Evolution via Fiat Initiation

The struggle in being open minded is that there is often a lot of mind changing you have to do along the way. Apparently, to change one’s mind, at least as President, is not a good thing. We seem to scorn those who, as adults, have not formulated a concrete position on every important issue. This is the evolution/creation struggle for me. I write down my own thoughts and possibilities at any given moment and then later find that I disagree with some portion of my own conclusions, which were really just a mixture of other’s conclusions to start with. Trying to blend the extremist views on these subjects is like trying to find a place where the pro-life camp and the pro-choice camp are willing to meet.
Human beings, almost by definition, are addicted to control. We loath situations where we are not in control. This is why I hate flying. I am not scared about mechanical failure in the plane, in part because I understand what goes into certifying a plane to start with, but I am scared about the pilots ability to handle the mechanical failure. Even more than that I am scared about the pilots ability to handle himself. Has he had enough sleep? Is he on drugs or has he been drinking? Is there something stressful going on in his life that would distract him from some minute detail that is the difference between landing and crashing? Ultimately, I don’t like that he is in control of my life and I am not.
This obsessive need for control, I believe, is the reason we adamantly refuse to acknowledge points of views that are opposite. No one is allowed to believe that abortion is both morally wrong and definitionally murder, and that it should be an individuals legal choice. The longer I go down the path of the creation/evolution debate the more I find the same scenario. Those who believe in evolution do not want a modified theory of God directed or God initiated evolution. That is not measurable or testable and it opens the door to religion which, in this culture, admittedly or not, is the enemy of “real science”. Those who believe in creation do not want an adapted story where God works through process over time. To admit that we are in any way even remotely related to an animal is demeaning to all mankind and clearly contrary to what it means to be made “in God’s image”.
So I continue down the lonely path marked with signs that say “I’m not sure”, “I can’t figure that part out”, or just flat out “I don’t know”. It is a path far away from certainty. There are those who are less hostile to me walking down this path, but even they are not willing to walk it with me. Except for my husband, whom I love even more for that fact alone. He is willing to walk that path on some things more than anyone I know, and he is as scientific and analytical in his thinking as the rest of them. It is natural for a theatre, communication major to think outside the box; art people never believe in boxes to start with. Engineers and scientist can’t breathe without boxes. This is one of their main hang-ups with God…he is far to “unboxable” for comfort.
Funny thing is, if you go to church for very long you will learn that most denominational and doctrinal differences come from people finding that their neighbors view of God doesn’t fit into the box they have already put him in and thus their neighbors God can not be the same God, or even a legitimate God, at all. As I say this I do need to clarify that I believe in truth. I believe that truth is knowable and I believe that if “a” is true, “non-a” can not also be true. God is not everything and anything, because otherwise he is nothing and everything at the same time and that is a logical fallacy I can not embrace. If you wish to embrace that kind of philosophy, Hinduism is probably your best bet, for in Hinduism one can be an atheist and his neighbor a polytheist and both still be Hindu. I am not a Hindu, I am a Christian, so definitionally, my God is a little more boxed in.
Whether I am moving more towards the evolution box or the creation box on my next thought is hard to know. I have been thinking about the day thing some more. That seems to be the real hang-up. Evolution needs more than six 24-hour days and creation does not except anything more than that as contextually Biblically correct. So it would appear that evolution can not be Biblically correct and that creation can not be scientifically accurate. I have found and discussed the word for “day” in the Hebrew and that it can be interpreted, legitimately, as meaning any length of time. This is not ok with Bible scholars though, who know that from the surrounding text it is a stretch at best to say that “day” or “age” are interchangeable in these passages. The morning and evening thing, regardless of how they were measured with out the sun the first three days, still do not allow for “ages”. So maybe the days are not complete works but initiated works.
I’m toying with calling it evolution via fiat initiation. God initiates a process, in whatever measurable or immeasurable way and the process evolves from there. So a time line would look something like this:
God initiates the universe, call it big bang if you want…time passes, the universe develops.
Day one: God initiates light on the surface of the earth, oxygen catastrophe or whatever. The initiation happens in one 24-hour day. Time passes, the earth develops.
Day two: God initiates environmental changes in the structure of water placement on the earth. Time passes, the earth develops.
Day three: God initiates land development and plant beginnings…
Day four: God initiates more atmospheric changes so that the already existing sun, moon and stars are now visible from earth…
Day five: God initiates sea life and birds…
Day six: God initiates land mammals…
How extensively he initiates things is not the question. I don’t think it matters if he creates the beginning cells or if he creates different versions of what we have now. The compromise can not be made on whether or not he did the work. God is involved. He isn’t a passive observer to our universe. The compromise that can be made is in areas like how time passed while he was creating and in what ways he created, be it miraculously or through process. I, for one, do not find creation through process to be a less involved method, or even a less miraculous one.
This is my thought for now. Actual 24-hour days, separated by gaps of time. What is noted in the Genesis text is what happened at specific points in time when God was doing specific things. I still hold that Adam was a special creation, different from the other men who had evolved at the time he was created. But that is a blog of the past…not that new thoughts on it will not surface as well.

