Sorting through LifeWay's survey of Protestant pastors about evolution and creation, I was intrigued by the differential between younger (18-44) and not-so-younger (45+) pastors on their belief in the age of the earth.
Here's BP's paragraph:
The only statistically significant difference was that younger pastors are the least likely age bracket to strongly disagree that the earth is 6,000 years old. While 24 percent age 18-44 strongly disagree, 33 percent age 45-54, 38 percent age 55-64 and 38 percent 65 and older feel the same.
Also significant is the wide variance between pastors with graduate degrees and those without. Among the former, 42% strongly disagree that the earth is 6,000 years old but only 18% of the latter group.
Younger, less educated Protestant pastors are more likely to accept that the earth is 6,000 years old.
What might be made of this? I'll offer some possibilities:
1. There were very few Christian schools around when pastors over 45 were in grade and high school; consequently, this group had little or no indoctrination into young earth dogma.
2. The same could be said for any church-based teaching that insisted on a young earth. The traveling young earther road shows just weren't around.
3. Pastors with greater education should naturally have more difficulty accepting the concept of an extremely young earth, having been exposed to multiple lines of scientific research and study all of which point to an old earth and universe.
4. Younger pastors are more susceptible to the argument that a belief in a young earth is essential to be a good inerrantist.
I'm mostly ambivalent if my pastor colleagues believe in an earth that is 6,000 years old. I don't. What I fear is trending here is that such a belief is becoming more of a test of orthodoxy.
Sad to see it.
16 comments:
I've been told, ex cathedra and face-to-face, that if I did not believe in a 6000 year old earth, that I was not saved.
Several times and in different decades.
This brand of orthodoxy is already 'in the field'.
I'm not seeing the acceptance of 6000 year old earth as a test of orthodoxy. When this comes up as discussion topic, I push it to the actual text of Genesis. According to the text, each day of creation was defined as having an "evening" and a "morning". How many hours did each of those days have? No one can say because the text is silent. Anything beyond this is 2nd/3rd tier speculation, at best.
And I'm perfectly fine with engaging in speculation. I do it all the time. But when someone makes their own speculation or preferences a matter of orthodoxy, I tend to have a problem.
I think rather than it being a test of orthodoxy, many of us (I am 43 and have a BA, MDiv., and DMin.) wonder why someone would go to the trouble to try to read something in to the text. To hold to an old earth view, you must bring in other sources. If one starts with what the Bible says alone, it is pretty straight forward.
There are plenty of reasons to believe in a young earth while just holding your Bible. A couple: each day has evening and morning. That sounds like a literal day. Another - if the days of creation were not literal days, why would vegetation be created on day three and the sun not created until day four (there was light before but no sun)?
The word used for day in Genesis 1 almost always means a 24-hour day throughout the rest of the Old Testament unless it is specified otherwise.
There are so many more, but one more for now: In the 10 Commandments, God uses the creation sequence as a model for how we should use our week. Should we work for 6,000 years and then rest for 1,000 years or work for 6 million years and then rest for 1 million years? No, we should work for 6 literal days and then rest for 1 literal day, just like He did.
Your interpretation of the LifeWay research was condescending of anyone who holds to a young earth view - "young earth dogma" and "young earth roadshows".
Anyway, I respectfully disagree with you. And I do not think it should be a test of orthodoxy. But I do think that once pastors teach their people that outside education enables us to realize that what the Bible seems to say is actually not what it is saying, it does open the door to doing the same thing in many other passages as well.
Respectfully,
Ronny
Ronny, many thanks for your comment, particularly since you disagree with me and also identify yourself.
I admit to tendentious wording but not condescending. The young earth movement is dogma and I'll leave it to those who have experienced it to judge the YE specialists presentations as 'road shows' or not.
And I recognize the standard responses, nothing wrong with those.
Is there any extra-Biblical evidence that would persuade you to consider anything other than that the earth is no older than 6k years?
William,
Thanks for receiving my disagreement graciously.
No, there is not any extra-Biblical evidence that could cause me to hold to anything but a young earth view.
I'd probably vote for Romney before I would change my mind on that! :>)
Seriously, then you would have things dying before sin entered the world and a host of other complications.
Ronny
Ronny, here's where it looks like you and I are on this. You will accept no evidence that conflicts with your current interpretation of Scripture on the matter, believing that there can be no such evidence. I'm not sure what we can discuss, apart from how any alternative interpretation is false.
The age of the earth is out of the realm of faith and in the realm where attempts can be made to verify it or not. But you have ruled out anything that might conflict with your current view.
