More Work Needed

Well, the results of a recent poll of pastors held some encouraging results—and some discouraging results. I believe this poll is a reminder of how important it is for AiG to work even harder (as we try to do every day) to distribute Bible-affirming resources to overcome the enormous secular propaganda machine around the world. And we also seek to continue to equip Christians and keep them up to date as the enemy works hard to lead people away from the truth of God's Word. Such polls just burden me even more to increase the influence of the ministry of AiG, the Creation Museum, and coming Ark Encounter as much as we are able to.

BioLogos, an organization that undermines biblical authority and is committed to promoting theistic evolution (or “evolutionary creation,” as they call it), commissioned a poll with the Barna Group to find out pastors’ views of origins. They had four categories of views: young-earth creation, theistic evolution (i.e., God used evolution), progressive creation (i.e., old earth), and uncertain.

In the survey results, BioLogos explains, “The numbers varied widely based on a number of factors. . . . Pastors of mainline churches were most likely to accept Theistic Evolution, while non-Mainline, Charismatic, and Southern Baptist pastors were overwhelmingly Young Earth Creationists. Pastors of larger churches were also more likely to accept Theistic Evolution.”

Now, according to a summary of the study published by the Christian Post, the overall numbers show that a slight majority of pastors are in favor of young-earth creation:

Summarizing the numbers, BioLogos says that a slight majority of pastors, or 54 percent, support Young Earth Creationism, 18 percent agree with Theistic Evolution, and 15 percent accept Progressive Creation.

Certainly in this fallen world, we expect there to be more people who reject the truth than those who do not. For example, with respect to unbelievers, the Bible speaks about the broad gate and the narrow gate:

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.” (Matthew 7:13)

Basically, the idea is that fewer people will believe the truth of the gospel and receive eternal life than those who suppress the truth and experience eternal judgment in hell. And I think we could also say that fewer people in this life will stand for the truth of God’s Word than those who reject it.

Sadly, in this fallen world, we find that there are many people who are (or claim to be) Christians who also do not stand as they should on the truth of God’s Word. Even Christians can compromise in all sorts of ways and hold inconsistent positions.

So 54 percent is in many ways an encouraging number regarding pastors who believe in biblical creation. Millions of books and other media that have been produced by creation-apologetics ministries like Answers in Genesis have been distributed, and millions of people have attended creation conferences and interacted with creation speakers. The results of this survey do seem to indicate that biblical creation ministries are having an impact on the church—we are reaching people with the message that God’s Word is the final authority!

But it’s also very discouraging to know that the other 46 percent are either progressive creationists, theistic evolutionists, or altogether uncertain. These are pastors—shepherds of the church! There should be no question with them about biblical authority, especially about what the authority is on origins. It’s the Word of the One who was there!

I sincerely pray that those pastors who have attempted to mix millions of years and evolution with Scripture would realize they are leading their congregations astray and would come instead to embrace the historical account of creation. I also pray that these pastors who believe in the authority of God's Word from the beginning (and thus are young-earth creationists) would continue to stand firmly on the authority of God’s Word from the very first verse. And I pray the use of AiG resources will help rescue the current and coming generations from this evil age. (Remember our theme for 2013–14: “Standing Our Ground, Rescuing Our Kids”—Galatians 1:4.)

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken