Chasing People Away from Christ
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go4tli
Jan 25, 2012, 5:26:58 PM1/25/12
to CNX-men
Joel Watch, author of the "Unsettled Christianity" blog, writes a
provocative entry titled "Ken Ham is slowly killing the American
church":
http://thechurchofjesuschrist.us/2012/01/ken-ham-is-slowly-killing-the-american-church/
... and Kurt Willems of the blog "Pangea" agrees, posting a video in
which he says, "Preaching Against Evolution in Evangelical Churches
Creates Atheists":
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/2012/01/12/preaching-against-evolution-in-evangelical-churches-creates-atheists/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wie4Xs9y10s
It's only three minutes long, and it creates a good discussion point.
I can certainly resonate with Willems' assertion. I nearly became an
atheist myself. Even the best one could hope for from an Evangelical
pulpit if one preaches against evolution is a crop of non-
Evangelicals. The formula is simple: The faithful are told that if
evolution is true, then their faith is a lie.
Then some of them learn that evolution is true.
If you're *lucky* -- that is, if your path is like mine -- you stagger
around aimlessly for years with no real spiritual identity beyond "non-
Evangelical", not sure that there's any statement of faith you can
trust anymore and not even really sure you want to be associated in
any way with anyone who would lie to people this way, or who would
even *condone* lying to people this way -- whose response to contrary
evidence is not contrition, admission of a possible error, or even a
counterargument, but simply to *pretend the contrary evidence does not
exist*(1). The unlucky ones become Willems' atheists.
I still struggle to define exactly what I believe. I long to make
deep friendships among Christians, but there's a sense in which
leaving this mentality is, in its own small way, like leaving a cult
-- your social structure is yanked out from underneath you, and some
of the roots of your confidence in your faith and your driving
passions are simply *removed*, hacked off at the base. In the
aftermath, you're not quite sure how to form healthy faith-based
relationships or seek out common interests so that you can rebuild,
because you're not sure what the new structure should look like.
(I'm sorry to keep harping on this, but when you have a close brush
with death -- physical or spiritual -- it kind of becomes a big deal.)
When a teacher chains his adherents' faith to something that's
*demonstrably false*, they set up their followers for crisis and
calamity. There are countless Christians who are dragged down by this
millstone comprised of simultaneously unsustainable and non-negotiable
tenets.
The wrinkle in all this is that creationism tends to be portrayed by
its teachers as championed as part of Christianity's brave defense of
its core tenets against the corrupting influence of the world. To
that end, it's not just that it's not succeeding; it's actually making
the problem *worse*. By insisting that creationism is a central,
requisite belief -- lest one be compromised, dangerous, spiritually
blinded, Hell-bound, or whatever(3) -- and insisting that no fallback
position is even *possible* for "real, true Christians", they're
chasing people away from Christ.
It's been -- well, still is -- a scary ordeal. My house was built on
sand (though they told me it was rock!), and now it's gone, and I
don't want that all-or-nothing blueprint anymore; it only has plans
for *extremely* shaky structures. I'm picking through the rubble, and
seeing that I'm glad I didn't leave altogether, because it's not *all*
rubble; some of it is quite beautiful, and other parts are quite
valuable, even necessary. In the meantime, I'll spend some of my time
and energy encouraging people not to use those blueprints, either,
lest they get caught in a collapse of their own.
----------
(1) This suddenly reminded me of a famous science (specifically,
quantum mechanics) thought experiment. It's Schroedinger's God(2)!
They keep God in a box of tightly-defined ideas, and consider Him
miraculous because there's no way to know His state before observing
Him. But they'd never actually open or examine the box, because
they're secretly terrified that if they ever do, they'll find out that
their God is dead.
----------
(2) As in "Schroedinger's cat": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat
----------
(3) They mean it, too. Check out Ken Ham's "Already Compromised", a
2011 book that surveys Christian colleges and finds out which ones do
and which ones don't toe the ideological line.
Creationist teachers defend this ideology with white-knuckled
intensity, declaring war on science with all the ferocity of a Moon-
landing denialist lambasting NASA -- eagerly latching onto any half-
baked "explanations" that come out of Answers In Genesis or the
Discovery Institute, even promoting urban legends that seem to throw
evolution into doubt, all the while speaking in sinister tones about a
shadowy scientific "conspiracy", which the media, the libraries, the
academic institutions, and the Internet are all in on. Believe me. I
was there myself, and thank God for every day He has given me *out*.
