An Oral History of the Emerging Church Movement, Qtr 1, 2024

An Oral History 

of the Emerging Church Movement

Qtr 1, 2024

Emerged can be found on Patreon here - https://www.patreon.com/Emerged/posts. 

From 1999 to 2019 my family and I were part of the emergent church movement through Mars Hill Church, of Grandville, Michigan, ala Rob Bell, as explained earlier in a previous post. And though I didn't drink the Kool-Aid I found the emergent church movement spiritually refreshing and thought provoking.

Because of questions pertaining to my own conservative evangelical faith I began an exploration of the Christian faith after Rob Bell had left Mars Hill and bye-and-bye came upon a philosophic-theology which can embrace my faith's past, present and future... and possibly would've answered a lot of Rob's questions. It's called Process Philosophy and Theology ala A.N. Whitehead and John B. Cobb, Jr., a second generation protege of Whitehead's.

I cannot say whether Rob's philosophic theology has changed much from the "Christian Realism" position he seemed to have held back in his Mars Hill days. But I do know, he, like myself, have explored a lot of different directions to come to where we are today as I have detailed over my past years of journey-writing since 2011. Looking around today at the church's (Trumpian) state of affairs I can only say thank you to the Spirit of God in leading and guiding my explorations that it might help those who, like myself, have become dissatisfied with American Christianity and needed a vibrantly real Jesus-faith rather than an institutional-faith built on an unloving God I no longer recognize.

Through this coming year I will be following Tripp and Tony's historical oral journey through their podcasts and videos. I will publish these as quarter-to-quarter summaries. You may sign up and follow along on your own through the link provided above.

Thank you for your interest,

R.E. Slater

Feb 6, 2024

What To Do With the Conversation of the Emergent Church and It's Passing?

What To Do With the Conversation of the Emergent Church and It's Passing?

Homebrew Emerged Series: Pictured Doug Pagitt of Solomon's Porch

The History of the Emergent Church

... For a decade, at the beginning of the 21st century a group of Christian leaders launched a  movement meant to change the church in America:

• "I feel like we are representing a beautiful expression of our life with God;

• "It's an invitation into a kind of creativity and a set of conversations and questions...

• "They were young... in their 20s and 30s in disillusion with the way that Christianity was being taught and practiced on the website...

• "It said no need to check your culture at the door... so sport your tats, wear your jeans, carry your Java and join us at liturgy." And I think I read that like 10 times...

• "It was becoming increasingly nonsensical to me when I found out that there was a group of people having the same conversation I was having with my mother...

• "Oh, Wow! There's more people who planted churches and hosted conferences... they wrote worship songs and they published books; they met in cohorts and bars and they met online in the blogosphere... above all else they called each other friends...

• "To some degree the path that we were on required courage because if you had Integrity it was going to change the game...

• "Is there any hope for the traditional church? This was the emerging church movement and for a time it was considered by some to be the future of Christianity in America...

* * * * * * *

What To Do With the Conversation of

the Emergent Church and It's Passing?

by R.E. Slater

A PERSONAL TESTIMONY

Tripp Fuller and Tony Jones are beginning a year-long conversation about the Emergent Church. My own history places me and my family directly into this conversation when moving from Pastor Ed Dobson's (Jerry Falwell's No.1 politico rep) Calvary Church of Grand Rapids (GRR) to our pastoral intern's church plant a month after it began. His name was Rob Bell. The church, Mars Hill Bible Church of Grandville, Micigan. (*Aside: Ed Dobson worked with Jerry Farwell and was the Ralph Reed of his time in establishing Republican Identity politics. When leaving the Moral Majority Ed determined to preach Jesus only and politics never again).

I had grown up in a progressive fundamentalist baptist church, Calvary Baptist of GRR, which became one of two very early megachurches in the area in the 1970s. When marrying after college, my wife joined me for five years at CBC until I finished the Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary's School of Theology, for an intensive 4 year M.Div. graduate degree We then were offered a half dozen volunteer/lay ministry assignments at her former church, Calvary (Undenominational) Church of Third Reformed roots birthed under M.R. DeHaan of Radio Bible Class fame.

We chose to pastor and teach the college and career class which blossomed from 16 Sunday School members to 200+. After six years, the youth members asked for a single adult class to which we complied and began a new Sunday School class of six members which quickly bloomed to 125+. We pastored this fellowship for another five years until my work and family life required leaving the ministry.

When doing so, Calvary Church quickly placed me on several adult ministry teams, a strategic planning group, and their deacon board which eventually saw me putting together with a small committee their first Seder/Passover Observance. All-inall another six years until we left at Padtor Dobson's encouraging for it's newest church plant, Mars Hill, under Rob Bell.

