Filed under: Weekly Columns
29 November 2006; Volume 8, Issue 36
PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/conblow11-28-6.pdf
As a young lad, as opposed to the wee lad I mentioned last week, in my Lutheran catechism class I was told that God created the world through theistic evolution. Since that time I have also learned that the more fundamental Christian way to deal with the evolutionary time scale is to insert, millions and billions of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. I’m sure that both of these concepts were developed by the minds of devote men to make the witness of the church more relevant to the modern enlightened world and it’s science.
Both methods force upon the text a meaning that cannot be supported by the true exegesis of the Scriptures. However, the consequences of this wishful thinking for relevancy has caused more trouble than we shall ever be able to grasp in this life. Consequently, all Christians are characterized as fools and religious quacks.
Anyone with a reasonably sane or open mind reading the Genesis creation account understands what it is saying. You may or may not agree with the words, for a variety of reasons or indoctrination, but the creation account basically says what it means and means what it says. The Bible says that God created the heavens and the earth and all it’s creatures, and rested in essentially seven, twenty four hour days, as we understand the concept of days. God saw this creation as good.
Unforeseen consequences of manipulating events or what the Bible says is called blowback.
Blowback is really an espionage or military term referring to shrapnel that often flies backwards when firing an automatic weapon. It’s specific reference in intelligence terms refers to unintended consequences of covert operations. Since the general public is not aware of these operations, the blowback then appears as random and without cause. Blowback results may or may not have been foreseen by the leadership in such actions, but the actions were carried out none the less.
Blowback of theistic evolution and the gap theory can be illustrated by our understanding and knowledge of the fossil record. Fossil evidence of a worldwide flood as described in the Bible in Genesis 6-9, has been described by Ken Ham, President of the Answers in Genesis ministry: “Billions of dead things, buried in rock layers, deposited by water, all over the earth.”
He would furthermore state with most Christians that believe in a Biblical creation account, that if the Bible is to be of any value, especially as it relates to the gospel of Jesus Christ as the Messiah of the world, not only does the Bible describe that worldwide flood account, but that catastrophic event must have taken place thousands, not millions and billions of years ago. Furthermore, Ham along with most Creation Scientists would believe that this flood, would perhaps best explain the extinction of the dinosaurs, except for those carried by an actual Noah on an actual ark, having been followed by what we would call the age of the Wooly Mammoths and a great ice age.
Very few people in the world actually believe this account however. This includes most so called Bible believing Christians, because if the total history of the world is condensed into thousands, not millions and billions of evolutionary years, then the probability of God demanding an accounting of how you apply your assets of time, money, and other resources would become much more important.
Following that Ice Age and the rapid melting of the ice, in the North and West corner of what is the United States, two great lakes formed, one was Lake Bonneville, which has as its remnant the Great Salt Lake of Utah, and glacial Lake Missoula, which shorelines can be found in Western Montana centered generally around the current city of Missoula from which the lake gets its name.
In the Pleistocene evolutionary time scale, it is thought that Lake Bonneville drained through essentially the Snake River Basin about 18,000 years ago. This flood was thought to flow at approximately 15 million cubic feet per second over a period of a few days. Similarly, Lake Missoula is thought to have caused many huge floods thus creating the channel scablands of Eastern Washington. The last flood taking place from eight to ten thousand years ago, again in evolutionary time.
However, if those time periods are really true where is the evidence? Hell’s Canyon of the Snake is accessible only by boat, and is a canyon deeper than the Grand Canyon. However, once it flows through Hell’s Canyon the Snake turns west at Lewiston to join the Columbia in south central Washington. This canyon is accessible by road, wider, much less scenic, but what is truly interesting is how recent the canyon looks. There is virtually no soil, no bushes, no trees, just some sparse grasses.
The scablands of the Lake Missoula floods are much more diverse. They run in different channels, but many times those channels can be only fifty feet deep but more than a mile wide. Others are quite deep, having cut coulees through the Columbia basalt formations. Because of the nature of these floods and the resulting small lakes and pot holes, and wind depositing the glacial soil of the Columbia Basin, there are trees and small pockets of rich bottom land. However, outside these small areas, there is little soil, some sagebrush and pine trees.
