For those who have been in the church for a while, and who read about the church in scriptures and in history, we know that ongoing flaps between church members is nothing new.
There is now apparently a holy war, dare I say, “holier than thou” war betwen two Young Earth Creationists organizations, AiG and CMI. I have no intentions of taking sides in the AiG-CMI holy wars, except I point out, it’s ulikely both sides can be completely right in this dispute. Each side claims to have conducted itself “biblically”. [See: Biblical battle of creation groups.]
God bless many of the supporters of AiG and CMI, but I will point out, the smaller and, imho, more scientifically capable creationists and pro-ID organizations, have been (on occasion) given brusk treatment at the hands of AiG/CMI.
The creationist and pro-ID groups I have respect for are the ones who’ve shown their ability scientifically. Perhaps, not surprisingly, these are the poorest in terms of money. It echoes the word the Lord said, “I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich! ” (Rev 2:9).
What pro-ID and pro-Creation organizations do I recommend:
YEC:
www.grisda.org
www.creationscience.com
www.bryancore.org/bsg/index.html
www.creationresearch.org/index.html
www.trueorigin.org
www.rae.org
www.CreationSafaris.com
www.setterfield.org
www.wildersmith.org/
ID and OEC:
www.origins.org
www.origins.org/mc/menus/index.html
www.idthink.net
saintpaulscience.com/index.html
www.discovery.org/csc
www.ideacenter.org
www.truthinscience.org.uk/
www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/
Though AiG and ICR have many venerable brothers in Christ, and I think highly of Henry Morris and Duane Gish, I must express my reluctance in endorsing all of their literature. Though I think their literature is correct in many respects, in the matter of theory and empirical science, I think there is better material out there, even by those who may not consider themselves Evangelical Christians.
And as far as this website goes, I do not claim that I or anyone else (save God) has an infallible grasp of truth, scientific or otherwise. I believe God is infallible, and we humans are not, but we try our best to discern what is true and good. This website is offered in acknowledgement of human fallibility and our dependence on God to guide us and teach us. I hope we all can assist and pray for each other here in the search for truth….
(HT: PZ Myers at Pharyngula)
I should like to point out the BSG YEC organziation at Bryan College has this to say about its non-YEC leadership:
“Although leadership is composed largely of those espousing a Young Earth Creation (YEC) position, we do not require such a position to participate in conferences or serve on the editorial board. We do strive to select fair and respectful individuals to speak at our conferences and serve on the editorial board, and we encourage specialists of any position who would like to participate or just watch to come to our conferences.”
I should point out the irony if BSG were to close itself off to OECs, the man whom the college was founded for, William Jennings Bryan (of Scopes monkey fame), was not a YEC, but likely an OEC.
The most notable non-YEC, non-OEC, non-ID proponent to serve on the editorial board was Richard Sternberg. Another non-YEC to participate was Dr. Stephen Meyer, director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.
From the CMI side:
Statement by Creation Ministries International (Australia) – formerly Answers in Genesis (Australia), before that Creation Science Foundation
Just to point out, the BSG is not officially affiliated with Bryan college. They have a lot to do with each other, but the BSG is actually separate from Bryan. BryanCORE on the other hand is very much attached to the university.
As to the hat tip to Pharyngula, what post are you referring to? I haven’t seen anything covering this material in his blog, though he is quite prodigious and I probably missed it.
How embarassing (and bizarre!).
Johnnyb,
Thank you for clarifying about BSG. I was not aware of this. Feel free to correct me in the future if I err….
Regarding the Pharyngula article, see: Ken Ham is being sued…by his fellow creationists.
Thanks,
Salvador
I suppose I’ve been disillusioned by what goes on in “ministry”. I’ve seen a mix of honorable, and then regrettable behaviors.
For the longest time AiG had gone around criticising men of high reputation in the Body of Christ as “Compromisers”, Old Earth Compromisers (OEC) a swipe at those consider themselves Old Earth Creationists (OEC).
