Sunday, February 21, 2010

What’s At Stake in the Creation Evolution debate?

Creation_smThis was the first of the 10 talks you’ve never heard in 10 years at CCC – part of the lead up to our 10th birthday as a Church.

Even amongst Christians this is still a hot topic.

Some things Cam St Clair said on Sunday:

  • Genesis 1 is not a scientific account as to HOW God created the universe, rather it describes WHO and WHY (for what purpose) God created the universe.
  • Genesis 1 is different in structure and style from the rest of Genesis. Genesis 1-11 is one part, which tells the early history of the entire world, Genesis 12-50 tells how God singled out a nation for His own. Genesis 1 is poetic, and tells of God’s perfection throughout the whole. It is full of 7’s and it’s multiples… 7, 14, 21, 35 etc… It is complete and perfect in and of itself.
  • God is a planned, logical God who methodically created the world and all things in it, for the chief purpose of creating man.
  • On the first day God created light, but He didn’t create the sun, moon and stars until the fourth day, so I don’t see how you can have light without the sun.
  •  Seven Years of Starlight and Time

There are a lot of things I wanted to comment on, but I was waiting for the talk to be podcasted, or at least Cam’s notes to be published, but neither happened.

The thing that bugged me the most however, wasn’t in the talk, but was listening to people afterwards. Many of our congregation have moved across from Sydney, and are mainly Sydney Evangelical Anglicans. Apparently in Sydney, it has become accepted belief that God did not create the world in 6 days, but rather used the evolutionary process, and they view us Westerners as backwards and in the dark because we haven’t widely accepted this as they have and because we didn’t want daylight saving.

Not everything that comes from the east is a good thing, and not everything you value and believe fits for us Westerners.

How about looking at the implications of not having a 6 day creation and then tell me what you think.

3 comments:

Sarah said...

I agree (as per our conversation when you last visited us) hehe.

I get sick of Eastern Staters complaining that the West is some kind of stone-age backwater place. If Perth is so behind the times, then why did they move here? To 'save' Perth? Haha, I think God might have a role in that!

In regards to the creation/evolution debate, I guess it comes down to the issue of whether they trust and believe the Bible? If so, then it means believing all of it, even the difficult to understand bits, instead of trying to apply our paltry human logic to everything. I am concerned when the people who believe in evolution over creation are supposed to be the ones who are 'well taught'.

troygrisgonelle said...

Hey Jill, I know Cameron St Clair, vaguely - mainly through other people.

One issue about the creation / evolution debate that not many people seem to understand is...well, check out my article on it - http://troygrisgonelle.wordpress.com/2006/10/30/hello-world/

btw - I found your blog through "Get on the Blandwagon" - Blanders is a friend of mine.

Jillian said...

Hi Troy
Blanders is a friend of mine too.. I'm just having a read of your article now.. will post response soon.