Does believing Genesis is wrong make me a bad Christian?

Archivist said:

i disagree with your literal reading, but I agree that it is not a salvation issue. Usually I don’t post here because I’ve gotten tired of some posters—fortunately not most posters—telling me that I cannot be saved without belief in a literal interpretation. As I’ve said before, you are entitled to your interpretation.

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amen!!

Tra Phull said:

So scientists are E-Ville.

It's news to me, my Science teachers were Christian, from 7th grade through a Christian University.

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No they are not, but again, don't teach 'mr scientist' (i am not talking about you) to everyone that evolution *alone* can create us, and i am going to call you out on your error, God made us, for what good i am going to accomplish i don't know because people seem to ridicule this teaching that God created us, but imagine that this world is up side down, with the 'low tier' little believers actually being on top on the most important aspect of life, and scientific truth also, because believing God created everything is scientific you know, since is truth.

Actually scientists are heroes, bringing us computers and medicine and all that, but on this one, they are absolutely wrong, that evolution made us? God did. We have an immortal soul inside, this soul needed to be in a matching body, so God created our soul so by logic also our bodies.

Starting with the Renaissance, more or less, there was a new kind of critical thought. I’m not claiming that everyone before that was completely naive, nor that people didn’t try to be objective. But critical method, which led into the Enlightenment, led to a very different attitude towards both traditions and texts such as the Bible.

As far as I can tell from my readings in church history, for most of the history of the Church, people assumed that the traditions going back to Christ were true, not distinguishing between Bible, church fathers, and the developing tradition. There wasn’t the kind of insistence on absolute propositional truth that you’ll find in modern conservative Protestants, because that developed in opposition to the Enlightenment, but there was a general assumption that the Bible, along with other aspects of the tradition were true. There also wasn’t the kind of evidence from science and archaeology that we have today that might require people to rethink that.

Starting with the 16th Cent, Western culture started to develop a self-critical attitude, spurred perhaps by the conclusion that some key Christian texts (e.g. the Donation of Constantine) were frauds, that there were problems with the Vulgate translation, and key theological elements had been based on those errors, and that supposedly unchanging tradition had actually changed a fair amount over time.

Over the next few centuries, we came to be much more critical of our own traditions, and to appreciate more explicitly that although the Church came from Christ, that didn’t mean that he would necessarily approve of everything currently taught. The scientific method actually started in medieval times, but it became more explicit during this time, and scientists became accustomed to finding out that things people had always believed turned out to be wrong.

Outside of science, it’s harder to come up with tests for truth that everyone can agree on. But there was the same realization that things Christians have always believed might well be wrong, and attempts to develop approaches to allow for that.

The Reformation occurred very early in this process. Luther and Calvin fully understood the issues with tradition, but they tried replace problems with the tradition by using Scripture as an authority. This was not a new approach: everyone before the 16th Cent had assumed that Scripture was the teachings of the Apostles, and they were true. But that had also been thought about tradition.

To take a critical view of tradition and elevate Scripture to God’s direct teaching was a novel approach. It did allow them to deal with many of the obvious theological and pastoral problems of the day, but it left the Protestant tradition in a kind of limbo, understanding fully the problems with tradition, but unwilling to apply the same methods to Scripture.

At this point the Protestant tradition has split, with parts continuing the critical program of the Reformers, and extending that to Scripture, and parts unwilling to change the traditional view of Scripture.

You can’t look at questions of Genesis outside this perspective. Certainly people have tried compromises, e.g. day-age approaches that claim to reconcile some scientific insights with Genesis, or limited understandings that say the first 11 chapters aren’t historical, but the rest is. But understanding the creation story as non-historical is really part of the critical understanding of Scripture.

I’m not convinced that the compromises are going to work in the long run:

• Archaeologists have problems with later parts of the Bible
• It’s become increasingly obvious that on key moral issues, such as gender and sex, the Bible reflects a culture that today we would consider unacceptable, and that there is evidence that it rests on misunderstandings
• If you look at the Bible without preconceptions, it’s obvious that there are NT authors that have differing viewpoints
• A lot of modern theology, while claiming to be “Biblical,” really is based on later tradition, and the proof texts cited really have little to do with the final theology.

Whether Christianity can actually survive a critical approach to Scripture is less clear. Certainly liberal theology hasn't done well in keeping members active in church. But if it fails, I think the US is going to split into two completely separate cultures, engaged in a continuing cold war.

Interesting, Hedrick, this splitting into two different cultures...

IMO, this thread has shown me that Christians already have.

ChristianForCats said:

See my threads in Memorial and Grief Support, Pets and Animals, and Depression Disorders forums about my last cat.