There is a difference between a willful sin and a mistake. Certain militant YECs have such an “us against them” mentality, that everyone who disagrees is considered in league with Lucifer. “The ID movement isn’t Christian”, hence the implication “The ID movement is….”.
This “us against them” mentality is counter productive. Yet, the most capable YECs (like John Sanford, Walter Brown, Henry Morris) came from an Old Earth persuasion first. They weren’t home-grown YECs.
My view of how God teaches us truth? Consider the fact that a godless wicked man by the name of Nebuchadnezzer, probably as nasty as any middle-eastern terrorist, was chosen by God to receive a divine revelation.
If being a recipient of truth required moral purity, I think we’d be all hosed. God instead, in His graciousness allows sinful man the opportunity to receive truth, be it scientific or spiritual. That is why I was very impressed the BSG allowed non-creationists to be part of their conferences and editorial board. This is healthy for the scientific enterprise.
My view is if one believes and preaches a Young Cosmos as God’s word, one would do well to be able to defend it on empirical and theoretical grounds since in the absence of making a good scientific case, one has given someone perhaps good reason to reject the Bible.
I think showing scientifically that the Cosmos is Young is a sufficient, but not necessary condition for accepting the Bible, particularly Genesis as true.
If the YECs deliver on the science, if they deliver on the physical evidence, they will win their case. Until they do so, I can’t blame their OEC brethren for being Doubting Thomases, nor feeling a bit of dismay at some of the things happening in prominent YEC circles (like the war between CMI and AIG).
YECs will have a greater opportunity if they stop treating the office of scientific researcher as needing to be “Biblical” in order to be acceptable. In fact, the irony is, the scientific testimony of the unbiblical researcher, carries more weight with me (and other Christians) in many cases.
When an agnostic evolutionist like Michael Denton writes of the failure of Darwinian evolution, does not his research actually carry more weight than someone (all else being equal) who has sworn a priori that six-day literal Genesis is true even before a research project has begun? Does not the conversion of Dean Kenyon, who accepted naturalistic origins carry more weight for the very reason his inquiry did not begin with assumption of a literal six-day Genesis?
As much as I regard the Bible as God’s word, the demand for a priori doctrinal purity in a secular research question actually compromises the believability of the project. It is for that reason, the way AiG is and ICR are set up, where professions of faith are required to undertake the scientific enterprise end up actually casting doubt on the integrity of the research (what little of it there is!), especially in view of the very people they might have the greatest chance of persuading, namely the OECs.
And one can see, the demand for doctrinal purity didn’t prevent the current flap from erupting in the AiG-CMI wars.
Sal –
I used to be an old-earther, too. I am very sympathetic towards those views.
As for the statements of faith, I think what you’ll find is that an explicit statement of faith is required for almost any undertaking — it is just that YECs are explicit in theirs. I go to a seminary that makes fun of seminaries that require students to sign statements of faith, but in practice both their epistemology and their social policies have EXACTLY the same effect. Likewise true is the unwritten statements of faith in materialism contained within much of the scientific establishment.
What I look forward to is the day when secular scientists who do not believe in Creationism read Journal of Creation or CRSQ for new ideas in biology and geology.
I’ve wondered for a while if there was something odd going on between AiG and CMI. And now I know. How very, very disappointing!
But this is nothing to do with doctrinally pure approaches to scientific research. It seems to be a disgraceful failure to live up to a doctrinally pure approach to dealing with business associates; plain old ordinary human sinfulness seems to be involved. What a shame!
Janice –
My problem is that I have no idea whom to believe. I’ve been wanting to get to the bottom of all this, but I seem to be unable to find someone who (a) doesn’t have a predisposed view of one organization or the other or even (b) has genuine knowledge of the situation.
Prior to the AiG-CMI split what had distressed me about AiG was a pattern of publicly villifying and misrepresenting godly men in the Body of Christ. Sometimes it was mild, sometime not so mild.
