162 thoughts on “Priorities”

  2. Well, KJVO creationist champ Kent Hovind is currently incarcerated, so I suppose they are slumming. Guess Al Lacey and Sam “Bull” Gipp were also unavailable.

    But I am sure they will declare they are not compromisers. LOL

    1. I watched a DVD of Ken the Ham giving a talk on Creation in Belfast. It was half way through when it clicked with me that he wasn’t argueing for Creation. He was arguing for the Beliefs of Ken Ham, and their Infallibility. Anyone who diagreeed with him in any way was not only WRONG, but setting out to DESTROY THE GOSPEL!!! He said explicitly that if you do not believe in a Six-Day Creation and that the beginning of History was exactly as recorded in Genesis, then your Faith has NO Foundation and you may as well throw away the Bible and become an Atheist. It couldn’t be more plain.

      2. Yup. The danger of that position is that anyone who believes in the “creation of the universe to humans in 144 hours, or atheism” dichotomy, and then comes across something like the Oklo phenomenon that can’t be hand-waved away, they see their choices as “Ken Ham or Richard Dawkins, pick one” rather than simply shrugging and realizing “hmmm, maybe that interpretation I was taught is wrong.”

        1. Yes, I’ve seen that dichotomy a lot lately in the fundamentalist Calvinist circles. Its the whole argument of “If you don’t believe what I believe about this nonessential issue, then you are worshiping a different fake Jesus and are therefore not really saved.” Therefore, every non-essential is really essential because you apparently have to understand everything about God in the perfect way in order to be saved. Gag!

        2. The House-Of-Cards Syndrome. Move one card, even slightly and everything comes tumbling down.

        4. Sorry that doesn’t seem to work. Google “oklo” and you will learn about the world’s only natural fission reactor. I’ll bet, that a lot of the Fundy’s will have the same reaction as a lady i knew who was told about scientific evidence that contradicted her interpretation of a bible passage. “They’re lying. They’re just making that up.”

        5. My father’s fall back position when confronted with something he thought contradicted the Bible was, “I would just ignore that.” He ended up ignoring a whole lot of things.

        1. Do you have an address for the Ham. I’m going to send him a postcard. A picture of Earth taken from Space. On the back will be the words “Hi, Ken, wish you were here”

      4. I completely agree. Ken Ham is a lousy spokesman for any cause because he makes it all about himself. Disagree with him and you are in the fast lane to Hell.

        1. Actually, Ken Ham played a role in my decision to leave my first post-Fundy church (which turned out to be kind of Fundy-lite anyway). The associate (now senior) pastor kept beating the 6-day-literal-creationist drum over and over and over, using Answers in Genesis materials. While I believe in God as Creator, I do not agree with a young Earth that is only 6000 years old. My kids knew better too, so things started getting awkward. There were certainly other areas of disagreement (courtship was a big one), their strong adherence to Ken Ham’s teachings was a big one.

      5. That is what he says, alright. That is what is being taught in churches in place of the gospel. It is a corruption of the gospel. At my wife’s IFB church, this is explicitly taught to young children in the Kids For Truth curriculum on Wednesday nights.

        They justify it, saying that if people don’t believe literally in this long chain of ideas from Creationism to Jesus, they can’t believe in Jesus. If you don’t believe in Original Sin you don’t believe you are a sinner.

        It is a bunch of crap. I don’t believe in original sin myself, but I do believe in my own sin. I don’t think I am a sinner because of Adam and Eve. I am a sinner because of me. I can take responsibility!

        Nor do I believe the creation accounts are literally true. There are two of them, in different orders. The cultures at the time were not interested in “facts” as we are today, so assertions of literalism on the text are meaningless.

        What I discovered was for years I had been reading the text for what I had been told it meant. I hadn’t actually been reading the text for what it said. I was imposing my modern world view upon the text instead of understanding what it meant to those who first heard it.

        Fundamentalists have this fiction that the Scriptures are somehow culturally neutral, unbiased, scientific and historically accurate. They claim the world view of the authors did not affect what they wrote. Many go so far as to claim the Bible was virtually dictated by God, thus excluding any human input. One can only assume they claim this because they haven’t read it!

        Faith is ultimately a messy process. When you try to clean it up, standardize it, regulate it, and remove uncertainties you wind up removing the relationships with God as well.

        1. I was always taught the dictator/secretary view, and I’ve never been able to swallow it. At the very least, God needed an editor!

      1. You will not believe how much of that is actually true. It’s a well known fact that an outsider with a heavy accent perceived positively, carries more credibility than a local person telling the audience the exact same thing.

