I’m a retired ordained minister and seminary professor. I certainly still believe in God and my study of evolution played an important role in revitalizing my faith!
I was part of the “creation science” movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s. [I tell various aspects of my story on my blog at https://bibleandscienceforum.wordpress.com/] I was excited by Morris & Whitcomb’s The Genesis Flood and basically had it memorized for use in lectures and public debates. Yet, after a while I got very concerned about “facts” that didn’t check out. For a while I accepted the excuse that “sometimes people exaggerate in the excitement of this kind of ministry” but over time I became more and more troubled. Those days were long before the Internet so it was not easy to find helpful information. However, when I accepted a lecturer appointment at a major university, the much larger library provided virtually every science journal imaginable. I started looking up the citations I had been using and I was aghast at the number of deceptive quote-mines and “creative” uses of ellipsis. (Frankly, it sent me into a depression.) I won’t take the time here to explain all that I went through–though you can find such information on my blog–but eventually I simply couldn’t continue repeating arguments, quotations, and pseudo-science that I realized were untrue. I even finally got to the point where I asked one of my famous colleagues, “If all this is true, why do we have to rely on deceptive quote-mines and misleading half-truths?” The answer basically told me everything the Holy Spirit had already convicted me about.
During that same period of my life I was working hard to bring my Hebrew skills up to the level of my Koine Greek background and with it a great deal more comparative and historical linguistics. My study of Hebrew lexicography and exegesis greatly changed my understanding of the early chapters of Genesis. I realized that so much of my background in terms of *origins theology" in a Young Earth Creationist church was more tradition than Biblical text. I also began to realize just how recent in the history of the church was YECism, “creation science”, and “flood geology.” (As you probably already know, the “creation science” which The Genesis Flood introduced to mainstream evangelicals was Seventh Day Adventist concepts published by George McCready Price who claimed to have based it on the prophecies of Ellen White. Of course, I didn’t know of that history at the time because the book said nothing to credit Price or Prophetess White. Dr. Whitcomb didn’t mention that background until years later. By the way, perhaps you saw Dr. Whitcomb honored at the “plank pegging ceremony” for Ken Ham’s Ark Park. Ken Ham credited him for starting the “creation science” movement. That designation is quite appropriate.)
At that point in life my greatest knowledge deficit was in evolutionary biology and biochemistry. So it was time for me to see how my new positions based on the Hebrew text aligned with the evidence from creation itself. And that’s when I was thrilled to see how everything fits together so beautifully. As a Young Earth Creationist, I was constantly dealing with the total contradiction between my view of Genesis and the evidence in creation itself. I always had to look up what my “creation science” heroes were saying was the explanation behind the contradiction. (My mind had always been bursting with contradictory evidence which I had to work hard to “force into the same box.”)
Thankfully, with my newfound knowledge of the scriptures and from creation, everything finally fit together! The conflict and the stress that had troubled me for all of those years—years spent trying to salvage cherished traditions that didn’t fit the Biblical text nor God’s creation around me—was gone!
It absolutely revolutionized my worship and my view of God. It was absolutely thrilling to leave behind me the “small deity” of my one-kind-at-a-time view of Special Creation. I got to know and worship the God of the Bible whose power and wisdom “engineered” the laws of physics in such a way that life would come from non-living ingredients (just as the first two chapters of Genesis states several times) and produce evolutionary processes which diversified life in the biosphere (just as Genesis states.)
It has been thrilling to learn God’s answers from both of his great works of authorship: God’s scriptures and God’s creation. Because both share the same author, I expect them to be in harmony. They are.
So I praise God that he reveals his truths in both the Bible and in his creation. I don’t have to be frustrated by conflict any more. All I see is harmony. It wasn’t necessarily easy to abandon tradition. I had to work through those cherished, man-made traditions one-by-one and see which ones held up against the Word of God and which ones didn’t. Yet, it was all worth it.
Now, in retirement, I try to help others get free of the conflicts and confusion which I lived under for so long. Also, I still feel very guilty and responsible for the audiences I misled so long ago. I was young and gullible and trusting. (I simply assumed that my “Christian heroes” did their homework, were careful about quotations and citations, and had carefully examined all of the evidence. I was wrong in all of those suppositions.) Yet God is merciful and all I can do now is try to help people recognize and praise God for the abundant answers he gives us in both his scriptures and his creation. We can trust them because they come from God himself.
One other comment may be helpful: A few years ago I was asked this question: “When you were deeply committed to creation science and all that went with it in terms of young earth views, did anything which other people told you help you decide to re-examine what you were doing?” I didn’t have an immediate answer and told them that I couldn’t think of anything. But I went home and found myself thinking about that question for several weeks. Eventually I realized something: The people who were very congenial in questioning me were easy to dismiss—but some of the people who hit me hard and tough with very difficult questions (about both the Bible and Science) were the ones who helped me most. They broke through my pride and confidence and they said things like “You are influencing a lot of young people. Are you certain you’ve checked out all the facts behind what you are saying?” and “Are you sure that all of the world’s scientists are wrong but you are qualified to school them in what they don’t undestand?” My first reaction was usually an anger that I concealed, yet those were the confrontations which got me really thinking. I truly believe it was the people who were very tough on me who God used to bring me out of the “walled ideology” I’d built around my mind and life. (A geologist by the name of Glenn Morton wrote his own account of what that was like for him when he was a “publishing creation scientists”. It is easy to find online under “Morton’s Demon”. He tells how his mind was trained to keep all evidence out. I highly recommend everyone reading it. My story is so similar to his. In his case, his oil exploration company job moved him to a different post where he had to work with the real field data of the geology. It forced him to see that “flood geology” made no sense and didn’t fit what he saw in the field.)
I should mention that during those times I also was troubled that I was seeing the beginnings of somewhat “cult-like” behaviors within the movement. I don’t want to dwell on that here but when I look at how the CS movement has changed since the 1970’s, it disturbs me greatly—and far more than back then. The trends I saw then are multiplied exponentially today. No, I don’t feel proud for getting out early in a “I told you so” sort of way. Instead, I feel very guilty because I played my own part in what has happened as the movement grew and became a big money origins industry. I often wish that my debate opponents years ago had been much harder on me and perhaps I would have started my introspection much earlier and with more vigor. Yet that would be passing the buck. No, the guilt is mine. I wasn’t just a follower. I bear responsibility as someone who misled others.
