Old Earth Christianity as a Matter of Character
by Brian Forbes
(c) 2015 Brian Forbes

A couple weeks ago, I was in an online debate about old earth Christianity vs. young earth Christianity.  It was not on my page, and, in the end, the guy called me a liar and banned me from the site.  While I was banned, he posted out of context quote after out of context quote as a "proof" that I was lying, and, though I asked him through email several times, he refused to allow me to defend myself publically.  I suppose that we can call what was a burden a blessing, because if he hadn't cut me off, I would have responded and left the page forever.  As a result, I'm writing this, and it is here for you to read now.  I hope you enjoy it.

About a year ago, I had a different debate with another old earth Christian, and that one was much more cordial.  We passed evidence back and forth to the point that one of his responses was a seventy page research paper with chapter headings and footnotes.  We both left the conversation feeling great about life.  We were mutually affirmed in our discussion.

I have decided, after a couple weeks of thinking about it, that the difference between the two discussions was a root that went much deeper.  The discussion of a year ago was born out of a love for Jesus and a desire to get the two opposing world views to work together.  The one of two weeks ago was born out of fear, that Genesis actually might be written as a history, thus "causing it to be false," thus (through a train of thought stemming from it) Jesus was a liar.  If I was able to prove my position true, it would mean an end to their faith.  He didn't want that for himself or his followers, so he shut me out.  When I think about it that way, I can hardly blame him for fearing my answer.

This interaction and the thought process that followed has really caused me to think about whether I am willing to jeopardize a man's faith - to force him to hear my thoughts and cause him to lose confidence in Christianity.  My thought is no.  I don't want people to doubt God or Jesus.  What speculative topic is worth bickering over?  Is it worth it to me, for instance, to insist to people that there are or are not secret societies that are controlling the world by controlling media?  Is it worth it for me to deny it?  That's not a topic worth spending my life on.  Ultimately, we are condemned by what we do, by our sin, and not by the secondary thoughts about where we come from.  And our avoidance of sin is directly connected to our belief about the Lordship of Jesus over our own life.  If someone is able to believe in a flimsy Genesis, if they are willing to do that AND believe in Jesus, who am I to take away their Lord from them.  Let the secondary issues remain secondary.

What kind of character am I going to have in this?  What kind of character am I going to advocate that others would have.  Am I going to point people to Jesus from only one direction, or am I going to find their starting point and let them come to Jesus on their path of least resistance?  Am I going to reject and ridicule people who are walking another path?  Which is more loving?  And which will lead them to the truth and righteousness?

What I learned from contrasting this debate with the one a year ago is that some people start with a training in science.  That means that they didn't ever allow for a supernatural explanation in their experimentation, right on down the line.  They always looked for a material answer to every problem.  Other people start from the place of having a supernatural experience with Jesus, and they trust what he said and move the other direction.  Now do I want the person who starts with science to deny Jesus' teachings because He did miracles?  Of course not.  Do I want people to deny God because they've never been exposed to so called science, and, when they enter college, they are deceived and fall?  Of course not.  The best case is to have everyone, no matter their starting point, come to Jesus and trust in Him.  I want them to obey him.  That's the end goal.  The other things are secondary.  The secondary issues can influence our character, directly or indirectly, but if we keep in focus what is most important, namely character and relationship with Jesus, we are doing right.

I'm going to go from here with the assumption that this is our goal - to lead people into service of Christ.  If someone wants to hang on to their so called science, I'm going to fight that battle after we have established the Lordship of Christ.  Is Christ your Lord?  Good.  You and I have the same goal in mind.  We need to win more and more souls for Him however we can, and keep people from leaving Him however we can. 

If you are a YEC, I am like you.  I hope that you can see that Lordship is the goal, and even a little doubt can end up destroying faith.  Please don't insist that a person cannot be a Christian and believe in so called science.  You can disparage the science all day long, but if you insist that they have to believe a literal Genesis, they may end up leaving the church, and they will indirectly have you to blame.  You can tell them that you don't agree with him, but Hugh Ross does a good job of twisting scripture to conform to the science.  Let them figure it out.  If their only way to maintain faith is to twist Genesis, let's segregate them in our mind, and let our mutual Master be their judge. (Ro. 14:4)

If you are an old earth Christian, I urge you to stop preaching your so called science to Bible believers.  There is as much or more real science that you probably have never seen that contradicts your so called science.  There are answers to your claims.  It is true that some of them will hear you and accept both contradictory truths at the same time, but it's not true for all of them.  Some of them will be led away from Christ if you insist that Genesis is not literal.  Let's take a moment to consider the train of logical thought that would take us from Genesis as a non-history to Jesus as a non-prophet.  I assume here that you have a strong faith, and you're reading this in order to sympathize with those who "cannot be creative" about their origins beliefs.  If you are preaching this message, you are attacking my Christianity.  I cannot accept that Jesus was true if the earth is old.  Sure, there's some wiggle room for a gap, or day age, or whatever, but those, ultimately, do not work.  So I'm going to give this information as though you are beating down my faith.  If it's annoying to you, you can imagine that it would be annoying to folks like me as well.