After 27 years at Calvary Baptist and 20 years (40 for my wife) at Calvary Church (no longer referred to as "Undenom" to be later pastored by one of my Sunday School college kids, Jim Samra) Pastor Dobson was urging his church to join with Rob Bell's church as a way of supporting its local ministry plant. We did and quickly found ourselves moving from a megachurch to a mega-mega-church overnight.

Mars grew from several hundred of Calvary's Sunday evening ministries to 12,000 attendees across its first three years of birth. The church was new. It's Pastor and Teacher, Rob Bell, was young. And in true Emergent fashion it was flying by the "seat of it's pants." What staff there was could not keep up with the growth... all the staff had an urgency of heart with very little bible training; and the Spirit of the Lord was heavy upon GRR's newest fellowship.

In this small story was my own story of growing up from a pious fundamentalist tradition of the best sort then moving into an evangelical congregation which wasn't yet conservative until after Pastor Dobson's passing. In fact, dear Ed joined us at Mars in his remaining years of Parkinson's. He had left Farwell's political movement to raise up Jesus-followers. It was a huge reversal in his spirit life which was quite the "controversy" at the time to those Christians who couldn't understand Ed's change of direction.

Even as Calvary was growing and discipling it's evangelical Reformed flock to minister to it's community via local outreach programs the nation around Grand Rapids was rapidly changing. From the end of WW2 to Vietnam, through the Civil Rights movement under MLK, and the acknowledgment of evolution in the 1970s, to Women's Rights in a maturing work force, multiple recessions, corporate restructuring and layoffs, an up-and-down economy, and then the pervasive environmental revolution, churches and church schools we caught between yesteryear and the present. Some responded. Many did not.

Held in a post-Enlightenment, modernity movement for the past 500 years, the church was witnessing a deeply radical change caused by the twelve year Vietnam War (1962 to 1974... basically all of my youth brought nightly to our livingroom in B&W horror via the miracle of television) which later came to be described as postmodernity (PM).

With PM's comin it ended ended the 1950s Americana era after WW2 and was accompanied by Martin Luther King's Civil Rights marches across war torn America's civil institutional collapses, student sit-ins, the hippie movement with its drugs, rock n roll, and peace signs. Throught this time the modernal American church also had to face its own discriminations and dogmatic fears of leaving what it knew through its 500 year traditions if it were to minister to blending, agnostic, and economically ruined rural and urban populations. Churches either succeeded in listening to its communities or they didn't. What result was another eruption in the American church.

As fundamentalism's outreach of the gospel quieted down after the Chicago-based Billy Sunday days of the Depresdion era; and subsequent church reforms under Billy Graham's evangelical crusades through the 60s, 70s, and 80s; there now arose a new Christian movement alongside mainline progressives. This one was birthed under then unknown names like Mark Driscoll, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Brian Maclaren, Dallas Willard, John Burke, Rachel Held Evans, and our own homegrown Rob Bell.

WORKING CONSTRUCTS

Evangelicalism and fundamentalism are both Protestant movements within Christianity, but there are some important differences between the two.

Evangelicalism is a broad movement within Protestant Christianity that emphasizes the importance of personal faith in Jesus Christ and the authority of the Bible. Evangelicals believe in the need for personal conversion and a personal relationship with God, and they often emphasize evangelism and missionary work. Evangelicals also tend to place a high value on social and moral issues, such as the sanctity of human life, traditional marriage, and religious freedom.

Fundamentalism, on the other hand, is a more rigid and conservative form of Protestantism that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a response to what its adherents saw as a liberalizing trend in Protestant theology.

Fundamentalists believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, the literal interpretation of Scripture, and the importance of separating from the world and its influences. They tend to reject modern cultural and intellectual trends and often have a more confrontational approach to evangelism.

So, while both evangelicalism and fundamentalism share some beliefs and values, such as the importance of personal faith and the authority of the Bible, fundamentalism tends to be more rigid and conservative in its approach, while evangelicalism is more diverse and adaptable to cultural changes.

In general, the two movements are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but there can be some tension between them due to their different approaches and emphases. Some evangelicals may see fundamentalists as too rigid and confrontational, while some fundamentalists may see evangelicals as too accommodating to secular culture.

Ultimately, whether someone identifies as evangelical or fundamentalist (or both) depends on their individual beliefs and practices, and there is room for diversity within Christianity as a whole.

