Evolution and the Presbyterian Church

The Presbyterian and Reformed Churches do not require congregants to adhere to a YEC literalist view. If memory serves me correctly, the majority of Presbyterian and Reformed Christians don't have YEC literalist view. My cousin and his family are Reformed (RCA) and have never held a YEC literalist view.

 

What he said. And I am not YEC, either.

 

YEC = Young Earth Creation. Generally speaking, the belief that the earth was created in 6 literal days of 24 hours long, approx 6000 years ago.

RCA = Reformed Church in America, aka, Dutch REformed Church. The oldest continually running protestant church in the US (est 1628). The Reformed and Presbyterian churches are sister churches that were both founded by John Calvin and/or his associates. One in the Netherlands, and one in Scotland and England.

 

YEC means "Young Earth Creationist", i.e. holding to an age of earth 6 to 10 thousand years only instead of 4.5 billion years for earth and 13+ billion years for the universe.

RCA stands for Reformed Church in America. Check them out at their website:

http://www.rca.org/aboutus/index.html

Wow, JohnV, simultaneous posting!

 

Here is the Presbyterian Church in America's
statement regarding creationism.

REPORT OF THE CREATION STUDY COMMITTEE

As is typical of the Presbyterian's it is very through.

Rob

 

Likewise, Baptist Theoogy does not require congregants to adhere to a YEC literalist view. The Baptist Distinctives do not address the topic. Hence, the topic is left for the individual congregations and congregants to address. Baptists are more often likely to adhere to a YEC view, or something similar to YEC. But this is not the case across the board for all Baptists. Some do, some do not.

 

From the PCA's report on Creationism.

"All the Committee members join in these affirmations: The Scriptures, and hence Genesis 1-3, are the inerrant word of God. That Genesis 1-3 is a coherent account from the hand of Moses. That history, not myth, is the proper category for describing these chapters; and furthermore that their history is true. In these chapters we find the record of God’s creation of the heavens and the earth ex nihilo; of the special creation of Adam and Eve as actual human beings, the parents of all humanity (hence they are not the products of evolution from lower forms of life). We further find the account of an historical fall, that brought all humanity into an estate of sin and misery, and of God’s sure promise of a Redeemer. Because the Bible is the word of the Creator and Governor of all there is, it is right for us to find it speaking authoritatively to matters studied by historical and scientific research. We also believe that acceptance of, say, non-geocentric astronomy is consistent with full submission to Biblical authority. We recognize that a naturalistic worldview and true Christian faith are impossible to reconcile, and gladly take our stand with Biblical supernaturalism."

Rob

 

In other words, they pick and choose like the rest of us. Why is nongeocentricism the exception?

 

I pulled the quote from the text. You'll have to read the full document.

In this quote they have chosen their words very carefully, as a full committee they do not endorse any particular form of creationism.

Naturalism (a naturalistic worldview) = athiestic evolutionism = no God/no creator.

Biblical supernaturalism = a Creator (no particular methods specified).

Rob

 

Quite the contrary.

There is an erosion of doctrine and faith in Christianity that eventually passes through the gates of the atheists best and brightest hope for a doctrine on origins -- evolutionism! The presbyterian church opened basement door to that pit of error a number of years ago.

Many Christians today are appalled that a Christian group would embrace homosexual priests - but I have news for you.

BEFORE they ever got to the atheist's view on homosexuality - they HAD to FIRST accept the atheists views on "origins" as "true" rather than God's word as "True".

And BEFORE they swallowed that one hook line and sinker - they had to first reject the idea that God's Law was still valid - thus releasing them from focus on Christ the Creator's memorial of HIS LITERAL creation act in 6 days!

Notice that NOT ONE of the Sabbath keeping Christian denominations has fallen into the pit of evolutionism. I also maintain that not one of them will adopt the atheist's views of homosexuality either.

It is a "truth-decay-chain" that starts at one end -- and "given enough time" ends up at the other.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Chipsgirl, as you can see from the post above, the YEC and anti-evolution point of view are strongly represented on this forum and that is an accurate reflection of the theology of Baptists and other evangelicals as well. But to their chagrin, there are also believers who have accepted the findings of science and yet refuse to give up their religious convictions.

Thats the raw facts of the matter. Now in our churches, it would be perhaps unwise to debate the subject in full, because it has the potential of bringing harm to the church to do so. But the discussion can be carried on in a forum like this and the discussion will not go away. So watch for those topical questions where evolution is being discussed and read or stay away as you wish!

 

A statement from my church's Presbytery (PCA) regarding our stand on creation:

 

Well all of us have the right to say what we want in our religious opinions and we do that . . . but . . . when they say that evolution is antiscience they are wrong.

 

The God of creation is also the God of science.

Anti-creationist evolution is also anti-science.

Evolution is merely a myth, a lie, and as such is opposed to the truth in which true science consists.

 

The answer to you question, chipsgirl, is yes.

 

Only if he is debunking it.

Or ... it might be appropriate in a debate setting with a knowledgable craetionist who is debunking it.