        1. Unless you have a Southern US accent. then you are considered an ignorant rube no matter how intelligent you really are.

      2. That’s funny I was sure that Jesus spoke with a dignified British accent, just like in the movies. Of course we all know he really spoke fluent King James Aramaic. Since Mr. Ham speaks Australian he must be fake. I love logic, I learned it in Fundy School.

      3. As a southerner who is dating an Australian, I would like to go on record as saying that Australian accents are waaaaay sexier.

        1. Good to hear from you again, Arch. You’ve been missed. And congrats, BTW.

    3. Young Earth Creationism Uber Alles trumps everything.

      Who needs Christ when We Have YEC?

  3. I guess a student can be glad to have him there, even if he doesn’t conform to all of the college’s doctrine.

        3. No. You have to “work” for one of those.

          You win a day of door knocking with Ken Ham at the nearest state university dorm. On a Saturday morning. At 7am.

    2. I don’t necessarily disagree. But I’m wondering why you say that. How is it intentional vs. ignorant and where are the figures on what he gains out of it? Seriously…not disputing. I’m just curious. I heard there was some sort of dispute between him and some parent organization in Australia a long time ago, but I never knew the details.

        2. Darrell,y are my replies appearing in the wrong places? Its starting to annoy me. 🙁

      2. Larry, I am going to take your question at face value, even though I am pretty sure you can figure out both those answers for yourself.
        1) Leaving out material and adding made up material in order to lead the audience to a different conclusion from the scientific consensus is intentional. It cannot be otherwise, and Ham isn’t parroting anyone else.
        2) AiG’s 990T is public information. In 2010, for example, AiG raked in over $8 million in contributions.

        1. In case you don’t know how to do financial research, AiG’s expenses were listed at $17 million for 2012, and Ham’s personal income is listed at $176,000 in compensation from AiG. This does not, of course, include book royalties, speaking fees, or love offerings.

        5. Actually, I work in finance and have used guidestar on more than one occasion to look up a charity. 176k is more than I make, but there are so many factors between that and what he files on his 1040 that I can’t really say what kind of life he lives, although I suspect it is more than comfortable.

          As far as what he says regarding science, that is another matter. I generally don’t listen to more than 10 minutes of him because I find him to be intentionally boring and wordy, possibly with the intent of trying to sound like a smart scientist.

      3. Ham’s living is based on spreading lies and deceits about Science and promoting his pet doctrine, creationism. He has made creationism into a part of the gospel. It is not enough to trust Jesus as your Savior. No, you must believe in a literal six-day creation roughly six thousand years ago as well in order to be saved.

        Ham has been given large opportunities to know his errors and rectify them. He has refused them all. He blatantly lies about scientists and their motivations. The reason scientists do not believe in Creationism is because the Evidence does not support it, not because they hate God.

        He uses fancy language. He talks about “the Second Law of Thermodynamics” with not a shred of real comprehension about why that Law not only does not support his position, but weighs heavily against it.

        I am personally convinced that he knows he is a liar, a fraud, and outright wrong about Science. But, at the same time, I think he believes he has license to lie about it because “he is really telling the truth” by getting people to believe in Jesus.

        The convolutions of mind these people put themselves through is really spectacular. The lengths they will go to print rubbish that looks scientificky to the “innately ignorant” (with apologies, Lady Semp!) to make them feel that they are wiser than the Learned is amazing.

        What’s best about it? They. Make. Money. Book sales, tracts, pamphlets, speaking engagements, revivals, debates, curriculums, museums, government handouts … — God is blessing! Haymen? Would God allow them to sell a single book if it weren’t true? Would they dare try to use false logic on someone as sharp and perceptive as you folk?

        3. I can hear the Chorus of Fundies in his defense. “I am determined to believe in a 144-hour Creation, Those pesky God-hating scientists will never pull the wool over *my* eyes! Baaaaa…. ”
          :: eye-roll ::

      4. Darrell,y are my replies appearing in the wrong places? Its starting to annoy me. 🙁

    3. Ham is willfully ignorant of how science works, a terrible theologian, and a snake-oil salesman. What he does is despicable.

  7. Fundies go full board literal interpretation on genesis and revelation, but then ignore elephants – like if John wrote after 70ad then why does he make NO reference to the destruction of the temple?

    1. I am undecided on the early or late date, but that question seems unconvincing to me. Why would he make a reference to the destruction of the temple? Why do you think that would have fit into his subject matter? Especially since if 90 is the correct date he would have been writing mainly to Gentiles at that point in the geographical expansion of believers?

