“CHRISTIAN” EVOLUTION’S QUEST TO RESCUE CHRISTIANITY

According to Marvin Olasky, it seemed that the Jews of the early 20^th Century were on the verge of abandoning Judaism, allegedly because they could no longer believe in the supernatural. What to do? Remake Judaism into a more acceptable form to agree with the present tastes:

·       A book published 85 years ago -- Jewish Theological Seminary professor Mordecai Kaplan’s “Judaism as a Civilization” -- led many Jews away from Judaism…Kaplan before World War II went on speaking tours, praising Judaism as a fine result of natural human development rather than divine inspiration. He said the Hebrew Bible was not God’s Word, merely a key document in the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people. Noah’s flood was not a mega-drowning but a writer’s device to get our attention. Exodus was a work of fiction rather than an actual history of liberation from bondage. https://townhall.com/columnists/marvinolasky/2019/09/22/vanishing-dance-lessons-on-the-decline-of-liberal-judaism-n2553147

Of course this “solution” appealed to many of Kaplan’s ilk who wanted to retain to formal connection to “Judaism,” but was it still the religion of the Hebrew Scriptures? This solution might have “worked” temporarily, but it served as a mere ‘gateway drug” to agnosticism and atheism. Olasky wrote that although Kaplan had been resisted by the Orthodox Jews, he pressed on:

·       The forecast of the Orthodox rabbis was right. Kaplan’s “Reconstructionism” did not satisfy. The sect still has a minor presence in Judaism, but most rebels against Orthodox Judaism did not get off at the Reconstructionist bus stop. One of my cousins became a Jubu, trying to meld Moses and Buddha. Many became atheists. Some, surprised by Christ, became evangelicals (like me) or -- like Robert Novak and Hadley Arkes -- Catholics.

This should be a lesson for Christian evolutionists, who claim to be saving Christian college students from abandoning their faith by presenting a way to embrace both evolution and the Bible. However, the Bible and the faith that it teaches have been severely compromised in the process, as one former co-head of the Biologos Foundation; Karl Giberson, admits:

·       Acid is an appropriate metaphor for the erosion of my fundamentalism, as I slowly lost confidence in the Genesis story of creation and the scientific creationism that placed this ancient story within the framework of modern science….[Darwin’s] acid dissolved Adam and Eve; it ate through the Garden of Eden; it destroyed the historicity of the events of creation week. It etched holes in those parts of Christianity connected to the stories—the fall, “Christ as the second Adam,” the origins of sin, and nearly everything else that I counted sacred. (Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution, 9-10)

Then, Giberson claimed that this was the extent of Darwin’s dissolving power. However, a couple of years later, he admitted that he no longer believed in the vengeful God of the Hebrew Scriptures. In his case, Christian evolution (CE) was a “gateway drug” to unbelief. However, from my discussions with many CEs, it seems that they too were following Giberson’s example. When I’d confront them with the many interpretative problems created by CE, they would counsel me to be humble about my faith. I only pray that they would be as humble about evolution.