Most Evangelicals are young earth creationists, though an increasing number of them are theistic evolutionists — God is the force, the mover behind evolution. Some Evangelicals are old earth creationists or day-age creationists. This allows them to distance themselves from crazy young earth creationists, even though their beliefs are just as nutty. Regardless of the belief, all of them believe the universe came into existence because “God did it.”
According to Bishop James Ussher’s seventeenth century chronology, God created the universe in six twenty-hour days, 6,029 years ago. While other chronologies exist, Ussher’s seems to be the one that stuck with Evangelicals. Imprecise Evangelicals will say the universe is 6,000, 7,000, or 10,000 years old, but Ussher usually lurks in the shadows, even if few believers remember his name.
I was a hardcore young earth creationist for most of my life. In the early 2000s, my beliefs bit by bit moved towards scientific consensus, and by the time I deconverted in 2008, I was no longer a creationist.
As a young pastor, evolution was a favorite sermon target of mine, even though the only science training I had was general science and biology classes in high school, and a worthless biology class in college. I had no business talking about science in my sermons — much like preachers who pontificate about evolution today. “Evolution” is a buzzword used by Evangelical preachers to call the faithful to duty and commitment. “Them evil commies are coming for our kids with Satanic “evil-ution, ho-mo-sex-u-al-ity, rock and roll, Mary Jane, and premarital sex.” None of the church kids in youth group during the days when I heard such sermons became communists as adults. That other stuff? Most of us engage in them to some degree or the other, proof again that this sort of preaching never works (over the long term).
One Sunday, I was preaching on the second coming of Jesus. He’s still late, decades later. During this fine piece of Baptist oratory, I brought up the hole in the ozone layer — a hot topic of discussion in the 1980s. I heartily laughed, as I thundered from the pulpit, “Who cares if there’s a hole in the ozone layer!” That’s just a bigger hole for Jesus to come through when he returns to earth.” Like that “deep” exegesis? 🤣 Yes, I’m embarrassed that I said dumb shit like that. I was in my 20s and 30s, lacking basic science training past middle school. My understanding of science wasn’t much different from that of my colleagues in the ministry, and most of the people I pastored had no science training beyond high school.
In the 1970s forward, creationist “experts” traveled the land indoctrinating Evangelical church members in young earth creationism. (This is when Dr. Dino, Kent Hovind, got his start on the creationism circuit.) My first remembrance of a “creation conference” comes from 1979. At the time, I was the assistant pastor of Montpelier Baptist Church in rural northwest Ohio. Montpelier Baptist was a fast growing church, reaching 500 in attendance in October 1979. The church was filled with young adults excited to learn the truth about “science,” cults, and the end times. I still remember the buzz in the packed building when these subjects were addressed by Pastor Stuckey. We heard sermons on all the hot theological subjects and conspiracy theories. Good times? In the moment, yes. Think of being in the front row of a rock concert. Good time? In the moment, yes. However, morning follows night, and now you feel like you have been run over by a truck — twice. That’s how I feel about the 50 years I spent in Evangelicalism, especially the 25 years I devoted to the pastorate.
The church brought in John Whitcomb to hold a creation conference. The building was filled with people as Whitcomb indoctrinated them in young earth creationism. Henry Morris’ and Whitcomb’s 1961 book, The Genesis Flood, was popular at the time. I owned the book, so I was familiar with his beliefs. I was excited to have an “expert” teach me the truth about science, creationism, Adam and Eve, and dinosaurs.
These conferences turned ignorant preachers into science experts — in their own minds, anyway. If you have spent any time in Evangelical or Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches, you likely have heard sermons about science, evolution, and creationism. Maybe you even attended a creation conference or two. Did you ever question the qualifications of these “experts?” Probably not. Evangelicals tend to give too much respect and deference to men behind pulpits and lecterns. Few people bother to ask if the person speaking is qualified to teach on these subjects. Sadly, way too many “experts” are anything but. Going to an Evangelical preacher for your science knowledge is akin to thinking that eating a Big Mac at McDonald’s is fine dining. No one in their right mind would confuse McDonald’s with Ruth’s Chris Steak House. So it is with trusting Evangelical preachers to teach scientifically correct science. These preachers were indoctrinated just as their congregants were by them. Ignorance is multigenerational in Evangelical churches. It is not surprising that most church members are young earth creationists, and those who aren’t typically keep their mouths shut lest they be outed as “liberals.”
In the early 80s, I attended a Bible conference at the Newark Baptist Temple in Heath, Ohio, pastored at the time by Polly’s uncle, James Dennis. I believe Jack Hyles was the headliner — uh I mean humble servant of God. 🤣 Afterward, I had a delightful discussion with the Glen West, the principal of the church’s Christian school. We jabbered back and forth before landing on dinosaurs. Both of us believed dinosaurs existed with humans on earth before Noah’s flood.
Somewhere in the discussion, Henry Morris and John Whitcomb’s book came up. Both of us had read the book — two “intellectuals” discussing the finer points of science. I was pleased that Glen recognized my “scholarly” knowledge. It was nice to talk to someone on my level. Alas, this was little more than the blind leading the blind.
