How different would Christian evangelism be if all of the Young Earth Creationists (YECs) gradually folded their tents and gave up their sincere but misguided fight that is so detrimental to Christian evangelism, especially toward the scientific community. Since YECs believe that the Bible trumps science every time, no argument from science is ever going to make this happen. This book, written by an evangelical Christian layman for conservative evangelical Christian adherents of Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism (OEC) and Intelligent Design, takes a giant step toward achieving the above goal.
Gordon J. Glover maintains that YECs and OECs are equally wrong in their approach to interpreting Genesis 1 & 2 (and other references to creation in the Bible). His main theme is that Genesis 1 & 2 are not scientific accounts of the origin of the universe and that both YECs and OECs err in trying to interpret it that way. He makes a very good case from the Bible itself that God accommodated his message to what the Israelites of that time could understand, and that God's message was theological, not scientific.
This approach is not new. It has been well developed in a number of commentaries on Genesis, including but not limited to John H. Walton's "The NIV Application Commentary-Genesis," C. John Collins' "Genesis 1-4," and Henri Blocher's "In the Beginning." What is new here is a discussion of the issues in a form much more accessable to Christian laymen. The author is neither a scientist nor a theologian, and, while his writing style is a bit flippant at times, he makes his points well, forcefully and understandably. He also acknowledges that it is going to take a lot of time for YECs to make the transition to a different way of understanding God's message in Genesis.
The author describes his reluctant acceptance of evolution as just another natural process through which God has been operating in his providental governance of the universe. In that vein, he expresses his dislike of the term "theistic evolution" as not making any more sense than "theistic meteorology." He cites a number of clearly stated, understandable reasons why biological evolution is currently the most reasonable explanation of the facts that scientists are observing in nature.
The author goes on to very clearly demonstrate that "creation science" is not science, that science is not the enemy of Christianity, and that science does not lie. He summarizes his position on "creation science" in four bullet points on page 105 as follows:
(1) Creaton science removes the Bible out from under the protection of the ancient Near-Eastern worldview - where truth did not always have to be expressed in scientific terms, and subjects it to the rigors of the modern materialists' worldview - which requires truth to always be precisely communicated in scientific terms.
(2) Creation science marginalizes the timeless theological realities of the creation story by exposing the timely physical details to scientific ridicule.
(3) Creation science hands the secular world a Biblical straw-man that can be easily torn down, along with the entire Christian faith.
(4) Since all scientific propositions are subject to falsification, creation science puts the Lord our God to the test!
I only wish that there were some way that Young Earth Creationists (and a few Old Earth Creationists) could be exposed to this book. I highly recommend it.
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