      1. Because Jesus prophesied it’s destruction – it seems unlikely to me that this fulfillment of prophecy would not be referred to at all, even with an audience of gentiles.

        1. There’s an interesting (scholarly) book about this, J.A.T. Robinson’s Redating the New Testament.

          There are other powerful arguments for an early dating of the Gospels, too. E.g., the Greek of the NT is apparently extremely Hebraic / Aramaic (in syntax, idioms, and other ways that escape me at the moment). So Hebraic, in fact, that it really could not have come from the late first / early second centuries, when the primitive Church had already become much more Hellenized. Several very learned Catholic Hebraists have written about this. Will have to look them up, because their names also escape me, but their books are titled The Hebrew Christ and The Birth of the Synoptics, respectively.

        3. You’re very welcome, Dwelling!

          I am trying to find the money quote from the Robinson book. He said something to the effect that the absence of ANY mention in the NT of the destruction of the Temple is like the hound that didn’t bark in The Hound of the Baskervilles. If the Gospels really had been written after the Temple was destroyed, the Evangelists would have been crowing about the fulfillment of prophecy. Matthew, in particular, would have been all over it like a dust cover. “See? Jesus foretold it, and it happened exactly as He said!” Instead there’s complete silence. Not one single word to indicate that the Temple had indeed been destroyed in fulfillment of Christ’s prophecy. Yep, that hound didn’t bark. Or even whimper. 🙂

      2. For what it’s worth, I favor a late dating for the Gospel. The key passage to me has always been John 11:48 when the chief priests say to the Sanhedrin. “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.” To me, that’s a curiously specific prediction that seems to reflect a Jewish-Christian re-interpretation of the First Jewish Revolt.

        1. I dunno; that seems like kind of weak tea to me. ISTM that even mystical-theological John would have followed up with, “And that’s exactly what happened!” The apologetical value would have been enormous.

          But these are legitimate areas of disagreement. 😀

  8. Okay. I’m glad this was brought up. I have long held to the belief that Crown College is not truly KJVO, but tries to play both sides of the field in order to cater to whoever has what it wants, with this issue and others.

    For example, look at their doctrinal statement, which I believe is adopted by 90 percent of their graduates. At first glance it looks KJVO, but when you look at the wording, its not really.

    “We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Bible, “as it is in truth, the Word of God…” (I Thessalonians 2:13). We believe in verbal, plenary inspiration in the ORIGINAL WRITINGS, and God’s preservation of His pure words to every generation (II Timothy 3:16, Psalms 12:6-8). We believe that the Scriptures are inerrant, infallible, and God-breathed.

    The Masoretic Text of the Old Testament and the Received Text of the New Testament (Textus Receptus) are those texts of the original languages WE USE; (translation…you may use another and that’s okay.) the Authorized King James Version of the Bible is the English version WE (SEE ABOVE)use in the English-speaking world. The Bible is our sole and final authority for faith and practice.”

    It really is craftily worded to seduce the KJVO crowd but not ostracize others.

    Example 2. Back in the day, Crown wanted to hugely emphasize a satellite campus in England, and of course they are obsessed with Spurgeon, too. Very quickly there was some sort of attachment with Metropolitan Tabernacle and its Pastor, Peter Masters, who is clearly a Calvinist. If people over here knew how friendly he was, most of the IFB’s would have had a cow. I mean, cause Calvinists can’t be Christians, right? lol Of course, to his marketplace over here, he isn’t nearly as friendly to Calvinism.

    Example 3. IFB Friends or whatever it was called and lovefest with Jack Schaap…trying to mend bridges and take students.

    Example 4. Even most IFB’s detest Bill Gothard, but if Crown College can get a cameo on 19 Kids and Counting, which they did, then you better bet that that Bates girl, some of her brothers, and a Duggar or two will get a scholarship.

    Yeah…separated all right…unto whoever helps pay the bills.

    I actually would probably respect it more if they would just come out of the closet as non-KJVO people that allow for room for disagreement on some issues without cutting off contact all together.

    1. One of my friends recently became non-KJVO while at Crown. I’m not sure if she remained closeted.

      1. Another interesting thing was that the doctrinal statement used to say “we accept and use”, and now it is just “we use.” But we may accept the others as valid?

        Mission boards do this all of the time, too. We use the KJV. I’ve got an NASB and and ESV in my library, but if it makes you happy, I’ll tell you that we use the KJV even though many of our missionaries are in non-English speaking countries.

