Update from AiG's Dr. Terry Mortenson

I received this update from one of our speakers—Dr. Terry Mortenson.

Friends,

Thanks for your prayers. The time at the Baptist Church in Fenton, MO, (a suburb of St. Louis) went well. The senior pastor was very pleased and in his own remarks to the congregation expressed his deep convictions about the truth of Genesis. He first became acquainted with AiG when he was preaching in Northern Ireland a few years ago and the hosting pastor there showed him a video lecture by Ken Ham. Since then he had been wanting to have a creation seminar in his church in Fenton. Though he had wanted Ken, he seemed very satisfied with my talks.

One of the highlights of the weekend was when I had a 2 hour lunch with a young man who just graduated with a religion degree from a local Southern Baptist college. During my morning talk he had not really grasped the point of no death before the Fall, even though I had discussed it at some length. So I explained further why that biblical teaching ruled out any attempts to fit millions of years into the Bible. (If that point is not completely clear to you or if you don’t feel confident to explain it clearly to others, let me encourage you to read this AiG article Two Histories of Death.

I also dealt with other questions he had about dinosaurs and radiometric dating, particularly drawing his attention to this article: RATE Group Reveals Exciting Breakthroughs!. He told me that at his college his professors had largely ignored the creation-evolution issue. In the only class where it was dealt with, the professor “taught all the views within orthodoxy” (meaning the gap theory, day-age view, young-earth view, etc.) and seemed to favor the day-age view. Sadly, that is so typical in Christian colleges today. Then I went through a series of quotes on my computer that I have from prominent evangelical Christian leaders and Bible scholars over the past 150 years, showing him that (1) they were compromised with millions of years and that (2) their reasons for accepting the millions of years and trying to fit them in the Bible had nothing to do with the exegesis of Scripture but was only because they assumed that the scientists had proven millions of years. He was shocked and dismayed by some of the quotes, but saw clearly the problem in their thinking. I talked to him about the importance of showing respect and appreciation to these leaders for the many good contributions they have made to the body of Christ. But I challenged him to not allow any man, no matter how scholarly and godly and famous, to have more authority in his thinking than the Word of God. And I urged him to buy and read Jonathan Sarfati’s book, Refuting Compromise, to understand the issue more clearly. I was encouraged to see that in the evening session he had purchased it.

Please pray for this young man, that he would continue to grow in his confidence in God’s Word and his understanding of the foundational importance of Genesis 1–11 even as he plans to attend a Southern Baptist seminary where I know he will encounter professors who are compromised with “millions of years” thinking. He thinks that God may be calling him to teach some day in a Bible college or seminary. I hope when he gets to that point in his service for the Lord that he will clearly teach and defend the truths of Genesis 1–11, rather than confusing his students by approvingly teaching “all the views.” I hope that he will explain all the views but then go on to show his students why all the old-earth views are wrong both biblically and scientifically.

It is always interesting to hear how people first became aware of AiG. One man came up after my last talk to thank me for my presentations and said that he had been led to AiG’s website last November through the atheist website “NO Answers in Genesis”! After getting to our web site, the first article he had read was my critique of the November 2004 National Geographic cover story Was Darwin Wrong? Since then he said he has been visiting our website almost every day. He was so excited about what he was learning.

In early May I will speak twice one evening at a Bible college in Cincinnati. This is for a ten-week night course that I have already contributed to in two previous weeks. Then later in the month I will give two full days of lectures for a five-day modular course that several AiG speakers are doing at a multi-ethnic Christian Bible College in Indianapolis. In the office, I will be working on writing projects and research. I need to finish my two chapters and an appendix for the book in honor of Dr. Whitcomb that I am co-editing, plus start reading through the chapters that are coming in from the other contributing authors and also continue my communications to hopefully convert our “potential publisher” into our “definite publisher.” Additionally, I have some short articles I have been wanting to write and I need to edit some of my PowerPoint talks and prepare my student notes for my two lectures at the Mega Conference in July. With emails to answer, an occasional radio or other media interview on the phone and occasional organizational meetings, I will not be lacking for things to do! So I appreciate your prayers that I can work efficiently, carefully and productively for the glory of God. Terry Mortenson.

Thanks for stopping by and keep praying

Ken