Reformed Academic Under Fire
Friends and colleagues continue to take on the latitudinarian blog Reformed Academic. John Byl opens up on Jitse Vandermeer’s notion that human suffering and death existed for thousands of years before Adam’s fall. Jim Witteveen dismantles Freda Oosterhoff’s insistence that young-earth creationism is dangerous for our missionary and evangelistic efforts. If I can add something to what my colleague writes, I find Oosterhoff’s statement ridiculous, to put it mildly. When I was a missionary, the people among whom I was working found the Darwinist mythology just as incredible, and even laughable, as I did. The notion that people are descended from monkeys was just another crazy white-man’s idea. A vast number of the world’s population would share that sentiment. Many non-Christians (especially in the two-thirds world) still find a six day creation ex nihilo more credible than Darwinian evolution. As Jim writes, it’s the cross that they really stumble over. What’s dangerous is not young-earth creationism, but latitudinarianism. Follow that route and before long we may not have a gospel for our missionaries to preach.
