“Things ain’t cookin’ in my kitchen
Strange affliction wash over me
Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire
Couldn’t conquer the blue sky…” [1]

Today, the Australian government’s carbon tax repeal bills cleared Parliament’s lower house. They will be voted upon in the Senate next year. To see this reported as an act of climate vandalism by the media isn’t a surprise. What is surprising is the consternation of many Christians.

One facebook acquaintance summarized some data from the national broadcaster’s “vote compass,” a site which was set up prior to the recent federal election. The voter enters their leanings on certain issues and the site tells them which party best represents their views. He writes:

Compared to other religious affiliations, Protestants are the least welcoming of asylum seekers, least concerned about climate, least supportive of foreign aid, most supportive of increasing military spending, least supportive of mining tax increases, least supportive of constitutional recognition of indigenous Australians, least supportive of a faster NBN, least supportive of public services, most supportive of CSG and least supportive of workplace protections.

NB Before anyone complains, the results have been weighted by census data, so with a huge sample size (1.4m), it is basically irrelevant that it was a self-selected sample.

This gentleman is concerned about the future of the planet, mostly for the sake of his young son. He has spent years reading the science concerning climate and is understandably worried. But for the Christian, there ought to be some biblical “pillars” undergirding one’s worldview. The first one is Bible history and the second one is Bible prophecy. That probably sounds boring, but if you’ve been around this blog long you should know by now that I rarely take the reader where he expects. Because that’s boring.

Bad Science

When it comes to climate science, we have more data than we know what to do with. As someone who loves to look for patterns in things, I can understand the desire of scientists not only to figure out what is going on, but also to predict future weather.

Looking for patterns begins with past records, and it is here that modern climate science is revealed as the victim of modern philosophy, that is, Darwinism.

We are told that 97% of scientists believe in anthropogenic climate change. But 98% of palaeontologists believe in evolution, and they are wrong. What is more relevant is that these two consensuses are related.

I don’t deny the data used to support climate alarm, just as I don’t deny the stuff palaeontologists dig out of the ground, or pretend that the devil put it here. What I deny is the story of how it came about. The stories told by modern science are all based upon their deluded revision of the history of the planet. If we deny the historicity and reliability of the book of Genesis, all our science will be wrong. We will be basing our models upon a past that never really happened. How so?

The Creation event itself is fundamental, but the catastrophic global flood seems to have a direct bearing on climate data. Tas Walker writes:

I just listened to a podcast by climate scientist Murry Salby to the Sydney Institute entitled “Global Emission of Carbon Dioxide: The Contribution from Natural Sources.”

During question time toward the end of the recording (55min 15sec) he says:

Just a historical note, the guy who started this was a Swedish chemist whose lab I used to work at Stockholm by the name of Arrhenius. He won the Nobel Prize for chemistry and for his understanding of the temperature dependence of chemical reactions he got the Nobel Prize. He got into this and he started the whole global warming thing because he was actually trying to explain ice ages and he saw CO2 varied and temperature varied and he figured maybe CO2 caused the Ice Age. Now I don’t think anyone believes that anymore …

In other words, the whole idea that global warming is caused by CO2 came out of the need to explain what caused the Ice Age—a mystery that still eludes modern scientists.

In the Wikipedia entry on Arrhenius it says:

He was the first person to predict that emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels and other combustion processes would cause global warming. Arrhenius clearly believed that a warmer world would be a positive change. From that, the hot-house theory gained more attention. Nevertheless, until about 1960, most scientists dismissed the hot-house / greenhouse effect as implausible for the cause of ice ages as Milutin Milankovitch had presented a mechanism using orbital changes of the earth (Milankovitch cycles). Nowadays, the accepted explanation is that orbital forcing sets the timing for ice ages with CO2 acting as an essential amplifying feedback.

Note the term “amplifying feedback”. This means that Milankovitch cycles are not enough to explain the Ice Ages, which is understandable considering the relatively small variations in orbital parameters for the earth. So, they added a positive feedback mechanism from CO2. A positive feedback means the system is unstable, which explains why many scientists today are concerned about global warming and the earth reaching an unstable tipping point.

