churches over the course of a decade and then did environmental sustainability and community organizing work for five years after that, but we’ve been living on the road for eight and a half years now where we travel non-stop, we’ve spoken to probably close to 1200 different groups from devoutly religious groups of all different kinds – mostly Christians – to the secular groups, atheist groups, science…groups of scientists and environmentalists, tons of Unitarian Universalist churches; so we really speak to quite a broad spectrum of audiences. In fact, there’s sort of three major populations that we speak to. One is Catholic and Protestant Christians, the other would be sort of unity/religious science,/new thought/some New Age groups and interval groups, and then the third is sort of a secular/humanist/atheist/science oriented people and those three populations really don’t often understand or respect each other that much, but all three of those populations have really embraced…and you know, invite us in all the time to speak to them

Pagitt: Mmm.

Dowd: We’ve been doing this now for eight years…eight and a half years and right now I’m talking to you from…people open up their homes to us because we don’t have a home base; we permanently travel the continent and we live out of the generosity of people who open up their homes to us. So I’m talking to you right now from this very spacious home right on the coast of Maine, that the family who has owned it since the early 1920s, they only come here during the summer, so we sometimes come you know, just after they leave or just before they come, and we’ve got this gorgeous home that we use as a retreat location…in fact my book, Thank God for Evolution was written while we were here.

Pagitt: Wow. Who would have known there was such an upside.

Musick: Sounds rough, Michael.

Dowd: (Laughing) Yeah, it’s rough, but somebody’s got to do it. So we’re happy to suffer for the Lord.

Pagitt: I sure hope you don’t have to do your own shopping, too. Hopefully they have something for you!

Dowd: Yeah, it’s a treat. And you know the two or three years before we come back to a place like this…they’ve been paying the bills, keeping…you know up keeping the house…it’s really wonderful.

Pagitt: Fantastic. Yeah. So, what I find interesting about what you do is first of all, you’re interesting and so often in conversations of religion or science people aren’t particularly interesting, right? Like I’m…just sort of as a whole…I mean there are professions…people take it very seriously and sometimes that seriousness weeds people out from a little humor…a little…a little satire is not quite part of their mix. But then you also take the sensibilities of being an evangelist and you apply it to this conversation about how evolution is not against God, it’s actually helping us to understand better what God is up to.

Dowd: Absolutely.

Pagitt: And I think those two things are really interesting. If you…you read in the introduction to your book, you tell a bit of the story of your own upbringing that you were…you went to an Assembly of God denomination college called Evangel, and that’s a place that if people know that school they might not think someone’s gonna’ come out of that university with a perspective that wants to tell the big story of how God has…how evolution has told the story of God throughout the past fourteen billion years.

Dowd: Yeah, absolutely. In fact if it weren’t for Evangel College, I might never have embraced evolution. I used to an anti-evolutionary fundamentalist and I used to argue with anybody who thought the world was more than a few thousand years old. I used to pass out tracts (you know, these little pamphlets) and you know, would just debate people because I was very threatened by an evolutionary perspective; for me at that time, God’s word was identified only with the bible. I didn’t think of evidence as God’s word. I didn’t think of God speaking through facts uncovered by the entire, worldwide scientific community; so I had a very different worldview, but it was at Evangel College (and I need to give them credit). The first day I walked into Biology class the teacher held up the textbook that we were going to use (and I had used that same textbook four years earlier at the University of Miami, Florida before I spent three years in the Army) so I knew that that textbook taught evolution. And I came to Christ in the Army (so I wasn’t a Christian at the University of Miami) so here I was at this evangelical, Pentecostal college…university and they were teaching evolution; and I literally picked up my books, walked out of class, slammed the door and went to the Registrar’s office and withdrew from the course. In fact, I told my roommate Satan obviously has a foothold on this school; that was the only way I could make sense of how they could possibly be teaching evolution at an evangelical college.

Pagitt: Mmm.

Dowd: Well, I went on to discover that almost all evangelical colleges and universities…they teach evolution; they just teach it in a God-honoring way.

Pagitt: Now…and then you’ve taken these sensibilities of saying, “Look, let’s…let’s not just sit back and act like because we think we’re right that somehow that’s going to win the day, right?” You have…you know gotten into a van and travel around…and you’re intentionally trying to engage in these conversations.

Dowd: Oh yeah.

