Terry Mortenson's Blog

“The debate is over,” says Dr. Hugh Ross. So reported the website of Hamilton Strategies (HS) in October 2014.

Renowned astronomer and Reasons to Believe founder Dr. Hugh Ross made a bold claim at Southern Evangelical Seminary’s (SES, www.ses.edu) recent 21st Annual National Conference on Christian Apologetics, which drew nearly 2,000 to Calvary Church in Charlotte. A pastor, astronomer and researcher, Ross made the compelling statement that “the debate is over” among scientists when it comes to whether there is a causal agent in the universe. Instead, he said, the conversation is shifting to whether God is a personal God.

In his conference lecture, “Beyond the Cosmos,” he reportedly presented new scientific evidence that expands our understanding of the Creator and His amazing abilities.

During his talk, Ross used the words of atheist physicists, L. Dyson, M. Kleban and L. Susskind of the Department of Physics at Stanford University, who in their paper, Disturbing Implications of a Cosmological Constant, stated that “another possibility is an unknown agent intervened in the evolution, and for reasons of its own restarted the universe in the state of low entropy characterizing inflation.”

But it is one thing for a few prominent scientists to admit the “possibility” of an “unknown agent” who “intervened in the evolution” of the universe. It is quite another to say that the debate is over about this meager admission.

HS informs us that Dr. Richard Land, president of SES, remarked after Ross’s lecture,

Dr. Ross’ bold claim that the ‘debate is over’ regarding whether a causal agent is behind the universe will undoubtedly create an uproar both among scientists and among atheists. . . . But given what science reveals to us, such a claim is not only reasonable but also increasingly confirmed by science. As Christians, we believe that this causal agent is the God who has revealed Himself to us in Holy Scripture. But even among non-Christians, scientific research is actually opening doors of opportunity for believers to share their faith with increasing confidence, understanding full well that there truly are ‘reasons to believe.’

But is the debate about whether there is a causal agent behind the universe or not really over in the scientific world? And has this claim increasingly been confirmed by science?  Well, to answer those questions we need to think carefully and define our terms.

Acknowledging a “Causal Agent” . . .

Certainly, there appear to be more scientists today than 20–30 years ago who are willing to publically acknowledge a “causal agent” or “intelligent designer.” But most will not admit that the agent or designer is a god, much less the God of the Bible, and fewer still will believe in Jesus Christ and His inerrant Word. Still, the 1998 study of the National Academy of Sciences (biological and physical science sections) by Larson and Witham showed that over the course of the whole 20th century the vast majority of our leading scientists were atheists and agnostics. It is extremely doubtful that that state of affairs has significantly changed in the last 15 years, given how visible and aggressive the “new atheists” have become in the Western world in publicly promoting their atheism.

Furthermore, the Bible says that everyone knows that God (the God revealed in Scripture) exists but most refuse to worship Him and give thanks to Him because they are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. To cover their sin, they deny the witness of creation and their conscience about the existence and nature of the Creator (Romans 1:18–20, 2:14–16). And they will continue to do this, the Bible makes clear, regardless of scientific or any other evidence, until they are prepared to repent of their sin. So influential atheists like Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss will continue to argue that science proves there is no God. And the media and leaders in science and secular academia will continue to give voice to their views.

Is science increasingly confirming a causal agent for the universe? Well, science doesn’t confirm anything. It is scientists who confirm things. Of course, creation scientists have always seen abundant scientific evidence that God created the universe, just as He said.  But when Ross and many others (and possibly Land) say “science is increasingly confirming a causal agent for the universe,” they mean that scientific evidence is mounting in confirmation of the supposed big bang and therefore of a beginning and therefore of a Beginner. They also point to the “fine-tuning” of the laws of nature and other characteristics of the universe, which they attribute to God’s guidance of the big bang expansion process. But the big bang idea is impossible to harmonize with Genesis. So God didn’t guide that process to create, because the big bang never happened. And explosions don’t produce order and fine-tuning. The God of the Bible does and did in six days, not over the course of billions of years.

The HS reporter tells us that in the lecture Ross answered these questions:

Why is God not a created entity?
How can God listen to all our prayers at the same time?
How can God be both singular and plural?
How can God foreknow and predestinate and yet grant us free will?
How can Jesus in just nine hours on the cross atone for all the evil that all of humanity has committed?

After answering them Ross reportedly concluded with the following:

What science has learned about trans- and extra-dimensions helps explain these and other paradoxical doctrines people encounter in Scripture and provides us with a powerful tool for establishing that the Bible alone is the inspired written Word of God.

It is simply preposterous to think that modern science can answer these theological questions. The Bible answers the first two, the second two will likely never be known by finite man, and the last question is misguided because it was the blood of the Who on the Cross, not how long He was on the Cross, that was the means of atonement. Regarding trans-and extra-dimensionality, I’m reminded of Dr. William Lane Craig’s rather scathing critique of Ross’s book Beyond the Cosmos (1996) in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (JETS 42:2 [June 1999]: 293–304). In giving as charitable an interpretation of Ross’s book as he can, Craig (who like Ross, sadly, is also compromised with the big bang and billions of years) says (p. 294), “talk of the modern discovery of God’s extra-dimensionality may be written down to a combination of theological naiveté and scientific over-exuberance” and “a terribly misleading way of affirming that Christian doctrines entail the transcendence of God.”