        Just come out and say, the KJVO position is ridiculous and I’m sorry I bought into that, and now I’m going to evaluate whether my suit and tie are required and if I have to sing out of the standard church hymnal or can I expand my horizons?

        2. It’s a slippery slope towards compromise.
          Next you will say that there are Christians outside the IFB. Heresy! Oh, the horror!

    2. Example 5. Ben Carson can speak at our conference even though he is a SDA….up until too many people pitch a fit about it, and then I’m taking him off the docket. But Ken Ham…no biggie. He’ll slide because everyone dislikes Bill Nye more than Hillary Clinton????

      2. I remember when my former Fundy church had Presby VP Dan Quayle come speak at the grand opening of the new (now old) sanctuary. But my best memory was of Congressman J.C. Watts who was invited to speak in our other new sanctuary – but ended up giving the full Sunday morning sermon WITHOUT using a KJV. LOLOLOL. The event was well publicized, the speaker crazy popular in conservative circles, and the sermon was good, so leadership chose not to say anything publicly against it.

        But if one of their Bible college students showed up with a NIV or NASB, they would take him behind the woodshed IYKWIM.

  9. Does it serve a professional Creationist better if he or she is not a King James Only-ist?

    Those verses Genesis 1:6-8, referring to a firmament. I think professional (and amateur) Creationists would step into messy arguments about a Flat Earth if they insist on the King James Version. Look up firmament on Wikipedia, then read the Talk section of the article for some amusement.

    Of course, I am being presumptuous. King James Only Fundies are Creationists and generally do not think the Earth is flat. Professional Creationist need to sell their stuff to a broader Evangelical audience, and therefore would rather have a translation that refers to the heavens as an “expanse”.

    However, it is mentioned in this thread that Kent Hovind is a King James Only-ist.

    1. The Earth is a Square. both the Old Testament (Ezekiel 7:2) and the New Testament (Revelation 7:1) refer to “The Four Corners Of The Earth”. There it is, in black and white. As a Young Earth Creationist friend likes to say ” You either believe the Bible or you don’t!!”

      ::eyeroll::

  10. Back in I think 2005-2006 William Grady came to crown and gave his 7 signs of pseudo KJV onlyist. if you’ve never seen the video its pretty interesting. I was amazed that Sexton, after the chapel message, his comments were “everyone knows where we stand” It seems that Sexton wants to have the full benefits of being part of the body of Christ, with associating with everyone but still wants to have his little pet doctrines and division with crazy standards and such.

    1. I heard him in a conference twice, and he was on a kick about preaching about being a fundamentalist but being sick of fundamentalism. I could hear it in his voice that he was sick of a lot of this garbage, and I almost felt sorry for him and felt like he was going to do the right thing eventually….and then he didn’t…and instead perpetuated the same old story.

      1. I almost felt sorry for him and felt like he was going to do the right thing eventually….and then he didn’t…and instead perpetuated the same old story.

        And then the wall in the mind slammed down and there was only The Party Line.

    2. I’m glad you brought up that message. Maybe we should let the man speak for himself on where he stands. Then you decide. Start @the 1hr mark. This is one of the most memorable chapel services of anyone who was at crown college at the time.

      Bill Grady “Shibboleth or Sibboleth”
      https://youtu.be/saTvCMz_-lQ

  11. Don’t forget there are degrees of separation. Primary and secondary. Primary is for the people who are wrong and you stand against them. Secondary is for those people who are wrong, but it benefits you more if you remain friendly with them because of their social influence.

  13. I remember when Ian Paisley cameo Crown, Sexton caught some major heat and then out of that was born “Baptist Friends” It seems that he wants to unite “IFB” Christians and keep them from fighting, the problem is not to get everyone to agree but the problem is within. IFB is based upon a man centered philosophy. If Jesus is ever proclaimed it is far and few.

      1. Bob Jones once made a movie about a the Civil War called Red Runs the River. It centered around General Jonathan “Stonewall’ Jackson. A lot of was made of the fact that Jackson was a devout Christian which is true…what they don’t tell you is he was a devout Presbyterian.

        Makes me wonder about all those students that were shipped from BJ for “Calvinistic’ leanings.

      2. Paisley basically formed his own Church, the “Free Presbyterians” They are nothing like the Free Presbyterians you find in Scotland. The name is a misnomer, as they are less like “Presbyterians” and more like a mutant form of the IFB and they are not “Free” in the sense of being Independent as Paisley ruled them with a Rod of Iron, in all respects a Protestant Pope, complete with Infalibilty. Now that he is gone, the Church has been going through a period of flux. There are good people in the church and I pray that God’s spirit will break through into their lives.