Pagitt: And you write books and you have a great website thankgodforevolution.com and thankgodforevoltion.net and they’re sort of sister sites that tell two parts of what you’re up to and what you’re doing. How has that gone being someone who is…who is out there trying to tell the story of God through the lens of evolution in kind of this travelling evangelist sort of way? How has that been received by people? Is it hard for folks to get their heads wrapped around it?

Dowd: Not usually. Now remember Doug, I only get invited into places…anybody who believes that evolution is of the devil and all the evils of the world can be attributed to Darwin, they don’t invite me into their church in the first place.

Pagitt: Mmm.

Dowd: So I don’t get invited into the most antagonistic of settings. Typically I get invited to sort of emerging church settings…uh, you know…post-modernist evangelical and sort of radically evangelical settings, moderate to liberal Catholic and Protestant settings, Unitarian Universalist churches, Quaker meeting houses, Mennonite churches…occasionally a Buddhist mediation group and then a whole bunch of secular and science oriented/environmentally oriented groups. And in almost (in fact, I would say every case without exception) there’s been a very strong reception. Now in evangelical settings, typically there’s a handful of people (don’t laugh) they walk out; they don’t even stay till the end, but those who stay (I can say pretty confidently that probably 65-70%) are really blown away. They just sort of sit there in stunned silence and then we have a lot of engaging conversation and they buy a lot of books and DVDs and then send me emails afterwards and tell me that they liked the program. And in other settings, in moderate to liberal Catholic and Protestant settings and non-religious settings and sort of Unitarian Universalists and others…it’s like…more like 95% of the people love the program; whether they’re on the liberal end of the spectrum or on the conservative end of the spectrum.

Pagitt: Well, when we come back, I want to talk a little bit about that also about this…I have this theory that there’s a kind of conservatism that’s not theological, it’s cultural, and that you’re really crossing cultural boundaries in people’s experience with that and I want to see how that’s kind of gone with you. But then also when we come back for you also to tell us…you know kind of give us the snapshot of what the…what your whole program…

Dowd: Right.

Pagitt: What’s your conversation is…what this…what the argument that you’re making is so that people can get a feel for it. If they want to go on your website between now and then if they’re listening live or if they’re listening on the podcast: thankgodforevolution.com will get you all the connection points that you need. We’re going to be back here with Michael Dowd on Doug Pagitt Radio broadcasting live out of the Twin Cities on AM950 and on dougpagittradio.com

(Station Break)

Pagitt: Michael, before we got into the break here, I had suggested that very often a kind of conservative Christianity is as much a cultural thing as it is a theological thing and that what you really run into is a cultural set of “norms.” And I say that it is cultural (not theological) because most theological positions that people hold they have come to through some sort of “discovery” or some sort of process; where culture is something we’re told we live within…something that we acquire without a lot of conscious reflection. And so often I find that I run into conversations with conservative Christian folks (and I was loved and cared for in the faith by these people so I get it pretty well), but…and they hold their assumptions very deeply, but they don’t really…they haven’t really held them based on arguments or based on making a decision…they’re just more rooted in sort of how they understand the world to me. And then someone comes along and suggests something that violates that cultural norm and it feels like it threatens the very existence of life. Do you have that experience at all? Do you think I’m on to anything there?

Dowd: No, I think you’re right on Doug, but I must say I do not fault conservative evangelicals, conservative Catholics…I don’t fault them for rejecting evolution because the only version of evolution that most conservative Christians have ever been exposed to is a chance meetingless, purposeless, mechanistic, cruel, godless, directionless process. And as long as they think that’s what evolution is, in my opinion they should continue to reject evolution.

Pagitt: Right.

Dowd: That’s why I’m so passionate…I mean I really think that our time today is not unlike the time of the Apostle Paul and I sort of…it’s interesting because travelling all over North America for the last eight and a half years I sort of…I feel this “kinship” with the Apostle Paul because…

Pagitt: (Laughing)

Dowd: …in the same way that he was saying, “You don’t understand what God is doing, if you only look to the Hebrew Scriptures,”

Pagitt: Yeah.

Dowd: God is up to something really new and it’s radical, and it’s life changing and here it is…” and then he preached the gospel as best as was revealed to him and understood at that time. And we’re at that same kind of place now. We can’t possibly have but trivial understandings of God and unnatural, impotent notions of the gospel…

Pagitt: Mmm.

