Following up from an earlier post, it's no surprise that the second part of Creationist or Evolutionist appears in this week's Waiuku Post. It's a rambling affair that concludes with one of those dark threats fanatics make when their arguments are weak."Every man and woman in the world is either a creationist or an evolutionist."
Oh really?
"Evolution is infidelity; it is death. Creation; is fidelity, Christianity; this is real life. Choose Creation, Christianity, and Life, that you may live."
No pressure...
Sophisticated readers (anyone capable of seeing shades of grey) who find this way over the top may object but, alas, this caricature is what is too often promoted - and accepted - as the Christian consensus. And it's not as though anyone with a more balanced perspective is speaking out. No wonder the churches are dying. Recently Waiuku's only Anglican church closed its doors, selling off the fixtures (I watched as pews were loaded onto the back of a truck). On the opposite side of the road a historic Methodist church has been rebranded as a Shinto shrine. I doubt too many of those congregants would have agreed with dogmatic fundamentalist statements like those quoted, but stupidity sticks by association.
The problem is that nobody speaks for Christianity. No pope or bishop, evangelist, elder or moderator represents any agreed position. So, in effect, everybody speaks for Christianity, and the result is a confused cacophony where the loudest, dopiest voices attract the most attention.
This same issue of the Post features a letter from a local atheist taking the earlier Maranatha ad to task. Fair enough I guess. But what would be really helpful - a letter from a Christian strongly expressing a dissenting view from the Maranatha one - is of course absent.
And therein lies half the problem.
Waiuku is of course a small town that most people have never heard of, but the issues there are a microcosm of those being fought over in many places in many nations. In the Christian camp the idiots are winning, and the consequent slide into irrelevance now seems unstoppable.
Your are correct - the mindset that is behind the articles in the Waiuku Post has occupied center stage within the Christian community for far too long. It is narrow, bigoted and uninformed. However, the folks that attempt to paint Christianity with a broad brush and say that these viewpoints/attitudes are representative of all Christians are being just as simplistic and bigoted as the folks they are criticizing. I am a Christian, and I accept evolutionary science (by the way, there are plenty of atheists who say that it's either/or too).
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that the real problem is that too many folks try to nail everything down. We don't all have to agree on everything - there's room in the in the realm of ideas for many different viewpoints. The underlying premise is "my way of looking at this is the only appropriate way to look at this - all other ways are just wrong!"
For all of those folks who have everything nailed down (Christian, Muslim, Atheist, etc.), I wish that you would be content in your certainty and leave the rest of us to our searching. Nevertheless, I suspect that Gavin is also correct about his assessment that a big chunk of that certainty is headed for extinction.
I think you are on a slippery slope adopting evolution & errancy; those who have crossed these thresholds usually continue downwards.
DeleteYes please stop with that "education" malarkey. It leads to all sorts of uppity ideas like emancipation, the betterment of mankind, and stewardship of the Earth. http://youtu.be/1dDOkDOMJj8
DeleteEvolution is true whether it's called "infidelity" or skunk oil or nonsense. That's the way the facts of science are, they're true whether one believes them or not.
ReplyDelete