CreationLetter.com is urging churches to celebrate Creation Sunday this February 14th to counter the Clergy Letter Project's Evolution Sunday, scheduled on the same date.Clever, that "post-Darwin part, as if the age of Darwin is over and a new century has begun. Not hardly. The article continues:
As the Year of Darwin comes to a close and we enter the Post-Darwin Century, CreationLetter.com is renewing its efforts to answer the challenge the Clergy Letter Project represents to the plain, traditional interpretation of Genesis.
Since 2004, the Clergy Letter Project has been recruiting ministers as evolution advocates, promoting the idea that "religious truth is of a different order than scientific truth," echoing an unBiblical notion popularized by the late Stephen J Gould: non-overlapping magisteria, or NOMA.
"Jesus refuted the concept of NOMA in John 3:12," notes CreationLetter.com founder Rev. Tony Breeden, "when He pointedly asked Nicodemus, 'If I've told you of earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell ye of spiritual things?' How can you trust the Bible for spiritual things like the Gospel for salvation when you can't trust what Genesis says about earthly things like biology, geology and so on? The Bible isn't a science textbook, but if we can't trust it when it speaks on science, when can we trust it?"Christ was speaking directly about Nicodemus accepting Him as the Son of God. That is the context of the passage. Nicodemus did not understand Jesus' symbolic language and Jesus is chastising Nicodemus for not understanding the passages in the OT that referred to His coming. The entire passage hinges on whether or not Nicodemus understood who Jesus was and what he represented. It doesn't have anything to do with the NOMA. Breeden's interpretation represents the worst form of cherry-picking.
He then remarks that the Bible isn't a science textbook and then argues that we have to trust it to be exactly that! If the Bible isn't a science textbook then why is it important that we treat it and trust it as such? A bit back I posted an article by Daniel Harlow on the literalism of scripture. His analysis?
If we were to insist that the Bible gives an accurate picture of the physical cosmos, then to do so with integrity, we would have to believe that the earth is flat, immobile, and resting on pillars; that the sky is solid and has windows in it; that the sun, moon, and stars are set in the sky and move along it like light bulbs along a track; that the sun literally rises, moves, and sets; that there is an ocean of water surrounding the earth; and that beyond the waters above the sky is the very heaven of God. That’s what the Bible says.Mr. Breeden's view of scripture is a very myopic one that, despite having been shown by countless biblical scholars to be completely unwarranted, is becoming increasingly common in evangelical circles. I certainly hope my church doesn't sign this letter. I will dissent.
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