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by Steve Risner

[This blog post is part of a series. The previous post is here, and the next post is here.]

I questioned the editor of a magazine I had a subscription to as a teenager. The magazine was a Christian music magazine devoted to the type of music I enjoyed then. But as time went on, the magazine began featuring secular artists and articles, and this concerned me. It began a little under the radar, but eventually was very obvious this change was occurring. I wrote the editor and he gave me a very interesting response that, nearly 20 years later, I still remember. He told me a story of a city in the Middle East that had two rivers that went through it. One was fed by a hot spring and so the water was very warm. The other was cold. Both of these streams had importance in the community. Every now and again, these rivers would meet somehow. Where this happened, the water mixed and a wall nearby would fall. He made the connection that if we compromise on some issues, it can bring down walls that are between us. Even as a teenager, I knew that this was a terrible idea and, far worse, an anti-biblical position. I canceled my subscription and never received another issue after several years of being a customer.

The Bible is fairly clear that being able to compromise is not a virtue—this, of course, is in relation to issues of principle and in regards to Biblical truth. Compromising on a curfew or what to have for dinner is really okay, I believe. Why am I bringing up compromise today? Those who want to insert deep time or evolution into our origins rather than taking the Bible as it is written are trying to make the Bible and the Gospel more palatable for the world to accept. They want to conform the Bible's message to meet with current humanistic beliefs on origins so it can somehow be more acceptable to the world. The idea is to remove the areas that may be a stumbling block for the “intellectual” or some such nonsense so they can accept Jesus and all will be well. But this is not the pattern set forth by the Bible at all. All throughout the Old Testament we see examples of God's harsh criticism of compromise. The book of Joshua has some very graphic examples of God's opinion on compromise.

Selling the Word of God as a book you can cut and paste with is not holding up the Gospel or honoring God or His Word. It's making friends with a world that hates Jesus Christ. Matthew 6:24 tells us Jesus believes you cannot serve two masters. He states, “... he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” These two masters would be the Bible/God/the Gospel vs. humanism/naturalism/evolution. The two are diametrically opposed. Once you mix them, you've lost. Take salt water and mix it with fresh water. You no longer have any fresh water but the salt water is still there. James tells us, “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” These are pretty harsh words, in my opinion, against compromising with the world. Compromising with the world is exactly what theistic evolution is.

Very frequently we see theistic evolutionists joining forces with atheists and attacking Christians. This is a major red flag!!! This should never ever be. 2 Corinthians 6:14-16 tell us, “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?” Is attacking Bible-believing Christians with atheists some sort of ploy to win the atheist over for Christ? Hardly. This generally intensifies the hatred they have for God and for the Bible and those who believe it. I believe it also further drives a wedge between the theistic evolutionist and the Bible believer. But this is the entire reason for the godofevolution.com website. In their “about” section it says: “God of Evolution was created ... as an accessible, colorful and often humorous ‘middle ground’ between militant anti-theism and militant young-earth creationism.” So he's admittedly compromising and trying to make the Gospel more appealing to atheists?

Tell me how this sounds: God gave us an account of how He created the world and made us unique. He also told us how we messed up the perfect place He created for us and the consequences for this. But nearly 6000 years later, in an attempt to remove God from society and make a mockery of God's Word, some atheists and agnostics stumbled upon the truth about origins. And now God is anxiously waiting for His people to disregard His account of the origins of the universe and the earth and go with this humanistic version of the story. Does this seem likely? Does this make sense to anyone at all? This is what theistic evolutionists seem to think.

So what is the deal here? What am I talking about? This is part 2 of a blog post in response to a blog post by a theistic evolutionist who believes Biblical creation has theological issues. He believes this because Biblical creationists want to make a movie based on the Biblical account of creation. Pretty wild, huh? Tyler Francke, the author of the blog post in question, states that he wishes organizations such as Answers in Genesis and Creation Ministries International would join forces with theistic evolutionists to share the Gospel rather than wasting money on the film. He believes making this movie is a terrible use of funds. But it has been brought to my attention that an organization he has written for is making a similar film on the Big Bang (apparently making a theistic case for it). Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, folks. But since the theistic evolutionist is already compromised, I feel this would be a very large mistake. The issues are 1) theistic evolutionists have a history of seething hatred for Biblical creationists, and 2) humanism has no place in the Gospel (other than Jesus freeing us from it) and theistic evolution is nothing more than an attempt to mix humanism and Christianity. We've gone over a few Scripture verses that indicate that God is not overly excited about us compromising His Word.