The problem is that these scientists have ignored the huge climate catastrophe of Noah’s Flood. By ignoring the Flood they cannot explain the post-Flood (Pleistocene) Ice Age. The Ice Age was the earth’s thermal response to the massive climate shock caused by the biblical Flood. It was largely the volcanic activity during that year-long event that produced the necessary conditions—warm oceans and volcanic dust high in the atmosphere. But the earth returned to equilibrium in about 700 years, demonstrating that it is a stable system. The biblical Flood provides the only explanation for the Ice Age.

See how a wrong understanding of the true history of the earth leads to a misunderstanding of what is happening in the present. And a wrong understanding will lead to wrong decisions about what we need to do.

So, the stupidity of evolution and the stupidity of modern climate science are directly related. They both misinterpret the data because they both base their interpretations on uniformitarian assumptions.

Bad science doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It is a result of something. Evolutionists constantly tell us that their science is constantly under review “because that’s how science works,” while they desperately protect their failing dogmas from real scientific criticisms. Bad science is the product of bad philosophy, which is in reality a bad religion, a religion which goes way back.

Bad Religion

98% of palaeontologists might be evolutionists, but 98% of westerners are now statists, and they, too, are wrong. Statism is believing the government is god, and in control of prosperity, and now it seems even the weather. A climate action rally in Sydney last weekend was rained on, creating a sea of colourful umbrellas. This action was most likely the peak of effectiveness for this endeavour, the weather equivalent of putting a paper bag over one’s head in a nuclear attack.

It is bad enough seeing Christians sucked into a “science” which cannot tell the future because it rejects the past. It is worse when these intelligent Christians believe the government can do anything about it. If Protestants are the least concerned about the left wing issues mentioned above, the reason might not be that Protestants don’t care about them, but because Protestants are far less likely to fall for statism and its pretenses. They know that government is rarely the solution, and usually the problem. There’s a reason that good government and prosperity flowed from Christianity, and then Protestantism. God blesses obedience. The entire world was blessed through the principles of the British Empire, which brought good government when it arrived and left it as a blessing when it departed. But Protestants understand that good government is an extension of Christianity, and not itself the spring of life. Without Christ, Western Culture cannot be “progressive.” It amazes me how incapable these progressives are of perceiving their progress as a reversion to paganism.

On a panel TV show on the national broadcaster recently, entitled “Dangerous Ideas,” one panelist jokingly said that abortion “until the age of 30″ might be a good idea. Without realizing it, these fools have become basically pagan, albeit in a new guise. Sacrifice your children and give your wealth to the weather gods. Whatever their “scientific” pretense, the only real option to true Christianity is baalism. Science without God promised to make Man into god, the manipulator of nature. Modern man got more than he bargained for apparently—anthropogenic climate change. Frustratingly, the weather is not a vehicle we know how to drive properly. It possesses a seemingly infinite number of variables. Like your average shopping cart on swivelling wheels, it seems to have a mind of its own. It does have a mind of its own but it is not mechanistic. The weather is the chariot of God, and He never takes His hand off the wheel. [2]

Covenant Science

As Gary North observed, “power religion” assumes control over nature through “stimulation,” whether that be oblations to the gods, infant sacrifice, or religious prostitution. Nature is Man’s to manipulate. Man makes the miracles.

“Dominion religion,” however, is a different process. The blessings of abundance, of “increase,” are to be gained miraculously, but at the hand of God, not through manipulation but through obedience. This is what we see in the life of Joseph. Wherever he served, his faithfulness resulted in abundance. His masters recognized that the Spirit of God was with him.

Modern science was the direct result of men who submitted to God. The amazing discoveries and advances we enjoy were all gifts to the minds of men by the Spirit of God. Because we were made in the image of God, we can use these gifts as blessings or as curses. Nuclear fission and genetic modification of food are prime examples. This is because every gift is intended to bring greater judicial maturity.

Our leaders do esteem “ethics,” but not God’s ethics. They intend to do what is right, but what is right in their own eyes, not the eyes of God, who can see much further and whose sight is far keener.

