Creation and the Church

If God created human beings in his image, then the church needs another reformation.

NOTE: This is a Creation Reformation Insider EXCLUSIVE! This post appears here first, and will not appear on our blog for at least 14 days. Enjoy!

If God created human beings in his image, then the church needs another reformation.

Not your church or my church, the mega-church in the city, or the little white church in the country. But the universal church of Jesus Christ, the visible manifestation of Christ's body on earth at this time.

Jesus ordained the church universal, the body of Christ--with Jesus himself alive as its head--to advance the kingdom of God on earth until Christ's return.

If God created human beings in his image, then humans were created to exercise dominion over creation in this life, and to live on this earth abundantly. And the church of Jesus Christ holds a unique place in history to restore the human condition; Jesus came precisely to restore new life, and life more abundantly.

But everyone can see the church's influence in the world waning. Adherents are tuning out or leaving altogether. Young people, in particular, are rejecting the faith of their parents. Parents are quietly finding the faith of their parents less and less relevant to their lives. And worldwide secular values are quickly replacing biblical values in a seeming unstoppable tide of anti-religious sentiment.

Can the church experience a new reformation of relevance? If so, on what basis should it proceed?

At Creation Reformation we believe there is one, singularly important point of doctrine, that if taught as truth with evidentiary reasoning, could reform the modern church.

We will explain.

However, first, all of this surely sounds like nonsense to atheists, evolutionists, naturalists, and all the other functional Godless-ists out there. So, if you fall into one of these categories, feel free to read along, but you will likely think that what appears below is simply more nonsense.

What follows, then, is mainly for those who identify themselves as believers in the one, true, creator God and the risen Christ who lived, died and rose again. But we welcome all those having an open mind and a seeking heart.

Here we go.

If evolution is true, then it should be no surprise that anyone, especially young people, leave the church, religion, and everything related to it. Why shouldn’t they? Why shouldn’t we all?

In a 2016 Pew Research Center survey entitled “Why America’s ‘Nones’ Left Religion Behind,” we find that a major reason is the church’s lack of teaching scientific reasons to believe that the “nones” were created by a creator for a purpose.

“Nones,” are those who, when asked about their religion reply “none.” And their reasons for answering so are not surprising. But what is surprising is that many of the current “nones” were raised in a particular “religion.”

The article accompanying the survey results starts out:

Perhaps the most striking trend in American religion in recent years has been the growing percentage of adults who do not identify with a religious group. And the vast majority of these religious “nones” (78%) say they were raised as a member of a particular religion before shedding their religious identity in adulthood.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/08/24/why-americas-nones-left-religion-behind/

And this trend is continuing. A recent Yahoo article on a similar 2021 survey states:

According to a survey released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center, this group — commonly known as the “nones” — now constitutes 29% of American adults. That’s up from 23% in 2016 and 19% in 2011.

https://news.yahoo.com/whats-religion-us-common-reply-152400087.html

What are we to make of this phenomena? Does it matter?

If evolution is true, it does not matter.

If evolution is true, then God did not create Adam or Eve. Human beings are the result of Godless, natural forces that never had humans in mind.

If evolution is true, we should all be “nones.”

Because without a true, historical first Adam who sinned, there is no Gospel. Without a first Adam there is no coherent need for redemption in Christ, the second Adam. What is sin and what is redemption, but meaningless, man-made ideas in a world of beings that just happen to exist by nature’s purposeless whims?

Some say they believe in both evolution and creation by God. They find some sense of intellectual stability by holding to a logical contradiction: Evolution is true, but God is behind it all, making it work. But such a syncretistic theory is not supported by science or the Bible. Evolutionary scientists see no reason to invoke God, and the Bible knows nothing of a God secretly creating and constantly re-programming coded building instructions (like in our DNA) over millions of generations.

In fact, those who cobble together “theistic evolution-type” theories exhibit the symptoms of the underlying brokenness of the church that calls for a reformation: Theistic evolution theories arise only because the church implicitly accepts the truth claims of evolution, a theory that explicitly denies creation by God!

The ironic result of those seeking to reconcile “science” and “religion” through theories of theistic evolution is that their narrative story satisfies neither. All such theories do is afford to evolution divine guidance it does not want and to God a natural process he does not need. In other words, those who believe theistic evolution explains human existence attempt to articulate a belief system that combines a creative God in no need of evolution with a naturalistic science in no need of a creative God.

And without any guidance from their leaders who are largely silent on the issue of human origins, the people of the church absorb such contradictions and slowly drift away. Silence from church leaders leads reasonable people to the conclusion that evolutionary science is correct, and the Bible is either poetic, metaphorical, or simply a myth. Heroic efforts at merging the two serves only to reinforce the assumption in people’s minds that one is truth and the other a myth.

Consider the following graphic provided by the Pew survey and showing the reasons why many nones left the religion of their childhood. Note the very first reason, and both highlighted reasons.

Is this sad? Is this a failure of the church?

No, and no, if evolution is true.

But what if evolution is not true? Then this is not merely sad; it is religious malpractice. Where was the church in letting all these future nones know that science actually supports biblical creation and provides reasons to reject evolution? Where was the church is letting these future nones know with certainty that they are created in God’s image for a purpose?

Where?

We can hypothesize where your church, my church, the mega-church in the city, and the little white church in the country is. But where is The Church?

Silent. Absent. Accomodating.

The church of Jesus Christ has largely acquiesced on the issue of human origins. Because lodged deeply in the heart of most of its leaders is the false testimony of an unchallenged scientific theory: evolution.

Could it be that a person who confesses--either explicitly, or implicitly by silence--the false testimony that he or she is a product of evolution might grieve the heart of a creator God who made such a person in his image?

And might this false testimony slander the very God they purport to teach, allowing generations of people to pass all their lives before them and never, never, hear the truth of human origins in a meaningful way?

If God exists, then his own testimony is that human beings are created by him in his image. This means that if God exists human beings were not created by evolutionary processes.

And the real tragedy before the church of Jesus Christ is that it is easy to show evolution cannot explain human origins. And it is even easier to show that all the evidence on earth points to God as the creator.

But we are nevertheless experiencing the odd results--within and without the church--of a church that has failed to teach its faithful the truth about its creator God.

Why are any of us still in the church?

Think about it.

NOTE: For anyone interested in a quick, easy to understand reasons to reject evolution and to embrace Biblical creation, we suggest starting with Creation Reformation's "7 Simple Steps to the Truth." Enjoy!