It is very interesting to know how pastors feel on evolution and the age of the earth (“Poll: Pastors oppose evolution, split on earth’s age,” Jan. 19). The article reminds me of a political election. There are divergent opinions until they are settled on Election Day when one candidate wins. Pastors appear to be a few generations away from agreement on the question of evolution and the age of the earth. That is strange!
Anthropologists have traced modern man back more than 40,000 years for certain and “cavemen” back 200,000 years. These cavemen had a spiritual life. They honored their dead by burying them. DNA evidence shows Europeans and some Asiatic people inherited a small percentage of their ancestry from Neanderthals (a species of cavemen) who have been extinct for 30,000 years.
The Hubble Telescope, along with other work, has added tremendously to our knowledge of the universe, its age, the earth’s age and the makeup of the universe. Earth’s age as a full-grown planet is estimated at 4.5 billion years.
I wrote a book, “The Big Bang, Dinosaurs and Jesus,” to help Christians resolve the conflict between the Bible and evolution. It posits that everything is evolving and gives examples. Christianity evolved and is still evolving. Jesus came to earth because the Holy Spirit could not get it through our thick heads that the Law of Moses was not enough. Jesus taught that we should love each other and have compassion for one another. The Protestants evolved because the Roman Catholic Church wandered away from Jesus’ teachings.
We and our culture are still evolving, and so is our religion. Christianity may fade away unless Christians develop stronger faith. From observation, faith becomes stronger when Christians gather together regularly and when each individual Christian prays earnestly daily for more faith. Preaching against evolution may actually be counterproductive, because many of our youth simply will not accept it and use it as an excuse to be absent from a Christian church.
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