I want to think Glen’s science knowledge increased over the past forty-five years, but he’s an Evangelical preacher, so I doubt it. Mine, on the other hand, has increased incrementally over years, though I will never be anything more than a rank novice.
As a grandfather, I’m pleased to watch my older grandchildren choose STEM programs for their training at Ohio State University, Miami University, and Trine University respectively. Other grandkids coming behind them have STEM interests too.
I can’t imagine — oh, I can, and I shudder to think — what kind of educations these kids would have received had our family remained Evangelicals and Grandpa was still a fire breathing Baptist preacher. Fortunately, the curse has been broken. Two of my granddaughters are taking college evolutionary biology this coming year. I relish the day when we can sit down at the pub and they can school Gramps on science. Maybe we can have a rousing discussion about endogenous retroviruses.🤣
I was brought up in a nominally religious environment, in that my grandparents (who effectively raised me) had beliefs of some kind, but I look back on and can’t quite figure. School was also mildly religious, probably based on the requirement of daily prayers in UK schools. The bible was generally seen as important, but not seen as literal, and as I progressed through school so it became more normal for atheism to be the standard. The point being that I can’t now remember whether I was taught the flood story as history or as myth. I’m pretty sure myth, but without the surrounding reasoning.
I’ve actually, as a result of these kinds of discussion, become quite interested in the background to how the story came about. Obviously it doesn’t require many brain cells to realise that the story as believed by creationists cannot possibly be true, but it does appear that there was probably a catastrophic, but localised, flood in Mesopotamia around 1600BC. This was narrated first in the Sumerian Epic of Ziusudra and later the more famous Epic of Gilgamesh. Each is so plainly similar to the bible story, which is dated substantially later, that there is little doubt they formed the basis of the Noah story. I’m presently intrigued by the parallels between Jesus and Moses, the former almost certainly stemming from the latter, and whether Moses has any basis in fact, or whether he was entirely fictitious.
The ability of religious fanatics to deny evidence always amazes me. It doesn’t matter what evidence is presented, they will always twist it, or just outright lie about it.
There really is no way around dinosaurs for bible literalists is there? If they really existed before humans came to be the whole original sin concept falls apart. How could death enter the world at the Garden of Eden if dinosaurs lived and died millions years before this. Rather than abandon this ridiculous fairy tale they put dinosaurs with humans a few Millenia in the past. Such delusional thinking.
Whitcomb and Morris did the Canadian circuit as well. I have shared this story before, likely here and certainly elsewhere. Following Morris, as Baptists are want to do, we retired for fellowship and food. I waited for my moment and I approached Morris. I asked him how he reconciled his Christianity with that of Dr. Hugh Ross (an old earth creationist and astrophysicist.) He was immediate in his response and rude in his tone: “Read your Bible!” I had not yet learned, there is no reconciliation. YEC born-again believer – heaven bound. OEC born-again believer – going to hell.
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/pickens-sc/glen-west-12753273
To me a lot of evangelical Christians and uber conservative Catholics have way too many purity-of-belief tests. Creation- intelligent design is one of them. To these folks, any belief in natural evolution is akin to heresy. No middle ground, no compromise. I’ll admit that the conservative Catholics may be a little more “intellectual” about it, but at the end of the day they along with the “Yay-Jesus!” folks insist that a higher power must have created most if not all of everything we experience in this life. Bruce you also hit on something (when you mentioned the ozone hole) that I experienced in my youth in the Pentecostal church- a disdain for higher scientific knowledge outside of just the basics needed for medicine and engineering.
Outside of matters of my personal faith practice and the effect it has on how I live, I discern scientific matters with an evidence-based approach. Evidence supports a very old Earth that has a combination of slow and steady processes mixed in with sudden catastrophic events which together transform the terrain, weather and ultimately life on this planet. Whatever role I believe “God” has in these processes is something that is really impossible for me to answer. But something tells me that if I am judged at the end of this life, the questions are going to be more focused on how I treated other people, especially people who were despised by everyone else. And if that happens I’ll lament of how ashamed I am of how much of an asshole I was when I was a younger man. Maybe after all that I might be asked my thoughts on how old I think the Earth is. My answer will be “the opposite of whatever answer Ken Ham gave”.
The ‘purity of belief’ thing came to the attention of my husband when he pastored his first church. a woman joined who was fanantical about missions to convert jews to jesus. She wanted the church to fully embrace that to be Real X-tians. Her jesus would only return when True X-tians took the gospel to the whole of Israel. Another came back from a conference all fired up about YEC being accurate and true and we needed to embrace it etc etc. It kind of made him aware of ‘add-ons’ when we were supposed to preach ‘jesus only.’ Though of course, those who may say their denomination preaches ‘jesus only,’ have a gazillion silly rules about one’s appearance, one’s life choices, about sexual preferences, about giving your tithe however finacially stapped you are for cash etc etc etc etc…..Wouldn’t you have thought that an omnipotent god could have made it clearer what was the right, the correct way to follow his rules?
I’d love to hear a Young Earth Creationist give a reasonable explanation for the existence of fossil fuel sources.