ANNE ASKS: What is the explanation for today\u2019s \u201cyoung earth\u201d movement among evangelicals? THE RELIGION GUY ANSWERS: This question\u00a0 highlights the split between many Christians in science and a wing within conservative Protestantism that believes Genesis chapter 1 requires a \u201cyoung earth\u201d chronology with earth and all living things originating some 10,000 years ago, not the billions of years in conventional science. Confusingly, this is called \u201ccreationism\u201d though Christians who accept the long chronology also believe God created earth and life. Most \u201ccreationists\u201d also say God literally formed the world in six 24-hour days, immediately fixed all species and humanity without evolution, and caused a flood that covered the globe. In the 19th Century, geologists shifted to the vast timeline that was later confirmed by measuring radioactive decay in earth\u2019s minerals. Long chronology was essential for Darwin\u2019s theory that gradual evolution produced all biological species. Whatever they thought of Darwinism, leading evangelicals and fundamentalists originally saw no biblical problem with the new geology. Some figured the \u201cdays\u201d of Genesis meant long \u201cages,\u201d the \u201cgap\u201d theory proposed a vast era between the first two verses of Genesis, and there were other explanations. The \u201cold earth\u201d was accommodated by B.B. Warfield, the 19th Century formulator of \u201cinerrancy\u201d (the Bible\u2019s total accuracy on history); William Jennings Bryan, the famous prosecutor of Darwinism at the 1925 \u201cmonkey trial\u201d; \u201cThe Fundamentals,\u201d the 1910-1916 booket series that gave rise to fundamentalism; and later on by numerous\u00a0Christian professionals in the American Scientific Affiliation. Yet Gallup found in 2007 that two-thirds of grass-roots Americans (and not just Christians) think it\u2019s \u201cdefinitely\u201d or \u201cprobably\u201d true that God created humanity \u201cwithin the last 10,000 years.\u201d The expert on this is Ronald L. Numbers, who teaches the history of science at the University of Wisconsin \u00a0and wrote \u201cThe Creationists\u201d (expanded edition, 2006). He takes special interest as someone raised in the creationistic Seventh-day Adventist Church (though agnostic as an adult). This growing international church of 18 million members is somewhat Protestant but quite distinct, for instance insisting that the Ten Commandments require Saturday worship. The church declares a \u201cfoundational\u201d belief that the events of Genesis are \u201chistorical and recent, that the seven days of creation were literal 24 hour days forming a literal week, and that the Flood was global in nature.\u201d That platform originated with church founder Ellen G. White (1827-1915), whose prophecies and visions have near-scriptural status among Adventists. White believed the long chronology \u201cstrikes directly at the foundation of the Sabbath\u201d on Saturday. In 1864 White depicted a vision in which she was \u201ccarried back to the creation and was shown that the first week, in which God performed the work of creation in six days and rested on the seventh day, was just like every other week.\u201d That inspired scientific hobbyist George McCready Price to defend a young earth on grounds that the worldwide flood disrupted the geological evidence. In Numbers\u2019 scenario that Adventist theory was carried into conservative Protestant circles in \u201cThe Genesis Flood\u201d (1961) by theologian John C. Whitcomb Jr. and civil engineer Henry M. Morris. By a decade or so after that book appeared, Numbers tells Religion Q and A, \u201cthe majority of fundamentalist evangelicals had abandoned an old earth for a young earth,\u201d spurning standard geology and their Bible-believing forebears. Why? Numbers says \u201csome did so for eschatological reasons, believing that consistency required that the same principles should govern the interpretation of the first and last chapters of the Bible. Others argued that evangelicals had been revising their reading of Genesis to accommodate scientific findings for more than a century \u2014 and that it was past time to start with a literal reading of Genesis and fit nature into that framework.\u201d Others simply followed \u201cyoung earth\u201d Bible teachers in their church settings. Lament over creationism\u2019s inroads figured prominently in \u201cThe Scandal of the Evangelical Mind\u201d (1994) by historian Mark A. Noll, then at Wheaton College, a prime evangelical campus. He decried \u201cserious damage to Christian thinking\u201d that has \u201cmade it much more difficult to hear careful Christian thinkers\u201d who are scientific experts. Noll said too many fellow evangelicals \u201cforfeited the opportunity to glorify God for the way he had made nature\u201d and discarded the biblical principle that God reveals himself in nature as well as the Scriptures. Conservative Protestants follow four options: \u2014 \u201cYoung Earth Creationism\u201d proposes scientific and biblical arguments for its short chronology from groups like the Creation Research Society, Institute for Creation Research, and Ken Ham\u2019s populist Answers in Genesis. \u2014 \u201cOld Earth Creationism\u201d accepts science\u2019s standard long chronology but questions Darwin\u2019s evolution theory. Hugh Ross\u2019s Reasons to Believe represents this approach. \u2013\u201cIntelligent Design\u201d likewise doesn\u2019t question the long chronology but thinks the complexity of life forms makes Darwinism implausible, arguing academically without reference to God or Genesis. The Discovery Institute\u2019s Center for Science and Culture leads this movement. \u2014 \u201cTheistic Evolution\u201d says God used the long timeframe and biological evolution for creation. Eminent geneticist and devout Christian Francis Collins, now director of the National Institutes of Health, originated one key proponent, the BioLogos Foundation. Among conservative Protestant denominations that officially address this, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod believes \u201cthe creation happened in the course of six consecutive days of normal length.\u201d The Lutheran Church \u2014 Missouri Synod affirms that God \u201ccreated all things in six days\u201d but doesn\u2019t specify 24-hour days and says \u201cthe Bible itself does not tell us how old the earth is.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ANNE ASKS: What is the explanation for today\u2019s \u201cyoung earth\u201d movement among evangelicals? THE RELIGION GUY ANSWERS: This question\u00a0 highlights the split between many Christians in science and a wing within conservative Protestantism that believes Genesis chapter 1 requires a \u201cyoung earth\u201d chronology with earth and all living things originating some 10,000 years ago, not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1275,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n