- Gregory Dill, Quora

The emerging, or emergent, church movement takes its name from the idea that as culture changes, a new church should emerge in response. In this case, it is a response by various church leaders to the current era of post-modernism. Although post-modernism began in the 1950s, the church didn’t really seek to conform to its tenets until the 1990s. Post-modernism can be thought of as a dissolution of "cold, hard fact" in favor of "warm, fuzzy subjectivity." The emerging / emergent church movement can be thought of the same way.

The emerging / emergent church movement falls into line with basic postmodernist thinking—it is about experience over reason, subjectivity over objectivity, spirituality over religion, images over words, outward over inward, feelings over truth. These are reactions to modernism and are thought to be necessary in order to actively engage contemporary culture. This movement is still fairly new so there is not yet a standard method of "doing" church amongst the groups choosing to take a post-modern mindset. In fact, the emerging church rejects any standard methodology for doing anything. Therefore, there is a huge range of how far groups take a post-modernist approach to Christianity. Some groups go only a little way in order to impact their community for Christ, and remain biblically sound. Most groups, however, embrace postmodernist thinking, which eventually leads to a very liberal, loose translation of the Bible. This, in turn, lends to liberal doctrine and theology.

- by evangelical "Got Questions"

 

[Emergent Church] participants in the movement may be Protestant, post-Protestant, Catholic, or evangelical, post-evangelical, liberal Christian, post-liberal, conservative, and post-conservative, anabaptist, adventist, reformed, charismatic, neocharismatic, and post-charismatic.

Proponents, however, believe the [emergent] movement transcends such "modernist" labels of "conservative" and "liberal," calling the movement a "conversation" to emphasize its developing and decentralized nature, its vast range of standpoints, and its commitment to dialogue.

Participants seek to live their faith in what they believe to be a "postmodern" society. What those involved in the conversation mostly agree on is their disillusionment with the organized and institutional church and their support for the deconstruction of modern Christian worship, modern evangelism, and the nature of modern Christian community.

Values and characteristics of the Emergent Church

• Trinitarian
• Post-Christendom mission and evangelism
• Postmodern worldview and hermeneutics
• A Generous Orthodoxy
• Center Set on Christ and People
• Authenticity in Conversation
• Missional Living
• Communitarian or egalitarian ecclesiology
• Creative and rediscovered spirituality
• Use of new technologies
• Morality and justice

- Wikipedia

WHERE NEXT?

A quick Internet search of the Emergent Church will find a number of articles and images hating on the mere mention of its name. The conservative evangelical church was forming apace with its break-out progressive sister group and the older brother resented the loss of dollars, congregants and the mo-jo to its own movement.

Eventually, the emergent church movement died as did the conservative church from which it was birthed. With the loss of its more progressive members, hyper-conservativism hallmarked the remaining evangelical church even as the emergent evangelical church folded into the mainline churches progressive faith aspects while keeping its independence and without becoming denominational. Though its conversation was relevant, revealing the evangelical church, warts and all, in its apostasy from a Jesus-faith to a dogmatic faith.

Currently, a gospel of hate and division now seems to pervade evangelicalism's Trumpian side of its movement contrary to Jesus' gospel in the New Testament speaking to God's love and beauty. Essentially provoking the larger body of today's evangelics to rethink their witness, ministry and mission, even as it's Christian nemesis, the emergent church, fades out of the American Christian landscape to either be enfolded within the Nones-and Dones or back into it's sister-ship and angry brother.

Where emergentism goes from here is up to those followers of Jesus who "get" Him and His gospel. And for those like myself, who apparently broke from evangelicalism to find myself within a larger epistemic breakout of the the Jesus movement, it has taken years of reflection in absorbing this experience and knowing what to do with it, if anything.

For myself, I have produced this site here, Relevancy22, as I have methodically moved through my past faith traditions to today's post-evangelical contemporary faith. In fact, I went further. At first thinking I needed a more integral hermeneutic of the bible than the one I had learned and developed through my seminary years, I have now come to discover the very roots of Christianity must change in its philosophical foundation.

My church and seminary faith never taught this approach... similarly it ignored evolution and such like. And if it seems new to you it was a earth-moving discovery to me as well. But logically, Jesus and Paul lived in Greek Hellenism; Moses lived in Egyptian philosophical beliefs; and before Moses was a whole host of philosophical approaches to life and nature even as there has been through the church age. So the question as to the church's philosophical foundation is not unnatural, but deeply important, and should never be ignored by the church once fraught in the Enlightenment era, or a Platonic Stoicism, or a Modernistic Mechanistic era as versus an organic creation which is not like any of these past approaches. Approaches which have affected our idea of God, the bible, and faith.

