"Blessed are your eyes, for you see." (Matthew 13:16a)
Despite my title, I do affirm that young-earth creationism (YEC) is right about the Bible in one aspect. From its premise (which I share) that Genesis 1 is part of biblical revelation, it follows that since its omniscient author is God (2 Tim. 3:16), Scripture is accurate. Since God also declares Himself the creator of the universe (Gen. 1:1) we can hold that God is infinitely better-informed about our cosmic-beginning than are scientists. So the Bible merits our trust as the final authority on matters of creation. NONETHELESS, on this very foundation, unsettling as it may seem, it is NOT to Genesis that the Bible directs people, in order to possibly become persuaded witnesses of God’s compelling creative powers. Stay tuned then to see the Bible’s preferred means to that end.
A recent Gallup survey says 40%
of Americans are YECs. They hold that the creation days of Genesis
were 24-hours each, the “two great lights” were made on the 4th Day, and
that creation was “finished” less than 10,000 years ago. They also claim that Noah’s flood formed our globe’s
every surface feature except for recent volcanics. Yet in reality the minimal requirements of just
fossil-formation alone, renders that view impossible. By contrast those of us who embrace
the Big Bang (BB) creation of the cosmos some 13.75 billion
years ago, declare that that momentous event stands as the most unassailable
scientific proof ever, for God’s existence. The reason is that the events entailed in Genesis
1:1 fully reconcile with the entire array of scientific facts.
Nevertheless, American Christianity
is increasingly declining in numbers.
A separate Gallup poll notes that while two decades ago, 42 %
of adults worshiped regularly, by contrast today only “30%” do. Pew Research says, “Nones”
[atheists, agnostics, apathetics] now comprise the largest
cohort in America” (28%), having nearly doubled from
2007 to surpassing Catholics (23%) … and Evangelicals (24%) today.
In seeking to reverse this trend, JW Montgomery urges Christians to both expose
society’s rampant ignorance and substantiate as
factual the historical claims that
demonstrate Jesus Christ (JC) was raised from the dead as
indeed the Bible portrays Him:
“[Christ’s resurrection]
is a factual claim…that can be supported by the very approach[es]
we…use every day to distinguish truth from fantasy. [Often] the 21st Century
Christian community [refuses] to present … the Gospel as a
matter of [evidence-based] truth. And I firmly believe that this reductionism
of reducing [it] as non-factual…subjective, and emotional,
is one of the most important reasons for the decline of the … Christianization
of our modern societies.” (boldface mine)
