Florin Mocanu B.A. Pastoral Theology, M.Th. Applied Theology

Biography

Florin grew up in Communist Romania where Big Bang and Evolution were taught as undeniable facts. These were the ideas that explained our presence and purpose on earth and fitted extremely well with the atheistic Communist teachings. The Communists were very committed to teaching these ideas to the young generation and any dissent from these ideas could be very costly.

Fortunately, Florin’s parents attended an Evangelical church where Genesis was understood to be the clear and straightforward explanation of how God created everything in six, twenty-four hour days—and he rested on the seventh day.

Florin became a pastor in 1999, the year he graduated from seminary. He got involved with the creationist ministry in his country. Since creationist literature was not commonplace, he started translating chapters from creationist books into Romanian so that his friends could benefit from the information.

As a pastor, he saw the theories of Big Bang and evolution as the main obstacle when trying to engage with non-Christians, particularly true when engaging with the young generation. In their thinking, Big Bang and evolution ‘explain’ how the universe and life appeared, so God becomes redundant. This is why Florin organised sessions for the children and youth ministry in his church. His aim was both to explain what the Bible teaches about creation and to show that scientific observations fit with this. He made teaching on creation a regular part of the curriculum and regularly taught on these issues in his sermons for the whole congregation.

Wanting to better understand current secular scientific thinking on origins, Florin studied for and was awarded a BSc in 2017. This included courses in the natural sciences (Darwinian evolution, geology, cell biology, etc.) and also software engineering. One of his main interests is the study of how coded information systems are used, both in biological cells and in computers. He currently works for an IT company in the East Midlands.

Florin is married with one child. From August 2015 to March 2022, he was an associate speaker with CMI (UK/Europe).

Education

B.A. in Pastoral Theology (1^st class honours), Baptist Theological Institute, University of Bucharest, Romania.

M.Th. in Applied Theology, Spurgeon’s College, University of Wales, United Kingdom.

B.Sc. in Software Engineering with Cell and Molecular Biology (1^st class honours), The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom.

Articles

• Darwin’s abiogenesis
• Pagan creation myths—the key to understanding Genesis? 
• Missions: then and now
• ‘Creation is faith; evolution is science’?

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