WHAT NOW?

Hence, back in 2011, my first six years found me driving towards a new organic center as I deconstructed and reconstructed my Westernized/American/Modernity-bound Christian faith. And ince completed, my more recent years have found me working through a broader, more expansive theological language based upon a more rigorous composite of previously derived, holistic, non-Platonic philosophies. One with a long historical legacy... back to ancient times... and brought forward organically by a Victorian British philosopher by the name of Alfred North Whitehead regardless of human era, even that of post-modernism (which I very much like compared to the modernism I grew up in).

Whitehead's process philosophy has become the philosophic foundation upon which I and others, like Tripp Fuller, are working through as we adapt it into the Christian conversation of "Who and What it is in God and God language." There are three things I've take from process philosophy and have adapted it into a working Christian-based processual theological conversation:

• One, it is definitely contemporary with any cultural or religious conversation in that it aptly describes the creation of the universe we live in; it is organic, panrelational, panexperiential, and panpsychic. I call this form of process universe as a pancessual cosmic metaphysic.

• Two, I have intentionally re-centered the church's bible-centered focus to a purposeful focus on the author of the bible, Jesus Christ. That is, as Jesus spoke against Phariseeism's religious system by urging them to center their faith in a loving God rather than the interpreted words of God's Torah tradition, so too have I placed process theology around a loving God as versus a God who is unlovingly holy.

• Three, I have been trying to read the bible for its sources of information in what it's narrator's cultures, customs, and beliefs meant to them and how those same traits might mean to the Jewish and Christian faithful through our cultural, socio-economic eras. This meant acquiring a more expansive idea of Holy Spirit communication between God and mankind, rather than a one-time series of inspired narrations never to be repeated again as found in the bible. In fact, God being God has never ceased speaking to us. But it is up to us to hear our past... such as found in the bible... and rethink our beliefs and ideas of God to be more God-centered in God's love and life rather than as merely sin and death subjects (which are not denied but also not made central to the Christian faith in process Christian theology). That is, Process theology is about love and life.

I will end here. Reread this as you must and learn to use what I have written over the years as guide and example to forming an integral Christian tradition based upon process foundations rather than on Westernized, Americanized, Platonic, or Hellenized traditions as the bible was and the church's traditions have been. Those external, quasi-descriptive terms for creation are based upon inorganic philosophical foundations which were, and still are, unhelpful to a vibrant Christ-filled life and faith.

If we are to have a complexly meaningful faith we will need an expansively meaningful context in which to apprehend the God of all grace, knowledge, and beauty.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

January 2, 2024

* * * * * * *

Doug Pagitt: the Emerging Church

& the End of Solomon's Porch

Homebrewed Christianity w/ Dr. Tripp Fuller

Dec 18, 2023  |  2:02:52

A long-time friend of the podcast, Doug Pagitt, returns to the podcast! He's been a regular guest since episode 2... 15 years ago. In this episode, Tony Jones joins me as Doug reflects on the end of the church he planted Solomon's Porch and the ongoing legacy of the Emerging Church Movement.

Doug Pagitt is an American author, pastor, social activist and executive director of Vote Common Good. A leading voice for progressive Christianity, Doug makes frequent national media and speaking appearances.

A proud, concerned and hopeful American, Doug Pagitt is a social activist. He is Co-founder and Executive Director of Vote Common Good, a national political non-profit dedicated to inspiring, energizing, and mobilizing people of faith to engage in civic life.

Follow Tripp & Tony's new podcast, EMERGED: an Oral History of the Emerging Church Movement. It's gonna be a blast! http://emergedpodcast.com

* * * * * * *

Emerged: An Oral History

of the Emergent Church

Homebrewed: Emerged Series

by Tripp Fuller and Tony Jones

In this multi-part series launching January 2024, Tony Jones and Tripp Fuller will journey through the electrifying, tumultuous, ever-evolving years of the ECM through interviews, stories, and opinions from some of the movement’s pivotal figures.

We’ll tackle questions like:

• What were the precursors to the ECM?
• What catalyzed the movement?
• How cohesive was it, really?
• When and why did interest switch from the evangelical church to the mainline?
• Did it become too political?
• Did the movement ultimately fail, or did it infiltrate and change the church?