A little Easter theology

Whether man is inherently neutral or inherently evil at some point every one chooses to do the wrong thing. You’ve done it, I’ve done it…the whole world has done it. The Christian perspective says that the wrong we do separates us from being able to have a relationship with a just God. Still, God wanted a relationship with us and so he sent Christ to pay the penalty of our wrong.

I have been asked before why Jesus had to die. Why couldn’t there be some other way. I’d like to address that more in depth.

1st: The Law: When God established the law, his relationship and his covenant with his people, Moses, the leader of the Israelites, sprinkled the blood of an animal on the people saying “This is the blood of the covenant.” Blood covenants meant if you didn’t keep your part of the covenant it was within the law for the offended party to have you put to death. Well, the Israelites sucked at keeping the law and so they broke their part of the covenant. The penalty for that was death. God didn’t want to kill them so God told the people that he would accept the sacrifice of an animal’s blood in their place to cover their violation of the law. But his relationship with them was not the same.

Once a year the high priest would take a sacrifice into the Most Holy Place and sprinkle the blood on the altar to make atonement for his sins and the sins of the people. The Most Holy Place was separated from the rest of the temple by a large curtain for in the Most Holy Place dwelt God’s physical presence. God could not meet with man face to face for man was still sinful and the sheer holiness of God’s presence would kill them. See, the problem with animal sacrifices is that an animal can not possibly be a complete adequate substitute for a human being who is made in God’s image. Hebrews 9:9 explains that “the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper.” While the animal’s blood covered them, it was not a permanent covering and thus they had to come every year and make a new sacrifice.

2. Why blood?Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain killed Abel, and when he did so God said to Cain, “Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” The Bible explains that “the life of a creature is in the blood.” When a person is killed, their blood is shed and that life that is extinguished unjustly cries to God for justice. That is why God set the law in place saying, “Whoever sheds human blood by human beings shall their blood be shed for in the image of God has God made human kind.” Murder showed contempt for God by killing that which was made in his image and the penalty for that was death. Even more so the only thing that could pardon one man’s life (one mans blood) was to have blood shed for his guilt. Either his own, or the sacrificial blood of another. Either way, God could not be just in his character and allow wrong to go unpunished. There had to be blood. Hebrews 9:22 explains, “The law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood and with out the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

About the blood of Christ: The night before Christ died he ate the Passover meal with the disciples and he offered them a cup of wine saying “this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sin.” He was establishing a new covenant with them, one that was not dependent on their keeping of the law or on the blood of animals to cover their sin. His blood was going to cover mankind once and for all. Romans 3:25-26 puts it like this: “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood – to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his justice…so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” Christ’s death provided a way for God to show us mercy, and yet maintain the constancy of his just character and still preserve our free will - for while the sacrifice has been made to cover your sins, you must choose to accept it by faith.

So going back to the law: Christ came as our spiritual high priest to enter the Most Holy Place, not by the blood of an animal but by his own blood, once for all, thus obtaining eternal redemption and ending the need for perpetual sacrifices. For while the blood of animals made man ceremonially clean on the outside the blood of Christ cleanses our conscience thus removing sin’s defilement from the very core of our being.