It's worth considering studies like the one mentioned here, which
points out that the more a pastor has studied the Bible, the less
likely he is to believe young-Earth creationist rhetoric:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/01/who-is-responsible-for-christian-anti-evolutionism.html
Above all, I recommend what Paul recommended in 1 Thessalonians 5:21:
"Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good."
provocative entry titled "Ken Ham is slowly killing the American
church":
http://thechurchofjesuschrist.us/2012/01/ken-ham-is-slowly-killing-the-american-church/
... and Kurt Willems of the blog "Pangea" agrees, posting a video in
which he says, "Preaching Against Evolution in Evangelical Churches
Creates Atheists":
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/2012/01/12/preaching-against-evolution-in-evangelical-churches-creates-atheists/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wie4Xs9y10s
It's only three minutes long, and it creates a good discussion point.
I can certainly resonate with Willems' assertion. I nearly became an
atheist myself. Even the best one could hope for from an Evangelical
pulpit if one preaches against evolution is a crop of non-
Evangelicals. The formula is simple: The faithful are told that if
evolution is true, then their faith is a lie.
Then some of them learn that evolution is true.
If you're *lucky* -- that is, if your path is like mine -- you stagger
around aimlessly for years with no real spiritual identity beyond "non-
Evangelical", not sure that there's any statement of faith you can
trust anymore and not even really sure you want to be associated in
any way with anyone who would lie to people this way, or who would
even *condone* lying to people this way -- whose response to contrary
evidence is not contrition, admission of a possible error, or even a
counterargument, but simply to *pretend the contrary evidence does not
exist*(1). The unlucky ones become Willems' atheists.
I still struggle to define exactly what I believe. I long to make
deep friendships among Christians, but there's a sense in which
leaving this mentality is, in its own small way, like leaving a cult
-- your social structure is yanked out from underneath you, and some
of the roots of your confidence in your faith and your driving
passions are simply *removed*, hacked off at the base. In the
aftermath, you're not quite sure how to form healthy faith-based
relationships or seek out common interests so that you can rebuild,
because you're not sure what the new structure should look like.
(I'm sorry to keep harping on this, but when you have a close brush
with death -- physical or spiritual -- it kind of becomes a big deal.)
When a teacher chains his adherents' faith to something that's
*demonstrably false*, they set up their followers for crisis and
calamity. There are countless Christians who are dragged down by this
millstone comprised of simultaneously unsustainable and non-negotiable
tenets.
The wrinkle in all this is that creationism tends to be portrayed by
its teachers as championed as part of Christianity's brave defense of
its core tenets against the corrupting influence of the world. To
that end, it's not just that it's not succeeding; it's actually making
the problem *worse*. By insisting that creationism is a central,
requisite belief -- lest one be compromised, dangerous, spiritually
blinded, Hell-bound, or whatever(3) -- and insisting that no fallback
position is even *possible* for "real, true Christians", they're
chasing people away from Christ.
It's been -- well, still is -- a scary ordeal. My house was built on
sand (though they told me it was rock!), and now it's gone, and I
don't want that all-or-nothing blueprint anymore; it only has plans
for *extremely* shaky structures. I'm picking through the rubble, and
seeing that I'm glad I didn't leave altogether, because it's not *all*
rubble; some of it is quite beautiful, and other parts are quite
valuable, even necessary. In the meantime, I'll spend some of my time
and energy encouraging people not to use those blueprints, either,
lest they get caught in a collapse of their own.
----------
(1) This suddenly reminded me of a famous science (specifically,
quantum mechanics) thought experiment. It's Schroedinger's God(2)!
They keep God in a box of tightly-defined ideas, and consider Him
miraculous because there's no way to know His state before observing
Him. But they'd never actually open or examine the box, because
they're secretly terrified that if they ever do, they'll find out that
their God is dead.
----------
(2) As in "Schroedinger's cat": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat
----------
(3) They mean it, too. Check out Ken Ham's "Already Compromised", a
2011 book that surveys Christian colleges and finds out which ones do
and which ones don't toe the ideological line.
Creationist teachers defend this ideology with white-knuckled
intensity, declaring war on science with all the ferocity of a Moon-
landing denialist lambasting NASA -- eagerly latching onto any half-
baked "explanations" that come out of Answers In Genesis or the
Discovery Institute, even promoting urban legends that seem to throw
evolution into doubt, all the while speaking in sinister tones about a
shadowy scientific "conspiracy", which the media, the libraries, the
academic institutions, and the Internet are all in on. Believe me. I
was there myself, and thank God for every day He has given me *out*.
It's worth considering studies like the one mentioned here, which
points out that the more a pastor has studied the Bible, the less
likely he is to believe young-Earth creationist rhetoric:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/01/who-is-responsible-for-christian-anti-evolutionism.html
Above all, I recommend what Paul recommended in 1 Thessalonians 5:21:
"Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good."
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