The question from a truly scientific point of view, is where is the dirt? It is the assumption that top soil forms from basalt at about one tenth of an inch per century. If all these floods took place eight to eighteen thousand years ago, the land should be covered with eight to eighteen inches of top soil. In the Snake River canyon if someone didn’t tell you it was created at least 18 thousand years ago, you might wonder if it happened a few years before Lewis and Clark, the canyon walls are that bare. In the scablands because of the wind and other factors, empirical evidence suggests that there is definitely less than eight inches of topsoil, more like say two to four inches. However, is no money for creation scientists to study these facts and get a truly accurate soil depth in either locale. Hence, the blowback from Christians trying to make the Bible relevant to an ungodly world continues.
If our so called ancient times are really only thousands of years, might our perceived uniformitarian future be called into question? All of this blowback comes from well meaning Christians trying to make their message relevant to a worldview that should be completely inconsistent with their own.
In the 1930’s Winston Churchill said concerning then British Prime Minister Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolph Hitler: “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients is coming to a close. We are entering an era of consequences.”
Of course no one took Churchill seriously and World War II was fought as a consequence. Consequently, Churchill became Prime Minister during the war years, and was subsequently dismissed shortly thereafter. Isn’t it strange how we find it so easy to dismiss impending reality by procrastination, half-measures, and soothing and baffling expedients? We truly believe that we shall never enter an era of consequences. Then after the era of consequences is over, we quickly desire to again enter the good life of slothful abundance.
A Christian biblical creation worldview, is very different than that expressed by society. Just as the Bible clearly states that the future is in the control of God alone, so does the true descriptive scientific evidence we can glean from God’s creation. If the question “Where’s the dirt?” is important when studying our most recent geological events on anyone’s time scale, what about other so called dire future events. Are they determinate in the control of God alone, or does mankind really control his own indeterminate destiny on this planet.
At the top of that list is, “If we all work together we can fix this.” is the issue of Global Warming. I have capitalized these climate changing phenomena because we have determined that Global Warming is the God to which we need to bow down and worship to continue our affluent materialistic lifestyle. This really is not a tough god to worship, all we need to do is to control Carbon Dioxide emissions, chiefly derived from the combustion of fossil fuels, thereby we can create heaven on earth for future generations.
Al Gore in his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” uses the above quote from Churchill as justification for his world wide trekking adventure concerning the Global Warming issue. The paradigm shift Gore makes in the documentary is to ignore words didn’t work in Churchill’s case, and nothing has changed positively in the ensuing seventy years to make our chances any better. One positive could be he gives his presentation off a MAC running Keynote rather than Powerpoint. Other than that personal favorable observation, I see a whole lot more pressing issues facing the world, much of it also man caused, some of it only in the hands of God, most of it interrelated to man’s sin and arrogance.
I went out and bought a tank of gas for my 30-40 mpg Saturn over the Thanksgiving Holiday and guess what? Gas prices had gone up over ten cents a gallon from my previous tankful. What had happened is not that market conditions had changed, it was that those benevolent oil companies and speculators, basically responsible for our total dependence on fossil fuels, dare I say the global warming problem, had manipulated the price to make more money for their Thanksgiving.
Does oil dependency lead to the continuing procrastination, half-measures, and soothing and baffling expedients in dealing with Islamic fundamentalism? They want to destroy western civilization as we know it, and they have the financial (from oil) and religious terrorist infrastructure to make a real mess. Much of that is caused by Islam’s desire for world domination on its own. However, much of their fervor is also caused by blowback from America’s neocon Imperialistic adventures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and throughout the rest of the world in the name of the infidels of atheistic corporate globalism. The totality of this blowback is unknown even to the CIA, the Bush Administration, Democrats, Republicans, we the people of the United States of America, citizens of planet earth.
Blowback is particularly troubling when it is the citizens of the United States that are asked to fund and fight these wars in the name of democracy and freedom, when the true beneficiaries are multinational corporations, as we are called to stabilize their risky global “investments” to maintain a precarious world economy. These corporations ultimately seek to usurp all national authority except where it fits their materialistic evolutionary short term interests, using such catchy terms as a “rising tide lifts all boats.” This of course is of little consequence if you can’t afford to rent a stateroom, or to buy a life raft from them. Benevolence, a common grace attribute of all humanity, is undefined, or a fiction to evolutionary survivalists, monopolistic corporations, and super rights political parties.
