Yes it was. Yet, on the other hand, I fully realize that such an approach might cause some people to dig themselves even more.n deeply, becoming even more blind and and deaf to all evidence and reason. Irenaeus talked about this in terms of the “hardening of Pharaoh’s heart”. Irenaeus said that the same circumstances and words may turn one person’s heart hard and another’s soft. He likened it to “the sun’s heat, which causes soft clay to turn hard and brittle but causes wax to turn ever softer.” He challenged his audience to choose whether to be like clay or like wax.
I had friends within the “creation science” movement who were wax-like and others who were just about as clay-like as I’ve ever seen. Not one of those “wax-like” friends stayed in the movement (to my knowledge.). Of the “clay-like” types, I found it interesting that they either stayed within the IFCA fundamentalist camp OR they (two of them) became angry anti-theists. (One has become a huge Franky Schaeffer fan and a similar kind of activist.) Obviously, those few cases are nothing more significant than anecdotal. But I find them interesting, nonetheless.
What 2"x4" had the most impact on me? My exodus from the Young Earth Creationist “creation science” movement had many factors behind it. But I well remember being told, “Thinking yourself to have the ultimate scientific refutations and remediations for entire fields of science—from radiometric dating methodologies to the geologic record and phylogenetics—all while declaring the entire scientific academy of PhDs to be wrong, that’s not just foolhardy and comical. It’s frighteningly narcissistic.” Yes, I already knew that! And it really did bother me to hear it stated out loud! (Somehow that made it less speculative and far too real.)
It bothered me even more after I questioned Dr. Gish about it. That would conversation would require an entire chapter on its own.
Hearing out loud my own inner concerns and suspicions coming from a faculty colleague somehow made it seem far more real and even DANGEROUS. Why dangerous? I knew enough Church history to recognize the roles of hubris and narcissism in so many of the very worst episodes of the story of Western Christianity and civilization in general. (And my uncle had always warned me: “When someone is absolutely certain that they are right and everybody else is wrong, be very very careful. When someone is absolutely certain that they are right and everybody else is wrong because God told them so, be very very afraid.”)
As the saying goes, “For goodness sake!!!”. I had actually taught worried, pale-turning students about the horrors of Calvin’s Geneva, John Wycliffe’s exhumation and bone-burning, and the “justice” of the Salem Witch Trials. I began to ask myself: If I had been born in another time and place, would narcissism and hubris have made me one of the villains?
I had already been concerned that “creation science” seemed to thrive wherever the excesses of Pharisaical fundamentalism thrived. I used to preach in a lot of IFCA churches and it amazed me how many of the ministers who were going to introduce me liked to tell me the same joke: “You know what IFCA stands for, right? I Fight Christians Anywhere!” It seemed like a harmless joke—until they would eventually ask me the very serious question: “Are you a first-degree separationist or a second-degree separationist?” (Two pastors explained to me that mere first-degree separationists would never be invited to speak at their church a second time. One exposure to their congregation was the limit.)
I started telling such questioners, “I’m a third-degree separationist!” I say it without smiling and that always produced an interesting reaction. If they had the courage to ask for a definition, I would say, “If somebody asks me if I’m a first or second degree separationist, I give them the third degree—and ask them where in the scriptures God authorized them to destroy the unity of the Body of Christ by holding a separation contest.”
I considered telling them that I always ironically separate myself from those who insist on finding new excuses for separationism. But I generally was in a hurry to separate myself from the kind of people who obsessed over such questions. (Hmmm, come to think of it. It has been a while since I’ve preached in an IFCA church. Interesting coincidence. Or perhaps they’ve simply separated themselves from me.)
I have never forgotten that I bear some of the responsibility for the pseudo-science of the “creation science” and anti-evolution movements within Christendom. So I feel obligated to try and undo at least some of that damage. It is certainly NOT something that I enjoy. Especially when I see someone parroting the very same young earth and anti-evolution arguments I used to preach a half century ago, it can make me very depressed.
I ask myself what I would say to my younger self if I could go back in time and confront me at one of my anti-evolution debates. I honestly don’t know because I was extremely naive as to who I could trust to tell me the truth about science. (I made the mistake of assuming that those who shared my theological beliefs and traditions were the most honest and informed about science as well. Newsflash: They weren’t. Until I figured that out, I was under their influence.)