Emerged Podcast - Official Trailer

Homebrewed Christianity w/ Dr. Tripp Fuller

Dec 26, 2023On January 1st we are launching a brand new podcast, Emerged: an Oral History of the Emerging Church Movement. Emerged is a highly-produced podcast that brings together hundreds of hours of fresh interviews, archived recordings, and some amazing music. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it. If you want to get the show in your podcast feed, see some of what’s in store, & even be a part of the story we are telling, head over to www.EmergedPodcast.com

* * * * * * *

MEET THE HOSTS

TONY JONES is an author, theologian, and former pastor. He was involved in the ECM for most of its run. He served as the National Coordinator for Emergent Village from 2005-2008 and authored several books on the movement, including The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.

TRIPP FULLER is a theologian, author and the founder and host of Homebrewed Christianity. He started one of the first ECM podcasts, organized multiple ECM events, and was an Emergent Village cohort organizer.

FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS

Brian McLaren is a former pastor and church planter and the author of many bestselling books. He’s consulted with most denominations, preached around the world, and been a friend and guide to untold numbers of pastors and seekers. 

Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran pastor and theologian and a New York Times bestselling author. She founded House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver. 

Rachel Held Evans was an American Christian columnist, blogger, and NYT best-selling author.

Doug Pagitt worked at Leadership Network from 1997-1999, launching the Young Leaders Network. Then he, along with his wife, Shelley, planted Solomon’s Porch, a holistic, missional, Christian community in Minneapolis. He wrote several ECM books, and he’s now the executive director of Vote Common Good. 

Brad Cecil was the founder and pastor of Axxess, an early ECM church in Dallas. He is now the owner of Cecil and Associates, a firm that specializes in fundraising for non-profit organizations. 

Mark Oestreicher (Marko) was the president of Youth Specialities and pivotal in launching the Emergent Convention and emersion books. He currently leads the Youth Cartel, training and mentoring youth workers around North America. 

Jason Clark is the Principal and Head of Waverley Abbey College. Until 2022, Jason served as a full-time pastor of Sutton Vineyard Church in London (UK), which he and his wife planted in 1997 while he was an investment broker in London. 

Jonny Baker is a mission director for the Church Mission Society in Great Britain and a founding member of grace, a Christian alternative worship community in London. He’s been blogging for over 20 years. 

Tim Conder planted Emmaus Way in Durham, NC, and authored Free for All: Rediscovering the Bible in Community and The Church in Transition: The Journey of Existing Churches into the Emerging Culture. He is currently a community organizer and professor at the Black Mountain School of Theology and Community. 

Gerardo Marti is a professor of sociology at Davidson College and the president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. He’s the co-author of The Deconstructed Church: Understanding Emerging Christianity. 

Danielle Shroyer pastored Journey, an ECM congregation in Dallas, for nearly a decade, and authored several books during that time. Currently she is a spiritual director and the founder of Soul Ninja. 

Anthony Smith is a pastor and activist in Salisbury, North Carolina. He’s a core team member at Liberating Church and a member of the Salisbury City Council. 

Diana Butler Bass, Ph.D., is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America’s most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality.

You can share how you were involved or impacted by the Emerging Church Movement. Click the button to sign up, and we'll send you an email with instructions on where to submit your five minute or less audio story to be included in the ECM Library and for possible inclusion in one of the podcast episodes.

BECOME A MEMBER

R.E. Slater Shorts - The Evolution of You vs the Pseudo-Science of YEC

The complex evolution of homo sapiens

1,000,000 to 30,000 years ago

Stefan Milo

September 17, 2021

Thanks to boneclones for the brilliant skulls! Use discount code 'stefan' for $20 off your order. https://bit.ly/3BPfmh3.

And a huge thanks as always to my patrons! https://www.patreon.com/stefanmilo

Artwork by Ettore Mazza: https://www.instagram.com/ettore.mazza/

Music by Tom Fox: www.tfbeats.com

Voiceover by Alexander Doddy: https://www.alexanderdoddy.com/

Sources: Anyone can view, not just patrons:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/56261951

Disclaimer: Use my videos as a rough guide to a topic. I am not an expert, I may get things wrong. This is why I always post my sources so you can critique my work and verify things for yourselves. Of course I aim to be as accurate as possible which is why you will only find reputable sources in my videos. Secondly, information is always subject to changes as new information is uncovered by archaeologists. www.stefanmilo.com

---

Amazon link

The Evolution of You vs the Pseudo-Science of YEC

by R.E. Slater

Dedicated to my FB friend, Grant Alford

The NOVA vid I recently watched by Dr. Steve Austin denies the science of evolution and promotes the pseudo-science of Young Earth Creationism (YEC) based upon "Flood Mythology" by extending the Story of Noah in the book of Genesis found in the bible.