Dowd: …if we think that our understands of God and our understands of sin, and salvation…we look merely to ancient understandings of that…that we’re going to have a trivial notion. And, you know one of the Christian churches greatest theologians, St. Thomas Aquinas warned us of this 750 years ago. He said, “A mistake about creation will necessarily result in a mistake about God.”

Pagitt: Hmm.

Dowd: Now that’s true. What it means among other things is the more we learn about the nature of the universe, the nature of creation…if we’re not updating what we mean by God…what we mean by the gospel, we’re going to have outdated, misleading and actually trivial understandings of those. So that’s why I’m so passionate about showing that our tradition is bigger than we thought…it’s more real than we thought…it’s not all about other worldly unnatural things; it’s about this world and how to have…how to enjoy heaven in this life when you understand our best, scientific understanding of evolutionary brain science and evolutionary psychology, for example.

Pagitt: I appreciate that so much and on your website you use this language of “the Great Story,” and I like that. So you say in the great story there’s something bigger than sort of this small…you know just arguing about the minutia of the previous stories; but there’s this bigger story that is changing, a story that’s not over with yet, a story that’s shaped with a planetary perspective where all cultures contribute, that’s open to multiple interpretations and the synergistic between science, religion, and the needs of the world today. Is that…does that kind of grab what you’re trying to say when you travel and what you’re doing with your books and you’re doing with your whole effort in the Thank God for Evolution project?

Dowd: Absolutely. I mean, I think one of the reasons why my book, Thank God for Evolution was endorsed by six, Nobel prize winning scientists (as well as by ministers and priests and rabbis you know, across the spectrum), is it really does articulate (and I’m not the only one – there’s hundreds of us that are articulating) this bridge building perspective that our religion, our tradition is larger, more…more relevant than we could have possibly thought as long as we had a flat earth, you know short earth…short time perspective.

Pagitt: Mmm, hmm.

Dowd: For example, if you think (if anybody listening to this thinks) that the reason you are tempted in certain ways…that you fall in certain ways…that you succumb to certain, simple habits (or whatever) if you think that all that is because your great, great, great, great, great grandmother ate an apple, you’re missing our best understanding of how…

Pagitt: (Laughing)

Dowd: Evolutionary psychology and brain science (for example) give us a much deeper appreciation of the wisdom of the fall of Adam and Eve and of original sin. These ancient insights we can now have a deeper, more fact based, more science based understanding of it.

Pagitt: Yeah. You have this…you have a quote that’s kind of sprinkled throughout a lot of your online and print material that says, “Facts are God’s native language.”

Dowd: Yes, exactly. Facts are God’s native tongue. Evidence is the main way God is speaking today. And you know Doug, you mentioned my Thank God for Evolution website, but the other main website that I have (that Connie and I have) is thegreatstory.org.

Pagitt: Mmm, hmm.

Dowd: http://www.thegreatstory.org/…and right up at the top, the top left-hand corner is my main evening program, the program I’m now delivering to evangelicals, to atheists, to everybody…to all different religious and non-religious groups I give the exact same program; and the entire program is right up there on thegreatstory.org…you can just click on the yellow box and…

Pagitt: Mmm, hmm.

Dowd: …people can see that this is not about the past, it’s not about something “out there,” it’s about our best, collective intelligence…what God has been revealing through science for the last two hundred years; and how that can enrich and strengthen and deepen our faith.

Pagitt: And so, if people want to connect with all of this…obviously your book is a good way to do it and if people like websites and they kinda’ learn through websites you have a series of websites that are connected to each other that can sort of walk somebody along this way…and you also list your calendar there cause you’re in these places and I take it you would encourage people to show up at one of the presentations or talks…

Dowd: Exactly.

Pagitt: …but if they wanted to “host” you could they do that as well?