Tyler declares that the creation account in Genesis is “...a message that has nothing to do with salvation.” This is an epic failure to understand even the fundamentals of the Christian faith. Severing the connection between Genesis and Matthew (or any other of the Gospel books) neuters the message of salvation and wipes away the foundation of every major Christian doctrine we have—and have had for 2000 years. It seems like Tyler's gospel is along the lines of “People are mean so Jesus died and rose again.” Maybe this works for elementary school kids, but as adults, we need a little more explanation. Hence, the apostle Paul writes several letters that outline the deep connection between Jesus and Genesis. Romans and 1 Corinthians are of particular interest. Jesus is even referred to as the “Second Adam.” If the First Adam was a mythological man and the Fall not an actual event, I suppose this doesn't bode well for Jesus and His place in reality. So, you see, the Gospel and Genesis are intimately connected. One gives us the explanation for the other. One gives us redemption from the other. It's really rather rudimentary Christian doctrine.

Tyler moves on to say he feels some sort of calling to denigrate a movie that is designed to help people see the reality of the Genesis account. He claims the movie makes a mockery of Jesus which is a contradictory statement when compared to his “it has nothing to do with salvation” statements. Either they are connected or they are not, and it's pretty clear they are connected. To call this movie, which seems to adhere to a fairly natural reading of Genesis, unbiblical is just a laughable notion. I'm sure he believes that there is no reason to believe man and dinosaurs lived together, which this movie seems to indicate. Pay particular attention to verses 24-27 in that link. I think many dinosaurs were land dwelling creatures. Therefore, it stands to reason that they existed only a few moments before man did. So why is it unbiblical? Because Tyler doesn't like it.

Tyler goes on to quote Ken Ham saying, “What we need to do is to make sure we start right at the very beginning, in Genesis, answer the skeptical questions that are causing people to doubt that that book is true, to help them understand that the history is true — that’s why the gospel based on that history is true.” And Tyler's response: “As a Christian, I think statements like this are incredibly foolish and irresponsible.” That's it? Please expound on this idea that the reality of the creation and Fall of man is not inseparably connected to the Gospel.

He then quotes several passages of Scripture that outline the crux of the Gospel—Christ is risen from the dead and sin and death are destroyed. He insinuates that Biblical creationists do not believe this, which is obviously not true. Again, as I've stated in previous posts, he's talking more about conversion than living the Christian life. I'm wondering if Tyler is a “sloppy grace” sort of Christian who believes, as Paul warned against, that we can sin all the more so grace may abound more. I'm not saying he believes this—I have no idea. But he seems to push half the Gospel quite a lot. Opening your heart to Jesus Christ is the beginning of an amazing and critically important journey. It is, by no means, the end of the journey.

Earlier, Tyler states, “Let me be honest for a second.” I think this is hysterical. I wish theistic evolutionists would actually honestly and accurately represent Biblical Christianity (I am not insinuating there is another kind) and the creationist views as well as being honest about the astronomical holes in their own belief system. I say this because Tyler ends this blog post by saying, “Because his [Ham's] statement, rather than placing the standard for the gospel where it belongs (on the Resurrection and the Holy Spirit’s ability to convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment), declares that the truth of the gospel rises and falls based on the scientific evidence...” He also says, “Nothing about dinosaurs in there, people. So K-Ham is wrong.” Come on. Ken Ham has NEVER said the Gospel rises and falls with the scientific evidence and no one has ever claimed there is anything to do with dinosaurs in relation to the Gospel. For the millionth time, this debate has never been over science. In fact, science was birthed by Christians to study the creation and quite soundly supports the Biblical position. Get over it and stop trying to make this about something you apparently don't understand. Classic strawman fallacies here, folks.

I'll end this blog post with something from Martin Luther. I think it's fitting in most of these discussions. “...if you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days [creation], then grant the Holy Spirit the honor of being more learned than you are.” This is a major problem with theistic evolution (or any other unbiblical creation story). They believe they know better than the One Who created it all in the first place. Trust God. Next week we take a look at the last link before the 10 questions I've been dying to get to!

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