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I hate thinking about loosing my kitties. Fortunately they are both a little over two years old (not related, I got Trickett first and after a couple weeks decided that he needed a friend). I’m hoping that they both live good long lives but I know that problems can develop. I’m almost 60 so I do worry that they could outlive me. Fortunately I have a cousin who loves cats and has promised to take them if that would happen, and I have $10,000 earmarked in my will to cover their food and medical care.

Tra Phull said:

Interesting, Hedrick, this splitting into two different cultures...

IMO, this thread has shown me that Christians already have.

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Yes, we have. But in the wider society liberal Christians (which to some extent includes Catholic scholars and theologians, and a substantial moderate evangelical wing) play a kind of mediating role I think.

if we can’t sustain a moderate / liberal Christian group, I think the gap in the wider American culture will become even more serious. Personally I suspect that the mainline churches will all but die, but that viewpoint may survive in Catholics and moderate evangelicals.

nolidad said:

Well you have divided the bible into history and non-history, despite Jesus verifying, Adam and Eve and Noah and the world verifying the account of Babel.

It is sad you declare BB/TOE as truth when Jesus and His Word is declared as truth!

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Read post no. 77
It'll explain some stuff.
There's much more but you can find out for yourself.
There's a lot of non-history in the O.T.
You figure snakes spoke back then?

ChristianForCats said:

I adopted a 6-month old kitten expecting her to live 15 years. She did not make it to 4.

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I am so sorry. They are family, and they really become a part of your life. Hopefully both of mine will make it to a least 15 although I worry about my big guy. He is 25 pounds, although apparently it runs on the family. His father and brother are just as big. I started him on diet cat food this spring, hoping that helps.

Tra Phull said:

Interesting, Hedrick, this splitting into two different cultures...

IMO, this thread has shown me that Christians already have.

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I'm interested in the historical aspects. How did we get here? One question is why the split happened so late, when the new science started in the 16th Cent. I think John Calvin may be credited with holding off problems, at least for Protestants. He held the traditional view of Scripture, that it was the oracles of God. Sort of. He accepted that there were minor disagreements, e.g. in numbers, and he thought that the Sermon on the Mount was probably a summary by Matthew, not delivered by Jesus in that form. But basically he understood the Bible as being God's word in the literal sense.

But the first of the long series of scientific changes was already visible in his time: the early results of the new astronomy. His idea was that Genesis describes things as they would appear to a common man, but that this might not be what astronomers know to be literally true. (I don't recall the specific example. I think it might have been the fact that the moon isn't actually a light, but reflects the sun.) He says the purpose of Genesis wasn't to teach astronomy. For that you should look to astronomers.

It's an interesting approach, which permitted Reformed Christians to accept the new scientific discoveries while still accepting the Bible as the oracles of God. I'm not sure, however, that this would be sufficient to deal with today's astronomy, evolution, nor some of the recent archaeological conclusions (e.g. that Israel was mostly settled peacefully, with Israel moving from the hill country into the cities).

The ultra-literalists May be very prevalent on messageboards. In the wider society, I don't think they are that numerous.

I don't know much of Calvin's influence historically.

I read all of Francis Schaeffer's books; he seemed to fight for Gen 1-11 being literally true; with some compromises...

I think I am a dying mainliner.

WrappedUpinHisLove3 said:

i have no idea how old the earth is. it is not important. what is important is Jesus being the son of God and mankind's saviour and lord. if you have received Jesus as lord and saviour and been born again of water and spirit you are fine.

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I do not know the exact age, but i do know in Genesis 1:1 God created heaven and earth. And i do know that the earth created in Genesis 1:1 was restored in Genesis 1:2 to 1:31 and that happened in 6 days. So that is the beginning of humans, with the creation of Adam. So you can get close to the age of the restored earth by counting back to Adam.

ChristianForCats said:

I think Christian History and Denominational Theology are better sections for this subject since it goes far beyond the Bible itself, but love your comments. For me the issue is most denominations have traditions, beliefs, and rules that IMO are unbiblical. On this topic, one of them is, of course, fundamentalists saying the Creation must have happened in six literal days . . . while at the same time otherwise being more like an American Baptist than anything else.

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I recall getting into it with a fundamentalist on CF one time. He insisted that Christians had to believe in a literal 6-day creation to be saved because the Bible days that’s what happened. Yet when I asked him whether he believed that the elements of Communion were the Body and Blood of Jesus he said, no of course not even though the Bible says this is my Body, this is my Blood. So these people are picking and choosing what parts of the Bible to take literally, they just won’t admit it.

Everyone must pick and choose.