  14. All you Crownies out there, make sure to password protect your computer. Since there is another article that reflects poorly on Crown, I’m sure the police will be out trying to get you to recant by an open letter on SFL.

        1. Unrelated subject, Darrell but in your picture, is that a bat on your Adam’s Apple, or a large black moth?

        2. I took a closer look, and I don’t know of any bat species with pale dots. So I’m guessing its a moth

      2. Probably a brown-nosing Crown Clown trying to ride your stellar reputation on this site.

  17. What very few talk about is that Creationism is a Seventh-Day Adventist invention. Ellen G. White insisted that the first several chapters of Genesis had to be interpreted literally. George McCready Price, a Canadian who had taken a few natural science courses, decided that geologists were wrong in declaring that the Earth was millions upon millions of years old.

    Since Ellen G. White had restricted Creation Week to a regular week, Price had to come up with another explanation. He came up with “Flood Geology.” He wrote Illogical Geology in 1906 and The Fundamentals of Geology in 1913. Suffice it to say he was NOT a geologist, but an evolution denier with a completely theological agenda.

    Henry Morris, a Southern Baptist, and George Whitcomb (Grace Brethren) were heavily influenced by Price. But they realized that Price’s association with the Adventists would harm reception of that position. So they did some work to claim ideas as their own, rebrand and present Creationism in a more theologically acceptable package. They decided they needed not only a young earth, but a young universe. Morris, an entry-level hydrologic engineer repackaged himself as an expert in “Flood dynamics.”

    More later.

    3. Interesting. I was taught that everybody believed in creation until evil Darwin came along. I had no idea it was such a new movement. You’ve givrn me something new to google, thanks! 🙂

      1. Sigh. Reading challenged?

        Creation-ism is far from being “the text of Genesis.”

        Creation-ism is a pseudoscientific extrapolation far beyond the text.

        Yes, people believed the text of Genesis. But no one was talking about “Flood Geology” or that the Flood had created fossils or that dinosaurs lived with men. The most that could have been said was that Bishop Ussher had made up a chart trying to determine when the exact date of Creation was.

        But several years BDO (before Darwin’s “Origin of Species”) a group of young clergymen with time on their hands and interests in science wanted to find evidence of the Great Flood. They were sure it was there. So they started looking.

        They put together some reasonable ideas. Lower layers of soils or rock should be older than layers on top. Erosion happens. Deposition happens.

        They discovered a general pattern to depositional formations. They also discovered anomalies. No two structures were the same. They got good at identifying minor and major floods. They learned how to date layers. But they couldn’t find the One Layer that indicated the Great Flood.

        They traveled to Palestine. They looked hard. They simultaneously developed the fields of archaeology and geology. But even though they discovered strange things in lower layers, they found no evidence of a single Flood Event for the whole earth.

        Fossils began to be gathered and Paleontology was born. Wow! Similar, fantastic creatures. The same kinds found in the same kinds of layers. But differences as the layers differed.

        Changes in time seemed to go along with morphological differences in the fossils. This, along with the obviously great number of similar but distinct species alive at the time provided the theoretical basis for Darwin to draw upon.

        That is why the Clergy came to the conclusion that Genesis should be read allegorically, not literally. Belief was not to be in the details but in the Creator.

        You don’t tell children details they cannot handle. In a very real sense, the illiterate bronze-age peoples of Bible times were children.

        These scholars did not sense any disrespect to the Scripture as they made their discoveries and drew their conclusions. It was all God’s world, after all.

        1. No, I don’t consider myself ‘reading challenged’. Your statement was that ‘creationism’ was an SDA invention, and my point was that long before Ellen White came on the scene people were reading a text that says things like “evening and morning were the first day”, and believing it.
          The fact that later on self-professed smart people decided that what they had weren’t God’s words has no bearing on the matter. The fact that many of the same self-professed smart people decided that Genesis was either allegorical or a fable is moot. Some of us still believe what we have are God’s words. God either wrote Genesis by inspiration and it is therefore, by God’s nature an accurate account, or it’s not.

        2. God either wrote Genesis by inspiration and it is therefore, by God’s nature an accurate account, or it’s not.

          Or you miss the point. Which you do. You present a false choice.

          You don’t actually succeed in putting God in the Box, you know. He isn’t constrained to your two options, you know.

          When asked a question, Jesus might answer with a parable. He might answer with another question.

