your magazine. We have five children, 3
adopted and 2 biological, and we have
always homeschooled. We have one 4th
grader, two 2nd graders and two kindergarteners. We live on a farm in KY and we
stay very busy, but a good busy! We are
also in the process of adopting again. We
have approval from our state but only the
Lord knows who our next child will be. We
just wanted to encourage your promotion of
adoption to other homeschool families. These children so need a Christian
home. Also, how wonderful to get to be in
a home where everyone is learning
together! Thanks for your support.
—Tedra Strickland, Waynesburg, KY
Creation Articles
Dear TOS,
I really like your magazine, and I hope it
continues to be successful in every way. I
was, however, disturbed by your recent
articles on creationism vs. intelligent
design. There were a number of problems
with these articles, but because of space I
will focus on the biggest one.
Currently, I live in the no-man’s land
between creationism and ID, having spent
most of my life on the creationist side but
now seeing a significant case for intelligent design and a less literal view of
Genesis 1-2. Because I am undecided, I am
not criticizing the magazine for supporting
creationism exactly. What disturbs me very
much is the lack of balance in the articles.
Perhaps you did not intend for it to happen,
but what came across to me in these articles was the dictum that anybody who sees
Genesis and current scientific information
differently from the articles’ authors is not
really a true Christian—or at least is a
Christian with serious problems—and does
not believe or properly reverence the Bible.
This message was so strong that I had to
write, because now that I better understand
both viewpoints, as well as theistic evolution, I can say with strong conviction that
there are other viewpoints that have very
strong arguments by authentic Christians
who are also “Bible-believing”—but with
some different interpretations from the
articles’ authors.
Because your readership varies widely
and because this is a homeschooling magazine, not an apologetics magazine, I think
it would have been prudent and thoughtful
to have a set of articles that offered several
different viewpoints by authors who actu-
44 Teachers Lounge
ally take that side. For those who are interested in understanding the support for
other viewpoints, there are a number of
books, such as those by Michael Behe
(which was mentioned in one article). My
current favorite book is “The Language of
God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for
Belief,” by Francis S. Collins, a conservative, evangelical theistic evolutionist.
Studying the Catholic view is also worthwhile, since Catholicism shares the
Protestant view of the Fall, death, and
redemption but also sees no reason to fear
and distrust scientists, although there are a
number of creationist Catholics. It is
possible to be an orthodox, “
Bible-believing” Christian and also be something
other than a literal creationist.
—Cheri, Minnesota
Actually, I’m not sure why Cheri thinks
that “seeing a significant case for intelligent design” is somehow a matter of abandoning biblical creationism. As my article
tried to point out, creationists certainly do
even more than see such a case—they
promote it. Many in the ID movement are
in fact biblical creationists. My attempt
included permitting believers to think
through the consequences to biblical
authority of the “broad church, let’s leave
the Bible to one side” official approach of
the movement (without rancor). I would
have thought that things relevant to biblical
authority were very much a part of the
mandate of a Christian homeschool organization, something all believers should
welcome the chance to consider carefully.
No one’s authenticity of faith was being
questioned in this intended-as-irenic article
But certain biblical issues are hard to
lightly overlook. When the overwhelming
biblical evidence is that the Lord Jesus and
the Apostles took Genesis as history; when
the time-honored historical-grammatical
hermeneutic leaves no other option than
this, either; when even liberals (who are
not trying to juggle their science and faith,
and freely admit to not believing Genesis
and many other parts of Scripture) such as
top Hebrew scholars James Barr of Oxford,
and the late Marcus Dods, admit that the
Hebrew of Genesis leaves no alternative
other than the obvious; and when it is so
crucial to our understanding of the entire
logic of the Gospel “big picture” (good
world, ruined by sin, to be restored in the
future)—then, respectfully, it comes across
as somewhat more than trite to try to talk in
terms of some smorgasbord of options,
some range of “private interpretations”
where it makes no difference to the credibility of the gospel in an increasingly
educated world.
The same sort of reasoning as we are
urged to apply here has been applied to the
Resurrection, with disastrous consequences.
That is, regardless of the actual words of
Scripture, the obvious intended meaning of
the author, some “authentic believers” who
“reverence the Bible” tell us that it really
doesn’t matter if one adopts the “extremely
literal” view that Jesus really rose
bodily. After all, isn’t the important thing
that more and more good people believe
otherwise, and are able to affirm that His
spirit lives, etc. etc.? Shouldn’t we adopt a
much less “rigid” viewpoint on our understanding of this event? And so on. (I hasten
to add I’m not suggesting that this is where
Cheri is coming from, just trying to point
out that there is ultimately no logical difference, no matter how good one’s intentions.)
For anyone also in the “no-man’s land”
Cheri describes as applying to herself, let
me say that while it’s never possible to
come to any scientific certainty on past
events (that’s the nature of science) and
while there are lots of things in the OT one
can’t be similarly dogmatic about, one can
come to a very high degree of biblical
certainty about the “big picture” of
Genesis, utilizing some very basic principles of logic. I recommend the very quick-to-read booklet by my scientist colleagues,
Dr. Sarfati and Dr. Batten, 15 Reasons to
Take Genesis as History. Our FAQ pages
on www.CreationOnTheWeb.org have
many more rewards for those wanting to
dig even deeper.
—Dr. Carl Wieland, Managing
Director Creation Ministries International
Ltd. (Australia)
www.CreationOnTheWeb.com
[Author of the article titled “Intelligent
Design: Why the Fuss, and What’s It
About?”]
There are obviously many authentic
Christians—Godly, sincere, lovers of
Jesus—who do believe in evolution. No
insinuation was meant that such Christians
are sub-par in the faith. There is not a
Christian on the planet with perfect orthodoxy in all areas. Thank God perfect
doctrine is not required for us to be used of
God. But this is why Christians should
wrestle with these sorts of issues. Having