Which makes me wonder why you equivocate by saying "what the bible SEEMS to say". "Seems" seems to leave the door cracked for other interpretations. ;)
Where I think the YE movement is, and will continue to be, is ghettoized in religious schools for reasons illustrated by this exchange.
But I appreciate that you do not make this a test of orthodoxy.
I personally am a Y.E. guy but I have no problem with people who hold certain O.E. views. I reject as heresy the idea of evolution whatsoever. I personally think there is no place for it in orthodoxy.
And with respect William, your "road show" comment was condescending. But, it's your blog and I am a guest and I appreciate that.
"Road show" would be more ridicule than condescension, John. The early versions of such, 70s and 80s, were quite a sight to see.
I try to be nice...:)
I have found in the few discussions I have had over the past decade on this subject that just as many YEers out there who are dogmatic, those who are OEers are just as numerous.
It takes, at least, two to debate or tangle and the discussions I have sat in or listened too have started by either party.
Then there are those, like you at times, who can use words creatively to make your point, sound gracious but seem critical to those who see it differently.
My comments are not about the YE vs. OE debate directly but about the tone of the debate, from each side.
I know first hand how to use the wrong tone but hope to make it less and less a practice.
Ronny does a great job of detailing the type of arguments that I tend to hear when discussing this issue...both in a church setting and at work (here and in Asia) among scientists and engineers.
Where he and I agree is that the Bible is sufficient. This doesn't mean that I reject what I observe outside of the Scripture but, rather, that the Scriptures are the authority when questions come up (and especially when pesky questions hang around unresolved for me).
Ronny:
"if the days of creation were not literal days, why would vegetation be created on day three and the sun not created until day four (there was light before but no sun)?"
Since I recognize the Bible to be authoritative I accept that there was vegetation prior to the creation of the sun. The Scriptures record much "stranger" things later one. Does vegetation require light? Yes. Can God cause things that require light to grow even in the absence of light? Yes. Could God have created a temporary light source prior to the creation of the sun. Yes.
Ronny: "The word used for day in Genesis 1 almost always means a 24-hour day throughout the rest of the Old Testament unless it is specified otherwise."
No, it doesn't. The Bible never specifies the number of hours in a day. So while I can agree with the literal days of creation (each one having an evening and a morning), I have no idea how many hours existed in each one. From what I've read, the concept of 24 hours in a day began to evolve around 1,500 BC with the Egyptians (they utilized a duodecimal) system) and their observation of of how the sun "moved" across the sky.
Is it possible that, especially prior to the orbital cycles, that God counted days in something other than 24 hours? Sure. Again, we have the designation of an evening and a morning.
Scripture is sufficient on this point. Speculation is fun but not authoritative.
Ronny: "In the 10 Commandments, God uses the creation sequence as a model for how we should use our week. Should we work for 6,000 years and then rest for 1,000 years or work for 6 million years and then rest for 1 million years? No, we should work for 6 literal days and then rest for 1 literal day,"
Interesting. However since the text doesn't mandate that a literal day of creation had 24 hours, why force it into the text?
If evening and morning we more than a 24 hour period, we must discover (if possible) what is the length of one day.
We use 24 hours to define a day. We use 365 days to define a year. We have broken this year down into twelve months.
Now, if the bible says someone was 65 years old (as it does for Enoch in Genesis 5:21), do we question this age as we understand it or did God change the meaning of morning and evening was one day to mean more than it does elsewhere?
Pamela,
the tradition of breaking the day into 24 hour segments goes back to the Egyptians around 1,500 BC and it was based on the observation of how the sun/moon appeared to move across the sky.
When we talk about the days of creation, the sun wasn't even created until day 4. So we know that the earth could have began to orbit the sun until at least day 4. Further, we don't have any information as to when the earth began to revolve on its own axis.
You write: "If evening and morning we more than a 24 hour period, we must discover (if possible) what is the length of one day."
Pamela, given that there was no sun prior to day 4 and hence, no way at least up to that point to know if the days were 24 hours long, we can't know what the length of the day was. What we know is that each day had an evening and a morning (even without a sun).
Pamela wrote: "We use 24 hours to define a day. We use 365 days to define a year. We have broken this year down into twelve months."
Yes...and we've done so for 3000-4000 years based on the observations of the Egyptians...and those observations were of the solar and lunar cycles were clearly established. From Genesis, we know that these cycles did not exist at least up to the end of day 4, right? And there is no Scriptural mandate that the solar/lunar cycles of creation days 5 and 6 were what they were after creation was finished.