Watching commentators from the Right and the Left argue about how much taxation is right, and where those dollars should be spent to solve our problems, is frustrating. An example might be the current desire to spend untold millions on mental health. Nobody ever mentions sin. Why does no one ever mention that infidelity costs Australia between 3 and 6 billion dollars every year, not to mention the resulting delinquency of children and burgeoning mental health problems? If anybody, even jokingly, suggested that it would be good if we all tried to keep the Ten Commandments, they would be ridiculed and shouted down. Religion is a private matter, they would say. And what goes on in the bedroom is nobody else’s business.

Turns out it is everybody’s business. These educated people are extremely stupid.

Based on the blessings and curses of the One who rides a chariot of fire in a cloud of glory, anthropogenic climate change is indeed possible. In Deuteronomy 28, Moses gave Israel a great list of blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. These cover the natural realm (the Land and the womb) as well as Israel’s economic status in relation to other nations. Land, womb and nations sounds very Abrahamic. That’s because it is, and it is also the reason Israel suffered so many famines in her history. It was always the result of the shedding of innocent blood.

And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God… Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. The Lord xwill cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven way. The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. (Deuteronomy 28:1, 6, 7, 12)

But if the Covenant, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, now includes all nations, is it beyond possibility that God would bless a faithful, obedient nation or culture with good weather, with rain in due season, with a decrease in mutating diseases or problems like food allergies, diabetes, autism and cancer? Is it beyond possibility that the reason for our food allergies may be deeper than we think, and related to the fact that we no longer say grace before our meals?

I am a postmillennialist, and thus an optimist. This is not only because of the way in which I interpret Scripture but also my faith in the character of God. Peak oil and a climate tipping point don’t seem to fit with Jesus’ plan for the world. He kept fingers off red buttons during the Cold War and He will continue to restrain evil until His work is done and His words are vindicated before all nations.

Things this side of the final judgment will never be perfect, but things are getting better, thanks to the many blessings brought about by the incarnation and resurrection, the Scriptures, and two millennia of Christianity. All improvement comes from the Spirit of Christ, whether it be in medicine, technology or even widespread literacy (another problem which the idiot statists believe can be solved with money). If we do not wish to lose these blessings, we need to humble ourselves and repent before God as a culture. Stopping the murder of the unborn, the shedding of innocent blood, is the first place to start. The goddess of “sexual freedom” behind these murders would be next. This cultural repentance can only occur if it begins in the Church, the source of all new spiritual life, and the guardian of the sacred heart of any nation.

Certainly, climate science is not a simple issue, and we must keep our wits about us, but we must not surrender to the baalism of the secular state, which calls us to sacrifice our children for prosperity and give our wealth to the weather gods. These people have unimaginable amounts of data at their fingertips, yet they interpret it all in the dim light of their naturalist fantasy. CO2 is a “Day 3″ blessing from God, oil (and other fossil fuels) is a “Day 4″ blessing from God. As history moves from Garden to City, who knows what our good God has in store for us next. The 20th Century brought blessings and curses which would have been unimaginable in the 19th. Like Joseph, we just need to trust and obey, let the Pharaohs be humbled by their bad dreams, and let God bring the increase. Our Joseph is always one step ahead of the weather.

________________________________
[1] The title refers to the song “Weather With You” by Crowded House.
[2] For some more thoughts on the weather, concerning “the sons of thunder,” see Jesus’ New Broom.

Last week, Peter Leithart commented on an interview with Professor Simon Conway Morris. I sent the link to my expert friend, Tas Walker, and he has discussed it a little less briefly:

Paleobiologist Simon Conway Morris, of Burgess Shale fame, says that examination of the fossil evidence demands a radical rewriting of evolution. Why so?

In an interview with the University of Cambridge’s alumni magazine (Issue 65, Lent 2012, pp. 32–35) Conway Morris says it’s because of “convergence”.

That’s the tendency of very different organisms to evolve similar solutions to biological problems. He wrote of this phenomenon extensively in his 2003 book Life’s Solution.

Conway Morris illustrates with the “camera eye”—“the kind of eye which you are using to read this feature.” That eye comprises a lens suspended between two fluid-filled chambers.