Firstly, as a former evangelical YEC'er my first book I read on this subject was "The Genesis Flood" by Henry M. Morris which "presents a thorough system unifying and correlating scientific data in the earth’s early history. Morris, and co-author John C. Whitcomb, propose a biblically based system of creationism and catastrophism. A modern classic, this title has become required reading for creationists. Here's are several "reviews" by creationists authors and preachers:

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The Genesis Flood by Morris and Whitcomb is one of the most important books of the past century. Prior to its publication in 1961, evangelicals were for the most part unprepared to answer evolutionists’ and modern geologists’ claims about the antiquity of the earth. Many blithely assumed that the days of creation in Genesis 1 represented long ages; others held to the 'gap theory'―the idea that vast eons elapsed between the initial creation of the heavens and earth (Genesis 1:1) and the formation of life as we know it (starting in Genesis 1:2). The Genesis Flood showed why such theories don’t do justice to the inspiration and authority of Scripture. The book revived evangelicals’ interest in flood geology, demonstrating that most of the geological phenomena usually cited as 'proof' of the earth’s antiquity are better explained as evidence of a catastrophic universal flood, as described in Genesis 6–8. In recent years young-earth creationism has come under heavy attack in evangelical circles again, and The Genesis Flood is as timely, thought-provoking, and helpful as ever. . . . A tour de force and a must-read resource for pastors, teachers, scientists, and anyone who is troubled by the conflict between the biblical account of creation and the ever-changing claims of modern evolutionary theory.” -- John MacArthur, President, The Master’s University and Seminary

"When The Genesis Flood was published it was the combined voice of two courageous men crying, as it were, in the wilderness. They dared to take a stand against the pervading compromise on the issue of creation and the flood by robustly tackling head-on the uniformitarian geological assumptions that underpin the secular worldview on origins that had mesmerized so many Christians into compromising the opening chapters of God’s Word. Single-handedly these men with this book kindled a fire that today is still raging. Little did they know the global impact this book would have. Like so many others I know, I read this book as a young Christian in my teenage years when I was already a budding geologist, and it totally resolved my ongoing struggle to reconcile the geology I was learning in the secular textbooks with the true account of earth’s history in God’s Word. Not only did this book convince me that God’s Word provides the only reliable basis for understanding geology, but it was foundational in igniting my passion for and calling into full-time creation ministry to uphold the truth of God’s Word and defend it from compromise, beginning at the very first verse. This book remains a classic work that is a must-read for those who would be informed and equip themselves both to stand on the authority of God’s Word in every area of life and knowledge and to defend their Christian faith." -- Andrew Snelling, BSc (Applied Geology) PhD (Geochemical Geology)

"I have been privileged to have witnessed the rising biblical creation movement for the past forty years and have seen it used mightily by God to blossom into a major international force. The movement not only has shaken the evolutionary, “millions of years” establishment, but more importantly has equipped the church to share our Christian faith with renewed boldness. The publishing of The Genesis Flood fifty years ago is the recognized birthdate of a movement blessed by God, and this classic work is also now recognized as a monumental milestone in the fight against compromise in the church and for biblical inerrancy in general during our skeptical modern era. Finding a copy of The Genesis Flood in an Australian bookstore and devouring its contents was a key event that led me to join the modern biblical creation movement in the 1970s. Drs. Whitcomb and Morris became real ‘heroes of the faith’ for me. I saw them as giants in Christian apologetics." -- Ken Ham, BSc (Environmental Biology), President, Answers in Genesis and The Creation Museum

About the Author

John C. Whitcomb studied at Princeton University and has a Ph.D. from Grace Theological Seminary. Henry M. Morris was president of the Institute for Creation Research, Santee, California. He studied at Rice University, obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, and served on the faculties of several major universities.

After watching about 30 minutes of the YEC-based Christian film spouting a lot of global flood jargon and nonsense I turned it off and wrote out a few comments about this quasi-science.

First, it isn't science but is using science to tell a different story than science would tell.

Next, I find it disingenuous and misleading to the naive and uninitiated. I've had grown adults laugh at the audacity of evolution well believing that the earth cannot be any older than 6000 - 10,000 years ago (respectively, Bishop Ussher and a later subjectional correction to Ussher's date developed in the 1600's).

Third, learn to think of evolution as a process initiated by God. It's process is not immediately and utilizes what is available in the Earth to continually form and reform living organisms. It isn't an immediate process and isn't a perfect process. It is simply a divine process lumping along experimenting and trying out new biological derivatives. Sometimes successfully. Sometimes not.

Fourthly, I now think of the bible as no more inspired than we are today. The Spirit of God is continually filling all our present moments with God's soul even as the earth was filled by God's soul in ancient superstitious cultures. We just need to listen and discern what that is or isn't.