If I can't trust Genesis, I don't see how I can trust the writings about Jesus. It's a matter of trust and scriptural authority, not a matter of literal vs. symbolic. It would be a really flimsy reason to reject the Bible if it was just about Genesis 1-11's historicity. Jesus is far removed from Genesis in his message of love, so you have to look at the details. A literal Genesis is a rung in a ladder of context, which I will get to.   My faith does not depend on something trivial, like whether or not Jesus had brown hair, or whether his church keeps his commandments. My faith does depend on the truth of the Bible as a whole. If the Bible is false in one point, I have no assurance that any of it is true. It's up for interpretation. Any passage might be dismissed by anyone simply because it doesn't sound right. If we know for certain that something is false, anything and everything is up for interpretation.  What did God mean when He said He made heaven, earth, and everything in them in 6 days?  (Ex. 20:11)  Who knows, who cares?  What about Hebrews 11, recounting the faith of the characters of Genesis?  Who knows?  If I give up Genesis, I don't care at this point.  All we know about Jesus comes from the Bible. Sure, we could look at Gnostic gospels, NDE's, or even my own daydreams, but there's no confidence there. I could believe it with all my heart, and my faith doesn't make it true. I trusted the gospel of Matthew first, because he was one of the 12, an eye witness to the events. I compared it with John, who was also an eye witness. Jesus vouched for Isaiah, Zechariah, David, and Moses, among others, and the only writings we have for those guys were confirmed when we found the Dead Sea Scrolls. If Abraham wasn't a literal living person, this statement makes no sense, "Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.'" (John 8:58) Abraham - the father of nations - he existed. Jesus was around before he existed. Abrams story begins in chapter 11 of 50. About 4/5ths of the book has to be history. Chapter 10, the chapter before separates the nations in a literal fashion in literal places around Africa, Europe, and Asia. Josephus (Antiquities, book 1, ch. 6) confirms the start of nations. Others have written books on the topic as well (i.e. Noah's Three Sons by Arthur Custance). So at very least, we can take it back to chapter 10. We can go back to chapter 9 where it says to be fruitful. That had to be a literal command to actual people, because chapter 10 was showing the fulfillment of their obedience. Chapter 8 has a promise, "I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done." It would be a lie if God never did destroy the inhabitants of our water laden planet. Now we're back to Noah. Gen. 9:28-29 gives us a clue there. "After the flood Noah lived 350 years. Noah lived a total of 950 years, and then he died." Before the what? If he literally had children that became the nations, which we established earlier, then he literally lived 600 years before that flood. What kind of stupidity would that be? They write down that Noah lived nearly 1000 years. It's one thing to say that some fictional character lived a thousand years, but it's another thing to say that he's my grandpa, and that it's his obedience that saved our race. It's Santa Claus - with gifts for going to bed on time. But thinking people connecting themselves to Santa in a real way shows their own gullibility. If that was just metaphorical, it makes no sense to treat it that way. Now we have about 50 points of faith in this paragraph.  I could write many more paragraphs like it.  If we got like-minded people together, we could write hundreds or thousands of contradictions out.  If it turned out not to be true, and Noah wasn't a real guy, then Jesus didn't know what he was talking about in Mt. 24. Or Matthew and Luke didn't know what they were talking about when they wrote down their genealogies. I'm sorry, but it's impossible to be descended from a fairy tale. See, my faith is not in MY interpretation. My faith is in the FACT that all those who promote evolution have never given me any way to interpret these passages that vindicates Jesus. Is Jesus NOT literally going to return?

Here's a true story. I didn't make this up. It's historical. I know a guy who is very smart. We would hang out regularly, and before long, he became one of my top three friends. I spent more time with the guy than any of my other friends combined. We had a routine, and we spent hours together every week. I believed all sorts of good things about the guy. And then he was arrested for allegedly downloading child pornography. All of the things we had done in the past became a question mark in my mind. Was he getting close to me to get close to my kids? Was my faith in the arresting officer a trivial thing? Not at all! Who wouldn't wonder. Should I take a so called deep position on Genesis, contrary to the historical and scientific evidence, which makes God's book (called his "word" in Psalm 119) deceptive at least and more likely a lie. They call these imaginary folks they descend from their "fathers" and recount fictional events as signs of literal future ones. They point to fictional people as people we should emulate with our faith. Literally stand up in the face of the fire, because the fiction of Daniel's friends might come true. Not very assuring. If I took your position, I wouldn't be able to take God's promises to heart. Abraham was fake. I couldn't expect God to rescue me in the face of the king, and I couldn't expect Him not to flood the earth "again". It never happened! Just as the only things I ever knew about my friend would change upon his conviction, everything I know about the Bible would change upon its being revealed as a "pedophile" of sorts. It certainly isn't the same crime, but the deception of the text, the hiddenness of the message, the untrustworthiness and betrayal; it's all the same. I am strongly inclined to believe that these allegations are false, and that what I know of these things trumps the claims against them.  My faith in Jesus isn't weak. It's very strong. But if you ask if my faith in Jesus depends on the scriptures, I will have to say an emphatic yes. Aside from divine revelation, where else am I going to get my information about him? But if my source for doubt proves true, my faith is shattered.  What does shattered faith look like?  I assure you, it's not pretty.

My aim here is not to denigrate the faith of any avid old earther. I hope that you can keep a faith in Jesus - one that causes you to love the poor, do good to those who hate you, and lay down your life for your friend. I'm strongly in favor of those principals, because they are awesome. I was drawn to Jesus, not through Genesis, but through the sermon on the mount. If you are able to segregate truths in your mind, I will love you like a brother, and I will pray that you will have the faith to take God at his word. Love is greater than my interpretation. But my interpretation influences whether or not I choose to love. May we all find love, no matter what direction we come from.

Ultimately, this is not an issue of who is right and who is wrong.  It's a matter of how to best serve our neighbors in love.  I will do my best to convince people to believe God, his Son, his Word, and his prophet Moses, but I can't open the eyes of the blind. God can.  May God open our eyes and bring us to obedience.  May his Holy Spirit take care of correcting our errors in doctrine and guiding us into all truth. (John 16:13)