Dowd: Absolutely. Anybody…Connie and I are permanently travelling North America. We love to do programs; we don’t have a standard fee…we’ll basically trust the budget and generosity of any sponsoring group and organization. So, we sometimes do programs for free…not a problem! In fact, my evening program I always do for free…because we’re professional mooches, Doug…

Pagitt: (Laughing)

Dowd: …we constantly live out of other people’s generosity and homes. We don’t have a high overhead. So at any rate, the thing that I would most recommend is our “great story” website or my blog at thankgodforevolution.com; my schedule is on both of them. And, people can send me an email at Michael@thankgodforevolution.com (repeats) Michael@thankgodforevolution.com and they can invite me that way. But, I definitely recommend that any listeners check out the “Evolutionize Your Life” program, which is up in the top left corner of The Great Story website; that’s the main program, that’s the hour and a half program (it’s about an hour and then I do question and answer) that I’m doing in all context. If you want me to deliver that to your congregation, I would absolutely love to!

Pagitt: Great.

Dowd: As well as preach on a Sunday morning.

Pagitt: Yeah, you would do it all…and even stay in a big, luxury home that happens to be vacant when in the summertime.

Dowd: Well, yeah we’ll also stay in somebody’s guest bedroom…not a problem.

Pagitt: Well, okay that’s great. Well, that’s Michael Dowd and he and his wife travel and they have conversation going on that not just saying, “Sure, I believe in evolution and I believe in the bible and I don’t know how the two have anything to do with one another,” which is the place a lot of folks find themselves, but he’s actually saying that there’s a larger story, there’s this great big thing going on and it’s…it involves what God has been up to from the beginning all the way through now. So Michael thanks for your work, and thanks for being a part of the show and most of all just thanks for just showing up this morning. (Laughing)

Dowd: Thank you Doug. John, sorry I didn’t give you a word in edgewise.

Pagitt: That’s okay. The only reason you didn’t is because he stepped out of the room…he’s not even in here right now.

Dowd: Oh.

Pagitt: See, he begs for air time, then he leaves…that’s how it goes around here.

Dowd: You do great work…keep it up.

Pagitt: Thanks. I look forward to crossing paths. We’ll be back here with natural health coach Shelly Pagitt.

________________________________________________________________________________

Endnotes:

[1] Gordon Clark, In Defense of Theology [Milford: Mott Media, 1984], 58, 61.

[2] John Bohanon, Preaching & The Emerging Church: An Examination of Four Founding Leaders: Mark Driscoll, Dan Kimball, Brian McLaren, and Doug Pagitt [Seattle: CreateSpace, 2010], 88.

[3] http://michaeldowd.org/, accessed 11/15/10.

MICHAEL DOWD & SPENCER BURKE—INTEGRITY AND EVOLUTIONARY CHRISTIANITY (PART 2)

MICHAEL DOWD AND SCIENCE FICTION CHRISTIANITY

FULLER SEMINARY SPONSORS EMERGING CHURCH HERETIC DOUG PAGITT

DOUG PAGITT AND HOMOSEXUAL SIN

DOUG PAGITT, THE EMERGING CHURCH, AND AFFIRMING HOMOSEXUALITY

DOUG PAGITT AND CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALISM

DOUG PAGITT POINTS US TO EVOLUTIONARY EVANGELIST MICHAEL DOWD

Ken Silva pastor-teacher — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 22:50:07 +0000

they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Romans 1:25)

Now Look What The Emerging Church Is Trying To Bring In

Apprising Ministries has pointed out that heretical universalist pastor Doug Pagitt, along with his heretical progressive “theologian in residence” Tony Jones and Emerging Church guru Brian McLaren comprise the unholy trinity of the sinfully ecumenical Emergent Church, which has now blossomed into a full-blown neo-liberal cult that’s operating within mainstream evangelicalism.

This upgraded Emerging Church 2.0 is all the more insidious because, through the assistance of apostates like Dr. Philip Clayton of the Transforming Theology network, who continue cobbling together the new postmodern version of Progressive Christian theology—aka “big tent” Emergence Christianity—it’s poison is now being injected into the very heart of the church visible.

With this in mind I point you to a post by Pagitt called Everything is Holy Now where he writes:

I ran across this song today (thanks to a note from Michael Dowd) and really liked it. Seems like something we would hear around Solomon’s Porch. (Online source)

Being that universalism is at the core of this big tent mythical religion, we’re not surprised; Pagitt continues concerning the video in his post:

Lyrics are below the video – I really like this line from the song:

It used to be a world half-there

Heaven’s second rate hand-me-down

But I walk it with a reverent air

‘Cause everything is holy now

As I told you in Exegeting The Theme Song Of The Emerging Church 2.0 With Its New Progressive Theology the chorus for the theme song behind this new progressive pseudo-Christianity is:

C’mon people now, Smile on your brother;
Ev’rybody get together, Try and love one another right now.