But Denying and Twisting the Word of God

But furthermore, when Ross speaks of science powerfully confirming that the Bible alone is the inspired Word of God, what he really means is that the theoretical big bang cosmos and uniformitarian story of billions of years of Earth history fit beautifully with his old-Earth, day-age, local-flood, death-before-the-Fall misinterpretation of Genesis based on those secular naturalistic views of history, not based on sound handling of Scripture, as I illustrate in my critique of Ross’s creation story.

As HS declared, Ross’s Reasons to Believe organization attempts to harness “the power of science for evangelism and desires to communicate that science and faith are, and always will be, allies, not enemies. . . . Through his books, podcasts and speaking engagements, Ross engages skeptics and equips believers with powerful reasons to believe in the God of the Bible as the Creator and Savior.”

Now I’m not questioning anyone’s salvation here. But, in the process of persuading people to believe in the God of the Bible as Creator and Savior, Ross is also modeling (unintentionally or not, unknowingly or not, only God knows) how to deny and twist the Word of God in subtle ways to fit secular thinking, which is exactly the opposite of what Scripture teaches us over and over (e.g., Deuteronomy 12:28–32; Joshua 1:6–9; Isaiah 8:20; Jeremiah 6:16–19; Mark 7:6–13; Acts 17:11, 20:28–32: and 2 Peter 2:1–3, 3:16).  We are commanded to study to show ourselves approved as workmen who do not need to be ashamed, “accurately handling the Word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15, NASB).

I fully agree with the HS reporter, who said the following:

Apologetics becomes ever more important as it becomes ever more crucial for Christians to defend their faith in an ever more hostile secular society.

But sadly, most of the leading apologists in the church today are defending “their faith,” but failing to defend the truth of Scripture at one of the greatest points of attack: Genesis 1–11 (which is ultimately the foundation of the gospel itself, so that an attack on it is indirectly an attack on the gospel). Worse than that, many of these apologists are doing exactly what Hugh Ross is doing—undermining (subtly attacking) the truth of Scripture by using the myth of the big bang and millions of years to “reinterpret” Genesis to make it seem to be “confirmed by science.” But such “reinterpretations” are exegetically indefensible and simply indirect ways of saying “the Bible is wrong,” as Coming to Grips with Genesis and this article clearly show. The God of the big bang and millions of years of death, disease, extinction, and natural disasters is not the God of the Bible.

True apologists will not “defend their faith.” They will defend the truth of the Bible, which should be the object of our faith and the inerrant source of truth we must believe. Only when we trust the Word of God are we really trusting God. It is the rock we should build our lives on, not on the shifting sands of human reasoning (Matthew 7:24–27). Genesis teaches creation in six literal days, about 6,000 years ago, and a global Flood in Noah’s day. And the scientific evidence (divorced from the atheistic, naturalistic assumptions controlling the majority of scientists) overwhelmingly confirms the literal truth of Genesis and exposes the lie of evolution and millions of years, as the books, DVDs, and articles on this website show. Let God be true and every man a liar (Romans 3:4)!

With the growing hostility in our culture toward biblical Christianity, the claim that “the debate is over” (even if just about the existence of a “causal agent”) is not only false, but a deception. Now more than ever it is time for all Christians to believe and defend the truth of God’s Word, beginning with all of the first 11 chapters of Genesis.

Here’s more evidence of this country’s plunge into the moral abyss, including in the professing Christian church.

A conference is coming up in November 2014 to promote the acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (and surely other) forms of sexual immorality within the Christian church.

The ad for this conference on a sidebar of one webpage is below. Note carefully the claims about The Reformation Project.

The link takes you to the webpage of the conference and the lineup of speakers. They are committed to reformation, for sure—but not to reforming the church under the Word of God but rather to reforming the church so that it doesn’t morally look anything like the church revealed in Scripture and in the history of orthodox Christianity. They may be “gospel-centered,” but it is a distorted gospel [which the Apostle Paul would call “another gospel" (Galatians 1:6–9)]. Jesus didn’t come to affirm moral perversion but to liberate people enslaved to it and the underlying lusts of the flesh. This conference will not be “Bible-based” except in the sense that Peter speaks of in 2 Peter 3:14–16—twisting Scripture (particularly the Apostle Paul’s writings) to justify the gross immorality that Scripture condemns and the gross immorality out of which the gospel of the grace of God in Jesus Christ can deliver a person (1 Corinthians 6:9–11).

One keynote speaker, Dr. David Gushee, is an influential ethics professor. In addition, he is a global warming alarmist and the principal drafter of the “Evangelical Climate Initiative,” which was launched with a $475,000 grant from population control-advocating Hewlett Foundation and presents its alarmist view as the dominant evangelical position. The Cornwall Alliance has thoroughly refuted its arguments from science and economics point by point in “A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming.”

