The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) passed a resolution affirming, as a matter of binding doctrine, literal six-day creation.
They have effectively passed a resolution stating that "God is a god of deceit and confusion, a god who has seeded the earth and heavens with vast amounts of fake evidence, for some unknown purpose. A god that behaves in a capricious manner that is contrary to all his attributes as expressed in scripture."
This is dangerous, as making something cardinal that is not intended to be cardinal always is. It splits the body over something that should not be the source of a split. Creation should be an agree-to-disagree matter, as the early creeds understood when they expressed the who (God) and the what (maker of heaven and earth) but were wisely silent on the when and the how. 1
It is also dangerous in a more poignant way that I have seen, first-hand, more than once. A student reared in such an environment, assuming the literal six day dogma is reaffirmed in the home and Christian school, arrives at university and is immediately placed in tension between what they learn about modern science and what they have been told (out of foolhardiness) is sacrosanct. They are, due to the dogmatic insistence of those who should be emphasizing the gospel rather than a theory of creation, given an impossible Sophie's Choice. And sometimes when they choose one (unimportant dogma or secular science) the other becomes dead to them.
If I count, in my head, I reach seven the number of students of whom I have personal knowledge who grew up in the faith and then walked away when they realized that reconciliation is impossible. 2
Of course the blame for this is often attributed to the wrong party. It's not the mythical atheistic god-hating fire-breathing science professor (personally I never met one, although I have met literally thousand of science professors, many during a period when I was an atheist) whose deprogramming is responsible for the oh-so-unnecessary break from faith of these young people. No, it is the well-intentioned leaders such as those in the LCMS who draw a line in the sand in a place where scripture does not demand one.
I find this to be madness.
1 If you think there was no need for the early creeds to state what was universally accepted, i.e. six day creation, you'd be wrong.
2 Reconciliation between six day creation and science is impossible, but not between scripture and science. God forbid. And to be fair, it is possible that the expressed inability to reconcile their church teachings with science may be, in some cases, just a convenient scapegoat.
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ReplyDeleteToo bad that they did that. Thanks for the news, though.
ReplyDeleteI think it would behoove Christians to remember this from Job - "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" I now lean old universe with a big dose of mystery because the idea of an atemporal and infinite God creating time and space out of nothing is beyond what my mind can fathom.
ReplyDeleteI can't quite put my finger on it, but I wonder how much of the Creation debate has to with cultural "Christianity" losing ground as the social and political driving force in the US? The blending of politics and Christendom before and around the time of the Scopes monkey trial isn't pretty.
The creation debate as a line-in-the-sand issue is definitely a misguided response to the ToE. Prior to that, and all the way back to the early church, it was no big deal to argue that something mysterious was going on and that 24-hour days, before there was a sun, was at the very least confusing and not something about which we should be dogmatic.
DeleteMy experience (though more limited), is similar...I have never met the "god-hating fire-breathing science professor...." or post-doc...or even grad student. The only "god-hating fire-breathing" people I have met in school were some fellow students when I was an undergrad...and even these were perhaps possibly attracted to physics because of that stereotype.
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