3. The symbol of the blood: The shedding of the blood was also symbolic. When God set the people of Israel free from the Egyptians he did so by sending plagues upon the land. One of the plagues was the death of the first born of everything. In order to protect His people God had them paint the blood of a lamb over their door post and when the angel of death came he would pass over the houses with the blood and they would not suffer death. After that point the Israelites celebrated “pass over” as a time to commemorate what God did to set them free. When Jesus came he was called the Lamb of God, and he was crucified during the time the Jews were celebrating the Passover feast. Thus his blood symbolically became the “covering” over us so that we would not suffer death.

Even more, when Jesus died, the curtain in the temple that separated the Most Holy Place from the rest of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. Thus symbolizing that man was no longer kept away from the presence of God but now could freely walk in a new and lasting relationship with him. So what does this mean? Ephesians 3:13-17 says “But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself…has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility for through him we have access to the Father.” Christ restored our relationship with God. Hebrews 12:24 summarizes it like this: “Jesus the mediator of the New Covenant and his blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” Before, the blood that cried to God cried for justice, for vengeance on man for his sin. Now the blood that cries before God is the blood of Christ which provides mercy for us. All we have to do is accept it.

Thoughts since January

I am a terrible blogger. I just can't make myself sit down and process my thoughts intelligently on any kind of a regular basis. I think about evolution far less often now. (Probably due to the lack of engineering minds in my life. Apparently, the rest of the world is just not that concerned about it.) Still, it is apparent that it is a topic that lives in the background of most minds. Side comments get made frequently.

The debate could become more a fore thought in the future as Obama has mentioned "science standards" in schools a couple of times but so long as people are losing their retirement, jobs and houses I doubt anyone will care much which theory of origin gets taught in school.

Which makes me wonder, "What will I teach my children?" I am still highly uncertain in where I stand on most of the details and frankly, I often feel that the details are not a hill I am willing to die on. I am a Christian, I believe in a Creator - of that there is no falter. What, when, and how the Creator did his work in the past and does it in the present is something I don't claim to know with any ounce of certainty. I am fine with a dualistic road at this point, but dualism is confusing to children. But then again, most 5 year olds aren't asking a lot of questions about it, so maybe it's not a big deal.

I plan to home school for a while, at least through Jr. High, as I am convinced that public Jr. High is the biggest waist of hours of time that there is. It is basically a recap of elementary school mixed with emerging hormones and developing self-image. Thanks, but no thanks. I don't plan to home school so that I can brain wash my children into thinking what I think and I know that home schooling can be done in such a way that the child is not made socially awkward in the process.

I think home schooling can be the best environment to discuss evolution and creation. You get to hammer things out together. What does this book say? What does this opposing book say? How valid is either argument? What does either side have to lose/gain by being wrong/right? What do you think personally? Let me tell you, that last question doesn't get asked enough in school at any level. We are all told, "think this," so we memorize whatever random information we have to in order to pass the test and then we proceed to forget it because we never had an original thought about it in the first place. We are no longer a society that values individual thought. We value regurgitated mantras of those who have gone before us, those who thought for themselves in decades past.

I want nothing more for my children than for them to be able to look at an argument, evaluate both sides objectively, and to make a decisions about what they think is true. If they can learn that then they will not be swayed by peer-pressure, smooth talkers, political think-tanks, the evening news or car salesmen (the last of which I am personally dealing with right now and am decidedly disgusted with most of the time.)

Oh, and I want my children to realize that it is ok to not know which side is right, to be an undecided voter, to only stake themselves on that which truly convinces them and on nothing less. And even if truly convinced, to be willing to still listen to the other side occasionally. No one has it all right. There is something to be learned from every voice - except for car salesmen.

Thoughts in 2009

A pastor friend of mine recently sent me a bunch of articles when he found out that I believed evolution was a viable possibility with in an accurate interpretation of scripture. This is just some thoughts spurred by those articles. Let me just lead with this fore thought though.