          And Moses wrote Genesis, we are told. The only Scripture written by the hand of God was the Ten Commandments on tables of stone. Inspired doesn’t mean dictation. And according to I Timothy, inspired doesn’t even mean fact.

          Allegory can contain essential truth without being a fact-based account. The creation account was not written with your 21st century mindset in mind. It was told to slaves who could not read or write, but who needed to know that God had made the world for them and they did not need to be afraid. The detail, the individual words, meant nothing. It was the overall message that mattered.

          You are free to believe otherwise, of course. But if God had meant the words of Genesis to be incontrovertible fact, wouldn’t the World He Made have borne this out? Wouldn’t God have made it so the World witnessed to nothing other than the Book?

          Alas, that isn’t what we found. Does God tell the truth in The Universe He made? Does He tell it directly, or leave it to us to discover?

          Jesus told Nicodemus, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Marvel not if you don’t understand the Physical World by reading the Bible.

        3. Okay, I am sorry I said “reading challenged.” I really am.

          But yes, “CreationISM” is a recent invention. The Creation Story is NOT creationISM. CreationISM is NOT about “believing the Bible,” it is about believing what certain people claim about the Bible, accepting their interpretation and additions to it as the only valid viewpoint.

          That is like conflating “Fundamentalism” with the Fundamentals of the Faith. It is equating an extreme with the norm, equating a heresy with the balanced doctrine. It is like equating “inerrancy” with “inspiration.” Or like saying that if you believe in Eternal Security then you have to believe the entire TULIP and Hodges Systematic Theology.

          It just isn’t so!

          The Creation Story is what it is. It tells a story. It has been explained and believed in different ways throughout the ages by godly men who differed, but would not have challenged the salvation of those who thought differently. But if you challenge CreationISM, Ken Ham says you aren’t saved. I have heard countless sermons saying that if you believe the The Theory of Evolution is true in any sense then you are a God-hater.

          So tied up in this CreationISM was I that when I discovered that Morris and Whitcomb lied about what scientists said about evolution and the evidence it almost destroyed my faith. I believed CreationISM implicitly. I have the books. Discovering that these “Men of God and Men of Science” were lying about Science and about what the Scriptures said was devastating.

          And perhaps this place where I came so close to the seamy side of Fundamentalism’s heretical tendencies has produced this ultra-sensitivity.

          As a matter of fact, “Creationism” as a system of belief did not exist until The Seventh Day Adventist writer took it upon himself to systematize one of Ellen White’s dreams. That people believed the whole creation was done in 6 days, and that a universal flood occurred is not the same thing as “CreationISM.” It just isn’t.

          But I am sorry I took offense. That this is still such a sore point shows how terribly I felt betrayed and duped. I have delved into the sciences to make sure that I understand what is being said and done.

        4. Go to the other end of the Bible. Are the descriptions of events in Revelation to be taken literally.
          (and before you or amyone else condemn me to Hell as an Unbeliever I am a true Born-Again Christian Believer in Jesus. I can tick all the right boxes when it comes to salvation. I believe in the Bible, but my scientifically-inclined 21-century mind struggles with some of the stuff thats in it. I just don’t believe that Ken Ham is the Fount of All Godly Knowledge and disagreeing with him will invalidate what Jesus has done for me

        5. Rtg, your comment did imply that before the SDA that no one believed in creationism.

          I don’t know what else one should infer from these sentences: “What very few talk about is that Creationism is a Seventh-Day Adventist invention. Ellen G. White insisted that the first several chapters of Genesis had to be interpreted literally. ”

          I’m reasonably sure that someone prior to Ellen White read the Genesis account and decided that it was a literal time period of 24 hours for each creation event. It isn’t far-fetched to think that a person would read the word “day” and interpret it to mean an actual time span of 24 hours.

          Neither creationism nor evolution can be proven to my satisfaction. Then again, the origins of the world and universe aren’t really all that central to my philosophies and world view. I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I prefer the fight to be civil. I find your question to Mr Alford to be less than kind.

        6. I’m reasonably sure that someone prior to Ellen White read the Genesis account and decided that it was a literal time period of 24 hours for each creation event. It isn’t far-fetched to think that a person would read the word “day” and interpret it to mean an actual time span of 24 hours.

          But that, in and of itself, is not CreationISM. I did try to tell what CreationISM was. But CreationISTS have so conflated issues that they have claimed the Prize. You *have* to believe it *their* way if you believe the Bible at all. You can’t be allowed anything different.

          CreationISM is a pseudo-scientific amalgam cementing together Scripture with kinda-sorta-sciencey-sounding gobbledygook. Just believing “six days” isn’t creationISM.