Conway Morris points to the octopus, which:

“has a camera eye which is remarkably similar to our own. … And yet we know that the octopus belongs to an invertebrate group called the cephalopod molluscs, evolutionarily very distant indeed from the chordates to which we belong.

“The common ancient ancestor of molluscs and chordates could not possibly have possessed a camera eye, so quite clearly they have evolved independently. The solution has been arrived at by completely different routes.”

Or, as the interview explained, “evolution has converged on a solution.”

Convergence is a simple word used to hide evidence for design. Convergence means that the Creator used similar designs for similar functions in unrelated creatures.

The interview continues:

“Most biologists agree that convergence is a common occurrence; but Conway Morris goes a step further, believing that evolution converges on the best possible solution, rather than on a best fit, random solution.”

Conway Morris says his discussion of convergence has lead many commentators to accuse him of being a creationist—something he finds amusing, but says is rubbish.

Of course, Conway Morris has to distance himself from creation explanations because scientific institutions have been taken over by a philosophy of naturalism. They are committed to finding naturalistic solutions. No matter what evidence is found, creation is forbidden. Anyone advocating a creationist solution will likely lose their job (see Expelled).

Conway Morris concludes that “the manner in which life constructs itself must be dealing with some other principle which we’ve failed to identify.”

Failed to identify! 150 years of evolutionary research but its basic principle has not been identified? It’s amusing how our intelligent, academic culture is confounded by the clear, simple evidence for design in the living world.

And they will continue to be confounded so long as they refuse to allow a Divine foot in the door.

Further Reading
Review of Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe (pdf) by Simon Conway Morris, in which he deals extensively with convergence.

A rejection of Biblical history and its chronology of the planet might be the cause for one of science’s greatest mistakes.

My friend Tas Walker writes:

I just listened to a podcast by climate scientist Murry Salby to the Sydney Institute entitled “Global Emission of Carbon Dioxide: The Contribution from Natural Sources.”

During question time toward the end of the recording (55min 15sec) he says:

Just a historical note, the guy who started this was a Swedish chemist whose lab I used to work at Stockholm by the name of Arrhenius. He won the Nobel Prize for chemistry and for his understanding of the temperature dependence of chemical reactions he got the Nobel Prize. He got into this and he started the whole global warming thing because he was actually trying to explain ice ages and he saw CO2 varied and temperature varied and he figured maybe CO2 caused the Ice Age. Now I don’t think anyone believes that anymore …

In other words, the whole idea that global warming is caused by CO2 came out of the need to explain what caused the Ice Age—a mystery that still eludes modern scientists.

In the Wikipedia entry on Arrhenius it says:

He was the first person to predict that emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels and other combustion processes would cause global warming. Arrhenius clearly believed that a warmer world would be a positive change. From that, the hot-house theory gained more attention. Nevertheless, until about 1960, most scientists dismissed the hot-house / greenhouse effect as implausible for the cause of ice ages as Milutin Milankovitch had presented a mechanism using orbital changes of the earth (Milankovitch cycles). Nowadays, the accepted explanation is that orbital forcing sets the timing for ice ages with CO2 acting as an essential amplifying feedback.

Note the term “amplifying feedback”. This means that Milankovitch cycles are not enough to explain the Ice Ages, which is understandable considering the relatively small variations in orbital parameters for the earth. So, they added a positive feedback mechanism from CO2. A positive feedback means the system is unstable, which explains why many scientists today are concerned about global warming and the earth reaching an unstable tipping point.

The problem is that these scientists have ignored the huge climate catastrophe of Noah’s Flood. By ignoring the Flood they cannot explain the post-Flood (Pleistocene) Ice Age. The Ice Age was the earth’s thermal response to the massive climate shock caused by the biblical Flood. It was largely the volcanic activity during that year-long event that produced the necessary conditions—warm oceans and volcanic dust high in the atmosphere. But the earth returned to equilibrium in about 700 years, demonstrating that it is a stable system. The biblical Flood provides the only explanation for the Ice Age.