Also keynoting at the November conference is Matthew Vines, who launched The Reformation Project in 2013 and published a book in 2014 presenting what he claims is the biblical case for same-sex relationships. Since he professes to be an evangelical, he has become a darling of the secular media. Ken Ham and Steve Golden showed how unbiblical his arguments are in this article and this article back in April and May 2014. See also God and the Gay Christian?: A Response to Matthew Vines, edited by Albert Mohler and several other professors at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Another speaker will be V. Gene Robinson, the first openly practicing homosexual bishop in the Episcopal Church, who retired in 2013 and speaks and lectures for a think tank in Washington, DC, promoting LGBT lifestyles particularly by trying like many others to link “gay rights” with civil rights. Dr. Charles Ware, an African American president of a multi-ethnic Bible college in Indianapolis, refutes that line of reasoning here in the light of Scripture.

The LGBT assault on the church is accelerating and Bible-believing Christian leaders and lay people must not remain silent on what the Bible clearly teaches about gender and sexual passions and behavior. We must be prepared to lovingly, graciously, but firmly hold to biblical truth and proclaim the gospel so that people can be set free from these sexual perversions (just like other sins listed in Romans 1:18–32) that are so damaging to individuals and society.

On a related matter, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Dr. Albert Mohler’s podcast on October 1, 2014, discusses the insanity of a new law in California intending to deal with massive heterosexual immorality on America’s secular college campuses.  See item two beginning at 3:08 minutes. I encourage you to listen to it.

God help us to be faithful to His holy Word and the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, come what may in the days ahead.

Terry

Dr. Millard Erickson is one of the greatest evangelical theologians of our generation. In 2013, Erickson published the third edition of his book titled Christian Theology, which is widely used as a textbook in seminaries and Bible colleges in America and other countries. His chapter on creation is no different from his second (1998) edition, which is essentially the same as his first (1983) edition, both of which I analyzed in this article. The only difference between the second and third editions is the third’s addition of four lines of text about the “revelatory day” view of Genesis 1 (which he rejects) and one page about the Intelligent Design movement (citing the post-1991 writings of Philip Johnson, Michael Behe, and William Dembski).

As in previous editions, under the heading “The Age of Creation” Erickson summarizes the various views on Geneses 1 and the age of the earth: the “gap theory,” the “age-day theory,” and the “pictorial-day (or literary framework) theory.” It is hard to imagine that he is unaware of the labels “young-earth creation,”  “biblical creation,” or “scientific creationism” that are so widely used today by both proponents and opponents of the view. But Erickson never uses any of those and instead in this section (as in previous editions) refers only to the “flood theory” and the “ideal-time theory” thereby dividing the young-earth view into two different views.

With respect to the (global) flood theory, he still only refers to the 1923 book by the Adventist George McCready Price. Why the continuing avoidance of Whitcomb and Morris’s epic The Genesis Flood (1961) that launched the modern creationist movement, and numerous other more recent books scientifically and biblically defending the global-Flood/young-earth view?1 In this third edition he still refers to only two young-earth creationist books: Price’s 1923 book and Philip Gosse’s Omphalos, a 1857 book which Erickson (as in the previous editions) has footnoted as being published in 1957.

After once again affirming his non-dogmatic belief in the day-age view of Genesis 1, he again states, “The age of the universe is a topic that needs continued study and thought” (p. 352).  But in the thirty years since Erickson’s first edition he gives no indication that he has done any serious study of and thinking about the voluminous biblical and scientific scholarly literature defending the global-Flood/young-earth view.  It is hard not to conclude that he has deliberately avoided that literature. Why has he?  After all, for this third edition he obviously did some reading of scholarly literature from the Intelligent Design movement. I suggest it is because he has uncritically accepted what the majority of scientists say about millions of years.

It is very sad that Erickson’s widely used text is misleading many evangelical seminary and Bible college students not only in America but through translation in other countries as well.  I know the director of a creation apologetics ministry in Ukraine that is working all over the Russian-speaking world.  He told me the Russian version of Erickson’s text—like the Russian translation of Wayne Grudem’s systematic theology textbook—is leading many young Russian pastors astray on creation, which is why my whole article here has been translated into Russian.2

Dr. Erickson needs to do his homework in creationist literature, repent of his erroneous teachings on creation and the age of the earth and his ignoring of creationist writings, and then he needs to do a fourth edition to his theology text to affirm faith in the literal truth of Genesis.  Join me in praying that he will do so.

Footnotes

E.g., John Morris, The Young Earth (1994, revised and expanded in 2007); John Whitcomb, The World that Perished (1973, revised in 1988); John Whitcomb, The Early Earth (1972, revised in 1986); Terry Mortenson and Thane H. Ury, eds., Coming to Grips with Genesis (2008); Andrew Snelling, Earth’s Catastrophic Past (2 vol., 2009); and Jonathan Sarfati, Refuting Compromise (2004, revised in 2011), the most thorough refutation of the day-age view (as promoted by Hugh Ross) that Erickson favors.
This is the link to the Russian article: http://scienceandapologetics.org/pdf/earth.pdf. Anyone who has a Russian keyboard installed on his computer should see it correctly in Russian.

Right after the Bill Nye-Ken Ham debate on February 4, 2014, I received some condescending communications from opponents, calling into question my academic training, especially my PhD. Since this is not the first time this has happened, I decided that I would put some facts on the table.

