If you're a Christian Scientist, and you're not a young-earth creationist,
you're in Romans 1, you're suppressing the truth, you know?
This is how it gets portrayed. Like you secretly know better, but you know... No!
You know, I'm not a science guy. So I let the science people do the science thing.
And, you know, I have to admit, I was probably influenced in grad school,
because, again, my original context was young earth kind of creationism.
Well, when I went to grad school at Wisconsin,
our church, and this was a serious church.
These are real Christians, we're not just sticking the name on the door,
so people come and give us money. These are serious Christians,
we were dominated, and I mean dominated, by people in the hard sciences.
We had the head of the botany department as an elder.
We had a professor of electrical engineering.
We had to research physicists. We had an entomologist.
We had a couple biologists. We had a chemist.
You know, the grad schools, and I'm like, Hey, where are the humanities people?
I'm like, the only one here, you know, everybody else is a scientist.
But it was really good for me.
And, I was, there was like, one other person in a humanities field, as a grad student.
This was a church that was really heavily attended
by graduate students and professors. And it was good to sort of be the minority there,
because you get into conversations, okay. Like, why do you see it this way?
And how do you articulate this idea to friends or whatever?
How do you parse this out in your head?
And so that was really, really good exposure.
Because I couldn't question their commitment to the Lord, to a high view of Scripture.
I mean, I couldn't question any of those things. They don't have anything to nitpick.
And it was my first real exposure to some rigorous minded individuals
that just did not take what you would sort of, again, in my context, kind of growing up,
which you would think, "well, if you're really a Christian, you think this." No, actually not.
It's a whole lot wider than that. So I tend to just, you know,
I'm gonna let those people do their work.
I trust them that they're not, you know, like
if you're a Christian Scientist, and you're not a young-earth creationist, you're in Romans 1,
you're suppressing the truth, you know, this is how it gets portrayed,
like, you secretly know better, but you know... No!
You got to trust people at some point, that they're really being honest.
You know, they're not sinister in asking the questions, they're just not.
You know, and be okay with that. Just be okay with that.
So I think that's really invaluable.
And for me that... it didn't necessarily say,
Well, now that you've met a lot of people who aren't young-earth creationist,
you need to find a different way to interpret Genesis 1:1-3.
That was never a thought I had. I already knew because of Hebrew grammar,
that all these things were on the table.
That's like, Oh, yeah, you know, that is sustainable.
You know, that might be the best way to think about it.
Because if God's the ultimate origin of both things; what we call in theology,
special revelation and general revelation.
And he's not a schizophrenic, these things should probably align.
And so we ought to be asking, what's the most coherent alignment?
What might that be? And there might be two or three ways to align them.
Okay. Well, now, which one do I think has the least problems or is the most plausible?
I mean, that's where it becomes fun. It gives you something to think about.
As opposed to, well, I've just checked all the boxes now.
And now I can compartmentalize my Christian experience
and, go off and play fantasy football because I want to engage my brain somewhere.
We have a lot of people in this situation, they got all the boxes checked,
and they really assume they don't have anything to think about anymore.
When there's lots to think about. And God isn't threatened.
He's not threatened, and you shouldn't be either.