For a secular treatment, see G. Brent Dalrymple, The Age of the Earth (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994); for evangelical Christian treatments, see Davis A. Young and Ralph F. Stearley, The Bible, Rocks and Time: Geological Evidence for the Age of the Earth (Grand Rapids: IVP Academic, 2008); Howard J. Van Till, The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens Are Telling Us about the Creation (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1986); Howard J. Van Till, ed., Portraits of Creation: Biblical and Scientific Perspectives on the World’s Formation (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990).
9 John H. Walton, The NIV Application Commentary: Genesis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001).
10 John H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006). See also John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009); John H. Walton, Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2011); Gordon J. Wenham, Word Biblical Commentary: Genesis 1-15 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1987); Gordon J. Glover, Beyond the Firmament: Understanding Science and the Theology of Creation (Chesapeake, VA: Watertree Press, LLC, 2007).
11 A more refined estimate is 13.77 billion years, with an uncertainty of only 0.4%. See “WMAP – Age of the Universe,” National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), accessed January 21, 2013, http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_age.html.
12 See Daniel J. Fairbanks, Relics of Eden: The Powerful Evidence of Evolution in Human DNA (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007) and Keith B. Miller, ed., Perspectives on an Evolving Creation (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003).
13 “Etiology,” Wikipedia, accessed October 08, 2012, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etiology.
14 See Daryl P. Domning and Monika K. Hellwig, Original Selfishness: Original Sin and Evil in the Light of Evolution (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2006).
15 For other possible ways to understand Paul’s understanding of Adam, see Peter Enns, The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Says and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2012).
16 St. Augustine of Hippo, The Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram), Trans. J. H. Taylor, in Ancient Christian Writers (Long Prairie, MN: Newman Press, 1982), vol. 41.
17 “Ignorant,” Oxford Dictionaries, accessed October 08, 2012, http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/ignorant.
18 “Why Must the Church Come to Accept Evolution?” The BioLogos Foundation, accessed November 12, 2102, http://biologos.org/blog/why-must-the-church-come-to-accept-evolution.
19 Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994), 3.
20 See Denis Lamoureux, Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2008); Brian Godawa, “Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography in the Bible,” The BioLogos Foundation, accessed October 04, 2012, http://biologos.org/uploads/projects/godawa_scholarly_paper_2.pdf.
21 See Zondervan.com, search results for books in the Counterpoints series, accessed October 04, 2012, http://zondervan.com/products?search_text=views.
22 See Daniel Taylor, The Myth of Certainty: The Reflective Christian & the Risk of Commitment (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992) and the chapter “Epistemology and Hermeneutics” in Kenton L. Sparks, God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 25-55.
3
The Joy of Confession
Rev. Shannon Murray
“Really?!” she blurted, surprised that the internal thought had escaped her lips. Everyone else just sat there, stared for a moment, realized that was rude and diverted their eyes. From the other side of the mammoth round table, following the uncomfortable silence came, “Never would’ve guessed it,” accompanied by a few grunts of agreement and then, like it never happened, the Bible study conversation moved on to apparently less shocking topics, like God’s use of Balaam’s donkey. How could I have fooled them so thoroughly? I suspect this was the real question on their minds; how could someone in the inner circle, a leader and preacher, a candidate for ordination have ever not been a part of a church, much less questioned whether or not they believed in God at all?
This was my first naïve leap into radical, expectant, theological praxis. In this year-long Bible study, we’d talked a great deal about how God had a preference for using people who were, well, a hot mess and how Jesus came for the sinners, spending time with prostitutes and tax collectors, etc., but when a real life, flesh and blood former-heathen showed up in their midst, the faithful revealed that they thought nowadays God still used sinners, you know, the ones in the churches, but those outside the walls were surely beyond help. I don’t know that they ever looked at me the same after that but neither did the fourteen people who came forward to be baptized the first time I ever gave an altar call, most of whom had heard the same story; the one where I dispel the myth that all pastors spring forth from the womb wearing a robe and utter the Nicene Creed as their first words. The same truth provoked (and continues to provoke) two very different reactions; what rattled some would reassure others. One big difference is that the latter group (and those like them) asked questions, often over meals. “How did it happen? How did you know that Jesus loved you? That he could forgive you?” They wanted to believe it was possible. They needed to believe it was possible and I need to be continually reminded of it too. In proclaiming the freedom Christ had given me to those who longed to be free, I stopped thinking I was a fly in the ointment and realized I was leaven in the loaf. That’s when I began to embrace the joy of confessing who I was in order to celebrate fully who I’ve become and invite others to the party.
In the inner circle, the church-goer bubble, most everyone I’d encountered had been raised in the church. I had met a few people who had not always believed but they all seemed to know the date when they were “saved” and would ask me when it happened for me. I always struggled to answer because it didn’t happen all at once for me. This confused me in the beginning, filled me with doubt at one point and then became a point of huge frustration. I recall at one point filling out a form for an organization that asked for the date I was saved; I’m not sure that my answer, “Approximately 33 AD”, was what they had in mind but like I said, I was frustrated. For me, it was and is a process. I’m still becoming, growing, stumbling, learning, and honestly, I am a little prickly around folks who feel like they don’t need to do any of that because they have arrived (if I recall correctly, I think Jesus had some strong words for folks like that but anyway, on with my story …)
I