I have brothers in Christ who do not agree with me on a great many issues, I don’t go around calling them “compromisers” or suggest they’re conduct was the cause of all sorts of moral ills. AiG as an organization had a habit of doing this and thus encouraged other Christians to do so. It was a culture of viewing the rest of the body of Christ (especially the undecided and Old Earth Creationists and ID proponents) as morally inferior.
In the old Testament, God distinguished a mistake from a willful sin. In matters of doctrine for brothers who fear and love God, a degree of charity and gentle correction is in order.
I would say, those who are on front lines defending the scientific issues of special creation are often inclined to lean toward Old Earth or are undecided. It’s not a matter of compromise, but unless one has serious evidence that the speed of light has slowed down or some other major property about physics exists which are not aware of, an Old Earth is a very reasonable conclusion.
I would hope the YEC reading the criticisms of YEC that I invite to be posted will appreciate the serious challenges to YEC such as those posed by scientists like Dr. Cheesman (a signatory of the Discovery Institute’s dissent from Darwin list).
Many of those who have successfully fought the battle and put their careers and reputations only the line against Darwinian Evolution are Old Earth ID proponents or Creationists.
I would see professors like Caroline Crocker, put her teaching and research career on the line because she questioned Darwinian evolution, yet be put in the category of “compromiser” by AiG.
At best this is bad policy by AiG, at worst this conduct by AiG might be wrong in the eyes of God. I will let Him be the judge, but I certainly thought a little more charity was in order, especially toward their persecuted brethren in secular academia (like Guillermo Gonzalez who is an Old Earth ID proponent).
At least one party in the CMI-AiG dispute has to be guilty of some wrong doing. It’s either CMI (AiG-Australia) is right, or CMI is falsley accusing (AIG-USA). In either case, at least one party is wrong.
Let me point out something in the scriptures:
“It is th glory of God to conceal a matter, the glory of Kings is to search out a matter.” Proverbs 25:2.
It may well be the age of the Earth, in terms of physical evidence has been concealed up until this time, by God’s design. God has hidden many great truths throughout the ages (the Epistles of Paul also make this clear). If then the physical evidence for the age of the universe has been so well hidden and it turns out that the universe is indeed young, should we not be a bit more charitable toward our brethren who in good conscience think the universe is Old because it truly looks Old to them? Don’t they have at least the space to be undecided on the issue, rather being labeled some sort of second class citizen in the body of Christ?
I point out again, the most capable YECs were OECs once upon a time. The YEC community would do well to be more charitable to brethren who have doubts or who are undecided, but still fear the Lord. God commanded us in Jude, “be merciful to the doubting”. I don’t consider labeling people “compromisers” to be in line with the admonition in Jude.
johnnyb,
CMI has posted some documents about the matter here and here. The latter link is to a report by Clarrie Briese, a former Chief Magistrate of NSW and a man of great integrity.
Janice,
Thank you for finding this.
God bless,
Salvador
Janice and other participants whose posts have been delayed by the spam buffer,
Thank you in advance for your patience. I will try my best to take care of these things promptly, and our crack team of volunteers at Young Cosmos (me, Rick, jb, JGuy) are working on resolving the technical issues.
If any one else wants to help out, you are welcome to.
Salvador
Briese commission claim:
Barry and I know more than we dare say, but suffice it to say that neither organization is one we would want to deal with, for both personal and ethical reasons. Massive egos are involved, to say the very least.
Although we disagree with some of the ideas put forward by Institute of Creation Research, they are at least ethical. We have some good friends in that organization.
“YECs will have a greater opportunity if they stop treating the office of scientific researcher as needing to be “Biblical” in order to be acceptable.”
——————————————————————
Salvador, you are very correct in this regard but I think there is one reason for why they require a biblical foundation. Creationists similar to Henry Morris, If my history is correct, helped start the ASA which was then taken over theistic evolutionists. The creationists, as a result, left and formed a group with stricter statement of faith. I read this from Russ Humphreys just to let you all know.
