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Practical Creation Apologetics Applications for a Ministry Setting
Before we proceed to defending biblical creation before any audience, it’s always wise to examine ourselves. We expect to be in harmony with Confessional Lutheran theology---with what “we believe, teach and confess.” Among the adults, our audience is likely our fellow redeemed; people with whom we worship and pray regularly. But if our church sponsors a Lutheran school, do we know how many pupils, and their parents, are members? (In my home congregation, only ten percent of the pupils are church members; thus, 90 percent—pupils and parents- are our “mission outreach.”)
Creation Apologetics is a relatively new experience for many Lutherans. People are often puzzled when we bring up subjects such as the days of creation or the Global Flood. After all, don’t we confess in the Apostles’ Creed that we believe in the doctrine of Divine Creation? Ah yes, but its one thing to “believe,” and another to defend our faith. We might hear, “Oh, I didn’t know we had to.” To make that point, we need to emphasize that—right outside our church sanctuary, our “safe space”--is a world which denies nearly everything we believe, and is all too ready to present the temptation of evolution, among other things. Understanding the conflict caused by evolution is a necessary stepping-stone as we prepare for ministry.
First, we must get things straight in our own minds: Whom do we believe? Should we believe the “scientists,” who claim the earth is millions of years old; that all things developed slowly through a process of trial and error (aka “natural selection”); that all life evolved from simple to complex, until we arrive at our “advanced” stage of development today?
(Editor’s note: What do we really know about mutations of genes? Can they be positive? Literally thousands of human diseases associated with genetic mutations have been catalogued in recent years, with more being described continually. A recent reference book of medical genetics listed some 4,500 different genetic diseases. Some of the inherited syndromes characterized clinically in the days before molecular genetic analysis (such as Marfan's syndrome) are now being shown to be heterogeneous; that is, associated with many different mutations. See https://christiananswers.net/q-eden/genetic-mutations.html for much more on this topic. These diseases have been increasing over time, not decreasing.)
People might respond, “Why should we care how “old” the world is? Maybe God created it through evolution? Maybe the days of creation were long periods of time. Maybe Noah’s Flood was just a local one? Let’s not make waves. It’s just one of those “Old Testament things. But we are New Testament Christians!” And some Christians are “just fine” with millions and billions of years.
Certainly, in defending biblical Creation, we need to be equipped to handle such questions. These ideas do not come from Scripture, but from the tempter. There must be a reason why the Book of Genesis is the most attacked book of the Bible. It is because Genesis is foundational to the Gospel. We must know and show how. One way is to help others read the Bible the way Jesus and His disciples understood it. There are dozens of passages in the New Testament that we may use to teach creation, using Scripture to interpret Scripture, a classic Lutheran approach.
Do we understand the conflict? Are we “equipping the saints” to witness? There are two crucial elements of conflict with the unbelieving world that must be addressed and defeated. These are, “deep time (Old Earth),” and “geological/biological evolution.” It was not by accident that careful study of the Global Flood and the marks it left behind had been the catalyst for the modern creationist movement.
Do we understand the dynamics of the Flood as revealed in Scripture? The stages of the Flood: Inundation, Regression and Immediate Post Flood period? Correct understanding of the causes, phases, and duration of the Flood help falsify the Geologic Column (the sequence of rock formations in a geologic column) and the imbedded fossils, said to be millions of years old.
Do we understand how fossils are formed? Rapid burial, sudden and often catastrophic, ensures the carcass will become mineralized and not decay. Do we understand that dinosaur fossils cannot be “dated” by so-called “radiometric dating” methods? If we are able to present the year-long global Flood in terms of a giant blender, churning up the earth and re-depositing biological remains in sedimentary rock layers, we can explain the so-called Geologic Column in those terms, and not as a result of millions of years of evolution. The Global Flood washes away all those years!
There is yet another crucial factor in our ministry that we must not ignore. And that is pastoral leadership. We have found that the people in the pews are often too shy to respond to creation ministry overtures. Our society has been intimidated by the relentless bombardment of evolutionist propaganda in every area—even in some churches. People want or need their pastor’s “permission” to openly discuss these crucial issues, and they want to hear about it from the pulpit or in pastor’s class. Anti-creationist pastors in apostate churches hold Darwin Sundays ! I kid you not! Every year, on the anniversary of the great atheist’s birth! Why not establish a Creation Sunday, every year on an agreed upon date? The 17th Day of Nisan would be perfect and why not? (See http://jesusplusnothing.com/studies/quick/genesis8.htm for more details concerning this date.)
We haven’t even mentioned teaching the fatal flaws of evolution, which are many, but which are protected from exposure-- by law,1 We could also mention the “irreducible complexity” of the biological cell, which demands a Designer (totally unacceptable to our adversaries). We could cite the Law of Biogenesis—Life comes from Life! –thus refuting the untenable, counter-intuitive notion that life began spontaneously from non-life. Dr. Tas Walker of Creation Ministries International (CMI) has exposed numerous teachings about evolution that are simply not true. See: “They are teaching our kids lies.” 2 And take note of them.
