Compromise in Christian College

About 8–12 times per month I give a lecture in the museum for guests who want to hear it. On Saturday I gave one of my most common talks, “Why Genesis Matters in Today’s World” which explains mainly from Scripture why and how Genesis 1–11 is so foundational to the rest of the Bible and how evolution and millions of years assault the truth of Genesis and are at the root of the moral and spiritual collapse of the once-Christian West.

Each time I speak, there are always interesting people to meet afterward. Many tell me how much they appreciate what AiG is doing to provide answers to the lies of evolution and millions of years and call the church back to the authority of the Word of God. Some have biblical or scientific questions, and I do my best to provide answers.

On Saturday about 160 came to the talk, including a number of Chinese graduate and undergraduate university students who were brought by a church that ministers to internationals students. I was told that many of these Chinese students are not Christians, and for some this visit to the museum was their first exposure to anything contrary to evolution. Lift up a prayer that the truths these bright Chinese students heard will bear fruit in helping to bring them to faith in Christ to be witnesses back in China.

Another person I met is a biology professor at a Christian university, whom I’ll call Sue (not her real name, and she didn’t tell me the name of her university). She is up for vote to receive tenure, and she told me of the very real possibility that she may actually lose her job because her school holds to theistic evolution and she is a young-earth creationist. The irony is that some of the theology, philosophy and history professors have accused her of naivety and not really understanding evolution. The arrogance and ignorance of these non-science professors is breath-taking. I encouraged her to be faithful to the Word and pointed her to some books and DVDs that would help her be better prepared to deal with the professorial committee she has to stand before this week, and to better teach her students to think critically.

She also told me that many of her students had gone to a recent conference at Wheaton College, where theistic evolution and other compromised views were promoted. She said the students came back very confused because “there were so many nice and intelligent Christian scholars who have so many different views from the young-earth view.” I pointed out to Sue that this could actually teach these students a vitally important lesson, namely, that regardless of the position we take on this subject of origins and the meaning of Genesis, we cannot escape the very disheartening fact that some very good, nice, intelligent Christian people are seriously wrong. We simply can’t say that everyone who disagrees with us is wicked and ignorant and probably not saved. That would not be true to reality.

When I say that old-earth creationists and theistic evolutionists are wrong and their views are undermining the authority of Scripture and the truth of the gospel, I am not saying that they are not Christians or that they don’t believe in the death and Resurrection of Jesus for their salvation, are not sincere, are not moral, don’t love their spouse, and don’t care about evangelism, missions, and the poor. I’m sure that most old-earthers and theistic evolutionists are Christians, do love Jesus, do live moral, upstanding lives, do have good marriages and care about the lost and suffering. But they are still wrong about the age of the earth and evolution and the proper interpretation of Genesis, just like Peter was a true believer in Jesus as the Messiah but wrong about the death and Resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 16:13–23), and just as he was an apostle mightily used by God but still succumbed to the fear of man and hypocrisy and undermined the gospel (Galatians 2:11–14). The views of old-earthers and theistic evolutionists simply will not stand up under careful scrutiny with an open Bible and when the assumptions driving evolutionary, old-earth interpretations of the scientific evidence are exposed. “Good Christians” can be seriously in error.

Would you lift up a prayer for Sue right now as she prepares over the next couple of days for her meeting with her tenure committee? Pray that God will keep the door open for her to continue to teach her students the truth of science and how to think critically and spot the faulty logic and erroneous assumptions used by evolutionists to promote ideas that undermine the Word and the gospel.