I do not truly care how God made the world. I believe that He did. My salvation and theology are not threatened by evolution being true and they are not threatened if evolution is found false. God can make the world in 6 days. He is God. He is limitless in His ability and creativity. He could make the world through process over millions of years and not be any less involved or any less all-powerful. Mostly, I defend TE because it opens the door for those who find Genesis to be a stumbling block to accepting Christ. Some feel that they simply can not reject science and accept the "lunacy" of a six-day miracle creation and TE allows me to say to them "You don't have to. The Bible can be accurately interpreted to incorporate evolution with out compromising the Gospel at all." So if you believe in 6 day miracle creation, fine, the Bible supports that. If you believe in evolution, fine, the Bible supports that too - as long as God is the initiator and governor of that process.

So on to the articles.


It is often said by those who opposed to Theistic Evolution (TE) that "Evolution = matter + evolutionary factors (chance and necessity + mutation + selection + isolation + death) + very long time periods." and that "In the theistic evolutionary view, God is added:
Theistic evolution = matter + evolutionary factors (chance and necessity + mutation + selection + isolation + death) + very long time periods + God."

I understand this tactic. One of the best ways to argue a point it to misrepresent your opponents view, right? TE is not a belief that God is simply one of the factors, it is the view that God used the factors. God used mutation and selection, and what we see as chance and necessity wasn't random but God directing the events of history to lead us to the point in time in which we are presently. He is still all powerful and TE does not limit his power in any way; He simply is a God who chose to create the world through fiat miracle and process (much as His creation continues today, hmmm?) instead of through fiat miracle alone.

I have heard the argument that "In TE, God becomes a God of the Gaps. In TE the only workspace allotted to God is that part of nature which evolution cannot ‘explain’ with the means presently at its disposal. In this way He is reduced to being a ‘god of the gaps’ for those phenomena about which there are doubts. This leads to the view that ‘God is therefore not absolute, but He Himself has evolved—He is evolution"

The logic assumptions in this point are amazing. Because God used evolution, He himself evolved? That doesn't even make any sense. Even if God used fiat miracle, is He then the product of some other miracle? No. He is outside of His method. That is all we are discussing here is method. Further more, it is Intelligent Design (ID), not TE, that makes God the God of the Gaps, as ID is the theory that says that only things that are "irreducibly complex", only the things that science can not yet explain, bear wittiness to a designer. TE place God as the initiator, creator and governor of all of creation - any statement that TE states otherwise is a misrepresentation.

Furthermore, TE does not deny the central teachings of the Bible. TE does not read the Bible as myth or allegory but as a statement of the actual historical process. The Hebrew text allows for the word "day" to be interpreted as any other period of time, or even as an undetermined period of time. But I digress. The point that TE denies the Bible is an invalid one as it is based entirely off of a misunderstanding of the TE position.

Then they go on in other articles to argue other points such as: What about the future?
Apparently this is something that "poses some pretty sticky problems for the theistic evolutionist who wishes to be consistent in his interpretation of Scripture."

The following are listed as the "problems" that we must address.

1 Corinthians 15:51–53. If God needed millions of years to ‘create’ our first human bodies, which were already ravaged by disease and death, how will He be able to give us new, incorruptible bodies ‘in the twinkling of an eye’ when Christ returns?

To which I want to say, ummm, because He is God. God didn't need evolutionary process to create the world - He may have just chosen to do it that way. That is like asking how Jesus could turn water into wine instantly when clearly it takes a fermentation process much longer to do it naturally. He can do anything He wants. HE IS GOD. Saying that He must use miracle only is much more a limit on His power than saying He can use process or miracle, which ever suits Him.

Acts 3:21 refers to a future time when everything will be restored. For the theistic evolutionist (or the closely related ‘long-age creationist’) this should logically mean a restoration back to billions of years of death and suffering. The Bible in fact indicates that all things will be restored to a situation in which death (the ‘last enemy’—1 Corinthians 15:26) shall be no more. Why? Because there will be ‘no more curse’ (Revelation 22:3).
Isaiah 34:4 and Revelation 6:13–14. These passages refer to a future time of cataclysmic changes in the heavens. Stars falling from the sky, and the heavens rolling up, do not sound like slow processes needing millions of years. Long-agers insist that it had to take 15 billion years for the light from the most distant objects to reach us here on earth. Obviously, it will not take 15 billion years for the heavens to ‘roll together as a scroll.’ So perhaps we’ve not yet fully understood the mechanics of starlight and time, and that 15 billion year figure needs several zeros lopped off.