It should be noted first, however, that these attacks on my academic training are ad hominem arguments—they are attacking me personally rather than offering any scientific, historical or biblical refutations of my publically expressed views. Furthermore, by attacking my training these people are indirectly attacking the academic institutions that granted my degrees and the academic competence of my professors and examiners, none of whom held to a young-earth creationist view at the time I did my studies.

For the record, I received a BA in mathematics from the University of Minnesota, a highly regarded school in that field. That math degree taught me two very important things that are very relevant to my present work at AiG. One is the importance of paying careful attention to details. (With math you can’t be sort of correct.) Secondly, it helped to train my mind to think critically and pursue the truth.

My biblical and theological training was at one of the leading evangelical seminaries, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, in the Chicago area. There I learned Greek and Hebrew well enough to use the scholarly biblical resources. Since none of my professors argued for the young-earth view, I had to read and think through many opposing ideas, which sharpened by critical thinking skills further and deepened my understanding of the arguments used by Christian scholars to try to accommodate evolution and/or millions of years.

Finally, I got my PhD in England, granted by Coventry University. Some of my critics have searched the Coventry University web site and, failing to find a history of geology department or geology department or even a geology course, have concluded that my degree is suspect, if not bogus. But they don’t understand the British education system for PhD research.

From Fall 1992 to Spring 1996, I was a research student of Wycliffe Hall, which is an Anglican theological college that at the time had a symbiotic relationship with Oxford University. During those years, under British education laws, Wycliffe Hall could supervise PhD students but not grant the degree. So Coventry University was the degree-granting university for my degree (though other PhD students at Wycliffe at that time received their degrees from different universities). Because of the relationship Wycliffe Hall had with Oxford University, I did nearly all of my research in the Oxford University libraries. The month I received my degree from Coventry (November 1996), Wycliffe Hall became an official college of Oxford University.

My internal supervising professor at Wycliffe was Dr. Gordon McConville, a respected Old Testament scholar. However, my research was not on the Old Testament, but rather on the history of geology in the late 18th and early 19th century. It specifically focused on the development of the geological theory of millions of years of earth history and on a group of men collectively known as the “scriptural geologists” who raised geological, biblical and philosophical objections against the old-earth theories and against the various Christian compromises with old-earth geology at that time. (A shortened version of my thesis was published in 2004 as The Great Turning Point. It is essentially identical to the thesis except that it contains only 7 of the 13 chapters on individual scriptural geologists. Most of those additional chapters have been published on the AiG web site.)

Therefore, because of the focus of my research, my primary supervisor was the late Professor Colin Russell, Professor Emeritus at the Open University and one of the leading historians of science in the UK, who had published some writings related to the history of geology.

My two PhD examiners for the oral defense of my thesis were (and still are) historians of science who if I recall correctly at the time were both on the faculty of Lancaster University in the UK. They also had published writings on the history of geology. They were Prof. John Hedley Brooke (one of the most prominent historians of science in the UK and arguably in the English-speaking world) and Dr. Paul Marston (whose own PhD thesis focused on Adam Sedgwick, one of the old-earth Christian geologists which the Scriptural geologists critiqued).

After completing my degree I was required by the university and the British Library in London to supply them each with a hard-bound copy of my thesis.

So I was supervised and examined by historians of science with expertise in the history of geology and my thesis was in that field, as anyone will see who reads The Great Turning Point. It is no surprise to me that my research has only been cited by one secular historian, as far as I know. Creationist research in any field of study is almost completely ignored by secular academia (even Christian academia), because this is really a worldview conflict. People may strongly disagree with my historical interpretations of what happened in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but in attacking my degree and academic training they are really attacking the men who taught, supervised and examined me, which I think is very disrespectful of those professors who were very helpful to me and speaks volumes about the character of my attackers and the intellectual weakness of their evolutionist position.

Over the years the American Atheists have been having some serious problems with social behavior at their national convention. So they have developed a code of conduct for the 2014 conference. It is interesting to observe the things they tolerate (e.g., many kinds of sexual immorality) and the things they will not tolerate (e.g., lack of social etiquette). It should also be noted that Christian conventions do not need to post such a code of conduct because the attendees have been redeemed by the grace of God and gladly submit to His code of conduct in the Bible.

But in an atheist worldview, these atheists have no basis for this code. In their view there is no God and therefore no moral absolutes. William Provine, a prominent American atheist evolutionist and professor at Cornell University, put it this way:

Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear. . . There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.[1]

Richard Dawkins, England’s most influential atheist evolutionist similarly said the following:

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music.[2]

So we are all just animals and it is the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest. Animals don’t show the social decencies required in the atheists’ code. So why should people? This code is completely arbitrary. Certainly the American Atheists are free to make this code for their conventions. But their worldview isn’t the source of these rules.

In a related news item, the University of Virginia hosted a conference on February 10, 2014, involving top leaders of six secular colleges and universities to discuss the topic of sexual misconduct among college students. This is a vexing problem. Research shows that 20% of college women at secular schools have been sexually assaulted, but only 12% of the victims report the incident. But given the depravity of man and that these schools are dominated by evolutionary thinking that destroys any basis for moral absolutes, this behavior is not surprising. These educational leaders may not like this behavior, but if the students and the leaders are all just animals struggling for survival in a sea of moral relativism, who really can say that sexual assault is wrong? It’s just some people’s opinion against the opinions of others.

