Don’t cut the anchor line!
Editorial
by David Catchpoole
Photo iStockphoto
A large number of churches have reportedly embraced atheist calls for Christian
congregations to celebrate “Evolution Weekend”.1,2 But
do the pastors of those congregations know what they are doing when they proclaim
from their pulpits that the theory of evolution is “a foundational scientific
truth”?
I’m not talking about the likes of Bishop John Shelby Spong—someone
who brazenly denies the divinity, bodily resurrection and virginal conception of
Christ,3 consistent with
his dogmatic acceptance of evolution and long ages.4
Rather, I’m speaking of pastors who remain committed to being faithful disciples
of Christ and who similarly exhort their flock to hold fast to Jesus as their Rock,
as their “Anchor”, through life’s storms.
Do those pastors realize that by accepting evolutionary teaching as being fact,
they might actually be cutting themselves and their flocks adrift from Jesus?
When Christians try to accommodate evolution and the Bible, their grip
on Genesis as literal history must first be loosened, i.e. Genesis must be presumed
to be allegory, or metaphor. And so the first man Adam is no longer a real person.
But the New Testament names each of his descendants, generation by generation, all
the way to Jesus! (Luke 3:23–38)
The ability of many parishioners to cope with the mind-boggling mental gymnastics
needed to have real people being the offspring of metaphorical ones is not limitless.
And when the cords of credulity finally snap under the weight of all that inconsistency,
the most likely outcome is to doubt the reliability of the New Testament itself.
Perhaps Jesus’ Resurrection is itself only metaphorical? Many liberals fudge
and claim that it really only means that His teachings live on in His followers’
lives.
Pastor, don’t cut the Anchor line!
Jesus clearly regarded Adam, Eve and Noah as real people in history (e.g. Matthew 19:3–6, 24:37–39).5 But if they were only metaphorical, that means
Jesus was mistaken. An evolutionary timeline also means Jesus was utterly wrong
about people having been around since the beginning of creation (Mark 10:6, Luke 11:50–51). So what else might He
have been wrong about, and how can He be trusted with such grand claims as being
the Way, the Truth and the Life—in fact, the all-powerful, all-knowing Creator
Himself (John 1:1–3, 8:58, Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 1:3)?
If there was no literal (real) first man Adam, and no literal (real) first sin,
then death did not really, literally, enter the world through his actions. So then
we do not literally need to be saved from anything, so why would we need a literal
Saviour?
If there was no literal (real) first man Adam, and no literal (real) first sin,
then death did not really, literally, enter the world through his actions. So then
we do not literally need to be saved from anything, so why would we need a literal
Saviour?6
Pastor, don’t cut the Anchor line!
In the face of evolution being taught as fact in state educational institutions,
perhaps it’s understandable that so many pastors have surrendered their churches
to “Evolution Weekend”. Presumably it is the pastors’ genuine
(but misguided) attempt to somehow show that the church is rational and not out
of step with modern science.
If only such pastors could be made aware that there’s no need to “defile”
their (and their parishioners’) love for Jesus with a philosophy that denies
Christ was Creator. The Bible’s historical narrative can be trusted.
As the articles in this issue of Creation show, in the face of evidence—biological
(see especially “Parade of mutants” p. 28), geological (e.g. p. 52,
and Tiktaalik’s demise p. 38), archaeological (p. 12) and cosmological
(p. 34)—the evolutionary storyline crumbles, while the biblical account of
origins makes sense. This is what you’d expect if Genesis means what it says—and
it does, as our interview with Old Testament scholar Dr Robert McCabe affirms (p.
16).
It’s through the written word in the Bible that we can know what the real
Jesus said and did, and why it was necessary for our salvation. But if that link
to our Anchor is cut, how can we draw near to Him? At risk of being “tossed
back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching”
(Ephesians 4:14), we are in danger of forgetting what the
real Anchor is like, and why He died and rose again.
Pastor, don’t cut the Anchor line! It’s just
what “the enemy” (p.48) wants.
Related articles
References and notes
- Held annually on the weekend closest to Darwin Day, the anniversary
of Charles Darwin’s birth, 12th February. About 12,000 pastors are signatories.
Evolution Weekend—The Clergy Letter Project, theclergyletterproject.org, accessed
3 March 2010. The movement has spread beyond the US, where it was founded by atheist
Michael Zimmerman. E.g. see Church of England apologises to Darwin.
Return to text.
- Bates, A., Clergy Letter Project
a circus, 3 February 2009; Sarfati, J., Church of England apologises
to Darwin: Anglican Church’s neo-Chamberlainite appeasement of secularism,
20 September 2008. Return to text.
- See Bott, M. and Sarfati, J., What’s
wrong with Bishop Spong, Apologia 4(1):3–27,
1995. Return to text.
- Spong is wrong (but he is consistent),
Creation 24(2):15, 2002. Return to text.
- So did Christ’s chosen Apostle Paul, who linked them
to the Gospels. See also Sarfati, J., Genesis: Bible authors believed
it to be history, Creation 28(2):21–23,
2006; Cosner, L., The Resurrection and Genesis, Creation 32(2):48–50,
2010. Return to text.
- Atheist Richard Dawkins has himself highlighted the untenable
position of compromising church leaders: “Oh but of course the story of Adam
and Eve was only ever symbolic, wasn’t it? Symbolic?! Jesus had himself tortured
and executed for a symbolic sin by a non-existent individual. Nobody not brought
up in the faith could reach any verdict other than barking mad!” See:
Dawkins on compromising churchians. Return to text.
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