See how a wrong understanding of the true history of the earth leads to a misunderstanding of what is happening in the present. And a wrong understanding will lead to wrong decisions about what we need to do.

or Playing Poison with Genesis 1

You know how it is when you read one of your favourite theologians and they come up with a real clanger? It’s yes, wow, yes, I’m with you, and then the train of thought jumps the tracks—at least as far as you, the reader, are concerned. It’s like me reading a good Presbyterian who without any warning flies off the wall and marries chalk and cheese to prove the Bible teaches infant baptism. Or it’s you reading this blog watching me fly off the wall every now and then (but it’s all completely logical in my mind—believe me! Bully is never wrong!)

Anyhow, J. L. Vaughan, a “Covenant Creationist” on the AV forum pointed out this article by Brian Godawa, who is both a theologian and a screenwriter. I have featured Brian’s articles on the Abrahamic Covenant, Matthew 24 and Daniel 9 on my old The Last Days page. He is logical and easy to understand. And he’s a preterist. But then he jumps the tracks (as far as I’m concerned) and goes and parrots this drivel:

The literary conventions employed in Genesis chapter 1 mark it out, not as a scientific document describing material origins, but as a literary polemic against surrounding ancient Near Eastern pagan religions. This interpretation divests the text from any obligation to communicate “accurate science” to the modern reader. Genesis 1 is a theological-political document that has nothing to do with science as the modern reader understands it. Creation language here and elsewhere in Scripture is not about establishing scientific origins of material substance and structure but about covenantal establishment and worldview. [1]

Where is the textual or historical evidence for Genesis being a polemic against anything? Is it addressed to the Hebrews in the wilderness? Or does it instead show signs that it was recorded generation by generation from the beginning?

I am not a scientist. I am a professional storyteller. My interests lie in understanding the literary genres and cultural contexts of the Bible as it existed within an ancient Near Eastern worldview that included common metaphors, images and concepts. As readers displaced from such an ancient world by time, space, and culture, we will misread the text through our own cultural prejudice if we do not seek to understand it through the eyes of its original writers and readers. Creation stories (cosmogonies) are particularly vulnerable to this kind of interpretive violence.

The literary conventions, the chiastic structures and the Covenant pattern, do not support this false dichotomy whatsoever. The Bible does not separate symbol and history. These factors actually demonstrate that the physical Creation itself is both Word and Covenant.

A literal reading is cultural prejudice? Basically, the readers of Genesis, until modern evolutionary fantasies, believed it recorded the Creation of the universe out of nothing. It’s the moderns who are guilty of the interpretive GBH. Their theories concerning the text’s origin and purpose have no support, either internal or external. Not a shred. They are just a convenient construction.

On the same site, Peter Enns shows where his faith lies when he lists reasons why Genesis can’t be taken literally, ie. he bows obediently to pop-science and pop-history, which are constantly in flux and based on a faulty paradigm manufactured to free science from Moses. [2]

The biblical depiction of human origins, if taken literally, presents Adam as the very first human being ever created. He was not the product of an evolutionary process, but a special creation of God a few thousand years before Jesus—roughly speaking, about 6000 years ago. Every single human being that has ever lived can trace his/her genetic history to that one person. This is a problem because it is at odds with everything else we know about the past from the natural sciences and cultural remains.

A strictly literal reading of the Adam story does not fit with what we know of the past. Some choose to ignore the data altogether. Others marginalize or interpret the data idiosyncratically to salvage some type of literal/historical reading. But, by and large, everyone—even including this latter group—has to do some creative thinking about how to handle the Adam story. A “just read it literally” mentality is not an available option. “What do I do with the Adam story?” is a real and pressing question for most people of faith. [3]

Perhaps these people should be taking a closer look at their faith? At least he’s honest about the text, and his reasons for misreading it. Enns goes on to discuss the problem of Paul’s extremely inconvenient belief in a literal Adam, and concludes, logically, that

The tensions between science and faith, specifically evolution and Christianity, center on the issue of Paul’s Adam. As such, I think this is where our theological energies need to be invested.