Pamela wrote: "Now, if the bible says someone was 65 years old (as it does for Enoch in Genesis 5:21), do we question this age as we understand it or did God change the meaning of morning and evening was one day to mean more than it does elsewhere?"
If the Bible says that someone was 65 years old, we must take it as how the Biblical writers understood it, not necessarily as we understand it.
I'm not arguing that God changed the "meaning" of morning and evening. I'm suggesting that if you want the Scriptures to say that the days of creation were 24 hour days, the Scriptures don't do that for you. With no solar cycle and possibly no revolving earth prior to day 4, the first few days lasted as long as God intended them to last...and they were literal days.
Think, for example, of the North Pole. Right at the pole, it is day for 6 consecutive months and then night for 6 consecutive months. Using the language of creation, folks at the Pole have a single day that lasts 12 months (one evening and one morning).
I recognize that the YE specialists necessarily deal with the scientific evidence that goes against their views. Oddly, whenever I've approached the issue, the discussion focuses on interpretive issues and there is disagreement among good, decent, committed believers.
That's sufficient reason for me not to accept those who decry old earth creationists as being insufficiently 'biblical.'
I appreciate the comments here.
...and I'm interested in the spin I put on this topic: Why are younger protestant pastors more likely to be young earthers?
William sez and asks, "...and I'm interested in the spin I put on this topic: Why are younger protestant pastors more likely to be young earthers?"
I live in close proximity to one SBC seminary, have close friends attending the next 2 closest SBC seminary, have family members who are recent attenders and graduates of the next 2 SBC seminaries. All-in-all, I can have several short conversations and cover every seminary except Golden Gate.
These friends and family members cover at least 3 generations of SBC seminary grads. My observation is that there is a large contingent of seminary students who desperately want the approval of their seminary professors and administrators. And despite the academic rigor required to achieve a degree at these fine institutions, there is no small amount of cultural peer pressure to fit in...primarily if the student is from North America and has designs on a career pastoring (and other denominational involvement) here.
That's the cynical view.
The slightly less cynical view is that since at least 1990, the seminaries are pretty much in harmony on their view on the inspiration and authority of Scripture (i.e. fruit of the conservative resurgence). If the Bible says it and someone outside the Bible says differently, then the outside source will be given lesser weight.
Combine the cynical and non-cynical viewpoints and you get comments that demand 24 hour days and 6000 year old Earth as a test of orthodoxy.
My most memorable conversation about this concluded with a dear friends who called me days later after praying for me and grieving about my lack of acceptance of these two demands. A few questions in and I discovered that his most believed professor/mentor held such a view and that since, to quote him, I "was one of his favorite people", he felt that he couldn't turn without being disloyal to one of us.
I told him to toss me under the buss at once but that it might be a better idea to value the actual Text of Scripture higher than either of us.
These are the types of silliness in the SBC that could drive me to start drinking...but that's for another post altogether...with that, I am Jonathan. :)
Jonathon said: "Ronny: "The word used for day in " Genesis 1 almost always means a 24-hour day throughout the rest of the Old Testament unless it is specified otherwise."
No, it doesn't. The Bible never specifies the number of hours in a day. So while I can agree with the literal days of creation (each one having an evening and a morning), I have no idea how many hours existed in each one."
Jonathon, I encourage you to take some time to learn the Syntagmatic relationships of the Hebrew word yôm. Your assertion is not accurate as can easily be demonstrated. Here is an excerpt from a technical article by Jim Stambaugh regarding a semantic approach to studying the six days of creation:
"There are other words which are often syntagmatically related with yôm: ‘morning’, ‘evening’, ‘night’, light’, and ‘darkness’. These words, along with the use of numbers, will aid in establishing a particular pattern of use. This, in turn, will aid in an accurate interpretation of yôm in Genesis 1.
The two words, ‘morning’ and ‘evening’, are combined with yôm 19 times each outside of Genesis 1 (three times these words share the same reference cf. Numbers 9:15, Deuteronomy 16:4 and Daniel 8:26), and with each occurrence a twenty-four day is signified. This is true no matter what the literary genre or context might be. It should be further observed that when ‘morning’ and ‘evening’ occur together without yôm (this happens 38 times outside of Genesis 1, 25 of the 38 occur in historical narrative), it always, without exception, designates a literal solar day. So any combination of the words ‘morning’, ‘evening’, and yôm use their extra-linguistic referential value to its fullest extent; pointing to the length of time which is normally associated with these words."
Here is a link for your continued study. Truth matters brother: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/tj/v5/n1/semantic
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