Replies

Joshua Zorn, an evangelical missionary, makes an urgent appeal to “well-meaning Christians who share with me both a high regard for Scripture and evangelism,” beginning with his personal experience:

I became a Christian in 1973 at the age of thirteen when my Sunday school teacher took four lessons to explain the plan of salvation to us. ... This was the first time I had heard that the blood of Christ shed at the cross could wash away my sins. I immediately accepted this good news that salvation was by grace through faith and not by works. I began a new life in Christ which has now led me to work as a church planter in the former Soviet Union. ...

A few years after my conversion,... I became an enthusiastic devotee of young earth creation science (YECS) as promoted by the Institute for Creation Research. ... By the time I entered graduate school, I had discovered Christian geologist Davis Young’s book, Christianity and the Age of the Earth. ... As I read this book, I saw that the scientific arguments for a young earth were completely untenable. I found that all the other Christian graduate students had problems with YECS geological arguments. And so, although it was painful, I asked myself if I wanted to continue to believe in something that is quite plainly wrong. I decided I did not, and so rejected the young earth position.
But rejection of the young earth was not only a matter of science. It affected my faith and the core of my life. ... I went through a period of deep soul seeking, clinging to the Lord. .... Twelve years have gone by since I abandoned the young earth viewpoint. As I continued to study (toward a Ph.D. in mathematics with applications in population genetics), I unfortunately saw argument after argument of YECS crumble in the face of evidence, both new and old. The list is in the hundreds and goes far beyond the issue of the age of the earth.

I don’t expect pastors or church leaders to be impressed by all the scientific evidence unless there are also good hermeneutical reasons for abandoning the YECS position and a literal reading of the opening chapters of Genesis. As my prejudice wore off over the years, I began to discover a whole new world of evangelical interpretations as well as persuasive arguments against some aspects of the literalist reading of Genesis 1-3. ...

Do not fall into the trap of thinking the age of the earth is just a matter of “trusting God’s Word” versus “trusting science.” Christians need to, and every day do, trust both. The common error of rejecting many well-established results of science in favor of a certain biblical interpretation is not a valid Christian position. In the end, the truth will be a harmony which rejects neither the teachings of Scripture nor the well-established results of science. The results of science (properly interpreted) should never challenge the authority of Scripture, but they may cause us to reexamine our interpretation of Scripture. This is what I am pleading with young earthers to do.

The Christian position must be that all truth is God’s truth and that we have both general revelation (nature) and special revelation (the Bible) as sources of truth. ... Ultimately, our confidence in Scripture should not rest on having a complete harmony between science and the Bible because we simply do not know enough to complete the harmony. ...

[Young-earth teaching] creates a nearly insurmountable barrier between the educated world and the church. Certainly God in his sovereignty has allowed some to be persuaded to believe in Christ through the arguments of YECS. But how many more have not accepted the Gospel because of the unnecessary demand that converts believe that the world is no more than 10,000 years old? And how many have unnecessarily gone through a crisis of faith similar to that which I described above? How many have chosen to give up their faith altogether rather than to accept scientific nonsense or a major reinterpretation of Scripture? How much have we dishonored our Lord by slandering scientists and their reputation? How much have we sinned against Christian brothers holding another opinion by naming them “dangerous” and “compromisers”? How much responsibility do we bear for having taught others (James 3:1) things that probably are not even true? Each must search his own heart. ...

As I write this paper, I see YECS literature becoming more and more widely distributed in the growing churches in my corner of the former Soviet Union. We are sowing the seeds of a major crisis which will make the job of world evangelism even harder than it is already. Lord, give us wisdom!

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/experiences.htm