Lord willing, I’ll have more on that another time; here however, I want to make you aware of Michael Dowd, whom Doug Pagitt mentions above. I first brought Dowd to your attention in Jesus Died For Our Reptilian Brain when he appeared on TheOoze.TV with the EC’s Spencer Burke, heretical universalist who says he “believes in Hell.” Billing himself as The Evolutionary Evangelist and author of Thank God for Evolution!: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World (TGfE), Dowd takes us far, far into the postmodern Wonderland of Humpty Dumpty language bending and shaping words into whatever Play-Doh shapes he chooses.

It’s only natural that Burke would want to bring Dowd’s work into the larger Emerging Church 2.0 because under the endorsements for TGfE we find:

(Online source)

Those With Integrity Do Not Radically Redefine Words Before The UnSuspecting

Um, “skillfully redefines” is as big an understatement as they come; completely guts them of any real meaning is more apt, as you’ll hear below when Christian apologist Chris Rosebrough, host of the Fighting for the Faith program on Pirate Christian Radio, reviews Dowd’s “Evolutionize Your Life.”

At his Evolutionary Christianity.TheOoze.com website Dowd tells us:

(Online source)

Dowd also says in How and Why I’m a Pentecostal Evangelical:

I refer to myself (and the media often refers to me) as an ‘evangelical minister’ or a ‘Pentecostal preacher’, even though I speak far more often in moderate and liberal churches (and in secular settings) than I do in evangelical and Pentecostal venues. Not surprisingly, both religious liberals and conservatives genuinely ask, “In what sense do you consider yourself a Pentecostal evangelical?” HERE is my response (Online source)

That link then takes us to Dowd’s Thank God for Evolution website and a long, rambling, redefining of virtually everything concerning Pentecostalism and evangelicalism as anyone might know it. However, that’s for another day; right now we note that Dowd declares:

For thirty years I’ve proudly called myself a Pentecostal,…and for the past two decades I’ve tended to say “evolutionary Pentecostal”, for clarification. My experience in Pentecostal and evangelical contexts has been positive—indeed, salvific—and continues to nourish my life and work. I was raised Roman Catholic… Soon after my 20th birthday, I had a born again experience and went on to graduate from an Assemblies of God college and a Baptist seminary.

I pastored three churches in the 1980s and 90s and have been an itinerant evolutionary evangelist for the past seven years. Speaking in tongues (see below for my naturalized interpretation) has been a vital part of my spiritual practice for decades. The primary reason I unabashedly call myself an evolutionary Pentecostal, however, is this: The core tenets of the evangelical-Pentecostal tradition accurately reflect the nature of the Universe and the human condition so long as they are REALized—that is, made real. (Online source, emphasis his)

What Dowd does with Christian terminology borders on the criminal; and any Christian supporting this man should hang their heads in shame, and all of this rather odd in that Dowd boldly boasts: Integrity is my religion. Next time I’ll show you more about how Doug Pagitt, but of course, fits in with this snake. In closing this, for now, I’ll give you a chance to listen for yourself to the vile rubbish spewed by “Rev.” Michael Dowd who refers to himself “as ‘a born again, Spirit-filled Christian’.”

His sermon “Evolutionize Your Life: Heaven Is Coming Home To Reality” was given at a spiritual blackhole called C3 Exchange:

an inclusive spiritual community that offers resources to enrich and empower the lives of all people in body, mind and spirit. We are an open and evolving community… Accepting you for who and where you are… Encouraging you to reflect on your beliefs and values… Inspiring you to be the change you wish to see in the world. (Online source)

And among the skubalon Dowd shares in his demonic diatribe you’ll hear:

[F]rankly, I don’t know of any Christian, Muslim, or Jew, that is genuinely appreciative of their sinful nature; and yet, that’s what an evolutionary understanding gives us. Is we can have appreciation [of it]… And you’ve got these hundreds of differing, competing, contrdictory, stories about what God said or did; that if you interpret God as a Person, you can’t make sense of those.