Yes, YECs have made harsh criticisms against OECs in the past. However, many of these are deserved and are almost always not done on a personal level. OECs however often get very personal in their attacks against YECs. They also have a habit of citing atheistic out spoken Christ-haters as references to “rebut” YECs without any caveats.
Take Hugh Ross for example. I don’t doubt his sincere loyalty to Christ. However, he continues to cite Ian Plimer as an ‘objective’ critic of YEC whose work even leading atheists have distanced themselves from.
Have you read the book Refuting Compromise? I felt this book was a solid defense of YEC that portrayed the OEC position in a fair and honest fashion. Sure it was critical of OEC. But it was done in response to numerous books and articles that criticized YEC. If OEC are allowed to criticize YEC, than certainly YECs have the right to defend themselves.
jhappel,
Welcome to our weblog.
I prefer not to talk in generalities. I find Sarfati labeling esteemed brothers in Christ as “compromisers” distasteful. If for every time any of us were accused of being morally defective when we make an honest miscalculation, I’d be pretty hurt.
I have his book, but his attitude I found so odious, I could not bring myself to read his book, and I’m a YEC!
Rather than denigrate and berate OECs (many of who fully believe in the miraculous power of God), it would be a rather moot point if their scientific objections (which come out of a sincere concsience) were engaged successfully. Their objections have substantial emprical and theoretical merit (unlike Darwinian evolution, by the way).
If you read through the discussions, I hope you’ll appreciate the real work YECs could do, and which would be more productive to do versus putting brethren on public church trial.
If God is the one behind the concealment of the Earth Age, is not a bit of charity in order. There is always the chance we YECs have misread the scriptures. I for one am a bit unwilling to say my understanding of God’s word is so infallible that I can say for sure the universe is young. I lean toward that position, but I surely am not about to look down my nose at esteemed brethren and view them as “compromisers.”
Sarfati may say things like that, but if he’s falsely accusing brethren (after all the term “compromiser” implies a matter of the heart, not an inadverdent miscalculation), then that’s between Sarfati and God. I for one have a policy of avoid discussion of people’s motivation and hearts. God is a better judge on such matters. The label of “compromiser” presumes one has a good evidence of where another’s heart is. I’m reluctant to make judgements about things I cannot possibly know.
There is a tendency–and this is recognized by psychologists–for people to assign nefarious motives to those with opposing worldviews.
This is because even the very existence of someone with an opposite worldview threatens your own worldview. And this has existential implications for the person making the judgement on the opposer’s motives.
It works like this: the person with an opposite worldview either has valid reasons for believing differently, or they have nefarious motives. Admitting that the person with the opposite worldview might have valid reasons for believing as they do is a threat to one’s own worldview. Consciously or unconsciously, one says, “Why else would they believe X unless their argument somehow makes better sense than mine? I can’t admit that there is a weakness in my own worldview, for then my confidence in my own world view would be compromised, maybe even collapse and result in me flipping to the other side.” So the other choice is that those promoting the other worldview must be doing so for some wrong motive, either consciously or unconsciously.
Therefore, the YEC proponent calls someone not fully convinced of that position a “compromiser,” implying that they have done so out of pride (i.e., wanting to “fit in” with the mainstream scientific community, etc.) or some other sin.
Likewise, a Panda’s Thumber calls an ID proponent “blatantly dishonest,” and accuses them of mere political posturing for personal gain.
For the same reason, the fundy atheist accuses theists of wanting to set up a theocracy.
And the fideistic fundy Christian accuses all who don’t fall in line with every detail (with regard to open questions like end-times/eschatology, free-will/election, contemporary music, etc.) of their chosen brand of fundamentalism as being compromising traitors at best or closet unbelievers at worst.