I fully agree that the social harassment that the American Atheists condemn and sexual assaults on college campuses or anywhere else are wrong.

So where do the moral standards come from? They come from the moral law of God, reflected in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1–17), which are written on the heart of every person, including atheists (Romans 2:14–16), because we are all made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27). But the atheist code of conduct and the new policies of these secular universities reflect only some of God’s moral laws. The LGBTQ sexual behaviors that they tolerate, and even celebrate, are very clearly condemned (along with rape, adultery, fornication and other sins) by God in His Word (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13; Romans 1:26–27; 1 Corinthians 6:9–11; 1 Timothy 1:8–10). The atheists accept those sinful LGBTQ behaviors because they are denying the God that they know exists and suppressing the truth (revealed in creation and in their conscience, and in His Word) because of sin (Romans 1:18–20).

Sadly, they don’t understand that the law of God actually brings great liberty and wonderful blessing (John 8:31–32, Psalm 1 and Psalm 19:7–14). They also don’t understand that the precious blood of Christ can wash away all their sins (1 John 1:7) and restore them to a right relationship with God (Romans 5:1) and that the love and grace of God can transform our lives to truly be the wonderful kind of men and women He created us to be and which will satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts (John 10:10 and 2 Corinthians 5:17).

Pray for any atheists you know, that God would have mercy on them and show them the destructive bondage of their sin and the glorious freedom that comes from repenting and trusting in the loving Lord Jesus Christ, who died for their sins and rose from the dead to give them eternal and abundant life now and forever.

[1] William Provine, Origins Research 16, no. 1/2 (1994), 9; as quoted in Technical Journal 10, no. 1 (1996), 22.

[2] Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1995), 133.

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, “Is Genesis Relevant 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.

Friends,

This past weekend, I spoke eight times in Rockford, Illinois.

We had about 60 at the middle school for a church plant outreach on Saturday night. Probably half were teens, several of whom thanked me—and most of them came to my Sunday night talks at another church. Several men at the meeting decided as a result to go to the pastor’s Bible study meeting tonight. Also a sharp, young man, who is an agnostic that the pastor has befriended and has been witnessing to for several months, attended the talk and told the pastor afterward that I had really given him some things to think about. He wants to process things for a few days and then get with the pastor to discuss his remaining questions. Would you lift up a prayer right now for that young man that he would come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ? Lift up those three men who are coming to the Bible study tonight, that God would work in their lives, too. I don’t know if they are already believers or just investigating Christianity.

The lectures at the other church on Sunday and Monday were well attended and seemed to be well received. This church understands the importance of Genesis and has had an AiG speaker two years ago and another AiG speaker four years ago. But they were eager to learn more and there were also a lot people from the surrounding area who came to hear the talks. A lot of resources were purchased for further study and sharing with others. A number of people came up to me after the talks to ask more questions.  One questioner on Sunday night—after I talked about where the millions of years idea came from historically and Noah’s Flood—was a high school foreign exchange student from Germany, who asked what in the Bible ruled out millions of years. I quickly gave him these responses:

There is no biblical evidence for millions of years—the idea is shoe-horned into the Bible from outside. But it doesn’t fit, if we pay careful attention to the details of the Biblical text.
You can’t put millions of years into the Bible because then you would have massive death, disease, extinction and other natural evils in God’s very good creation before the Fall of man in sin.
The numbering of the days and repetition of “there was evening and there was morning” and the creation of the sun, moon, and stars for man to tell time (days, seasons, and years) shows that the days of creation are literal.
Exodus 20:11 rules out millions of years because God said He created everything in six days that were equal length with the six-day work week that God told the Jews to maintain. So there are not millions of years before day 1 (gap theory) nor millions of years in each day (day-age theory) nor millions of years between each of the literal days (day-gap-day theory). And there is abundant Old Testament and New Testament evidence that Genesis 1 is history, not poetry, allegory, myth, or some other kind of non-literal, non-historical literature.
Jesus said in Mark 10:6 that Adam and Eve were right there at the beginning of creation, not billions of years after the beginning (as would be the case if the earth and universe were billions of years old. Jesus also believed in the global catastrophic Flood of Noah’s Day. So Jesus was a young-earth creationist.
Paul says in Romans 1:18–20 that the witness of the creation to God’s existence and at least some of His attributes have been seen and understood by people “since the creation of the world,” implying that, like Jesus, Paul believed man has been in existed as long as the rest of creation. (Minus a few days—which, when plotted on a thousands-of-years timescale from Paul and Jesus to creation, is essentially the beginning of creation. This is understood when speaking in non-technical, everyday language, as Paul and Jesus were.)

This German boy is not a Christian but is living with a family from the church this year and seemed to be really thinking about what I said. Lift up a prayer for him to come to know the Lord Jesus, please.

Thanks for praying.

Terry

Friends,

I recently returned from a very busy 17-day trip (January 13–30) to Russia and Albania, speaking on creation (almost always through a translator).

In Russia, I spoke 10 times at a seminary in Samara for a conference on creation attended by about 120 seminary students, pastors, and other church leaders—some of whom traveled over 300 miles to attend. All the talks were videotaped, and most were streamed live on the Internet. Several hundred people from other parts of Russia and Ukraine either watched live or downloaded the lectures since the conference.