But when you understand, from an evolutionary perspective, that all cultures have personified Reality; either Reality as a whole—or some significant aspect of Reality. And personification is one of the things that our brains do…when we remember that “God” is a sacred, meaningful, personification—not a person—all of a sudden, not only does that make sense of all the world’s religious traditions—and their differences—but it also allows us to see that there’s no conflict between science and religion… Nothing is driving young people away from God—away from a right relationship with Reality—faster, and further, than the Bible.

I tell you now in the Lord, if you actually think what you just read is even remotely Christian, then you seriously need to have your spiritual head examined.

See also:

TOXIC THEOLOGY OF DOUG PAGITT

DOUG PAGITT, THE EMERGING CHURCH, AND AFFIRMING HOMOSEXUALITY

DOUG PAGITT AND CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALISM

BIG TENT CHRISTIANITY IS A POSTMODERN PROGRESSIVE LIBERALISM

JUST HOW WELL PROVEN IS EVOLUTION?

JUST HOW WELL PROVEN IS EVOLUTION?

Ken Silva pastor-teacher — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:41:50 +0000

Apprising Ministries has shown you recently in Tim Keller Doesn’t Believe In Young Earth Or Six 24-Hour Day Creation and Book On Old Earth View Influences Dr. John Piper that capitulations to the musings of the science of man are going to make some otherwise fragile associations even a bit more fragile within the Reformed camp.

With all due resepct, I believe I must say that Dr. Piper’s position, which he says he derives from John Sailhamer, seems to be especially squishy:

In verse 1, “In the beginning he made the heavens and the earth,” he makes everything. And then you go day by day and he’s preparing the land. He’s not bringing new things into existence; he’s preparing the land and causing things to grow and separating out water and earth. And then, when it’s all set and prepared, he creates and puts man there.

So that has the advantage of saying that the earth is billions of years old if it wants to be—whatever science says it is, it is—but man is young, and he was good and he sinned.
(Online source)

Apparently Dr. Piper holds a position where we can have our spiritual cake, so to speak, and eat it too: We can agree with the “wisdom” of worldly science concerning the alleged age of the universe, and we can also hold to a (literal?) six day creation by God at some point during one of the billions of years afterward. Macro-evolution and creation too.

Here I recall a certain church-related television character who would often say, “How convenient.” I also remember what the great Church Reformer Martin Luther once said in relation to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation that Jesus raised up; and which, I quoted e.g. in Southern Baptist Pastor Rick Warren Corrects Martin Luther:

The negotiation about doctrinal agreement displeases me altogether, for this is utterly impossible unless the pope has his papacy abolished. Therefore avoid and flee those who seek the middle of the road. Think of me after I am dead and such middle-of-the-road men arise, for nothing good will come of it. There can be no compromise.
(What Luther Says, II: 1019, as cited at Online source)

Jesus really has never been big on compromise; as in, I can retain my stature within the academic community with such a hybrid view of evolu-creation as expressed above. With this in mind then, the piece below from Dr. John Morris, president of the Institute for Creation Research, addresses the critical issue of proof for the theory of evolution.

A couple of years ago Dr. Morris, who is a geologist by trade, made the interesting obeservation that most “evolutionists I have met have something in their own past that has turned them away from ‘religion.’” Of course we as Christians know that religion really isn’t the point; but rather, a relationship with our Creator is what evolutionists actually need.

Dr. Morris also points out another key reason why so many turn to evolution, in spite of the evidence for intelligent design within this world, “Without a God to whom we are accountable, we are free to live as we choose”; direct hit on target:

Recently I was a guest on CNN’s Lou Dobbs program, discussing the difference between evolution, intelligent design, and creation. The other two guests were well- known ID spokesmen, Dr. Jon Wells, and famous evolutionist, Dr. Michael Ruse.

In the middle of the discussion, Dr. Ruse claimed that evolution is a proven fact, just as “proven” as 2+2=4. When challenged, he insisted the two statements are equivalently true. Is this so? If not, what is the difference?

Here’s a simple experiment to verify one of the statements. Extend two fingers on your left hand, and then extend two on your right hand. Lay them all on the table in front of you, and count them. You should get four. If you are careful, every time you count them, you will get four. It’s an observational fact.

Now devise an experiment to verify evolution. Keep trying. There must be one. I suspect even Dr. Ruse would be unable to propose an experiment to verify evolution like we verified our mathematical equation. Even if both statements are facts, obviously they are not the same kind of facts.

