Hmm. I seem to have stuck my foot in it again.

First, I will start with a confession. I have not come out and said this on my blog simply because I didn't feel the timing was appropriate. But I guess now is as good a time as any.

I do not agree with our church doctrine on the interpretation of Genesis 1 & 2. The idea that the earth is only 6,000-10,000 years old cannot be supported by any form of evidence whatsoever. A century before Darwin was born, geologists had already concluded that the earth was ancient and that Bishop Usher's exercise in mathematics was just that: an exercise. I have also been convinced by overwhelming evidence of the truth of the common decent of all life on earth. I am also convinced by overwhelming evidence that there has never been a global flood.

This has all happened fairly recently (over the last six years) as a result of my study of biology, geology, cosmology, creationism, intelligent design, and so on. I have spent every spare minute over the last decade reading. This is not a decision I have come to lightly. For one thing, the consequences are pretty severe. I was hoping to finish out my term as deacon (one reason why I was trying to keep this under wraps), but at this point, I really don't have much choice according to the church constitution: I have to remove myself from church membership. The worst part will be leaving youth ministry. That will hurt. As I said, this hasn't been an easy process, but I have to go where the data leads me, not where my emotions want to go.

But even apart from leaving my church, the impact on my faith has been even more severe. If homo sapiens sapiens is not the result of special creation, what does that do to concepts such as the soul? Also, rejecting a literal reading of the first twelve chapters of Genesis naturally leads to the very serious question of just what parts of the Bible do I read literally? I haven't had the time to really dig into it yet, but from what I have already researched, I suspect Biblical inerrancy won't fair any better than young-earth creationism did.

And then what? Accepting the modern synthesis still leaves me with a lot of options for churches. All the mainline Protestant denominations, the Roman Catholics, and the Orthodox traditions have no problem with an ancient earth and common descent. However, rejecting Biblical literalism starts to really narrow the field, and I have major issues with what I am left with. So what I expect at the end of this road is that for the first time in my entire 40-year life, I will not be a member of or even regularly attend any church.

At that point, I have to fundamentally re-think who and what I am.

Again, this isn't something that I take lightly. In fact, I would have been perfectly happy to never have gone through this process. But I have to. I have no choice. As you say, Lindsey, God is a God of reason and logic. That is actually the foundation of western science. Early European scientists were all Christians, and most were clergy (they were called "natural philosophers" then). They believed they could learn about God by learning the laws of nature. So when natural law and logic crash head-on into evangelical doctrine, what conclusion should I have? Either God is not a God of reason and logic, or evangelical doctrine is wrong. Maybe it is a defect in my brain (and that is certainly a possibility; I'd probably be in a psych ward except that I have learned how to lie to keep the doctors at bay), but I cannot live in a universe ruled by a capricious God. Which only leaves one other option. (And yes, this is a true binary situation; science and evangelical doctrine are incompatible. ;-)

Now to address some specifics. I am perfectly aware that my approach to this may have not been the best. I tried as hard as I could yesterday to not use examples of creation "science" when we talked about logical fallacies. And yes, I intentionally skipped what I was going to teach in order to discuss logical fallacies prior to Scott speaking at our church. I considered doing things in a different order, but decided not to for one primary reason: all the teens already know where I stand. We've talked about it several times when they have been at our house. I'm sure you've heard, "What's happens in the basement, stays in the basement." (Note this does not include incidents arising from high-velocity BopIt's) This is just one of many topics of conversation that I have asked them to not bring up in other contexts. I could have easily been far more specific yesterday and given them examples right from the creationist literature for every one of the logical fallacies we talked about yesterday, but I didn't want to do that.

Science has never attempted to prove or disprove God's existence. Science is based on methodological naturalism; natural phenomenon have natural explanations, and natural phenomenon encompasses anything we can directly or indirectly perceive. This does not mean that there are only natural phenomenon and that everything has a natural explanation (that is philosophical naturalism); only that if something is supernatural, then it isn't something that science can investigate. This principle is exactly what creation "science" and intelligent design are trying to subvert. Worse, the entire movement is based on lies, deception, and logical fallacies. Worse still, the leaders (Kent Hovind, Ken Ham, Duane Gish, Henry Morris, Michael Behe, William Dembski, Jonathan Wells, ad nausium) know this. Christians who accept modern science have begged these people privately and publicly to stop damaging the name of Jesus by intentionally spreading falsehoods. Yet they persist.

I have thought long and hard about what I would do if our church promoted creation "science" (as opposed to creation doctrine). I decided that it wasn't something that I could just grit my teeth and ignore. I had hoped this day would never come, but it has. I feel an obligation to prepare my kids for what they will hear; to give them the tools necessary to deflect the barrage of pseudo-science and propaganda they will be subjected to Sunday morning. I will also respond to Scott personally, and to the church for giving him a forum. I doubt either will like what I have to say, but it has to be said, not because the origins debate is a salvation issue per se, but because evangelicals have made it a salvation issue by requiring the rejection of knowledge and logic in order to be in fellowship with them. Further, the posturing, lawsuits, lobbying school boards, and the rest of the purely political actions by evangelicals creates the perception that all Christians are a bunch of fundamentalist nutjobs. St. Augustine had this to say in the first century AD:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.

Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.
[ italics referred to 1 Timothy 1:7]

(translation is by J. H. Taylor in "Ancient Christian Writers," Newman Press, 1982, volume 41.)

And I will not presume to have anything to add to that.

Other than to link to several articles where creationists "are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books:"

Teaching the Fake Controversy on CNN.com
Intelligent-Design Creationism on Public Radio
That's another fine mess you've made Jonathan!
News, news, news!

The articles are short, and please take the time to read the comments. Note that all these were posted today. The Panda's Thumb archive is brimming with such things, as is the talk.origins website. "Taken to task" indeed. Repeatedly. Devastatingly.

And I think that is enough for one day.