The apparent attitude here makes me laugh. It's like they found the trump card and are doing the "ha ha" dance. Again, God can do anything in any time frame He wants. He can make the earth over a long period of time once and remake it fast the next time, again, HE CAN DO WHATEVER HE WANTS. Not everything is going to be restored to the exact way it was. The Bible says that in heaven we will not marry, yet marriage existed from the beginning. We will not procreate, although that was also there from the beginning. Things will be restored to a spiritually whole place, like they were before spiritual death and corruption came about. Some of it will be as it was, some of it won't. "Restored" is not "made into an exact replica of", it is "made new" again. When I restore a piece of furniture, I am not making it identical to what it was, I am making it good again. And some day, the earth will be good again, even if it is not exactly what it was.

It ends with this quote: "If God created everything in six days in the past, as a plain reading of the Genesis account would demand, He’ll have no problem re-creating it all quickly in the future (But clearly, if the almighty God made it over a span of time the first time it would be hard for him to re-create it quickly...doesn't sound very almighty to me if He only has one trick up His sleeve so to speak). If He created Adam in a fraction of a day, and Eve out of Adam, He’ll have no problem granting new bodies ‘in the twinkling of an eye’ in the future. If death entered the world on a specific day in the past, it can be abolished within a day in the future. (But clearly none of this is possible if God used process. Oh wait, that is how He made EVERY ONE ELSE EVER. I wasn't created in a fraction of a day - I was created by process over a period of 9 months. Is God going to have to wait 9 months to make me a new body? Clearly not. This is just silliness.)
When it comes to origins, ‘Father God plus Mother Nature’ equals an illegitimate child—theistic evolution. There are many aspects of God’s Word which make it clear that you can’t have it both ways. (Unless you don't read limitations in to God's Word that aren't there...then maybe you can. :))

Another article addresses "ape men" or the evolutionary links between modern man and earlier ancestors. They deny the legitimacy of all skeletal evidence for anything other than Homo Erectus of which they say "Next up is Homo erectus or ‘upright man’. Excavations of many of these fossils show evidence of the use of tools, the controlled use of fire, that they buried their dead, and that some used red ochre for decoration. Their brain size, though smaller on average than modern humans, was within the human range. Recent research on Flores has shown evidence of seafaring skills. Spoor’s CAT scans of their inner ear architecture show that their posture was just like ours. Even some evolutionists concede that they should be put in the same species as modern man, i.e. Homo sapiens. Creationists can thus legitimately regard them as distinct variants of true humans. "

Great, so they recognize that other "forms" of man existed. I'm sure the scientist who date these forms as having existed far before the tradition time period of Adam are clearly wrong though. Most of the rest of this article is assumptive and biased in my opinion, and at the end they say my favorite thing of all: "Man was directly created by God and in the likeness of God, not in the likeness of an ape."

To which I want to scream and pull my hair out. God is a SPIRIT. He is not a mostly hairless bi-ped. God made man with a spirit (like Him), making man different from animals which do not have spirits. Please for the love of God (no pun intended) stop making "being made in God's image" about what our bodies look like.

I did read the articles that were presented and I found no compelling reason to believe that God could not have legitimately made the earth and it's inhabitants through TE.

Does God Exist?

Does God exist? It is the single question that has plagued the heart of nearly every man since the beginning of existence. Philosophers, theologians, and every common man find themselves in the same struggle.

It has been the tendency of mankind to worship. That is one of the things that signals the cognitive change from the lower forms of animal to Homo Sapian. Homo Sapians created artifacts of religion almost from the very start. There is this innate understanding or need, depending on your perspective, that we are not alone in this universe.

God has taken many forms in the minds and hearts of man. Everything from the sun to Zeus, to the universe as a whole, to a tiny baby born in a stable. Who God is has been answered with many things, but that He is is an entirely different question.

Recently I have been thinking about proof in terms of God. It seems to me that if God would just prove himself, that this whole matter could be put to rest. But in what way can God prove himself? Everything we experience is sensed. By this I mean that it is perceived through our senses. We either see it, or hear it, or touch it, etc. In what way could God prove himself that we could perceive through our senses that we could not later dismiss on some ground or another.