Which is why I say all the time that God is not hard to understand. We love because God loves. Whereas the bible narratives of 750 -350 BC (2800-2400 years ago) were being collected by people trying to figure out who or what God was. Thus we get mythologies of a violent God according to some beliefs; a penitent God; a God of wrath and judgment; an avenging God; a jealous God; a shepherding God; a kind and compassionate; a forgiving God; a world-ending God; etc. The bible is no less nor no more inspired than a well written book today, or a well constructed (progressive) theology, or an insightful sermon by a loving, passionate individual.

To be therefore comparing ancient flood lore as global news events is misleading. Those who wrote of the Noahic Flood did not know anything about the continents or seas or of glaciation events. Meaning, we need to use the bible as we would any other ancient narrative... as a way to judge where people were in their cultural understanding of history, religion, and themselves.

This is not unlike the theological teachings which Christian churches, fellowships, seminaries, and ministries are presently extending today when asking, "Who is God and what is God doing?" Some are conservatively traditional and others are progressively scientific. The divide shouldn't be science but our own outlooks, prejudices, and beliefs about God. It would seem obvious that the bible's collection of cultural beliefs should be examined and judged by what we know today rather than to be taken ipso facto as a stubborn persistency of closed belief.

Fifthly, we can say that the bibliolatry surrounding the bible, or the many magical-thinking ideologies about the bible, are quite unhelpful. The best we can say about the bible's inspiration back then is that God is as fully, thoroughly loving as God was, and is, today. This is supportable by God's incarnation as Jesus and the atoning Messiah/Christ spoken of in the Old and New Testament Scriptures. Ultimately, God's Soul is as redemptively motivated as God is loving. I, myself, am consequently forming a "Theology of Love" rather than a "Theology of Wrath and Judgment".

As an aside, it is my judgment that the people and cultural narratives of the bible were struggling with whom God is and misread their circumstances through their own religious fears and errant beliefs. I find a parallel in the recent Covid pandemic a few years ago wherein churches preached their beliefs of a judgmental God visiting humanity with wrath and vengeance for our sin. This would be an incorrect application of theodicy (the theology of sin and evil).

Moreover, from the bible we read of Jesus atoning for our sins and being raised from the dead. Consequently we learn that redemption is all around us bc God is always redeeming earth and man moment-by-moment. That much is helpful from the bible. It gives us a way to think about God without becoming loonies about the kinds of gods the bible depicts through it's pages

The violence in the OT or the presumed violence by God in the future from the NT book of Revelation is not the real God of love. When looking at the violence and sin around us we would be in error in thinking that these are judgments and acts of God upon us. Violence and sin comes from us and not from the God of love. Thus so with the bible naratives attributing God with violence. Ppl were wrong then about God even as they are wrong now in their attributions and presumptions about God.

Which is yet another reason I cannot support deterministic Calvinism in an open future even as freewill Arminianism also needs to be uplifted so that we learn to write from both perspectives a theology of love and no longer of wrath, hell, and judgment. These latter come from us, not from God. And by the way, for any contemporary progressive theology to work it needs to be based upon an open and relational process theology.

Bottom line, we don't need quasi-Ph.D's making up Christianized pseudo-evolutionary events to prove bible things. The bible is not a science book. It is a book about God's love and redemption. Abandon yesteryear's well intentioned but misleading beliefs and dogmas. It's time "to eat meat and grow up," said Paul.

R.E. Slater

September 11, 2023

Published Sep 17, 2023

Sources - Is Genesis History (YEC theories)

Disclaimer: I do not endorse, support, nor encourage Young Earth Creationism (YEC)

- R.E. Slater

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For over four decades, we have worked to ensure that what is taught in science classrooms and beyond is accurate and consistent with the best current understanding of the scientific community.

Here is one source of many which seeks to correctly teach contemporary science

NCSE - The National Center for Science Education

January 22, 2016

Young Earth Creationism

When most people hear the word "creationism," they probably think of the variety called Young Earth Creationism (YEC). Young Earth Creationists adopt a method of Biblical interpretation which requires that the earth be no more than 10,000 years old, and that the six days of creation described in Genesis each lasted for 24 hours. Young Earth Creationists believe that the origin of the earth, the universe, and various forms of life, etc., are all instances of special creation. The doctrine of special creation involves direct divine intervention, suspending the laws of nature to achieve a given result. This doctrine contrasts with a view common among theistic evolutionists that God can work through natural laws.

