Two weeks ago Ken Ham and Bill Nye the Science Guy had a live debate on Evolution vs. Creationism. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it below and then I’ll give my thoughts.
Ok so here are my 2 cents on this. First, I don’t think Ken Ham did followers of Jesus a favor by limiting this to Creationism being strictly defined by the Young Earth argument. In fact he is in the minority even amongst Protestant pastors according to the last time Gallup poll. For a debate like this it would have been much better if he went with “intelligent design”. In other words whether you believe in the Young or Old earth, all creationists believe that behind every creation there is a creator.
But here is the real point I want to make. My faith is not dependent on is the earth young or old. My faith is not dependent on the flood of Noah or the dozens of other things that these two gentlemen debated. My faith is based on “Did Jesus rise again from the dead or not?” You see as I discussed in this message and as Andy Stanley has said so well, “Christianity isn’t based on teachings but rather on an event”. No matter how good the teachings of Jesus are or the rest of the bible for that matter, if Jesus didn’t rise again from the dead then our faith is useless (1 Cor. 15:7).
This then is the question all of us must investigate and then answer for ourselves. I don’t care if your an atheist or a person who attends church each week. I don’t care if your an evolutionist or a creationists. Did Jesus really rise again from the dead? If He did then we must take His teachings and the bible seriously. If He didn’t then none of these debates really matter because our whole existence is pointless.
So again I’d encourage you to investigate this for yourself. I’d recommend you read,”The Case for Christ“. In this book an investigative reporter interviews scholars, archeologists, medical doctors, historians and others to see if there is enough evidence to not only see if Jesus lived, but if He died and rose again. It’s worth the read and then you draw your own conclusions.
Everyone knows what the science says, everyone knows what the bible says.
If you accept the bible, these debates are really over interpretations of the bible. Do you interpret it Ken Ham’s way or William Lane Craig’s way?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dDOkDOMJj8
The big question is are the 6 days of creation literal days or something more than that (ie Ps 90:4). I don’t think we have a clear answer to that so that’s why I thought Ham did a disservice by making it appear that the Young Earth viewpoint is the only one Christians hold to. As for me, I tend to lean more to the Old Earth viewpoint but it’s not a hill I’d die on. And as I stated when it comes to salvation, which camp we fall into has no bearing on are our sins forgiven or not and to me that is the biggest issue we all face…what do I do about my sinfulness. That’s why the resurrection is so important. If Jesus really did rise again we have hope…if He didn’t then we’re left to trying to figure out the answer to the sin question on our own.