That’s because evolution is not something we can observe. If it’s happening today, it’s going too slow to observe. If it happened in the past, we can’t return to the past to see. It may be a fact of history, but how would we know? Certainly not in the same way we know 2+2=4.

Evolution, at the most, is an idea about history, not observational science. There may be inferences we can make about the past based on modern observations, and these may or may not be true, but don’t bother claiming that ideas about history are the same as repeatable observations in the present. And don’t insult us by thinking that we will believe that they are.

It makes you wonder if evolutionists really believe what they say or if they are purposively trying to mislead. I suspect there are some of both.

Many evolutionists I have met have something in their own past that has turned them away from “religion.” Maybe it was legalistic parents or abuse by a respected figure. Maybe it was the insistence that we should “avoid science because it contradicts the Bible,” leaving them without answers to historical claims made in the name of science. A bitter hatred of God and Biblical truth developed, leading them to a life dedicated to freeing others from the shackles of Scripture, justifying the wrong use of evolutionary claims.

However, most evolutionists are evolutionists because they are victims of the wrong teaching of others. Naturalism (i.e., naturalistic evolution) is often desirable, for it seemingly frees us from the authority of a Creator God. Without a God to whom we are accountable, we are free to live as we choose. College students, often surrounded by hedonism are particularly ripe for wrong thinking, and many never recover. Either way, it can lead to ludicrous statements, such as “evolution is as true as 2+2=4.”

Thankfully, most people are not hopelessly deceived. Polls in America show that the majority believes in creation, and many more want it taught. Less than 10% are confirmed evolutionists, yet they seemingly control education. They may teach that evolution is well proven, but we don’t have to believe them.

The original appears at the website of the Institute for Creation Research right here.

See also:

BOOK ON OLD EARTH VIEW INFLUENCES DR. JOHN PIPER

JOHN MACARTHUR: EVERYTHING EVOLUTION CAN'T EXPLAIN IN GENESIS 1:1

Ken Silva pastor-teacher — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:31:59 +0000

If we want to understand creation, if we want to understand origins, if we want to understand how the universe came into existence and everything that is in it, we have to look at theology, not science. And the source of theology is the Word of God in which God speaks. The Bible is not theory, the Bible is fact. The Bible is reality. The Bible is truth no matter what subject it addresses, but particularly with regard to origins since no one was here when God created, we have only His eyewitness account.

And when the Bible speaks with regard to creation, or when it speaks with regard to origins, it speaks truly, it speaks factually. And Scripture begins in Genesis 1 and 2 with a very straightforward account of the origin of the universe and the earth and everything on the earth. Scripture opens with one very clear unmistakable statement, it is this, Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” That is not an ambiguous statement. That is not an unclear statement. That is frankly not a statement that needs any explanation. Pre-Darwin, no one was confused by it. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” From there the first chapter of Genesis proceeds to tell us that in six twenty-four hour days God created everything that exists. It is so simple and so clear and so unmistakable that even a small child can understand Genesis 1.

But as simple as even the first statement, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” is, it is at the same time an illustration of the profundity with which God speaks in simple language. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, a child can understand it. And yet in those simple, clear, unmistakable words there is massive, massive, profound data.

Herbert Spencer, a non-Christian scientist, hailed as one worthy of many prizes in science, died in 1903. His greatest achievement, Herbert Spencer, was that he discovered the categories of the knowable. That is to say he determined that everything that exists fits into one of five categories. This was hailed as a massive, massive cataloging of realities. Spencer said, “Everything fits into one of these categories, time, force, action, space, matter,” and was hailed by the scientific community.

Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning,” that’s time, “God,” that’s force, “created,” that’s action, “the heavens,” that’s space, “the earth,” that’s matter. Everything that Herbert Spencer discovered in 1903, or before that, was in the first verse of Scripture. The Bible says that God created everything, and in saying that, the Bible gives us all the categories that exist. And He did this out of and from nothing, that is with no preexisting material, and He did it in six days.

Now, because the Bible is so clear about this in Genesis 1, and then giving us an even further and more detailed look at this creation, rehearsing its elements in a broader way in chapter 2, you face a test at the very outset of the Bible. You’re not going to get past the first verses of the Bible, you’re not going to get past the first verse in the Bible, the first chapter in the Bible, the first two chapters in the Bible without facing a test. And the test is this, do you believe the Scripture? Do you believe the Scripture? That is the test. No one gets past the opening verses of the Bible without having to face the test of whether or not that person believes the Bible to be the authoritative Word of God. Do you submit to Scripture? Genesis 1 is your first test.