In Moscow I gave two public lectures at a college of economics. It was exam time so only about 50 students and laypeople came, but 12 of them (including some non-believers) stayed afterwards for an hour to ask questions. The next day, I gave two lectures to about 150 at Second Baptist Church. Later at the national headquarters of the Russian Baptist Union I did a one-hour, video-taped interview that will be put on the Internet in the future.

From Moscow I flew three time zones east to frigid Novosibirsk, Siberia (about -25 degrees Celsius). I spoke seven times for a seminary conference of about 120 people (many were seminary students and pastors). Some men traveled up to 700 miles to attend. People were very hungry for the information I shared.

The last night there, I participated in a three-hour “discussion” with scientists before an audience of about 90 students and lay people. This meeting was also sponsored by the seminary. One of the men on the panel was a polytheist geneticist with some doubts about evolution. Another was an atheist astrophysicist. Then there was a young-earth creation biologist and me. It was an interesting evening and all the questions were aimed at the geneticist and astrophysicist, neither of whom gave much evidence for their views.

I left the Russian PowerPoint slides for all 10 of my talks with leaders in Samara, Moscow, and Novosibirsk. People were eager to duplicate them for use in churches. Just the other day, I got an email from Moscow saying that my PowerPoint talks will also be made available at a national conference for youth leaders from all over Russia this week.

From Novosibirsk I flew to Albania—a long day from 4 AM until midnight across five hours of time-zone change. In Tirana, Albania, I enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of the Campus Crusade for Christ national director and his family, Ylli and Nikki Doci. I spoke four times in the large auditorium of the CCC office building to a group of university students, a group of high school students, a mixed group of students and lay people, and then a Sunday morning church service that meets in that facility. At most of these sessions many of the people stayed after the lecture for 30–45 minutes of Q and A. I also spoke to three different groups of students at the K–12 international Christian school in Tirana for the kids of missionaries, business people, and diplomats from many countries. One of the children was quite impacted by my presentation, and after talking to his mom, she is now open to consider the gospel.

Additionally, I had a two-hour discussion with one of the teachers who had a lot of questions about creation, especially regarding the age of the earth. He found the discussion helpful, and I sent him a follow-up email with links to AiG articles that I think will further stimulate his thinking. Even though I only used a few of my translated talks in Albania, I left all 10 of the PowerPoint talks in Albania, and I know of at least one man who wants them all to use in his own budding creation ministry.

Not only did many Christians tell me that the talks were informative and encouraging, but several non-Christians also thanked me for the thought-provoking lectures. One was an economics professor (and his wife) and another was an Italian man (and his wife) who works with INTERPOL (the international policy organization). Ylli and Nikki have witnessed to all of these four in the past and will continue to follow-up with them. After the church service Ylli, Nikki and I went out for lunch with the Italian couple and we had further opportunity to talk to them further about creation, the truth of the Bible and the gospel. Later I learned from Nikki that this all had made quite an impact on the husband so that he is much more open to consider the gospel than he was in the past.

So here is a summary of the known results of the trip.

28 lectures and 10 Q and A sessions
All my translated PPT slides in two languages left in five cities for people to copy and use (including Albanian ITS guy)
Eight lectures videotaped in Russian and streamed on Internet. These will be made into a DVD set for sale hopefully in June (with all the video talks, all my PPT slides, three published papers that have been previously translated into Russian, and a link to the Ukrainian creationist website where people can purchase the Russian version of Coming to Grips with Genesis)
One TV interview taped for an potential audience of 300,000
Two videotaped interviews for two Russian Christian web sites
One talk videotaped and two radio programs recorded for Albanian CCC
Many non-believers challenged in their thinking
Many Christians (including some missionaries and many pastors and seminary students) encouraged, challenged, and equipped
Russians and Albanians want to translate more AiG literature and DVDs to get more truth into the hands of believers for strengthening their own faith and for witnessing to the lost.

Before joining AiG in 2001, I spent almost 20 years ministering in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. That part of the world has a special place in my heart, and I praise God for the privilege of serving Him there this past month. To Him be the glory for what He did and will do through these efforts! Now it’s back to work on a myriad of things related to a full spring schedule here in the U.S.

Terry

An enlightening July 20th blog on global warming by Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, reveals inadvertently what creationists are up against in the battle for truth over the question of origins. I’ve interspersed comments about creation and evolution into her indented remarks about global warming.

Her article begins as follows:

I am open-mouthed. The BBC Trust is recommending that its journalists ditch balance for propaganda.

A report being published today has apparently decided that the BBC no longer needs to interview man-made global warming sceptics because there is a consensus on this issue that the theory is true.

Its conclusions are said to be based in part on recommendations by the geneticist Professor Steve Jones. Astonishingly, he is said not only to have found no evidence of bias in the BBC’s output on climate change, but suggests that on issues like this where he says there is a “scientific consensus” – also including the MMR vaccination and genetically modified crops – there should be no need for the BBC to find opponents of the mainstream view.

This is as terrifying as it is outrageous. First of all, the claim that there is a consensus on man-made global warming is itself false. The wickedly cynical propaganda strategy to promote this false belief in a consensus was described in an eye-opening blog post by James Delingpole in the Telegraph last year . . .