God could come in this moment in a bright light, knock you over, and declare "I AM", and ten years from now, maybe not even that long, maybe a year from now, there would be doubts. Did you really see him or were you hallucinating? Did your brain trick you? Were you dehydrated or delusional? What would have seemed at a time to be undoubtedly proof would find a way to be dismissed. That is what the darkness of soul does, it dismisses everything we have ever known for certain. The darkness of soul will dismiss the proof of a friends love, it will dismiss the proof of a lovers loyalty, it will dismiss any joy or peace.

I think there is something deeper though. The real question of why we ask for proof and what are really asking instead. I think, in order to ask for proof of something, the asker has to already believe the possibility of that something exists. I have never asked for proof of fairies, or of Santa, or of any other mythical being. They do not exist. Even if you were to give me proof of their existence I would not accept it because I deny the possibility of their existence. I do not disbelieve in their existence, I do not even think they do not exist, I have made the declarative statement: fairies and Santa do not exist.

If I saw a fairy or Santa I would assume I was suffering a delusion or that I was being tricked. And for some that have denied any possibility of the existence of God there will never be convincing proof for the same reason. Proof is limited by interpretation. Facts have no meaning apart from context. And in the context that there is no God, one will never see facts presented as proof to the contrary.

When a skeptic asks for proof of something what I think they are truly asking is for the reliability or trustworthiness of that thing or of the one who testifies to that thing. When a man is on trial, to have a person testify that they saw him commit the crime is a solid thing, but more solid is evidence - blood, DNA, video tape, fingerprints. At which point the jury must decide: is the evidence and the witness reliable enough for us to make a determination about an event. Can we trust what we have been told?

In my own life, I have experienced God in a damned if I do and damned if I don't kind of way. I have felt and heard things inside of me that I have attributed to God. I know myself. I know my own tendencies under pressure, and I know my own reactions to fatigue and emotion. This is more than that. But I am left with this dilemma: if God is not real then I am mentally unwell in a severe way and even more the dilemma is that if I am indeed mentally unwell, do I posses the mental stability to ever know? Indeed, am I even able to make a determination about the existance of God at all?

I think each man must simply decide for himself the answer to Does God Exist. Not based on testimony or even proof. Testimony and proof can help us know which God exists but they can not answer for us that God in any form does exist. It is not a knowable thing. We simply make a decision and then a declaration. I have decided that fairies and Santa do not exist. That is my declarative statement. I have decided that God does. As for proof... I've heard that proof only really exists in math.

And math is boring.

Goo and the Zoo - Back to evolution

Recently a blog that I subscribe to posted the following quote as part of a book review and I found it very fitting for some thoughts I've had since yesterday.  

"There are two types of delusion. There is the delusion that believes something that is not true, and there is the delusion that fails to believe something that is true. If evolution is an accurate description of the emergence of life, as science attests, then believing it alongside the Bible should pose no threat. There’s no need to fear any honest search for truth because in the end, all honest searches for truth inevitably lead back to God." - Daniel Harrell,  Natures Witness: How Evolution can Inspire Faith.   

I visited a church in Colorado this weekend.  It is a fine church full of people who love God - that much is very evident.  During a sermon on the 6th commandment, thou shall not murder, the pastor made the following comment (which is a paraphrase because I do not have a recorded copy): "The world teaches that evolution is true.  That you started as goo and became ooo and then became the zoo until finally you became you.  (Audience laughs).  And this is part of why suicide rates are so high.  We teach our children that they are purposeless accidents who exist by random chance and then we wonder why they devalue life. If you take a serious look at the tenants of evolution it has some major problems. Micro evolution is obviously true but macro evolution has major problems"  

He kind of transitioned to a different thought at that point.  I'm sure I can find the direct quote on line in a couple of weeks if it matters at all.  I don't really know what his next point was because I was a little lost in two thoughts that had occurred to me: 1. I am going to have to read more so that I have really overwhelming arguments for this obviously mocked theory.  2. Why, in the church, is it an obviously mocked theory?  

I think we mock things for a couple of reasons.  1. They seem obviously insane to us.  2. We don't understand them.  3. We are afraid of them.  4 We want to make them seem ridiculous because we have no legitimate argument.  

