Evolution, Literal Interpretation and Heresy

[Jimmy The Hand]

Many times in the creation / evolution arguments, the battle is framed as Christianity against atheism. In appearance, it seems that just as strong a conflict (if not moreso) is going on between those Christian sects that require that creation story be interpreted as uncompromising fact against those believers who see it as an allegory. We have certainly seen evidence of this conflict in this very forum.

I was struck by the content of an Answer In Genesis article. I guess the phrase that caused me to pause was "liberal pastors".

Now I don't want to specifically talk about the AIG article but it made me wonder just how serious is the creation / evolution debate within the Christian community. It reminds me of the old adage that fights within the family are so much worse than fights with outsiders.

It appears to me that certain YEC organizations are at the very least insinuating that non-YEC ministries are perpetuating heresy. At worse, it seems they want to create a schism. For lack of a better analogy, my way or the highway.

As with any rift, within any family, I could imagine this is painful. It set me to wonder how our Christian friends on this board feel about the apparent hard line being taken by some? YECers do you consider it heresy to teach the creation story as non-literal? Could this lead to a schism in Christianity as great as schisms in the past?

Atheists and other believers are as always welcome to chime in also.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

One of the literalists over at GA actually claimed that believing in Evolution was the same as "accusing Jesus of lying", although she refused to specify inhowfar evolution conflicted with the Good News.

So yes, I suppose there is a severe conflict within the Christian community. At least *some* of the YECs obviously go so far as to suggest that anybody who "believes Darwin's lies" cannot be a True Christian (tm).

 

[Garnet2727]

There has been a rift within the religious people in my own family and within their churches. As an example, both of my sisters are Southern Baptist and that church is conservative and literal. Last time I was visiting, one of my sisters and I got involved in a long conversation about Creation. At the time, she believed as the church taught, in a literal 6 day creation. Now this sister is one smart lady so I started laying out why I thought evolution was proven. Then I challenged her to show me physical evidence of creation. Now, many in this forum would have found us humorous and neither of us have more than highschool education in biology, but we did our best.

The first thing my sister did was to study up on ToE...what it says, not the Creationist strawman version. One of her son-in-laws is studying biology in college. Then she started going to the creation websites, talking about it in church etc, etc. She was fairly horrified by the lies, misrepresentations etc that she found on the web but what bothered her even more were the same attitudes within her own church. In one instance, she nearly came to blows with another woman over the transitional fossil that is half horse and half fish nonsense.

Eh...this is turning into a book. The readers digest version is that her exploration for fact and talking about her discoveries in church cause a big rift within her church and within my immediate family. My other sister stubbornly clings to Creationism and simply plugs her ears when the subject of Evolution is brought up.

It's a mess..and it's still going on within their church and within my family. I'm starting to hear from cousins and aunts and uncles that I've not heard from in years. And guess what? Apparently, this is all my fault for "stirring up trouble".

 

[Ron21647]

Well, I looked it up on our denomination's (Assembly of God) web site, and was pleasantly surprised to see that I'm not the heathen that I supposed I was. From what I have heard from the pulpit many times, and also in conversations with my pastor, I thought a literal belief of the Creation story would be required. But here it is, #1 of their 16 Fundamental Truths:

1. The Scriptures Inspired

The Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible, authoritative rule of faith and conduct.

2 Timothy 3:15-17 [KJV/NIV]

1 Thessalonians 2:13 [KJV/NIV]

2 Peter 1:21 [KJV/NIV]

This is from http://ag.org/top/beliefs/truths.cfm#1

Ron