The media and scientific establishment’s leadership are not only suppressing scientific evidence that refutes the global warming agenda. They are doing the same to any scientists (young-earth creationists or Intelligent Design proponents) who raise biological and genetic scientific objections to microbe-to-microbiologist evolution. And they are trying to silence or slander any scientists (young-earth creationists) who raise geological and astronomical scientific objections against the consensus view that the earth and universe are billions of years old. It is a complete myth, generated by the media and scientific establishment, that young-earth creationists are not real scientists with real and significant scientific reasons for rejecting evolution and millions of years.

There is no consensus on man-made global warming. There are in fact hundreds of scientists at the very least, amongst them some of the most distinguished in their field, who are sceptical about the theory. Some of them, such as the meteorologist Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, have testified to the outright fraud and intimidation used to support the climate change scam. Some have been subjected to professional ostracism, loss of grant funding, vilification and even death threats because they have stood up for scientific evidence against the gross perversion of science involved in what is probably the most intellectually corrupt episode in scientific history. Such wholesale intimidation means that without a shadow of a doubt many more scientists are climate change sceptics than are registered in public debate.

There is also no scientific consensus about evolution and millions of years. There are in fact thousands of MS and PhD scientists around the world who are young-earth creationists. Many thousands more reject molecules-to-man evolution. But most of them remain silent because of the professional and occupational dangers of doing otherwise. As shown by the movie Expelled and Jerry Bergman’s book, there is tremendous persecution of those who make public their skepticism about evolution and even greater opposition to those who deny evolution and millions of years.

This is nothing less than a totalitarian agenda. Indeed, why stop at science? If “consensus” dictates what is to be reported, and consensus is itself subjectively determined on the basis of the presumed weight of expert opinion (which can never be truly known) or the presumed agreement of the population (which can never be truly known), then it follows that on issues such as abortion, membership of the EU or immigration (on which even the BBC has been forced to admit it got public opinion terribly wrong) the BBC would similarly see ‘no need’ to allow alternatives to chattering-class opinion to be heard.

A free society requires toleration of dissent. Progress depends upon the recognition that today’s dissent may turn into tomorrow’s orthodoxy. Science is littered with examples of this, from Galileo onwards. Indeed, the idea that a presumed consensus should wipe out dissenting voices is positively anti-science. If science doesn’t have an open-mind, it is no longer science but propaganda. And that is what the BBC Trust is proposing.

The BBC Trust is supposed to be the guardian of the public interest. Its role is to ensure that the BBC adheres to the high standards of its charter. But with this recommendation, the Trust has shown that it will destroy the BBC’s duty of fairness and impartiality and replace it by an Orwellian double-speak on the grounds that there are certain ideas which cannot be challenged. This is not guarding the sacred flame of journalistic integrity. It is a secular Inquisition.

The totalitarian, secular inquisition against young-earth creation scientists has been going on for 200 years, ever since the Scriptural geologists were effectively ignored and eventually silenced in their opposition to old-earth geological theory—which laid the foundation for old-universe, big bang astronomical theory—and Darwinian evolutionary theory.

And why is all this happening? Because science is not the objective unbiased pursuit of truth that most people think it is. Every scientist has a worldview that he brings to his work. And for the last 200 years scientists have been dominated for the most part by an anti-biblical, atheistic, naturalistic worldview. As a result, most of the world has believed a gross lie: millions of years of evolution. And millions of Christians, including most Christian leaders and Bible scholars, have abandoned the clear teaching of Genesis about a literal, six-day creation about 6,000 years ago followed by a global, catastrophic Flood at the time of Noah.

Christians need to wake up to the powerful anti-God bias in science that is turning science into vehicle of double-speak propaganda to manipulate the masses and take away our freedoms. They need to wake up to the “newspeak” going on in most Christian colleges and seminaries that are compromised with evolution and millions of years, as this eye-opening book documents.

We need to stand on the authority of God’s Word and become informed about the scientific evidences that confirm His Word, so that our children and grandchildren, lost neighbors, friends, and co-workers are not deceived by the propaganda and so reject the Bible’s message of salvation in Jesus Christ.

Tomorrow I drive to northwest Indiana to do a seminar at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Hebron (http://www.answersingenesis.org/outreach/event/6949/). I will speak six times before coming home on Tuesday.

For the first time in my ministry experience, someone has written an article warning people not to attend my seminar. Here’s what this atheist had to say:

On Sunday, Feb. 13, the fundamentalist Christian organization Answers in Genesis will be giving multiple presentations at the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Hebron. This organization spreads pseudo scientific ideas such as the teaching of a 6,000-year-old universe/Earth and a belief that man coexisted peacefully with dinosaurs until very recent times.

Apart from their extreme literal interpretation of Genesis, they also claim that merely teaching the scientific theory of evolution to children results in genocide, abortion, racism, drug use and many other social ills. They even go so far as to claim it responsible for the Holocaust, which is beyond absurd.

This is an organization that actively spreads anti-science propaganda and is strongly denounced by the scientific community as well as many prominent Christian organizations. The information they advance is harmful to the minds of children and is directly opposite to established scientific consensus. They have the most basic tenants of evolution completely wrong and are not in any way academically qualified to speak on such matters.