Of course, I’m not saying that ALL YEC’s do this to their opponents, or that ALL athiests necessarily are as militant as the Richard Dawkins-types, or that all fundamentalist Christians treat fellow Christians who believe a little differently with such disdain. But many of the above do.
This is why Salvador is wise in trying to steer clear of assuming the motivation behind those of other viewpoints. I submit, however, that this is a difficult thing to do (since questioning your interlocutor’s motives is part of human nature), and I wish you well in your effort to stay this course. It won’t be easy! But it is a worthy goal to shoot for.
(And of course, I realize that by positing this analysis of why people assign bad motives to their opponents, I am myself casting judgement others’ motives. This is somewhat self-refferential, or perhaps hypocritical on my part. But I believe my “out” is that I have not specifically assigned this to any individual, and I’m trying to be as general as possible; not implicating anyone–at least publicly–in particular).
Oh, and I should also point out, that it is entirely possible (and likely), that some people actually DO have nefarious motives for holding or promoting their worldview. My point is merely, that we shouldn’t necessarily jump to this conclusion, and should give people the benefit of the doubt, except in extreme cases where the people in question have demonstrated very clearly otherwise.
jhappel: I’ve often felt marginalized by remarks made elsewhere concerning YECs. Some of these remarks have come from fellow Christians. It’s not pleasant, and I will admit that such things probably hurt my pride. (I want to be respected, not regarded as a nutty “fundamentalist.”)
As for your remark that “If OEC are allowed to criticize YEC, then certainly YECs have the right to defend themselves.” This could be taken a couple of ways. Obviously, Christians aren’t entitled “hit back” because they’ve felt hurt (though getting the best in an argument with a “vicious” opponent would probably feel very satisfying, I must admit). This includes being the object of criticism. The concept of “tit-for-tat” is certainly human enough, but it is not Christian.
On the other hand, it is for Christians to “demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor 10:5). I believe this includes philosophical Naturalism, of which a product appears to be Darwinism.
Salvador: As it happens, I differ with AiG’s statement of belief in one point–a point which I think anyone would consider utterly non-essential to the origins question. I brought this to their attention and suggested that they might be a little more inclusive by taking a slightly less hard stance. The response I received was basically a document written by JS in response to this very issue. Even though it wasn’t directed at me personally, the tone wasn’t kind but categorized this position as heterodoxy without any admission that there might actually be some possible legitimacy to it.
I have, moreover, felt a little put off by the tone of some of the responses to “negative feedback” on the AiG page. My assumption has been that it’s probably just a cultural thing, though I don’t know. Also, I suppose it could at times be argued that as long as a harsh criticism is focused on an idea, it’s the person’s own problem if he’s so attached to that idea that he takes the criticism personally. (Though an intelligent tact would probably be wise to try to establish rapport before bringing out the canons and shooting down someone’s idea.)
Nevertheless, while I have perceived AiG at times to be annoyingly hard-nosed, I admire in general what they do. I’ve not been to the new museum, but I think it’s great that they’ve done this.
As for the “holier than thou war” that started this post, I agree with Janice’s assessment: very, very sad and disappointing. My prayer is that, just as God sent Nathan to confront king David, so–if need be–He will send someone to confront others in leadership positions. While it’s shameful for leaders to fall into sin, and particularly to display squabbles between believers before a non-believing world, the instruction is, “If you see a brother fall into sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.” I don’t know if that applies here, but it sounds to me as though the ministries in question need prayers and godly admonition more than criticism.
–Rick
Hi Salvador,
Would you consider Ken Miller a compromiser? Where do you draw the line? I mean a large majority of OEC theologians have essentially admitted that science has driven their Bible interpretation. Just read Sarfati’s book for evidence of this. And yes a YEC view has many unsolved scientific difficulties. But a YEC position seems to me to be the only scientifically honest position that acknowledges the limitations of science. OECs, theistic evolutionists and atheistic evolutionists essentially all make the claim that the scientific data has settled the debate and any further research is futile. That is why I so strongly oppose an OE position especially since the Bible doesn’t demand old age. Even the most vehement OECs would admit this.