Now I’m going to give you three words to think about tonight and we’re going to kind of unpack these words and they’ll be sort of little categories that we can put our thoughts in so we can understand them a little more clearly. The first word is fidelity…fidelity…fidelity, faithfulness. Either you believe what the Bible says or you don’t. That’s the test. You can accept what Genesis says, or you can reject it. You can’t change it, you don’t have that privilege. In fact, were you to add to Scripture or take anything from it would be added to you the plagues that are written in it. There’s no need for you to edit God. There is nothing lacking anywhere in Scripture and that’s true of Genesis 1 and 2 which somehow needs you to embellish it. You either accept it or you reject it, you have those two options. (The Theology of Creation)

Dr. John MacArthur

JOHN MACARTHUR ASKS BILLIONS OF YEARS NEEDED FOR THE NEW EARTH TOO?

Ken Silva pastor-teacher — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 18:21:13 +0000

Now when you talk about origins you’re going to have to go back to Genesis. This is a book of origins. And let me put it again on the line where I put it last Lord’s day. Either you believe Genesis or you don’t. It’s that simple. Either you believe what Genesis says about all of those origins or you don’t. And that would include either you believe the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2 or you don’t. And if you don’t believe the Genesis account, then I just…I have to tell you, you have no hope of coming to the truth. You’re not going to discover it. Unconverted scientists aren’t going to discover it. You either believe Genesis or you don’t.

And what is really intolerable is to say you believe the Bible but not just the Genesis creation account. You believe Genesis, you believe about the origin of sin, you believe chapter 3 on maybe. Or maybe you’re not sure about that because you don’t really believe there was an actual Adam and an actual Eve. You’ve got a small problem because Jesus said, “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive,” and there was a real Christ, so you can be sure there was a real Adam. But just in case you don’t believe in a real Adam, maybe you don’t sign on until chapter 6, maybe you just believe the Flood. Well, maybe you don’t believe that, maybe you believe when the Tower of Babel is described later on in chapter 11, or maybe you don’t believe that. Maybe you don’t check in until Abraham shows up in chapter 12. Pretty ridiculous, isn’t it? Who are you to be sitting in judgment on Scripture?

You know, I’m never going to get caught in the trap of trying to prove to you that Genesis is true by science. I’m just going to proclaim to you what Genesis says and let science bow its knee to that explanation. As you will see, it will do that. All you can know about how God created is what He said. That’s all you can know. And if you don’t believe what He said about creation, what kind of precedent have you established for the rest of the Bible?

And what about the end? Do you know how all of redemptive history ends? You know how the whole story of humanity ends? It ends according to 2 Peter when the Lord uncreates the universe, I like to use that word. The elements melt with fervent heat. There’s some kind of a…literally an implosion as the nuclear structure, the atomic structure of the universe literally is totally turned against its existence and takes it right back out of existence when He uncreates, when the elements melt as with a fervent heat in that kind of nuclear holocaust that ends human history.

And immediately after that it says in Revelation that He creates a…what? A new heaven and a new earth. Let me ask you this, do you believe He can do that? Or is that going to be another umpteen billion years of evolutionary process to get the new heaven and the new earth cranked up? Is it going to take billions of years to evolve the new heaven and the new earth, or do you really believe God might be able to do that just by fiat, just by making the statement and calling it into existence? If you believe that, then what’s your problem in Genesis?

If God can wipe the entire universe out in a split second, if He can dissolve the whole thing, if He can send it reeling in the time of the Tribulation and refurbish it during the time of the Kingdom and then totally uncreate it at the end of the thousand years, if He can do all of that then I don’t know why you have a problem with Him creating it all in six days. You see, the implications of rejecting the account of Genesis are profound.

And listen to me because what I’m going to say is very important. It is not necessary to reject the six-day creation. It is not necessary. We have yielded up territory to evolution without cause. Science knows nothing. Science proves nothing that contradicts a six-day creation…nothing. In fact, science as it keeps advancing makes its own claims to evolution ridiculous, more ridiculous all the time. (Online source)

Dr. John MacArthur

DR. JOHN PIPER OK WITH OLD EARTH VIEW