Yes, we must find a way to mix chalk and cheese. What he really means is that Paul disagrees with Peter Enns’ pitiable compromise on Genesis, and so we must now employ our capricious and schizophrenic hermeneutic to deconstruct Paul in the same manner. But then, according to Brian, God was just speaking through a man who was thoroughly “enculturated,” surely? Oh, sorry. We can’t apply the same criteria to the New Testament writers, can we.

James Jordan gets it right. He believes these gents have a twofold process to get to what they think Genesis is really about, since they refuse to acknowledge its actual clarity:

1. Filter the Bible through the baalism of modern science, which, very agreeably, dislodges it from history.
2. Filter it again through the “conflict with chaos” baalism of the ancients.

He concludes that this is just the same as 19th century liberalism. Not that we would want to call anyone names.

Godawa summarises his paper with a paragraph that can be boiled down thusly:

1. Genesis 1 follows a pattern that occurs later in Scripture.
2. The later patterns are not ex nihilo Creation, so neither is Genesis 1, ie. God is just moving stuff around that was already old, and giving it new Covenantal meaning by naming it.

This is the same logic one would use to prove that the real Mona Lisa is a forgery because it looks like the paintings in a room full of confiscated fake Mona Lisas. Mind-numbingly brilliant logic, I must say.

There’s also a video of N. T. Wright on the BioLogos website in which he states that Americans are wrong to link the fight over Creationism with social issues. [4] Now that is a real hall-of-fame, win-the-teddy clanger. It’s amazing how very bright people often overlook the obvious. I bet he baptizes babies, too.

____________________________________________________________
[1] Brian Godawa, Biblical Creation and Storytelling: Cosmogony, Combat and Covenant [PDF]  Brian quotes John Sailhamer a lot. See Jordan on Sailhamer beginning here.
[2] See Tas Walker’s review of The Dating Game for how the establishment of the earth’s age really was a game. Spin the wheel.
[3] Peter Enns, Paul’s Adam Part I
[4] See Tas Walker’s Peace with Evolution for some clear thinking on this.

The Sydney Anglicans are rightly respected for their stand on biblical authority. But in a recent publication, they call for seeing Genesis as ‘figurative’.

by Dr Tas Walker | 13 October 2006 | www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4690

In Australia, the Sydney diocese of the Anglican Church (equivalent to the Episcopalian Church in the USA) has always stood out within its denomination as being strongly evangelical. The October 2006 issue of The Briefing, a monthly publication of the Sydney Anglicans, deals with a topic that the editor said they have long resisted because of its controversy: creation, evolution and the early chapters of Genesis.1

The Sydney Anglican diocese has consistently taken a stand on the authority of the Word of God—up to a point as we shall see—even in the face of criticism, mockery and hostility. At present, the diocese is upholding scriptural standards within the worldwide Anglican Communion, which is embroiled in controversy over the ordination of homosexual bishops.

Peter Jensen, Archbishop of the Sydney Diocese said, ‘[T]he crisis in the Communion is about the relation between culture and revelation, liberalism and the Bible. It may show itself in the area of human sexuality, but it really goes back to the authority of Scripture and our willingness to be subservient to its teaching despite the unpopularity which this may bring in the world and in the church.’2

In the same October issue, the Dean of Sydney Cathedral, Phillip Jensen, proposed a plan whereby the ‘unhappy divisions’ can be resolved. Simply put he called for a return to ‘orthodox Christian belief’—for ‘repentance’.3

It is interesting that these two issues should appear in the same publication because they are connected. However, on the creation/evolution issue the position advocated in The Briefing is very different. Instead of accepting what the Scripture plainly says about how God created, The Briefing promotes all sorts of ways that Christians can harmonize their thinking with the ideas of our modern culture.

The lead article by Sandy Grant, Senior Canon at St Michael’s, Wollongong, is entitled ‘Reading Genesis’. He freely acknowledged that Genesis literally says that the creation days were six 24-hour periods, that this is indicated by the context, and that the God of the Bible is big enough to do what the Bible says he did.

However, Sandy Grant does not advocate a literal interpretation because:

‘… this certainly contradicts a massive amount of evidence accumulated by scientists as to how the world developed—over a period of millions or billions of years. And so the six days have become a laughing stock amongst many of them.’