I think this site is a great idea. I support the ID position and I think Dembski, Behe, Meyers, Wells and others are doing great work even if they aren’t YECs. OEC vs YEC is an in house debate among Christians. But I think we all can unite in combating materialism which is the more serious issue.
Salvador, I took the liberty of editing your post here to make all those web sites you list into clickable links.
[...] … I’m inclined to really wonder if this is something we should be using as an apologetic for YEC. This just has something about it that seems fishy; if only because it appears to be a too-good-to-be-true “too easy” bit of evidence. Now, I’m skeptical of the skeptic site skepdic, but this particular article seems compelling. I am not an expert in this field, so I’m just going by what I read on the net, for whatever that’s worth (maybe not much). Not wanting to completely leave it up to a site like skepdic, I also queried CMI, AiG, and ICR for information on these. I also tried several of the web sites that Salvador linked to in a previous post. ICR and the sites that Salvador had linked to did not turn up anything (a few references came up at creationresearch.org, but apparently you have to sign up to access their material, and I have not done so; and it didn’t appear that the hits I got there were very relevant). CMI and AiG pretty much have a lot of the same articles, and the relevant ones in this search were the same at both sites. [...]
Ok, I just read Salem Revisited, and having met John, I find it a bit hard to believe.
On the other hand, I have experienced a similar situation where somone who I thought was a friend and collegue simply ‘flipped’ and tried to get my father expelled from the community group where he was working. Fortunately only a few believed the slander, so when the ‘either he goes or I go’ ultimatum came it was a fairly simple decision for the management commitee.
On the other other hand, no matter how justified, it is still Ad Homimum
to discount John’s YEC evidence because of the episode.
Sorry for my delay in responding. Though I disagree with common ancestry, I would not automatically label anyone a compromiser simply on that basis. “Compromiser” implies someone who knowingly and willfully compromises…..
Ken Miller however has resorted to unwholsome arguments and did so under oath. After numerous mentions by Michael Behe that Miller has not represented Behe’s words accurately, I have to say Miller’s commitment to fair dialogue is suspect, not to mention he makes lots of money selling pro-evolution high school textbooks.
I try, not always successfully, to make the case for origins on the evidence not on the personalities. However, when I discuss personalities, it’s mostly out of human interest stories, not because it has any ultimate relevance to the facts, except maybe when it has bearing on the believability of eyewitness accounts.
Salvador
One does not have to be in Christian ministry very long to be disillusioned with people’s conduct and behavior. When Paul wrote of the Corinthian church and how it behaved, I full well believe it seeing what happens today.
But let me try, perhaps unsucessfully, not to side too much with one or the other. If John Mackay is correct, then this is really bad news about CMI. And if Buchannan is correct, this is really bad news about Mackay. Both cannot be correct. Someone is telling the truth, or at least someone is closer to the truth than another.
These aren’t the sort of things that are good for the advancement of creation science. And let me offer some thoughts on this.
Contrast these scandals however with the Discovery Institute and it’s staff. Symbolic of this is David Berlinski. His religion is, “having a good time all the time.” Now, I pray for Berlinski, but whatever he does in his private life is decoupled from the science. AiG and CMI and other ministries have integrated evangelism, lifestyle, church issues, into the practice of a scientific enterprise.
I question whether this is institutionally wise. I would argue, the Lord probably did not intend for us to run businesses like churches.
I have been much impressed with the way the Discovery Institute has done business. It operates as a secular enterprise and has been very effective at doing so. Although, because of this, it doesn’t receive 1 tenth the money of AiG since the Discovery Institute is not a “ministry”.
For that matter, the publicly published annual budget of the organization I’m affiliated with, IDEA, is $7,000. $7,000 !!!!
Salvador
Salvador
Please Note:
ATTENTION! YOUNG COSMOS HAS MOVED!
Salvador