I started this blog because there is (whether Christians can handle this or not) very strong, well supported evidence that we humans 1) evolved over many, many generations and 2) that, since populations mostly evolve as a species, humans were never down to one breeding pair (no common mom and dad for humanity). This led me to question Genesis - mind you, not God, but Genesis. Not so much the Bible - for it is what it is - but our views on the Bible. In the time I began this blog the debate over Adam and Eve versus Science has heated up in Creationist and Intelligent Design circles, but they often mistakenly call this branch of population genetics "evolution" - supposedly to lump it into the same dubious category and stir up doubt in Christians before the evidence is presented.
I maintain that the Adam and Eve story (Gen. 2 - 11) is in the Bible for a reason, it is not a tack-on, or a way to explain science to a lesser scientifically developed culture or people to satiate their curiosity about our origins. But... in order to get to the point I am at now, I had to be exposed, on many different levels to our Christian history. It didn't form in a neat package, it formed from something else entirely, then revealed where we have gone so astray from the true meaning of Genesis.
What I began to notice, apart from the creationist debate was how far our church and other christians were going to the far right of conservatism on women's issues. I grew up in one province, went to University in another, and got a job in a third, so I had been to many churches and evangelical denominations all over. There were many conservative views held by people about women, but most of it was about parenting, or mothering, rather than wives roles. Most of my married friend solved arguments by working things out before they went to sleep. No one I knew who was my age followed the wives submit to your husbands rule - at least not as a principle (other than mutually). Then I went to more charismatic churches (where women preached and prophesied. I returned again to an Evangelical church. Our pastor mostly quoted John Piper in his sermons. I really didn't know him, nothing stood out about his quoted comments and life was merry. One day, however, I stumbled across a YouTube clip of Piper slamming CS Lewis! Piper, acting as if he was better, or more correct than CS Lewis?!? The first warning bell was: what kind of a Pastor slams another directly (not mentioning he doesn't agree with a particular theology in general, but calls out a Christian with whose theory he disagrees with specifically)?. I know people do this all the time, but pastors with large followings who get quoted in Sunday morning services usually aren't in the business of putting other popular Christians down to promote their hypothesis. The second red flag was: Does this guy really think he is so much wiser than CS Lewis that he would have the ability to shape the Christian world's views the way Lewis did?! and thirdly, what was his problem with CS Lewis anyways? Piper decided Lewis was not an evangelical? What? Who is deciding this? Does he think Christians who don't agree with him are not as christian or anointed to teach as himself?
I began, apart from my musings on Genesis, to look into John Piper, others of the Gospel Coalition and then Calvinism in general. What I found was a group of pastors and their followers who hold to an atonement theory that puts the fall of Adam and Eve in a highly fundamental position to a Christian's faith. So, I either do endless mental gymnastics trying to make Adam and Eve become literal - prehistoric farmers in a mythical land who somehow manage to survive by farming for at least three generations, build cities near or around Ancient Mesopotamia then all of humanity reverts to a hunter-gatherer population in Africa for the next 150,000 years - Ow! my head just exploded.
* OR*
I decide if this is even the correct understanding of Genesis.
I maintain that the Adam and Eve story (Gen. 2 - 11) is in the Bible for a reason, it is not a tack-on, or a way to explain science to a lesser scientifically developed culture or people to satiate their curiosity about our origins. But... in order to get to the point I am at now, I had to be exposed, on many different levels to our Christian history. It didn't form in a neat package, it formed from something else entirely, then revealed where we have gone so astray from the true meaning of Genesis.
What I began to notice, apart from the creationist debate was how far our church and other christians were going to the far right of conservatism on women's issues. I grew up in one province, went to University in another, and got a job in a third, so I had been to many churches and evangelical denominations all over. There were many conservative views held by people about women, but most of it was about parenting, or mothering, rather than wives roles. Most of my married friend solved arguments by working things out before they went to sleep. No one I knew who was my age followed the wives submit to your husbands rule - at least not as a principle (other than mutually). Then I went to more charismatic churches (where women preached and prophesied. I returned again to an Evangelical church. Our pastor mostly quoted John Piper in his sermons. I really didn't know him, nothing stood out about his quoted comments and life was merry. One day, however, I stumbled across a YouTube clip of Piper slamming CS Lewis! Piper, acting as if he was better, or more correct than CS Lewis?!? The first warning bell was: what kind of a Pastor slams another directly (not mentioning he doesn't agree with a particular theology in general, but calls out a Christian with whose theory he disagrees with specifically)?. I know people do this all the time, but pastors with large followings who get quoted in Sunday morning services usually aren't in the business of putting other popular Christians down to promote their hypothesis. The second red flag was: Does this guy really think he is so much wiser than CS Lewis that he would have the ability to shape the Christian world's views the way Lewis did?! and thirdly, what was his problem with CS Lewis anyways? Piper decided Lewis was not an evangelical? What? Who is deciding this? Does he think Christians who don't agree with him are not as christian or anointed to teach as himself?
I began, apart from my musings on Genesis, to look into John Piper, others of the Gospel Coalition and then Calvinism in general. What I found was a group of pastors and their followers who hold to an atonement theory that puts the fall of Adam and Eve in a highly fundamental position to a Christian's faith. So, I either do endless mental gymnastics trying to make Adam and Eve become literal - prehistoric farmers in a mythical land who somehow manage to survive by farming for at least three generations, build cities near or around Ancient Mesopotamia then all of humanity reverts to a hunter-gatherer population in Africa for the next 150,000 years - Ow! my head just exploded.
* OR*
I decide if this is even the correct understanding of Genesis.
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