The point of the article, it seems, is to find a biblical justification for not accepting Genesis as written.

In an earlier issue of The Briefing Mark Thompson of Moore Theological College, the world-respected training college of Sydney Anglicans, said:

‘You are simply out of step with genuine apostolic Christianity of the last 2,000 years if you deny the authority of Scripture. Which is why, in the end, so few actually deny it, at least explicitly and directly. Nevertheless, as every student of church history soon learns, there is more than one way to avoid a doctrine you consider to be “inconvenient”.’4

So how do we avoid a literal reading of early Genesis? To Sandy Grant it is through ‘the genre, or literary style, of the literature.’

‘This is not to say that early Genesis is untrue or non-historical. But we need to recognize it as a different type of history. Perhaps we could call it “figurative history”—that is, history that has artistic figurative elements, which do not necessarily need to be taken literally.’

I must say I am confused about the term ‘figurative history’. If chapters 1–11 are figurative, does that mean that chapters 12–50—which has exactly the same genre—are figurative too? But if Abraham and Isaac are real people doing real things in real time, then when did the genre of Genesis switch? Why is it that Jesus did not recognize the change in genre? Why did he refer to Abel as a real person? Why did Luke mix up real and figurative people in his genealogy? Why did the writer to the Hebrews include figurative people with his real heroes of the faith? (See also [Link] Genesis: Bible authors believed it to be history).

The literary framework and figurative genre are the thrust of Henri Blocher’s book In the Beginning which is favorably recommended in The Briefing.5 In James Davidson’s review he described the conflict he encountered in Genesis during his geological training, and said that Blocher answered all his questions about Genesis.

In his book, Blocher demolishes two popular attempts to harmonise Scripture with the long geological ages, namely the gap theory and the day-age theory (and young-earth creationists would agree wholeheartedly—see chapters 2 and 3 of the Answers Book).6

But he won’t accept a straightforward reading of Scripture because ‘The rejection of all the theories accepted by the scientists requires considerable bravado.’ In other words, the world’s scientific culture takes precedence; so despite Moore College’s claim to believe in Sola Scriptura, they in reality promote Scriptura sub scientia. And in order to avoid the plain meaning of the text, Blocher develops a convoluted argument about literary genre and figurative history.

Considering the standing that Blocher has within Sydney Anglican circles, it is surprising that Sandy Grant’s article would suggest the day-age idea as a serious option for interpreting Genesis. He even comments that there are some interesting parallels between Genesis and the accepted evolutionary order, but does not mention any of the fatal flaws detailed by Blocher (see also [link] Two worldviews in conflict: Evolution is absolutely opposed to the Bible). However, I don’t think he really considered it as a viable option, given the speed with which he passed over it. Perhaps he threw it out to give the impression ‘Look, there are lots of ways of understanding Genesis, so you don’t have to accept it as the original audience would have understood it.’

Darryl Falk, author of ‘Coming to Peace with Science’, was also interviewed favourably in The Briefing.7 A few months ago, Falk gave an invited lecture to the staff and students of Moore Theological College. I heard him present two lectures in Brisbane, the thrust of which was captured in the published interview:

‘I want to show Christians why it’s clear from a biological point of view that the earth is old and that God created gradually [i.e. by evolution], and that believing this doesn’t need to shake up their faith.’

But Falk is wrong on two counts. First he is wrong on his facts. In his book and lectures he misrepresented the Galileo Affair, was subjective, inaccurate and out-of-date with the scientific evidence, and displayed an almost total disconnect between scripture and the real world. No—we do not need to surrender biblical Authority.

Second, he is wrong on the consequences. If we accept what Falk advocates it will shake up our faith. Bishop Spong of the Episcopal Church of America explains the connections clearly and logically:

‘Charles Darwin … destroyed the primary myth [figurative history?] by which we had told the Jesus story for centuries … That myth suggested that there was a finished creation from which we human beings had fallen into sin, and therefore needed a rescuing divine presence to lift us back to what God had originally created us to be.

‘But Charles Darwin says that there was no perfect creation because it is not yet finished. … there was rather a single cell that emerged slowly over 4½ to 5 billion years, into increasing complexity, into increasing consciousness.

