This article is from
Creation 38(4):6, October 2016

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Causeless capitulation on creation

Editorial

by Jonathan Sarfati

Many people in the church claim that consistent creation teaching ‘turns people away from the Gospel.’ However, both logic and many testimonies find exactly the opposite: capitulation on creation turns people off the Gospel! Conversely, consistency on creation has helped many to realize the consistency of the Gospel message.

We can see that in 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul reminded them of the Gospel, including the Resurrection of Jesus. Then he explained the reason the Gospel is needed: our ancestor Adam had brought physical death into the world because of his sin. And since death is the punishment for human sin, Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, took on human nature so He could die and pay the penalty for sin of all believers.¹

Furthermore, the same people who don’t want to challenge the atheists’ origin myth (evolution) naïvely think they will leave the rest of the Christian faith alone. However, the atheists realize that if they get Christians to capitulate on the first book of the Bible—and one of the easiest to understand—the rest should be easy.²

Unsurprisingly, along with Christian doctrine, Christian morality is also under severe attack. Evils like prenatal baby-butchery (abortion) are not only legal in most western nations, but are funded by money coerced from taxpayers. Christians have been fined and even jailed for refusing to support gay ‘marriage’.

Yet the capitulation on creation has often continued to capitulation on such non-negotiable Christian moral positions. After all, Jesus affirmed that God decreed marriage as a man and a woman (Matthew 19:3–6), based on citing Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 as God’s words.³ Sad to say, there are some in the church who are bold only when attacking people for taking a biblical stand on creation or morality, e.g. they are angrier with calling abortion ‘baby-killing’ than the fact that it is baby-killing.

Far from attracting unbelievers, this capitulation often repels people from the Gospel. For example, one Christian said he had for many years refused to consider Christianity because, “For a long time I would never consider converting because I thought you had to be weak and passive in order to be a Christian.”⁴

The especially sad thing is that there probably has never been a better time to be bold about biblical creation. For almost 40 years, Creation magazine has been pointing this out in over 100 countries. In every issue, we interview a highly qualified creationist scientist; this time it is a geneticist who refutes the myth that humans and apes are 98% similar (p. 20). And we interview other people who understand the importance of Genesis, this time a pastor/theologian who refutes compromise on creation such as the ‘framework hypothesis’ (p. 46).

Many people are afraid of defending Genesis creation because they think evolution has been proven. In reality, natural selection has been proven, but it is part of biblical Creation/Fall as a culling force, not a creative force, as shown with bedbugs (p. 24).

And why would a loving God make nasty things like that? The answer is the important ecological functions they serve today, and before the Fall, they would have served it in a way that didn’t hurt us, e.g. wasps (p. 16).

Another reason for not defending Genesis is belief that the combined rock layers must have taken millions of years to form. However, in science, you can often trade intensity for time. And Genesis reveals a globe-covering Flood, which is very intense, that could have formed many layers quickly (p. 50). Fortunately, God gave us the rainbow as a promise never to send a global flood again (p. 44).

It’s effective, too …

And defending creation really does work! Almost 20 years ago, a young scientist called Sonia had rejected Christianity. But a colleague both memorized and photocopied Creation magazine articles, and shared them for over two years. She says:

“The process was interesting in that once I realized that creation could have happened—thereby removing my evolutionary foundation and replacing it with the creation foundation, I then found it easy to accept the entire Gospel message. This did not happen overnight as I was thoroughly indoctrinated with evolutionary ideology and had already rejected the Bible.”⁵

So please do the same as Sonia’s co-worker: study and share Creation magazine articles. It really does work, and we know of hundreds like Sonia.