While I am an atheist, my intention isn’t to silence the group’s right to free speech. I have no problem with religious groups speaking on matters that pertain to religion. However, when a group goes to the extreme lengths that Answers in Genesis does to discredit science by spreading false, anti-evolution propaganda, I have a problem.

Children have a right to an unbiased scientific education from reputable sources. The best thing you can do is this: if you were planning on attending, do not. Encourage others to skip it as well.

Trust me when I say that they’re not giving you the truth. There are multiple volumes of literature you can read if you truly want an thorough understanding of evolution. The best way to deal with this organization is to simply not attend their presentations.

– Riley Reynolds, Wheatfield

Riley is evidently a 21-year-old college student (http://www.flickr.com/people/45266712@N03/) with a love for photography and tattoos but no apparent expertise in science. So why should anyone “Trust [him] when [he says] that [I] am not giving [people in northwest Indiana] the truth”? On what grounds does he know that I and AiG are “discrediting science” and feeding people “pseudo-science” and “anti-science propaganda”? If I were a betting man, I would bet that he is just parroting what his high school teachers and university professors have told him, without any critical analysis on his own of the arguments for and against evolution.

Certainly we creationists are “denounced” by the atheist-controlled scientific majority. But most evolutionists are grossly ignorant about what creationists actually say, because they have done exactly what Riley is advocating—don’t even listen to or read what creationists say. I know because I have listened to or read what many, many evolutionists say about us.

Furthermore, truth (scientific or any other kind of truth) is not determined by majority vote or “scientific consensus” or by just hearing one side of an argument. Truth is determined by carefully weighing the evidence and arguments for and against a truth claim. But most people have only been brainwashed with the evolutionary propaganda dished out in the schools, science programs on TV, state and national parks, naturalist history programs, etc.

Notice Riley’s elephant-size claim that I and AiG “have the most basic tenants of evolution completely wrong.” Bold claim, but without a specific example of evidence to support the claim. And we are not “in any way academically qualified to speak on such matters”? Hmm. I wonder what his academic qualifications are to make that statement.

As for me, I have a Master of Divinity degree from a leading evangelical seminary, am a very active member of the Evangelical Theological Society, and have a PhD in history of geology from a secular evolutionist-controlled university in England. In my six presentations at the church this weekend, I will speak a lot about what the Bible has to say on the question of origins because I have given quite a bit of study to that subject. I will give a lecture based on my PhD thesis and a talk on the biblical and geological evidence for a global Flood at the time of Noah. I’ve also done a considerable amount of independent study of evolutionist literature on the question of biological evolution in general and human evolution in particular (my last two topics of the seminar).

As for my colleagues at Answers in Genesis, one has a PhD in geology, one has a PhD in astrophysics, one has a PhD in biology with an emphasis on cell structure, one has a PhD in molecular genetics, and one has an MD in internal medicine. All of those degrees were earned from secular, evolutionist-controlled universities. Thousands of other creationists around the world are just as equally qualified, and some of them are described here.

Isn’t it interesting that the atheists essentially control the whole public education system in this country (and most other countries) and yet their decades of graduates are apparently so poorly trained in how to think carefully that it is dangerous for them to hear creationist criticisms of evolution because they simply don’t have the mental skills to see through all our “bad, anti-scientific arguments”?

I’m not afraid to go hear an evolutionist or read evolutionist writings or be in a debate with a PhD evolutionary scientist (as I have done seven times in four countries) or speak in a secular university classroom where most of my audience strongly disagrees with me. In fact, I do these things on a regular basis because I want to know first-hand exactly what the evolutionists are saying (so I don’t misrepresent them or their arguments) and because I learn all kinds of truths in their writings and speaking that actually help me to refute evolution and millions of years and to confirm the truth of Genesis.

If the evolutionary view was really the truth, evolutionists wouldn’t be so afraid of creationists, could have calm respectful discourse with us (I have talked to a few evolutionists who can), and would actually benefit from listening to us so that they could write better refutations of our views. Instead they generally resort to ad hominem attacks, gross misrepresentations of what creationists teach, fear tactics and legal threats to try to stop people from hearing and considering the truth. That alone, without even considering the scientific arguments, should tell any thoughtful person that the evolutionary view must be false.

Riley says “children have a right to an unbiased scientific education from reputable sources.” I agree. But the only way to get an unbiased education is for the teachers to expose the students to the arguments on both sides and to teach the students to think critically and examine the biases (or presuppositions) behind the arguments they hear. I seriously doubt that Riley has gotten that kind of education, and neither have most children in America, so I hope that he and many other children (with their parents) will come to my lectures or other creationist lectures and think carefully in pursuit of the truth. Unlike most evolutionists, creationists are fully aware of their presuppositions and don’t hide them from the audience and they welcome questions and objections. I certainly do.

So, pray for me this weekend, that I will speak the truth clearly, boldly and graciously, and that the truth will challenge and encourage and change lives. And pray that God will use this atheist article in the local media to draw more people (even just one lost soul) to come to my seminar than would have otherwise come. Pray, in fact, that Riley will come. I’ve written to his two email addresses and invited him.

Thanks for praying,

Terry