‘And so the story of Jesus who comes to rescue us from the Fall becomes a nonsensical story. So how can we tell the Jesus story with integrity and with power, against the background of a humanity that is not fallen but is simply unfinished?’8

However, although Spong is logical and consistent, he is wrong because he is wrong about evolution being true. See also a refutation of his many errant ideas about the Bible, theology and morality. Note also, there will be a detailed refutation of Falk by Alex Williams in the next issue of the Journal of Creation (20(3)).

And if there is to be any hope of the liberals in the Anglican communion changing their minds, as Dean Phillip Jensen urged, then the issue of evolution, the major obstacle to their accepting biblical authority, must be dealt with.

That is why Christians need to understand a few basic concepts about how science works, like the difference between operational and historical science. It is important to realise that with historical science all the so-called scientific facts are not facts but interpretations of facts. And the billions of years are not measured but assumed.

Christians should be aware that evolution over billions of years is an idea, a philosophy, that has arisen because scientists have been purposely ignoring the real history of creation and the Flood, as the Apostle Peter so clearly warned 2 Peter 3:3–7. We should be informed about the abundant evidence that is consistent with a plain reading of Genesis and of the fact that many respected scientists believe in creation in six days some 6,000 years ago. If we are informed, then, even if we don’t know all the scientific details, we will have sufficient knowledge, experience and respect for the Scriptures to be sceptical of the conflicting claims scientists are making in our world today.

The position advocated by The Briefing is neither biblical nor scientific. It is a no-man’s land and unstable in the long term. Thus, the Sydney Anglican Diocese will inevitably move from the position advocated in The Briefing. The question is: which way?

One Anglican, a medical doctor, told us how he struggled with this issue:

‘I’m a general practitioner in [name of town] ([name] Anglican Church) and have moved over the last 8 years from evolutionist (+God) to theistic evolutionist to progressive creationist to arrive, only in the last couple of months, at young earth creationist. This is despite having been given a copy of Ian Plimer’s book about 9 years ago which, as intended by the giver, gave a very negative view of YEC. I have now found the rebuttal on the web page, but this was after my change of heart, which was obviously in God’s good time.

‘It’s been exciting to find Creation.com … and the DVDs and books and website are quickly answering all the questions that the other views couldn’t. One of the web pages says that the other Christian views are unstable and my experience testifies to that.’

I am pleased that the editors of The Briefing had the courage to bring this issue into the open. It is a good development and should motivate us to prayer and action. I have long admired the Sydney Anglicans, their stand and their achievements. I pray for their leaders often, especially when I hear the media mocking them for standing up for the gospel.

We need to pray that there may be a breakthrough, that there will be a willingness to also submit to the Word of God in this foundational area. The secular world recognises that it is vital to their humanistic philosophy and vehemently defends evolution. In fact, they recruit the liberal churchians to support them in their efforts. Please pray that the eyes of prominent leaders of the churches and theological colleges will be opened and that they will have the courage to change their minds on this issue.

What a difference that will make in the world Anglican Communion.

References and Notes

The design of Genesis, The Briefing 337, p. 3, Oct. 2006.
Jensen, P., The future of Christianity, 10 Oct. 2006.
Jensen, P., The world Anglican Game, The Briefing 337, p. 30, Oct. 2006.
Thompson, M., Searching for clarity, The Briefing 330, pp.9–12, March 2006.
Davidson, J., Review: In the Beginning, The Briefing 337, p. 22–23, Oct. 2006.
Blocher, H., In The Beginning, Inter Varsity Press, Leicester, England, pp. 39–59, 1984.
Is Intelligent Design good science? The Briefing 337, pp. 17–19, Oct. 2006.
ABC TV Compass interview with Bishop John Shelby Spong, by Geraldine Doogue, in front of a live audience at the Eugene Groosen Hall, ABC Studios, Ultimo, Sydney, Australia, 8 July 2000. Copied from transcript at www.abc.net.au/compass/intervs/spong2001.htm, 6 August 2001.

Tas Walker’s bio