Young Earth Creationists are among the more organized creationist movements. Two of the largest groups, Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research produce magazines, websites, books, and videos for general audiences as well as publish journals which report on so-called "creation science". In May of 2007, Answers in Genesis opened a multi-million dollar Creation Museum in Kentucky, aimed at attracting a wide public audience. The Institute for Creation Research, was founded by Henry Morris in 1970, and operates the Museum of Creation and Earth History in Santee, California.

YEC writings tend to focus on attempting to explain why much of modern science cannot be correct. For example, Young Earth Creationists spend considerable effort trying to explain why the earth cannot be 4.5 billion years old. They also make arguments for the feasibility of Noah's ark and for the occurrence of a single worldwide flood within the last 5,000 years. A major YEC endeavor is to explain how the 15 million or more species alive today could have evolved from a much smaller number of "kinds" which they believe were created in Genesis. This project is sometimes referred to as baraminology, named after the Hebrew word min, which is traditionally translated as "after its kind," in passages like "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind." A central tenet of Young Earth Creationism is that evolution is possible only within these created kinds, a form of evolution they call microevolution, while it is not possible between kinds, which they distinguish as macroevolution. This is not the way those terms are used by the scientific community.

Attempts to force YEC teachings into public schools were rejected by the Supreme Court in 1968's Epperson v. Arkansas decision, and again in 1987's Edwards v. Aguillard.

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Amazon link

How to hold true to your faith and embrace modern science

Ever since the Scopes Monkey Trial in the early twentieth century, American evangelicals have considered scientists public enemy #1. But this antipathy to modern science turned deadly during the COVID-19 crisis, when white evangelicals snubbed precautions and vaccines. Herself an evangelical Christian and a science educator, Janet Kellogg Ray explains how we got here and how to fix it.

As the follow-up to Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark?, this lively volume covers evolution as well as the coronavirus pandemic, vaccines, climate change, and the frontiers of genetic research. Ray explains the facts accessibly and with verve. Along the way, she vividly narrates the scientific achievements—and political and religious drama—that got us to where we are today.

Ultimately, Ray calls for evangelicals to speak to science, rather than deny it. We need Christian ethics now more than ever to determine how best to act in light of current scientific data and for love of neighbor. If you’re afraid of science hurting your faith, this book will show you how to be true to both

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Amazon link

A scientific look at creationism from a former creationist

A significant number of Americans, especially evangelical Christians, believe Earth and humankind were created in their present form sometime in the last 10,000 years or so—the rationale being that this is (presumably) the story told in the book of Genesis. Within that group, any threatening scientific evidence that suggests otherwise is rejected or, when possible, retrofitted into a creationist worldview.

But can this uncomfortable blend of biblical literalism and pseudoscience hold up under scrutiny? Is it tenable to believe that the Grand Canyon was formed not millions of years ago by gradual erosion but merely thousands of years ago by the Great Flood? Were there really baby dinosaurs with Noah on his ark?

Janet Kellogg Ray, a science educator who grew up a creationist, doesn’t want other Christians to have to do the exhausting mental gymnastics she did earlier in her life. Working through the findings of a range of fields including geology, paleontology, and biology, she shows how a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis simply doesn’t mesh with what we know to be reality. But as someone who remains a committed Christian, Ray also shows how an acceptance of the theory of evolution is not necessarily an acceptance of atheism, and how God can still be responsible for having created the world, even if it wasn’t in a single, momentary, miraculous event

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Seven Million Years of Human Evolution

American Museum of Natural History

November 3, 2018

Scientists use fossils to reconstruct the evolutionary history of hominins—the group that includes modern humans, our immediate ancestors, and other extinct relatives. Today, our closest living relatives are chimpanzees, but extinct hominins are even closer. Where and when did they live? What can we learn about their lives? Why did they go extinct? Scientists look to fossils for clues.

0:00 - Introduction

1:04 - First known hominin

1:29 - Bipedalism

2:32 - In-line toes, Australopithecus

3:27 - Tool use

4:06 - Migration out of Africa

4:44 - Cooking and fire

5:07 - Homo sapiens

5:38 - Family tree of human ancestors

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Speaking of Monkey's and Evolution perhaps this is why we like to

"Swing" dance and do group things together. PS - I think the guy

in the second row in the middle looks a lot like the actor Andy Garcia.

His name is Stephen and can be found in the 2019=2020 vids. I'll

provide a "shortie" below. Enjoy and have fun!

RTSF 2019 – Killer Boogie

RockThatSwing

March 4, 2019

Rock That Swing Festival 2019:

Killer Boogie at Deutsches Theater (2 March 2019).