I think the church mocks evolution for one of those four reasons and which reason varies from group to group.  But namely I would say that because of 2. We don't understand them, we end up at 1. they seem obviously insane to us.  There is also some of 3. We are afraid of them, because of 2. as well.  If you don't understand something you may mistakenly think that it threatens something that, more than likely, you don't understand either.  

To put it plainly, the church mocks "macro" evolution because it has a limited understanding of it (ie. macro evolution means that men came from monkeys and that is all they can tell you really).  Because they have a limited understanding of it, it seems retarded to them but it also seems like a terrible threat to their theology because, to be perfectly honest, there hasn't been a whole lot of serious new theology research done on Genesis in a long time - so we think we know what we believe about it but the glasses we are looking through are an outdated prescription.  

I still have a hard time with some of the theology.  (Because I haven't read enough.)  I need some people who are smarter than me to write a reasonable explanation to how we factor in the whole Fall of mankind thing with evolution.  The Fall is a major tenant.  You can't just dismiss it and you can't have a haphazard explanation for it.  My own explanations are limited at best.  So, it's time to buy some more books I guess.  

I know this.  Man was created by God, in his image.  I was created by God, in his image. Evolution only devalues life if God is not involved.  We have surrendered science to the secular humanist and they have used it to define life as devoid of purpose and intention.  If Christians got back on board with science, then we could give the value back to human life through evolution.  We believe that each person is a creation of God, yet all of us who have had freshman biology know that babies are the result of a fertilization and maturation process.  So if God made me in his image through a process then he could have made the first human beings through a process as well.  All of us on purpose, all of us through process.  

As for micro evolution versus macro.  Macro evolution is just micro evolution over long periods of time.  That is all really.  To deny the one and say that it is different from the other makes one sound kind of delusional.  

Counter-Cultural

What does it mean to be counter-cultural?

I think one of the things that made the new testament church grow so rapidly, under even severe challenges, was that it stood out apart from it's culture. The new testament church was known as a place where the poor, the widowed, the sick and the outcast could find not only pity but purpose and belonging. It wasn't about a hand out; it was about genuine compassion.

The church in America wants to be counter-cultural but we have gone about it very much as a Pharisee - condemn the world - and so we stand apart. We have our Christian books, our Christian music, our Christian movies, our Christian groups and we don't have to touch or see anything secular. I don't think Christian things are bad. I don't even think that secular things are always morally neutral. I think there is a time and place to draw a line and say, "No, this is not something I want to be a part of." The struggle is how to not isolate people in the process.

Jesus spent a lot of time with drunks and prostitutes. He also fasted 40 days and spent a lot of time in prayer. I think the challenge for the church is finding a way to be in the world, and yet not to be influenced by it (all while not being excessively dorky and out of touch).

No one wants to be a leader of losers and freaks. Every one wants to sit at the cool table. No one cool, powerful or influential thought much of Jesus. He had a rag-tag team of emotional men. And they changed the planet. What could the church be if it were really counter-cultural today? What if it genuinely wanted the people no one else wanted - not to earn piety points but because they saw the potential and the inherent value in those people?

Then we would be the church of Jesus Christ. It can't start with the whole though. It has to start with the individual. It's too easy to say "the group" has a problem. It's much harder to say, "I have a problem." So let me be the first to start.

I have a problem. I don't want to be around weirdos. I want people to like me. Not necessarily the cool people - friendship with them is too complicated - but the people I like anyway. I care way too much what people think and I spend way more time trying to please them than I do trying to actually be something better. The biggest problem... I have no idea how to change. I don't have enough guts to be like Christ. Maybe someday I will... if so, it will not be because I willed myself to be different. It will be because I found a way to be with Him more, and in doing so, I became more like Him .

And so I leave you with a thought:

To the men and women who have struggled, been oppressed, abused, misunderstood. To those who are lonely, feel passed over, bereaved, bound, backslidden, discouraged, suicidal. His mercies are so near you. His compassion for you is unbounded. He would reach out His arms to you and tenderly whisper your name and draw you apart from the stresses and stains of life. For your struggles are seen by Him, and, where so often His church has failed to take up your cause and has passed you over, His hands are outstretched to you, for surely you are not forgotten by Him.

- Journal of the Unknown Prophet