          The name with the ISM is given to a very specific doctrinal variation, something I consider heretical.

          Now you may not believe evolution. I don’t care. You may not believe your car runs, either. It does whether you believe it or not. You might not believe in nuclear physics, but we have bombs. And you may not believe in evolution, but the medicines, the surgical techniques and the research that saves your life have their origins in a system that sees evolution as the overarching theme of biology. It works. Whether you “believe” it or not. It isn’t just “origins.” It is the here and the now.

          I very nearly lost my faith over this issue and how “Christianity” was being redefined by it. I admit to being very sensitive to the terms and how they are used. I am sensitive to ignorance being paraded as knowledge. And I am sensitive to being told that if I see Scripture differently that somehow I am not believing what God says.

          I admit to being rude — and I am sorry for that. But I think that as far as using terminology correctly, I still had the larger point.

        7. Lol. See what Alford did there? “If you don’t accept my interpretation of Genesis; you don’t believe the text of Genesis!” Nice one. In most cases, btw, it is sufficient to say “Genesis”. “the text of Genesis” is redundant, since it is generally understood that Genesis is a book.

        10. Those who believed Copernicus was wrong about heliocentrism also claimed to be literally holding to Scriptures. So are all those who hold to a literal interpretation sticking to the olde paths of geocentrism?

          Of course not. I hope we would all know better.

          But back then some thought heliocentrism was a God-denying belief, when it was obviously not.

          Eventually they got overwhelmed by evidence and moved the goal posts. Now we’ve moved on to arguing over the age of the earth, etc. Quibbling over how and when God created in no way denies that God indeed created.

          God is not afraid of science, and neither should we.

        11. Geocentrisim. I find it interesting, but I’ve actually seen an article or two defending geocentrism lately. Their argument is that it’s true to Scripture. Somehow, we scientist just don’t see things the way they really are. Probably because we are in rebellion against God.

          Fundamentalism has done wonders promoting ignorance in our nation.

    5. Don’t these same Born-Agains denounce the SDAs as a CULT CULT CULT CULT CULT?

    1. They have candidate status with TRACS, a national accrediting body, which is the equivalent of of having Sam’s Choice Walmart Cola in your fridge instead of a Coca Cola Classic (aka regional accreditation). Its pretty much just a hair above worthless. Of course, what undergraduate theology degrees aren’t worthless? It is a rare occasion to make a minister’s salary that will pay off student loan debt on an accredited degree.

      When will these schools learn that the route of having a useful undergraduate degree followed by a seminary degree, if you want, is the better route. If you can’t make a decent living, you can always then go be an accountant or an engineer or something.

      2. TRACS accredits all kinds of bullshit schools. Its whole raison d’etre is that a few decades ago, the Bible colleges were complaining that the mainstream accreditors were trying to make them teach evolution, so they concocted their own accreditation agency. Thanks to politics, the government was persuaded to recognize it for purposes of the GI Bill and student loans. I don’t have a problem with theology as a subject matter (though of course it promises to be unlucrative, like many liberal arts majors); the problems with schools like these involve the entire educational structure, even in “secular” subjects.

        1. From the the standpoint of a historian, and someone who also used to teach freshman comp, the faux-accreditation rankles me. I don’t care about the religious classes- too much of that is subjective. But the General Education portion of a degree should be equivalent from school to school. From what I’ve seen of a number of these Bible ‘scholars’- especially those who hold a ‘Doctorate’- much of their writing is so poor I would flunk them and send them to remedial classes. And God only know what passes for standard History classes in these schools. This ‘accreditation’ is selling a false bill of goods. Can’t the students and parents see that?

  19. Wow! An unreal school invites a purveyor of fantasy and fictional science. How cool is that!

  20. Dear SFL Reader:

    It occurs to me that The Fundamentals [1905] from which fundamentalism supposedly took its name, was authored by people who were open to the idea of mediate creation. This would include such figures as Orr, Warfield and Machen, whose orthodoxy no one questioned.

    Christian Socialist

    2. Well they aren’t going to let “the fundamentals” get in the way. I have read those writings and enjoyed them. I also noticed that many of the scripture quotes were not KJV. When you point that out you get some very interesting responses from the fundy KJVO group.

    3. Dear nobody and Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist:

      Likewise, I believe the Genesis account of creation. In fact, I believe both the Genesis 1 and the Genesis 2 accounts, even though they are very different.

