Social justice book reviews
For the first twenty years of my life, creationism was a fact. At least, I was taught that it was. God created the earth in six days, and anyone who tells you otherwise was maliciously and purposely lying to you. Evolution was vilified; it was not only factually incorrect, but it was morally reprehensible, as if facts could sin.
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A few weeks ago, I wrote a response to a presentation by young-earth creationist Jerry Bergman in which he utilized appeals to authority as his primary forms of argument that “there are a lot of scientists who are being persecuted because they don’t believe in evolution.” Among the men that he used to make his case were C.S. Lewis. On Lewis’ evolutionary stance, Bergman stated, Read more
A couple days ago I was flipping through a creationist book from my shelf, and I couldn’t help but notice that the author rarely ever used the word “evolution” when describing the theory of evolution by natural selection. Instead, he almost always called it Darwinism. Of course, we know what someone means when they say Darwinism, and even evolutionists often call it Darwinian evolution or Darwin’s theory of evolution. But I think that creationists have a very specific reason in using the term “Darwinism” instead of the word “evolution”. That is: they want to equate believing that evolution is true with belonging to a religion that worships Charles Darwin.
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Recently, I came across a post on my old church’s website that a few months back, they hosted a presentation by a creationist on “The Best Evidence Against Evolution.” You may know that a while ago, I wrote a series for this blog trying to discover the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s official stance on evolution. In the end, it seemed that they decisively hold to young earth creationism, although the church still has no definitive stance on whether evolution is actually true.
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As I mentioned in last week’s post, I’ve been wrapping up another book, and this week I finally finished it! I read Kenneth Miller’s Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul, which arose from the 2006 court case Selman v. Cobb County School District.
This dispute began innocently, with textbook publisher Prentice Hall and a run-of-the-mill biology textbook. Frustratingly, but not surprisingly, the religious climate in Georgia at the time made teaching honest biology harder than it should be. The Cobb County School District included with every biology textbook a sticker:
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This is the week when we will find out for sure what LCMS Lutherans believe about creationism! I feel like this is something I’ve been wanting to know for years, but I’ve never really been able to ask my family directly, and the one time I asked my brother-in-law, he said he wasn’t totally sure but to check out the Concordia Theology blog for answers. So that’s what I’ve done, and it may finally tell us what Lutherans believe. So far I have read and responded to the introduction to this series, as well as their Lutheran-colored analysis of Old Earth, Young Earth, and Evolutionary Creationism. This is the conclusion of Charles Arand’s series, and it’s called A Few Reflections on Creation in Genesis 1. In the beginning, Arand states,
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This week I am continuing my study of what my family’s denomination of Lutheranism, the LCMS, believes in regards to creation and origins. I began this series after my brother-in-law read this blog post where I responded to an article about creationism written by the president of the LCMS, and my brother-in-law then suggested I read what the Concordia Theology blog states on the matter. This brings me to today, when I read Concordia Theology’s fourth post in their creationism series, called “A Travel Guide to the Evangelical Creation Debates: What is Evolutionary Creationism?” by Charles Arand. In the past, I’ve also covered their posts on Old Earth Creationism and Young Earth Creationism.
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For the past couple months, I have been writing a series of posts on Lutheran Creation doctrine; the LCMS doesn’t have an official stance on creationism (or so they say), so I’ve been following along with a series of blog posts on the Concordia Theology blog, and today, I’m looking at their post on young earth creationism.
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This week I am continuing in my study of the creation doctrine of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. I introduced this new series two weeks ago; I’m following along a series of blog posts on the Concordia Theology blog studying old earth creationism, evolutionary creationism, and everyone’s favorite, young earth creationism. Which one will the Lutherans choose? Or will they make up a new narrative? Stay tuned to find out!
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As you may know, a while ago my pastor-in-law informed me and my fiance that he had found this blog. The following conversation was interesting, of course, but it probably went about as well as it could have. I took this opportunity of openly talking about our beliefs to ask him a few questions, as well. I’d always been under the impression that the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod strictly taught young-earth creationism stemming from a literal interpretation of Genesis. This had actually been one of my biggest reasons for deciding I couldn’t accept its teachings or religion at all.
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