Of course a small boat or even a life raft is of little use in a tsunami. Maybe of some value in an earthquake, but an eruption of a volcano similar to Mount Tambora, which occurred in 1815, would do much to curb the effects of increased global warming with a rapid rise in the earth’s albedo, but the ash might just sink your ship. A similar more violent eruption also may have taken place at Krakatoa in the years 535-536, which is the basis for the PBS documentary “Catastrophe!” Could this be why the dark ages in Europe, were dark, because it was dark?
I suppose I should mention the potential for a “Bird Flu” pandemic. Pandemics happen about every thirty years or so. Depending on the where and the when, that could have a dramatic impact on your lifestyle. A pandemic could mean that you would have to live somewhat independent from the economy for up to six weeks. Disaster leadership generally tells you to prepare for 72 hours, so that you won’t panic and commit suicide once whatever happens, but it is generally recognized that that 72 hour figure should be more like a week. However, that would enter you into the world of consequences, rather than the era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients. We surely don’t want to look serious at the consequences for our actions or lack there of, we would rather be burned or killed by the blowback.
Man, does the future look rosy! If none of this happens, I may be able to someday retire and rest upon what I have left over. I wish I could get as worked up about the seas rising 20 feet as Al Gore, that may make me believe that mankind will make a way through this to good times on the other side without God. I really believe as in Churchill’s time, The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients is coming to a close. We are entering an era of consequences.” The blowback will occur just as WWII followed in Chamberlain’s ineffective leadership of the British nation.
I’m such an optimist, because I believe in the promise that God will make a way for His people, because the future rests with God, not human understanding, including Christian understanding. When people are unwilling to look at reality as it is, the era of consequences will change that outlook, that worldview, just as it did with the British in WWII. German bombers every night over London, has a tendency to make your afternoon tea, a wee bit trepidatious. In the same way those IRA’s invested in global mutual funds heading south may get you to thinking about investments a little more tangible than electronic bits and speculative real estate.
How will you manage the consequences to come?
Probably the most salient comment from Gore’s presentation came from Upton Sinclar: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
I would suggest now is the time to move your investments away from the worldly adventure that find their fruit in, “If we all work together we can all make this work out.” My take is more like what Jonah saw happen from eventually going to Nineveh and seeing that the city briefly repented from their sin and it made him angry: Jonah 4:1-2; But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. So he prayed to the LORD, and said, “Ah, LORD, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm.
As western society we basically sit at the crossroads that the Ninevites did in Jonah’s day, repent or see the city’s overthrow: “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” (Jonah 1:2)
As is often said in preaching, if they don’t accept grace, give them law. Perhaps a better way to present the gospel is to give the requirements of the law in tension with the wisdom of accepting God’s grace through Jesus Christ. However, the blowback of evolutionary teaching has made the true gospel superfluous to our highly evolved megachurches. Bigger is always better, or at least more profitable to the powerful leadership elite. It is much easier and you will be much more popular if you preach prosperity, procrastination, half-measures, soothing and baffling expedients.
The era of consequences is upon the church, for only the body of Jesus Christ has any relevant answers to this world’s problems. She will be visible as a strong tower, a light upon the hill, when the rest of the world welcomes darkness. The question we all have to ask ourselves, is where is your heart and where is your mammon. Invest it wisely in God’s kingdom, or leave it where Global Warming, militant Islam, global monopolies, earthquakes, volcanos, tsunamis, and pandemics can and will take their tax. The total history of the choices that face all of mankind always relates to who will you serve, God or yourself. How you use, or give away all your God given gifts, will depend upon, if and when you will use, or lose them.
Our Recent Chronicles:
What’s up?; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/whatsup10-18-6.pdf
The Audacity of Reality; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/audacity10-25-6.pdf
The Audacity of Christ; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/christ11-1-6.pdf
Phylogenesis Economics; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/economics11-8-6.pdf
Wear your cap; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/wearcap11-15-6.pdf
Thanksgiving cap; PDF link: http://www.wondersprings.com/2006pdffiles/thankcap11-22-6.pdf