There are many ways to start a debate among fellow believers, when we ask probing questions about Creation and the Flood, e.g. “Did God create the poodle?” [God created the dog “kind.”] Did God create the Grand Canyon? [The GC is a monument to the Global Flood!] Were there dinosaurs on the ark? [Sure. God brought all the “kinds” of animals to Noah]; and a corollary, that really twists our adversary’s’ buttons-- Did man and dinosaurs live at the same time? [Sure. We can state with confidence, that the “age of dinosaurs” took place between the Fall and the Flood.]
Once again we have falsified our adversaries’ assumptions of “deep time,” and the “fatal flaw” in believers’ efforts to insert the idea of millions of years into Scripture: e.g. Old Earth creationism. Evolution is all about death and survival. “Was there death before Adam?” No! Scripture is very clear on that. (Romans 5-12. If there was, then death is not the result of sin, and we would not need a Savior!
There is such a rich field of resources for us in biblical creation apologetics! Trusted creation ministries have huge digital libraries with powerful search engines! Certainly Lutheran Science Institute has identified those which we can trust, just as the LCMS Society of Creation (Concordia Profs) has done: Creation Ministries International (creation.com), Answers in Genesis (Answersingenesis.org), and Institute for Creation Research (icr.org), are high on the list of trusted sources. For just one example: See Dr. Tas Walker’s clever science experiment to explain the assumptions behind “scientific dating” methods -https://creation.com/how-dating-methods-work
The resources are there for us. We simply must do our homework! And Martin Luther College has given us a great start in Creation Apologetics 101. Thanks be to God!
Footnotes:
1 https://creation.com/muzzled-in-Minnesota 2 https://creation.com/they-are-teaching-lies-to-our-kids
https://creationresearch.org/general-information
Dr. David Menton, a speaker, writer, and researcher at Answers in Genesis, spoke at the 2015 Issues, Etc., “Making the Case Conference” on the topic of Creationism vs. Naturalism. He concluded his remarks by speaking of the way in which evolutionists were attempting to get into the church in order to influence Christians to reject a six day creation in favor of an evolutionary worldview. The full audio of the presentation can be found here.
Here are the pertinent remarks that begin at about 1:14:06 mark of the recording. What follows are Dr. Menton's remarks:
“While Christians today may be able to embrace evolution and somehow in their mind still recognize that they are sinful, they have a savior. I’m not going to judge their eternal welfare. That’s between them and God. I’m not the gatekeeper. But I am going to tell you this: you may be able to keep your faith intact, but will your students that you teach? Will the members of your congregations keep their faith intact? If you teach that death is natural. It’s been here from the get go. That there was no literal Adam. That Adam wasn’t the first to want to sin and wasn’t the first to die among humans. And if you undermine the first Adam, what becomes of the second Adam, who is equated with the first Adam? It all falls. I pray that won’t happen to us here, and I pray that won’t happen in our synods, but I see bad things going on. All I can say is keep your eyes on things going on right now.”
A couple of years ago, I attended American Association for the Advancement of Science that met in St. Louis, and they were really distressed by the idea that over 40% of Americans continue to believe in fiat creation and about 6,000 years. And they said the reason for this—and it’s not like this anywhere else in the world they insisted—the reason it’s like this in America is because of Christianity. Conservative Christianity’s indoctrinated all these students to believe in a Creator. That God created by the power of His Word. They said the only way we’re going to win this battle is we need to get into the church. And the AAAS got together with the Templeton Foundation that greased the skids with money and they’ve gone to now 10 different seminary schools—20 applied for the money, 10 got it—and for about $200,000 in money, these seminary schools are going to allow evolutionists to come into the regular religion classroom and teach evolution. You kind of wonder what they could’ve bought for half a million, huh? One of those, as I understand, is Concordia Seminary in St. Louis that has accepted this money, and I presume will get local evolutionists—possibly from Washington University. They may be talking about other things besides evolution, possibly global climate change and man’s responsibility for it or conservation, what have you. Maybe not everything they teach will be something inappropriate. But it’s something you need to watch. Thank you very kindly for your attention.”
Dr. Menton made a connection between the Templeton Foundation and the AAAS. Here's what Templeton says on their page Evolution and the Christian Faith:
"The grant recipients will produce hundreds of videos, articles, books, lectures, workshops, and websites, greatly increasing the visibility of the evolutionary creation point of view. Many more students, pastors, and laypeople will become aware that biblical faith does not require the rejection of evolutionary science." (Emphasis mine)
Another article related to this topic Pastor Jordan McKinley | December 11, 2017 at 7:55 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://steadfastlutherans.org/?p=54980
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