      Christian Socialist

      PS: Like you, I also had a very argumentative streak. That may not be thing about which one boasts, but I’m not sure that it is always entirely bad either…

      PPS: Might the ‘seven days’ of Genesis 1 be a literary device to structure the creation account?

  21. I was raised KJV only and taught that Creation happened as told in Genesis. I still lean this way but I don’t argue with anyone who disagrees. When I was young, I am ashamed to say I argued about everything. If you didn’t agree with me than you were wrong and I told you so. I have learned my opinion is no more important than anyone else’s. I live by faith and so does everyone else.

    1. Interesting article. One Elmer Gantry steals followers from his Australian twin and it goes to litigation. Both groups are false teachers.

    2. Tiarali, true. He is. And he is a scoundrel. He bought off a friend of mine when he tried to expose Ham. With a lot of money. And that friend has remained silent ever since.

  23. There;s no way I can comment about Ken Ham without going OFF, so I’ll just say: he and the IFB were made for each other.

  24. It is, shall we say, unfortunate that he shares his surname with the man who raped Noah.

    But his discussion of kangaroos is pure genius.

  25. It appears to me, SFL, that you are trying to have it both ways. You criticize ‘fundies’ for straining at gnats ( a certainly valid point) at the cost of larger issues, but when they are a bit more open-minded you call them compromisers. Am I missing something here?

    1. I appears to me that Michael Alford misses the point. Big time.

      Fundamentalists criticize others for their “compromising.” They rail about degrees of separation and how pure and holy they are compared to others.

      Then they go and do the same things.

      This post is in the vein of Romans 2. So it appears you are inexcusable, you who are condemning others. In your condemnation of others you are condemning yourself because you do the exact same things.

      This is just pointing out the irony.

      Another fundy attempt to bash the site foiled! Perhaps it is because they don’t know their own Scriptures?

        1. Thanks for that 🙂 We often get die-hard fundies here who aren’t interested in actually listening to any explanation offered. It’s really appreciated when real dialogue happens 🙂

        2. That is one of the great things aboutvthis forum. We can discuss ideas and beliefs without the Faith Police knocking on your door. You can express genuine doubts and worries without some other Christian consigning you to Hell. In other words it is nothing like Fundystan. Discussions can get heated. Things can turn into argumemts, and apart from the odd troll or four, the folks here treat others with compassion and respect. Any fily will have disagreements and fights. That is what we are. A family.

        3. *family* not fily. George must have been born on Fundystan – he does not treat people with respect.

  26. I love Answers in Genesis….some of the finest minds in science are associated with this wonderful ministry….Ken Ham has done great work in explaining how important and “true” the literal 6-Day creation is to our faith……AIG….the very best Creation Science Ministry in the U.S.

    2. Yes, the finest BS out there. Along with the Creation Research Institute, and others. The best crap you can adulterate the gospel with. The finest refuse you can clog the mind and heart with.

    4. LOLOLOL. Yeah, because you said so. greg, AiG is full of bullshit, and if you accept that, it is your own willful ignorance. The facts are publicly available, and freshman-level science texts are fairly easy to comprehend.

    5. KOACC – That’s not troll food. A troll, like greg, wouldn’t know what to do with that. Well said.

    6. I still don’t care for the terms “extremely” or “old”. I know why they are used, but the Earth & Universe are the age they are, there’s not really anything old or young, or extreme about the age of them. In comparison, I believe earth is a relatively geologically young planet at a few billion in a much older universe.

      1. Fair enough. But it’s still over 700,000 times older than I used to believe. That’s a pretty big jump in age for me!

  27. As a high school senior who’s homeschooled through ABeka Book, I approve this message. Fundies love separation from the world until the someone from the world agrees with them.

  28. Weird how this separation things works. Crown brings in Ken Ham despite the fact that Ham is not KJVO; uses contemporary music for some of his VBS products (though there’s a more IFB-friendly version using some of Ron Hamilton’s music) and if I remember correctly doesn’t hold to a pre-Tribulation Rapture view.

    Of course Ham wouldn’t be the first person who some IFB circles have no problems inviting to speak despite several areas of disagreement (Exhibit A: David Barton)

    1. “God is no respecter of persons”

      But Fundies sure are!

      As I said upthread, if a lowly (not of a prominent family) Bible college student did these things, they would be harshly dealt with.
      It is all about who you are or who you know.

  29. Norman Geisler wrote an article about AIG, and how their approach causes some to walk away from the faith. The problem being that if one believed for whatever reason that the earth wasn’t young , according to Ham they must question everything else. Geisler told me that on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays he was young earth, and old earth the other days. I’m YEC, but not rabid about it.

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