Check out this screenshot of a poll being conducted on a web site I just visited. Visitors are asked what they think about “Creation Evolution”, and to categorize themselves into some pre-selected bucket. Helpfully, the poll also offers “None of the above” (implying that you have your own theory) and “I have not decided” (implying that you are still trying to make up your mind). What if you just DON’T CARE?
I am completely flabbergasted that modern Christians take such matters so seriously. Can such debates have any practical consequence on what God has commanded us to do? These seem like contrived controversies drummed up to distract from doing the real work of God. This seems like a perfect example of the “strike a pose” idolatry, where Christians chose a belief system in order to project something about their own identity, just like putting on a costume.
Is there a historical precedent for any of the early church fathers demanding such detailed precision about the mechanics of geological history in order to feel confident obeying God? Was all of that spiritual and moralistic mumbo-jumbo in Genesis secondary, and in fact was the Bible really meant to be a textbook of materialistic physics? Did God want to bless us above our ancestors by waiting until the age of fundamentalism to reveal this new role for scriptures?
What, specifically, are the ways in which our relationship with God would change if we selected one of the theories above versus the others? What is the penalty of choosing the “wrong” theory, or of choosing no theory at all.
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