Ok, the broadcast info can be found here:
Crocker, Sisson, Cordova, Chenette: TV special on ID in Higher Education
First of all, let me state I’m 75% YEC. I teach and defend YEC probably more than any IDer I know on the net with the exception of Johnny Bartlett. The only reason that I’m not 100% is that I know that my understanding and knowlege are limited, and I would not presume to add any more requirement to my Christian brothers and sisters. Christ’s work on the cross and His person must have precedence in their theology. Even I were 100% sure YEC were true, I would still not use it as a litmus test for someone’s Christianity at any level, from member all the way to pastor.
But man, oh man, some of the YEC-militancy out there is distressing.
1. If the Westminster Presbytery of my denomination had it’s way they’d put almost all the Pastors and Elders on trial in my entire denomination for not mandating YEC. (See the link above, and look for Potomac Presbytery’s response. I’m part of Potomac Presbytery).
I mean, would they put Dave Snoke, myself, and D. James Kennedy on church trial because we don’t think YEC should be a requirement for church office?
Some of the YECs out there felt it perfectly appropriate to call James Dobson a compromiser. How about Caroline Crocker (Episcopalian – likely Old Earther), or Guillermo Gonzalez?
What does Westminster Presbytery have to say:
Whereas, the issue is of such importance not only because the whole Word of God has been “rewritten” by the same hermeneutic method that was condoned as an acceptable view at the 25th General Assembly, but which when applied consistently throughout, the Word of God has been championed to support such heresies as women’s ordination, homosexuality, and the denial of the historicity of great foundational truths of the Christian faith such as the virgin birth, the substitutionary atonement and the bodily resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
….
These views of Scripture are perpetrated by the neo-orthodox liberals of our day. We repudiate it as heresy. It is the same method of perverting and twisting the Scriptures that has been championed by denominations to “justify”: the ordination of women to ecclesiastical office, to commend and approve of homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle, and to permit sodomites to hold ecclesiastical offices. It is the same hermeneutic that has been championed by the liberals of our day to twist the Scriptures to teach that Jesus was not born of the Virgin Mary, that propitiation by the substitutionary atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ is a barbaric relic of primitive man’s thinking, and that the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is mythical.
The are so swift to attribute so many of the ills of the church to views on the age of the Earth. Yikes! I’m a YEC, and these guys scare me.
Thank you Sal. This is what I appreciate about you the most, “unity in the essentials, liberty in the non-essentials, and charity in all things”. As an OEC I would never exclude YEC from fellowship, unless they make that as a test for salvation. By make this issue a requirement for salvation amounts to what Paul calls the preaching of another gospel.
There are many faithful and conservative exegetes of the Word of God who hold to a literal long periods of days of Creation, i.e. JP Moreland, Walter Kaiser, Normal Geisler, William Lane Craig.
The PCA commissioned a study back in 2000(I think) and produce a detail report on the Biblical view of Creation. The conclusion was that YE view is not a necessity of Genesis. I think there are dissensions even within your Potomac Presbytery. I think RC Sproul in down by D J Kennedy is open to long period days also.
scordova, that is right in the Christian context. As long as Christians ackowledge that God is The Creator (through Jesus) everything else regarding age of the Earth should not be turned into dogma.
inunison,
Greetings! Welcome to our humble weblog.
Salvador
ty Salvador
Salvador, it sounds like you’ve softened your position on YEC enough, that even if you decided YEC wasn’t true, you would still retain your faith in Jesus. If that is the case, then Hallelujah!!!